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Revision 2669 by gezelter, Fri Mar 24 16:54:13 2006 UTC

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4   \usepackage{endfloat}
5 < \usepackage{amsmath}
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7   \usepackage{epsf}
8   \usepackage{times}
9 < \usepackage{mathptm}
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10   \usepackage{setspace}
11   \usepackage{tabularx}
12   \usepackage{graphicx}
13 + \usepackage{booktabs}
14 + \usepackage{bibentry}
15 + \usepackage{mathrsfs}
16   \usepackage[ref]{overcite}
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25  
26   \begin{document}
27  
28 < \title{On the necessity of the Ewald Summation in molecular simulations.}
28 > \title{Is the Ewald summation still necessary? \\
29 > Pairwise alternatives to the accepted standard for \\
30 > long-range electrostatics}
31  
32 < \author{Christopher J. Fennell and J. Daniel Gezelter \\
32 > \author{Christopher J. Fennell and J. Daniel Gezelter\footnote{Corresponding author. \ Electronic mail:
33 > gezelter@nd.edu} \\
34   Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry\\
35   University of Notre Dame\\
36   Notre Dame, Indiana 46556}
# Line 30 | Line 38 | Notre Dame, Indiana 46556}
38   \date{\today}
39  
40   \maketitle
41 < %\doublespacing
41 > \doublespacing
42  
43   \begin{abstract}
44 + We investigate pairwise electrostatic interaction methods and show
45 + that there are viable and computationally efficient $(\mathscr{O}(N))$
46 + alternatives to the Ewald summation for typical modern molecular
47 + simulations.  These methods are extended from the damped and
48 + cutoff-neutralized Coulombic sum originally proposed by
49 + [D. Wolf, P. Keblinski, S.~R. Phillpot, and J. Eggebrecht, {\it J. Chem. Phys.} {\bf 110}, 8255 (1999)] One of these, the damped shifted force method, shows
50 + a remarkable ability to reproduce the energetic and dynamic
51 + characteristics exhibited by simulations employing lattice summation
52 + techniques.  Comparisons were performed with this and other pairwise
53 + methods against the smooth particle mesh Ewald ({\sc spme}) summation
54 + to see how well they reproduce the energetics and dynamics of a
55 + variety of simulation types.
56   \end{abstract}
57  
58 + \newpage
59 +
60   %\narrowtext
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63   %                              BODY OF TEXT
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65  
66   \section{Introduction}
67  
68 + In molecular simulations, proper accumulation of the electrostatic
69 + interactions is essential and is one of the most
70 + computationally-demanding tasks.  The common molecular mechanics force
71 + fields represent atomic sites with full or partial charges protected
72 + by Lennard-Jones (short range) interactions.  This means that nearly
73 + every pair interaction involves a calculation of charge-charge forces.
74 + Coupled with relatively long-ranged $r^{-1}$ decay, the monopole
75 + interactions quickly become the most expensive part of molecular
76 + simulations.  Historically, the electrostatic pair interaction would
77 + not have decayed appreciably within the typical box lengths that could
78 + be feasibly simulated.  In the larger systems that are more typical of
79 + modern simulations, large cutoffs should be used to incorporate
80 + electrostatics correctly.
81 +
82 + There have been many efforts to address the proper and practical
83 + handling of electrostatic interactions, and these have resulted in a
84 + variety of techniques.\cite{Roux99,Sagui99,Tobias01} These are
85 + typically classified as implicit methods (i.e., continuum dielectrics,
86 + static dipolar fields),\cite{Born20,Grossfield00} explicit methods
87 + (i.e., Ewald summations, interaction shifting or
88 + truncation),\cite{Ewald21,Steinbach94} or a mixture of the two (i.e.,
89 + reaction field type methods, fast multipole
90 + methods).\cite{Onsager36,Rokhlin85} The explicit or mixed methods are
91 + often preferred because they physically incorporate solvent molecules
92 + in the system of interest, but these methods are sometimes difficult
93 + to utilize because of their high computational cost.\cite{Roux99} In
94 + addition to the computational cost, there have been some questions
95 + regarding possible artifacts caused by the inherent periodicity of the
96 + explicit Ewald summation.\cite{Tobias01}
97 +
98 + In this paper, we focus on a new set of pairwise methods devised by
99 + Wolf {\it et al.},\cite{Wolf99} which we further extend.  These
100 + methods along with a few other mixed methods (i.e. reaction field) are
101 + compared with the smooth particle mesh Ewald
102 + sum,\cite{Onsager36,Essmann99} which is our reference method for
103 + handling long-range electrostatic interactions. The new methods for
104 + handling electrostatics have the potential to scale linearly with
105 + increasing system size since they involve only a simple modification
106 + to the direct pairwise sum.  They also lack the added periodicity of
107 + the Ewald sum, so they can be used for systems which are non-periodic
108 + or which have one- or two-dimensional periodicity.  Below, these
109 + methods are evaluated using a variety of model systems to establish
110 + their usability in molecular simulations.
111 +
112 + \subsection{The Ewald Sum}
113 + The complete accumulation of the electrostatic interactions in a system with
114 + periodic boundary conditions (PBC) requires the consideration of the
115 + effect of all charges within a (cubic) simulation box as well as those
116 + in the periodic replicas,
117 + \begin{equation}
118 + V_\textrm{elec} = \frac{1}{2} {\sum_{\mathbf{n}}}^\prime \left[ \sum_{i=1}^N\sum_{j=1}^N \phi\left( \mathbf{r}_{ij} + L\mathbf{n},\bm{\Omega}_i,\bm{\Omega}_j\right) \right],
119 + \label{eq:PBCSum}
120 + \end{equation}
121 + where the sum over $\mathbf{n}$ is a sum over all periodic box
122 + replicas with integer coordinates $\mathbf{n} = (l,m,n)$, and the
123 + prime indicates $i = j$ are neglected for $\mathbf{n} =
124 + 0$.\cite{deLeeuw80} Within the sum, $N$ is the number of electrostatic
125 + particles, $\mathbf{r}_{ij}$ is $\mathbf{r}_j - \mathbf{r}_i$, $L$ is
126 + the cell length, $\bm{\Omega}_{i,j}$ are the Euler angles for $i$ and
127 + $j$, and $\phi$ is the solution to Poisson's equation
128 + ($\phi(\mathbf{r}_{ij}) = q_i q_j |\mathbf{r}_{ij}|^{-1}$ for
129 + charge-charge interactions). In the case of monopole electrostatics,
130 + eq. (\ref{eq:PBCSum}) is conditionally convergent and is divergent for
131 + non-neutral systems.
