Simulated annealing physical properties

Because analogies other than physical annealing may be used to motivate the simulated annealing optimization [S] one m conjecture that the probability of accepting or rejecting a step in (f) could be determined from distributions other than Boltzman s. However, exploratory calculations carried out with normal and rational polynomial distributions (v th the required properties) showed that none were as effective as the Boltzman distribution. 

R. L. Asher, D.A. Micha, P.J. Brucat, Equilibrium properties of transition-metal ion-argon clusters via simulated annealing. Journal of Chemical Physics, 96 (1992) 7683. 

An alternative to molecular dynamics based simulated annealing is provided by Metropolis importance sampling Monte Carlo (Metropolis et al., 1953) which has been widely exploited in the evaluation of configurational integrals (Ciccotti et al., 1987) and in simulations of the physical properties of liquids and solids (Allen and Tildesley, 1987). Here, as outlined in Chapters 1 and 2, a particle or variable is selected at random and displaced both the direction and magnitude of the applied displacement within standard bounds are randomly selected. The energy of this new state, new, is evaluated and the state accepted if it satisfies either of the following criteria ... 

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