132 +
133 + The electrostatic summation problem was originally studied by Ewald
134 + for the case of an infinite crystal.\cite{Ewald21}. The approach he
135 + took was to convert this conditionally convergent sum into two
136 + absolutely convergent summations: a short-ranged real-space summation
137 + and a long-ranged reciprocal-space summation,
138 + \begin{equation}
139 + \begin{split}
140 + V_\textrm{elec} = \frac{1}{2}& \sum_{i=1}^N\sum_{j=1}^N \Biggr[ q_i q_j\Biggr( {\sum_{\mathbf{n}}}^\prime \frac{\textrm{erfc}\left( \alpha|\mathbf{r}_{ij}+\mathbf{n}|\right)}{|\mathbf{r}_{ij}+\mathbf{n}|} \\ &+ \frac{1}{\pi L^3}\sum_{\mathbf{k}\ne 0}\frac{4\pi^2}{|\mathbf{k}|^2} \exp{\left(-\frac{\pi^2|\mathbf{k}|^2}{\alpha^2}\right) \cos\left(\mathbf{k}\cdot\mathbf{r}_{ij}\right)}\Biggr)\Biggr] \\ &- \frac{\alpha}{\pi^{1/2}}\sum_{i=1}^N q_i^2 + \frac{2\pi}{(2\epsilon_\textrm{S}+1)L^3}\left|\sum_{i=1}^N q_i\mathbf{r}_i\right|^2,
141 + \end{split}
142 + \label{eq:EwaldSum}
143 + \end{equation}
144 + where $\alpha$ is the damping or convergence parameter with units of
145 + \AA$^{-1}$, $\mathbf{k}$ are the reciprocal vectors and are equal to
146 + $2\pi\mathbf{n}/L^2$, and $\epsilon_\textrm{S}$ is the dielectric
147 + constant of the surrounding medium. The final two terms of
148 + eq. (\ref{eq:EwaldSum}) are a particle-self term and a dipolar term
149 + for interacting with a surrounding dielectric.\cite{Allen87} This
150 + dipolar term was neglected in early applications in molecular
151 + simulations,\cite{Brush66,Woodcock71} until it was introduced by de
152 + Leeuw {\it et al.} to address situations where the unit cell has a
153 + dipole moment which is magnified through replication of the periodic
154 + images.\cite{deLeeuw80,Smith81} If this term is taken to be zero, the
155 + system is said to be using conducting (or ``tin-foil'') boundary
156 + conditions, $\epsilon_{\rm S} = \infty$. Figure
157 + \ref{fig:ewaldTime} shows how the Ewald sum has been applied over
158 + time.  Initially, due to the small system sizes that could be
159 + simulated feasibly, the entire simulation box was replicated to
160 + convergence.  In more modern simulations, the systems have grown large
161 + enough that a real-space cutoff could potentially give convergent
162 + behavior.  Indeed, it has been observed that with the choice of a
163 + small $\alpha$, the reciprocal-space portion of the Ewald sum can be
164 + rapidly convergent and small relative to the real-space
165 + portion.\cite{Karasawa89,Kolafa92}
166 +
167 + \begin{figure}
168 + \centering
169 + \includegraphics[width = \linewidth]{./ewaldProgression.pdf}
170 + \caption{The change in the need for the Ewald sum with
171 + increasing computational power.  A:~Initially, only small systems
172 + could be studied, and the Ewald sum replicated the simulation box to
173 + convergence.  B:~Now, radial cutoff methods should be able to reach
174 + convergence for the larger systems of charges that are common today.}
175 + \label{fig:ewaldTime}
176 + \end{figure}
177 +
178 + The original Ewald summation is an $\mathscr{O}(N^2)$ algorithm.  The
179 + convergence parameter $(\alpha)$ plays an important role in balancing
180 + the computational cost between the direct and reciprocal-space
181 + portions of the summation.  The choice of this value allows one to
182 + select whether the real-space or reciprocal space portion of the
183 + summation is an $\mathscr{O}(N^2)$ calculation (with the other being
184 + $\mathscr{O}(N)$).\cite{Sagui99} With the appropriate choice of
185 + $\alpha$ and thoughtful algorithm development, this cost can be
186 + reduced to $\mathscr{O}(N^{3/2})$.\cite{Perram88} The typical route
187 + taken to reduce the cost of the Ewald summation even further is to set
188 + $\alpha$ such that the real-space interactions decay rapidly, allowing
189 + for a short spherical cutoff. Then the reciprocal space summation is
190 + optimized.  These optimizations usually involve utilization of the
191 + fast Fourier transform (FFT),\cite{Hockney81} leading to the
192 + particle-particle particle-mesh (P3M) and particle mesh Ewald (PME)
193 + methods.\cite{Shimada93,Luty94,Luty95,Darden93,Essmann95} In these
194 + methods, the cost of the reciprocal-space portion of the Ewald
195 + summation is reduced from $\mathscr{O}(N^2)$ down to $\mathscr{O}(N
196 + \log N)$.
197 +
198 + These developments and optimizations have made the use of the Ewald
199 + summation routine in simulations with periodic boundary
200 + conditions. However, in certain systems, such as vapor-liquid
201 + interfaces and membranes, the intrinsic three-dimensional periodicity
202 + can prove problematic.  The Ewald sum has been reformulated to handle
203 + 2D systems,\cite{Parry75,Parry76,Heyes77,deLeeuw79,Rhee89}, but the
204 + new methods are computationally expensive.\cite{Spohr97,Yeh99}
205 + Inclusion of a correction term in the Ewald summation is a possible
206 + direction for handling 2D systems while still enabling the use of the
207 + modern optimizations.\cite{Yeh99}
208 +
209 + Several studies have recognized that the inherent periodicity in the
210 + Ewald sum can also have an effect on three-dimensional
211 + systems.\cite{Roberts94,Roberts95,Luty96,Hunenberger99a,Hunenberger99b,Weber00}
212 + Solvated proteins are essentially kept at high concentration due to
213 + the periodicity of the electrostatic summation method.  In these
214 + systems, the more compact folded states of a protein can be
215 + artificially stabilized by the periodic replicas introduced by the
216 + Ewald summation.\cite{Weber00} Thus, care must be taken when
217 + considering the use of the Ewald summation where the assumed
218 + periodicity would introduce spurious effects in the system dynamics.
219 +
220 + \subsection{The Wolf and Zahn Methods}
221 + In a recent paper by Wolf \textit{et al.}, a procedure was outlined
222 + for the accurate accumulation of electrostatic interactions in an
223 + efficient pairwise fashion.  This procedure lacks the inherent
224 + periodicity of the Ewald summation.\cite{Wolf99} Wolf \textit{et al.}
225 + observed that the electrostatic interaction is effectively
226 + short-ranged in condensed phase systems and that neutralization of the
227 + charge contained within the cutoff radius is crucial for potential
228 + stability. They devised a pairwise summation method that ensures
229 + charge neutrality and gives results similar to those obtained with the
230 + Ewald summation.  The resulting shifted Coulomb potential includes
231 + image-charges subtracted out through placement on the cutoff sphere
232 + and a distance-dependent damping function (identical to that seen in
233 + the real-space portion of the Ewald sum) to aid convergence
234 + \begin{equation}
235 + V_{\textrm{Wolf}}(r_{ij})= \frac{q_i q_j \textrm{erfc}(\alpha r_{ij})}{r_{ij}}-\lim_{r_{ij}\rightarrow R_\textrm{c}}\left\{\frac{q_iq_j \textrm{erfc}(\alpha r_{ij})}{r_{ij}}\right\}.
236 + \label{eq:WolfPot}
237 + \end{equation}
238 + Eq. (\ref{eq:WolfPot}) is essentially the common form of a shifted
239 + potential.  However, neutralizing the charge contained within each
240 + cutoff sphere requires the placement of a self-image charge on the
241 + surface of the cutoff sphere.  This additional self-term in the total
242 + potential enabled Wolf {\it et al.}  to obtain excellent estimates of
243 + Madelung energies for many crystals.
244 +
245 + In order to use their charge-neutralized potential in molecular
246 + dynamics simulations, Wolf \textit{et al.} suggested taking the
247 + derivative of this potential prior to evaluation of the limit.  This
248 + procedure gives an expression for the forces,
249 + \begin{equation}
250 + F_{\textrm{Wolf}}(r_{ij}) = q_i q_j\left\{\left[\frac{\textrm{erfc}\left(\alpha r_{ij}\right)}{r^2_{ij}}+\frac{2\alpha}{\pi^{1/2}}\frac{\exp{\left(-\alpha^2r_{ij}^2\right)}}{r_{ij}}\right]-\left[\frac{\textrm{erfc}\left(\alpha R_{\textrm{c}}\right)}{R_{\textrm{c}}^2}+\frac{2\alpha}{\pi^{1/2}}\frac{\exp{\left(-\alpha^2R_{\textrm{c}}^2\right)}}{R_{\textrm{c}}}\right]\right\},
251 + \label{eq:WolfForces}
252 + \end{equation}
253 + that incorporates both image charges and damping of the electrostatic
254 + interaction.
255 +
256 + More recently, Zahn \textit{et al.} investigated these potential and
257 + force expressions for use in simulations involving water.\cite{Zahn02}
258 + In their work, they pointed out that the forces and derivative of
259 + the potential are not commensurate.  Attempts to use both
260 + eqs. (\ref{eq:WolfPot}) and (\ref{eq:WolfForces}) together will lead
261 + to poor energy conservation.  They correctly observed that taking the
262 + limit shown in equation (\ref{eq:WolfPot}) {\it after} calculating the
263 + derivatives gives forces for a different potential energy function
264 + than the one shown in eq. (\ref{eq:WolfPot}).
265 +
266 + Zahn \textit{et al.} introduced a modified form of this summation
267 + method as a way to use the technique in Molecular Dynamics
268 + simulations.  They proposed a new damped Coulomb potential,
269 + \begin{equation}
270 + V_{\textrm{Zahn}}(r_{ij}) = q_iq_j\left\{\frac{\mathrm{erfc}\left(\alpha r_{ij}\right)}{r_{ij}}-\left[\frac{\mathrm{erfc}\left(\alpha R_\mathrm{c}\right)}{R_\mathrm{c}^2}+\frac{2\alpha}{\pi^{1/2}}\frac{\exp\left(-\alpha^2R_\mathrm{c}^2\right)}{R_\mathrm{c}}\right]\left(r_{ij}-R_\mathrm{c}\right)\right\},
271 + \label{eq:ZahnPot}
272 + \end{equation}
273 + and showed that this potential does fairly well at capturing the
274 + structural and dynamic properties of water compared the same
275 + properties obtained using the Ewald sum.
276 +
277 + \subsection{Simple Forms for Pairwise Electrostatics}
278 +
279 + The potentials proposed by Wolf \textit{et al.} and Zahn \textit{et
280 + al.} are constructed using two different (and separable) computational
281 + tricks: \begin{enumerate}
282 + \item shifting through the use of image charges, and
283 + \item damping the electrostatic interaction.
284 + \end{enumerate}  Wolf \textit{et al.} treated the
285 + development of their summation method as a progressive application of
286 + these techniques,\cite{Wolf99} while Zahn \textit{et al.} founded
287 + their damped Coulomb modification (Eq. (\ref{eq:ZahnPot})) on the
288 + post-limit forces (Eq. (\ref{eq:WolfForces})) which were derived using
289 + both techniques.  It is possible, however, to separate these
290 + tricks and study their effects independently.
291 +
292 + Starting with the original observation that the effective range of the
293 + electrostatic interaction in condensed phases is considerably less
294 + than $r^{-1}$, either the cutoff sphere neutralization or the
295 + distance-dependent damping technique could be used as a foundation for
296 + a new pairwise summation method.  Wolf \textit{et al.} made the
297 + observation that charge neutralization within the cutoff sphere plays
298 + a significant role in energy convergence; therefore we will begin our
299 + analysis with the various shifted forms that maintain this charge
300 + neutralization.  We can evaluate the methods of Wolf
301 + \textit{et al.}  and Zahn \textit{et al.} by considering the standard
302 + shifted potential,
303 + \begin{equation}
304 + V_\textrm{SP}(r) =      \begin{cases}
305 + v(r)-v_\textrm{c} &\quad r\leqslant R_\textrm{c} \\ 0 &\quad r >
306 + R_\textrm{c}  
307 + \end{cases},
308 + \label{eq:shiftingPotForm}
309 + \end{equation}
310 + and shifted force,
311 + \begin{equation}
312 + V_\textrm{SF}(r) =      \begin{cases}
313 + v(r)-v_\textrm{c}-\left(\frac{d v(r)}{d r}\right)_{r=R_\textrm{c}}(r-R_\textrm{c})
314 + &\quad r\leqslant R_\textrm{c} \\ 0 &\quad r > R_\textrm{c}
315 +                                                \end{cases},
316 + \label{eq:shiftingForm}
317 + \end{equation}
318 + functions where $v(r)$ is the unshifted form of the potential, and
319 + $v_c$ is $v(R_\textrm{c})$.  The Shifted Force ({\sc sf}) form ensures
320 + that both the potential and the forces goes to zero at the cutoff
321 + radius, while the Shifted Potential ({\sc sp}) form only ensures the
322 + potential is smooth at the cutoff radius
323 + ($R_\textrm{c}$).\cite{Allen87}
324 +
325 + The forces associated with the shifted potential are simply the forces
326 + of the unshifted potential itself (when inside the cutoff sphere),
327 + \begin{equation}
328 + F_{\textrm{SP}} = -\left( \frac{d v(r)}{dr} \right),
329 + \end{equation}
330 + and are zero outside.  Inside the cutoff sphere, the forces associated
331 + with the shifted force form can be written,
332 + \begin{equation}
333 + F_{\textrm{SF}} = -\left( \frac{d v(r)}{dr} \right) + \left(\frac{d
334 + v(r)}{dr} \right)_{r=R_\textrm{c}}.
335 + \end{equation}
336 +
337 + If the potential, $v(r)$, is taken to be the normal Coulomb potential,
338 + \begin{equation}
339 + v(r) = \frac{q_i q_j}{r},
340 + \label{eq:Coulomb}
341 + \end{equation}
342 + then the Shifted Potential ({\sc sp}) forms will give Wolf {\it et
343 + al.}'s undamped prescription:
344 + \begin{equation}
345 + V_\textrm{SP}(r) =
346 + q_iq_j\left(\frac{1}{r}-\frac{1}{R_\textrm{c}}\right) \quad
347 + r\leqslant R_\textrm{c},
348 + \label{eq:SPPot}
349 + \end{equation}
350 + with associated forces,
351 + \begin{equation}
352 + F_\textrm{SP}(r) = q_iq_j\left(\frac{1}{r^2}\right) \quad r\leqslant R_\textrm{c}.
353 + \label{eq:SPForces}
354 + \end{equation}
355 + These forces are identical to the forces of the standard Coulomb
356 + interaction, and cutting these off at $R_c$ was addressed by Wolf
357 + \textit{et al.} as undesirable.  They pointed out that the effect of
358 + the image charges is neglected in the forces when this form is
359 + used,\cite{Wolf99} thereby eliminating any benefit from the method in
360 + molecular dynamics.  Additionally, there is a discontinuity in the
361 + forces at the cutoff radius which results in energy drift during MD
362 + simulations.
363 +
364 + The shifted force ({\sc sf}) form using the normal Coulomb potential
365 + will give,
366 + \begin{equation}
367 + V_\textrm{SF}(r) = q_iq_j\left[\frac{1}{r}-\frac{1}{R_\textrm{c}}+\left(\frac{1}{R_\textrm{c}^2}\right)(r-R_\textrm{c})\right] \quad r\leqslant R_\textrm{c}.
368 + \label{eq:SFPot}
369 + \end{equation}
370 + with associated forces,
371 + \begin{equation}
372 + F_\textrm{SF}(r) =  q_iq_j\left(\frac{1}{r^2}-\frac{1}{R_\textrm{c}^2}\right) \quad r\leqslant R_\textrm{c}.
373 + \label{eq:SFForces}
374 + \end{equation}
375 + This formulation has the benefits that there are no discontinuities at
376 + the cutoff radius, while the neutralizing image charges are present in
377 + both the energy and force expressions.  It would be simple to add the
378 + self-neutralizing term back when computing the total energy of the
379 + system, thereby maintaining the agreement with the Madelung energies.
380 + A side effect of this treatment is the alteration in the shape of the
381 + potential that comes from the derivative term.  Thus, a degree of
382 + clarity about agreement with the empirical potential is lost in order
383 + to gain functionality in dynamics simulations.
384 +
385 + Wolf \textit{et al.} originally discussed the energetics of the
386 + shifted Coulomb potential (Eq. \ref{eq:SPPot}) and found that it was
387 + insufficient for accurate determination of the energy with reasonable
388 + cutoff distances.  The calculated Madelung energies fluctuated around
389 + the expected value as the cutoff radius was increased, but the
390 + oscillations converged toward the correct value.\cite{Wolf99} A
391 + damping function was incorporated to accelerate the convergence; and
392 + though alternative forms for the damping function could be
393 + used,\cite{Jones56,Heyes81} the complimentary error function was
394 + chosen to mirror the effective screening used in the Ewald summation.
395 + Incorporating this error function damping into the simple Coulomb
396 + potential,
397 + \begin{equation}
398 + v(r) = \frac{\mathrm{erfc}\left(\alpha r\right)}{r},
399 + \label{eq:dampCoulomb}
400 + \end{equation}
401 + the shifted potential (eq. (\ref{eq:SPPot})) becomes
402 + \begin{equation}
403 + V_{\textrm{DSP}}(r) = q_iq_j\left(\frac{\textrm{erfc}\left(\alpha r\right)}{r}-\frac{\textrm{erfc}\left(\alpha R_\textrm{c}\right)}{R_\textrm{c}}\right) \quad r\leqslant R_\textrm{c},
404 + \label{eq:DSPPot}
405 + \end{equation}
406 + with associated forces,
407 + \begin{equation}
408 + F_{\textrm{DSP}}(r) = q_iq_j\left(\frac{\textrm{erfc}\left(\alpha r\right)}{r^2}+\frac{2\alpha}{\pi^{1/2}}\frac{\exp{\left(-\alpha^2r^2\right)}}{r}\right) \quad r\leqslant R_\textrm{c}.
409 + \label{eq:DSPForces}
410 + \end{equation}
411 + Again, this damped shifted potential suffers from a
412 + force-discontinuity at the cutoff radius, and the image charges play
413 + no role in the forces.  To remedy these concerns, one may derive a
414 + {\sc sf} variant by including the derivative term in
415 + eq. (\ref{eq:shiftingForm}),
416 + \begin{equation}
417 + \begin{split}
418 + V_\mathrm{DSF}(r) = q_iq_j\Biggr{[}&\frac{\mathrm{erfc}\left(\alpha r\right)}{r}-\frac{\mathrm{erfc}\left(\alpha R_\mathrm{c}\right)}{R_\mathrm{c}} \\ &\left.+\left(\frac{\mathrm{erfc}\left(\alpha R_\mathrm{c}\right)}{R_\mathrm{c}^2}+\frac{2\alpha}{\pi^{1/2}}\frac{\exp\left(-\alpha^2R_\mathrm{c}^2\right)}{R_\mathrm{c}}\right)\left(r-R_\mathrm{c}\right)\ \right] \quad r\leqslant R_\textrm{c}.
419 + \label{eq:DSFPot}
420 + \end{split}
421 + \end{equation}
422 + The derivative of the above potential will lead to the following forces,
423 + \begin{equation}
424 + \begin{split}
425 + F_\mathrm{DSF}(r) = q_iq_j\Biggr{[}&\left(\frac{\textrm{erfc}\left(\alpha r\right)}{r^2}+\frac{2\alpha}{\pi^{1/2}}\frac{\exp{\left(-\alpha^2r^2\right)}}{r}\right) \\ &\left.-\left(\frac{\textrm{erfc}\left(\alpha R_{\textrm{c}}\right)}{R_{\textrm{c}}^2}+\frac{2\alpha}{\pi^{1/2}}\frac{\exp{\left(-\alpha^2R_{\textrm{c}}^2\right)}}{R_{\textrm{c}}}\right)\right] \quad r\leqslant R_\textrm{c}.
426 + \label{eq:DSFForces}
427 + \end{split}
428 + \end{equation}
429 + If the damping parameter $(\alpha)$ is set to zero, the undamped case,
430 + eqs. (\ref{eq:SPPot} through \ref{eq:SFForces}) are correctly
431 + recovered from eqs. (\ref{eq:DSPPot} through \ref{eq:DSFForces}).
432 +
433 + This new {\sc sf} potential is similar to equation \ref{eq:ZahnPot}
434 + derived by Zahn \textit{et al.}; however, there are two important
435 + differences.\cite{Zahn02} First, the $v_\textrm{c}$ term from
436 + eq. (\ref{eq:shiftingForm}) is equal to eq. (\ref{eq:dampCoulomb})
437 + with $r$ replaced by $R_\textrm{c}$.  This term is {\it not} present
438 + in the Zahn potential, resulting in a potential discontinuity as
439 + particles cross $R_\textrm{c}$.  Second, the sign of the derivative
440 + portion is different.  The missing $v_\textrm{c}$ term would not
441 + affect molecular dynamics simulations (although the computed energy
442 + would be expected to have sudden jumps as particle distances crossed
443 + $R_c$).  The sign problem is a potential source of errors, however.
444 + In fact, it introduces a discontinuity in the forces at the cutoff,
445 + because the force function is shifted in the wrong direction and
446 + doesn't cross zero at $R_\textrm{c}$.
447 +
448 + Eqs. (\ref{eq:DSFPot}) and (\ref{eq:DSFForces}) result in an
449 + electrostatic summation method in which the potential and forces are
450 + continuous at the cutoff radius and which incorporates the damping
451 + function proposed by Wolf \textit{et al.}\cite{Wolf99} In the rest of
452 + this paper, we will evaluate exactly how good these methods ({\sc sp},
453 + {\sc sf}, damping) are at reproducing the correct electrostatic
454 + summation performed by the Ewald sum.
455 +
456 + \subsection{Other alternatives}
457 + In addition to the methods described above, we considered some other
458 + techniques that are commonly used in molecular simulations.  The
459 + simplest of these is group-based cutoffs.  Though of little use for
460 + charged molecules, collecting atoms into neutral groups takes
461 + advantage of the observation that the electrostatic interactions decay
462 + faster than those for monopolar pairs.\cite{Steinbach94} When
463 + considering these molecules as neutral groups, the relative
464 + orientations of the molecules control the strength of the interactions
465 + at the cutoff radius.  Consequently, as these molecular particles move
466 + through $R_\textrm{c}$, the energy will drift upward due to the
467 + anisotropy of the net molecular dipole interactions.\cite{Rahman71} To
468 + maintain good energy conservation, both the potential and derivative
469 + need to be smoothly switched to zero at $R_\textrm{c}$.\cite{Adams79}
470 + This is accomplished using a standard switching function.  If a smooth
471 + second derivative is desired, a fifth (or higher) order polynomial can
472 + be used.\cite{Andrea83}
473 +
474 + Group-based cutoffs neglect the surroundings beyond $R_\textrm{c}$,
475 + and to incorporate the effects of the surroundings, a method like
476 + Reaction Field ({\sc rf}) can be used.  The original theory for {\sc
477 + rf} was originally developed by Onsager,\cite{Onsager36} and it was
478 + applied in simulations for the study of water by Barker and
479 + Watts.\cite{Barker73} In modern simulation codes, {\sc rf} is simply
480 + an extension of the group-based cutoff method where the net dipole
481 + within the cutoff sphere polarizes an external dielectric, which
482 + reacts back on the central dipole.  The same switching function
483 + considerations for group-based cutoffs need to made for {\sc rf}, with
484 + the additional pre-specification of a dielectric constant.
485 +
486   \section{Methods}
487 +
488 + In classical molecular mechanics simulations, there are two primary
489 + techniques utilized to obtain information about the system of
490 + interest: Monte Carlo (MC) and Molecular Dynamics (MD).  Both of these
491 + techniques utilize pairwise summations of interactions between
492 + particle sites, but they use these summations in different ways.
493 +
494 + In MC, the potential energy difference between configurations dictates
495 + the progression of MC sampling.  Going back to the origins of this
496 + method, the acceptance criterion for the canonical ensemble laid out
497 + by Metropolis \textit{et al.} states that a subsequent configuration
498 + is accepted if $\Delta E < 0$ or if $\xi < \exp(-\Delta E/kT)$, where
499 + $\xi$ is a random number between 0 and 1.\cite{Metropolis53}
500 + Maintaining the correct $\Delta E$ when using an alternate method for
501 + handling the long-range electrostatics will ensure proper sampling
502 + from the ensemble.
503 +
504 + In MD, the derivative of the potential governs how the system will
505 + progress in time.  Consequently, the force and torque vectors on each
506 + body in the system dictate how the system evolves.  If the magnitude
507 + and direction of these vectors are similar when using alternate
508 + electrostatic summation techniques, the dynamics in the short term
509 + will be indistinguishable.  Because error in MD calculations is
510 + cumulative, one should expect greater deviation at longer times,
511 + although methods which have large differences in the force and torque
512 + vectors will diverge from each other more rapidly.
513 +
514 + \subsection{Monte Carlo and the Energy Gap}\label{sec:MCMethods}
515 +
516 + The pairwise summation techniques (outlined in section
517 + \ref{sec:ESMethods}) were evaluated for use in MC simulations by
518 + studying the energy differences between conformations.  We took the
519 + {\sc spme}-computed energy difference between two conformations to be the
520 + correct behavior. An ideal performance by an alternative method would
521 + reproduce these energy differences exactly (even if the absolute
522 + energies calculated by the methods are different).  Since none of the
523 + methods provide exact energy differences, we used linear least squares
524 + regressions of energy gap data to evaluate how closely the methods
525 + mimicked the Ewald energy gaps.  Unitary results for both the
526 + correlation (slope) and correlation coefficient for these regressions
527 + indicate perfect agreement between the alternative method and {\sc spme}.
528 + Sample correlation plots for two alternate methods are shown in
529 + Fig. \ref{fig:linearFit}.
530 +
531 + \begin{figure}
532 + \centering
533 + \includegraphics[width = \linewidth]{./dualLinear.pdf}
534 + \caption{Example least squares regressions of the configuration energy
535 + differences for SPC/E water systems. The upper plot shows a data set
536 + with a poor correlation coefficient ($R^2$), while the lower plot
537 + shows a data set with a good correlation coefficient.}
538 + \label{fig:linearFit}
539 + \end{figure}
540 +
541 + Each system type (detailed in section \ref{sec:RepSims}) was
542 + represented using 500 independent configurations.  Additionally, we
543 + used seven different system types, so each of the alternative
544 + (non-Ewald) electrostatic summation methods was evaluated using
545 + 873,250 configurational energy differences.
546 +
547 + Results and discussion for the individual analysis of each of the
548 + system types appear in the supporting information, while the
549 + cumulative results over all the investigated systems appears below in
550 + section \ref{sec:EnergyResults}.
551 +
552 + \subsection{Molecular Dynamics and the Force and Torque Vectors}\label{sec:MDMethods}
553 + We evaluated the pairwise methods (outlined in section
554 + \ref{sec:ESMethods}) for use in MD simulations by
555 + comparing the force and torque vectors with those obtained using the
556 + reference Ewald summation ({\sc spme}).  Both the magnitude and the
557 + direction of these vectors on each of the bodies in the system were
558 + analyzed.  For the magnitude of these vectors, linear least squares
559 + regression analyses were performed as described previously for
560 + comparing $\Delta E$ values.  Instead of a single energy difference
561 + between two system configurations, we compared the magnitudes of the
562 + forces (and torques) on each molecule in each configuration.  For a
563 + system of 1000 water molecules and 40 ions, there are 1040 force
564 + vectors and 1000 torque vectors.  With 500 configurations, this
565 + results in 520,000 force and 500,000 torque vector comparisons.
566 + Additionally, data from seven different system types was aggregated
567 + before the comparison was made.
568 +
569 + The {\it directionality} of the force and torque vectors was
570 + investigated through measurement of the angle ($\theta$) formed
571 + between those computed from the particular method and those from {\sc spme},
572 + \begin{equation}
573 + \theta_f = \cos^{-1} \left(\hat{F}_\textrm{SPME} \cdot \hat{F}_\textrm{M}\right),
574 + \end{equation}
575 + where $\hat{F}_\textrm{M}$ is the unit vector pointing along the force
576 + vector computed using method M.  Each of these $\theta$ values was
577 + accumulated in a distribution function and weighted by the area on the
578 + unit sphere.  Since this distribution is a measure of angular error
579 + between two different electrostatic summation methods, there is no
580 + {\it a priori} reason for the profile to adhere to any specific
581 + shape. Thus, gaussian fits were used to measure the width of the
582 + resulting distributions. The variance ($\sigma^2$) was extracted from
583 + each of these fits and was used to compare distribution widths.
584 + Values of $\sigma^2$ near zero indicate vector directions
585 + indistinguishable from those calculated when using the reference
586 + method ({\sc spme}).
587  
588 + \subsection{Short-time Dynamics}
589 +
590 + The effects of the alternative electrostatic summation methods on the
591 + short-time dynamics of charged systems were evaluated by considering a
592 + NaCl crystal at a temperature of 1000 K.  A subset of the best
593 + performing pairwise methods was used in this comparison.  The NaCl
594 + crystal was chosen to avoid possible complications from the treatment
595 + of orientational motion in molecular systems.  All systems were
596 + started with the same initial positions and velocities.  Simulations
597 + were performed under the microcanonical ensemble, and velocity
598 + autocorrelation functions (Eq. \ref{eq:vCorr}) were computed for each
599 + of the trajectories,
600 + \begin{equation}
601 + C_v(t) = \frac{\langle v(0)\cdot v(t)\rangle}{\langle v^2\rangle}.
602 + \label{eq:vCorr}
603 + \end{equation}
604 + Velocity autocorrelation functions require detailed short time data,
605 + thus velocity information was saved every 2 fs over 10 ps
606 + trajectories. Because the NaCl crystal is composed of two different
607 + atom types, the average of the two resulting velocity autocorrelation
608 + functions was used for comparisons.
609 +
610 + \subsection{Long-Time and Collective Motion}\label{sec:LongTimeMethods}
611 +
612 + The effects of the same subset of alternative electrostatic methods on
613 + the {\it long-time} dynamics of charged systems were evaluated using
614 + the same model system (NaCl crystals at 1000~K).  The power spectrum
615 + ($I(\omega)$) was obtained via Fourier transform of the velocity
616 + autocorrelation function, \begin{equation} I(\omega) =
617 + \frac{1}{2\pi}\int^{\infty}_{-\infty}C_v(t)e^{-i\omega t}dt,
618 + \label{eq:powerSpec}
619 + \end{equation}
620 + where the frequency, $\omega=0,\ 1,\ ...,\ N-1$. Again, because the
621 + NaCl crystal is composed of two different atom types, the average of
622 + the two resulting power spectra was used for comparisons. Simulations
623 + were performed under the microcanonical ensemble, and velocity
624 + information was saved every 5 fs over 100 ps trajectories.
625 +
626 + \subsection{Representative Simulations}\label{sec:RepSims}
627 + A variety of representative simulations were analyzed to determine the
628 + relative effectiveness of the pairwise summation techniques in
629 + reproducing the energetics and dynamics exhibited by {\sc spme}.  We wanted
630 + to span the space of modern simulations (i.e. from liquids of neutral
631 + molecules to ionic crystals), so the systems studied were:
632 + \begin{enumerate}
633 + \item liquid water (SPC/E),\cite{Berendsen87}
634 + \item crystalline water (Ice I$_\textrm{c}$ crystals of SPC/E),
635 + \item NaCl crystals,
636 + \item NaCl melts,
637 + \item a low ionic strength solution of NaCl in water (0.11 M),
638 + \item a high ionic strength solution of NaCl in water (1.1 M), and
639 + \item a 6 \AA\  radius sphere of Argon in water.
640 + \end{enumerate}
641 + By utilizing the pairwise techniques (outlined in section
642 + \ref{sec:ESMethods}) in systems composed entirely of neutral groups,
643 + charged particles, and mixtures of the two, we hope to discern under
644 + which conditions it will be possible to use one of the alternative
645 + summation methodologies instead of the Ewald sum.
646 +
647 + For the solid and liquid water configurations, configurations were
648 + taken at regular intervals from high temperature trajectories of 1000
649 + SPC/E water molecules.  Each configuration was equilibrated
650 + independently at a lower temperature (300~K for the liquid, 200~K for
651 + the crystal).  The solid and liquid NaCl systems consisted of 500
652 + $\textrm{Na}^{+}$ and 500 $\textrm{Cl}^{-}$ ions.  Configurations for
653 + these systems were selected and equilibrated in the same manner as the
654 + water systems. In order to introduce measurable fluctuations in the
655 + configuration energy differences, the crystalline simulations were
656 + equilibrated at 1000~K, near the $T_\textrm{m}$ for NaCl. The liquid
657 + NaCl configurations needed to represent a fully disordered array of
658 + point charges, so the high temperature of 7000~K was selected for
659 + equilibration. The ionic solutions were made by solvating 4 (or 40)
660 + ions in a periodic box containing 1000 SPC/E water molecules.  Ion and
661 + water positions were then randomly swapped, and the resulting
662 + configurations were again equilibrated individually.  Finally, for the
663 + Argon / Water ``charge void'' systems, the identities of all the SPC/E
664 + waters within 6 \AA\ of the center of the equilibrated water
665 + configurations were converted to argon.
666 +
667 + These procedures guaranteed us a set of representative configurations
668 + from chemically-relevant systems sampled from appropriate
669 + ensembles. Force field parameters for the ions and Argon were taken
670 + from the force field utilized by {\sc oopse}.\cite{Meineke05}
671 +
672 + \subsection{Comparison of Summation Methods}\label{sec:ESMethods}
673 + We compared the following alternative summation methods with results
674 + from the reference method ({\sc spme}):
675 + \begin{itemize}
676 + \item {\sc sp} with damping parameters ($\alpha$) of 0.0, 0.1, 0.2,
677 + and 0.3 \AA$^{-1}$,
678 + \item {\sc sf} with damping parameters ($\alpha$) of 0.0, 0.1, 0.2,
679 + and 0.3 \AA$^{-1}$,
680 + \item reaction field with an infinite dielectric constant, and
681 + \item an unmodified cutoff.
682 + \end{itemize}
683 + Group-based cutoffs with a fifth-order polynomial switching function
684 + were utilized for the reaction field simulations.  Additionally, we
685 + investigated the use of these cutoffs with the {\sc sp}, {\sc sf}, and pure
686 + cutoff.  The {\sc spme} electrostatics were performed using the {\sc tinker}
687 + implementation of {\sc spme},\cite{Ponder87} while all other calculations
688 + were performed using the {\sc oopse} molecular mechanics
689 + package.\cite{Meineke05} All other portions of the energy calculation
690 + (i.e. Lennard-Jones interactions) were handled in exactly the same
691 + manner across all systems and configurations.
692 +
693 + The alternative methods were also evaluated with three different
694 + cutoff radii (9, 12, and 15 \AA).  As noted previously, the
695 + convergence parameter ($\alpha$) plays a role in the balance of the
696 + real-space and reciprocal-space portions of the Ewald calculation.
697 + Typical molecular mechanics packages set this to a value dependent on
698 + the cutoff radius and a tolerance (typically less than $1 \times
699 + 10^{-4}$ kcal/mol).  Smaller tolerances are typically associated with
700 + increasing accuracy at the expense of computational time spent on the
701 + reciprocal-space portion of the summation.\cite{Perram88,Essmann95}
702 + The default {\sc tinker} tolerance of $1 \times 10^{-8}$ kcal/mol was used
703 + in all {\sc spme} calculations, resulting in Ewald coefficients of 0.4200,
704 + 0.3119, and 0.2476 \AA$^{-1}$ for cutoff radii of 9, 12, and 15 \AA\
705 + respectively.
706 +
707   \section{Results and Discussion}
708 +
709 + \subsection{Configuration Energy Differences}\label{sec:EnergyResults}
710 + In order to evaluate the performance of the pairwise electrostatic
711 + summation methods for Monte Carlo simulations, the energy differences
712 + between configurations were compared to the values obtained when using
713 + {\sc spme}.  The results for the subsequent regression analysis are shown in
714 + figure \ref{fig:delE}.
715 +
716 + \begin{figure}
717 + \centering
718 + \includegraphics[width=5.5in]{./delEplot.pdf}
719 + \caption{Statistical analysis of the quality of configurational energy
720 + differences for a given electrostatic method compared with the
721 + reference Ewald sum.  Results with a value equal to 1 (dashed line)
722 + indicate $\Delta E$ values indistinguishable from those obtained using
723 + {\sc spme}.  Different values of the cutoff radius are indicated with
724 + different symbols (9\AA\ = circles, 12\AA\ = squares, and 15\AA\ =
725 + inverted triangles).}
726 + \label{fig:delE}
727 + \end{figure}
728 +
729 + The most striking feature of this plot is how well the Shifted Force
730 + ({\sc sf}) and Shifted Potential ({\sc sp}) methods capture the energy
731 + differences.  For the undamped {\sc sf} method, and the
732 + moderately-damped {\sc sp} methods, the results are nearly
733 + indistinguishable from the Ewald results.  The other common methods do
734 + significantly less well.  
735 +
736 + The unmodified cutoff method is essentially unusable.  This is not
737 + surprising since hard cutoffs give large energy fluctuations as atoms
738 + or molecules move in and out of the cutoff
739 + radius.\cite{Rahman71,Adams79} These fluctuations can be alleviated to
740 + some degree by using group based cutoffs with a switching
741 + function.\cite{Adams79,Steinbach94,Leach01} However, we do not see
742 + significant improvement using the group-switched cutoff because the
743 + salt and salt solution systems contain non-neutral groups.  Interested
744 + readers can consult the accompanying supporting information for a
745 + comparison where all groups are neutral.
746 +
747 + For the {\sc sp} method, inclusion of electrostatic damping improves
748 + the agreement with Ewald, and using an $\alpha$ of 0.2 \AA $^{-1}$
749 + shows an excellent correlation and quality of fit with the {\sc spme}
750 + results, particularly with a cutoff radius greater than 12
751 + \AA .  Use of a larger damping parameter is more helpful for the
752 + shortest cutoff shown, but it has a detrimental effect on simulations
753 + with larger cutoffs.  
754 +
755 + In the {\sc sf} sets, increasing damping results in progressively {\it
756 + worse} correlation with Ewald.  Overall, the undamped case is the best
757 + performing set, as the correlation and quality of fits are
758 + consistently superior regardless of the cutoff distance.  The undamped
759 + case is also less computationally demanding (because no evaluation of
760 + the complementary error function is required).
761 +
762 + The reaction field results illustrates some of that method's
763 + limitations, primarily that it was developed for use in homogenous
764 + systems; although it does provide results that are an improvement over
765 + those from an unmodified cutoff.
766 +
767 + \subsection{Magnitudes of the Force and Torque Vectors}
768 +
769 + Evaluation of pairwise methods for use in Molecular Dynamics
770 + simulations requires consideration of effects on the forces and
771 + torques.  Figures \ref{fig:frcMag} and \ref{fig:trqMag} show the
772 + regression results for the force and torque vector magnitudes,
773 + respectively.  The data in these figures was generated from an
774 + accumulation of the statistics from all of the system types.
775 +
776 + \begin{figure}
777 + \centering
778 + \includegraphics[width=5.5in]{./frcMagplot.pdf}
779 + \caption{Statistical analysis of the quality of the force vector
780 + magnitudes for a given electrostatic method compared with the
781 + reference Ewald sum.  Results with a value equal to 1 (dashed line)
782 + indicate force magnitude values indistinguishable from those obtained
783 + using {\sc spme}.  Different values of the cutoff radius are indicated with
784 + different symbols (9\AA\ = circles, 12\AA\ = squares, and 15\AA\ =
785 + inverted triangles).}
786 + \label{fig:frcMag}
787 + \end{figure}
788 +
789 + Again, it is striking how well the Shifted Potential and Shifted Force
790 + methods are doing at reproducing the {\sc spme} forces.  The undamped and
791 + weakly-damped {\sc sf} method gives the best agreement with Ewald.
792 + This is perhaps expected because this method explicitly incorporates a
793 + smooth transition in the forces at the cutoff radius as well as the
794 + neutralizing image charges.
795 +
796 + Figure \ref{fig:frcMag}, for the most part, parallels the results seen
797 + in the previous $\Delta E$ section.  The unmodified cutoff results are
798 + poor, but using group based cutoffs and a switching function provides
799 + an improvement much more significant than what was seen with $\Delta
800 + E$.
801 +
802 + With moderate damping and a large enough cutoff radius, the {\sc sp}
803 + method is generating usable forces.  Further increases in damping,
804 + while beneficial for simulations with a cutoff radius of 9 \AA\ , is
805 + detrimental to simulations with larger cutoff radii.
806 +
807 + The reaction field results are surprisingly good, considering the poor
808 + quality of the fits for the $\Delta E$ results.  There is still a
809 + considerable degree of scatter in the data, but the forces correlate
810 + well with the Ewald forces in general.  We note that the reaction
811 + field calculations do not include the pure NaCl systems, so these
812 + results are partly biased towards conditions in which the method
813 + performs more favorably.
814 +
815 + \begin{figure}
816 + \centering
817 + \includegraphics[width=5.5in]{./trqMagplot.pdf}
818 + \caption{Statistical analysis of the quality of the torque vector
819 + magnitudes for a given electrostatic method compared with the
820 + reference Ewald sum.  Results with a value equal to 1 (dashed line)
821 + indicate torque magnitude values indistinguishable from those obtained
822 + using {\sc spme}.  Different values of the cutoff radius are indicated with
823 + different symbols (9\AA\ = circles, 12\AA\ = squares, and 15\AA\ =
824 + inverted triangles).}
825 + \label{fig:trqMag}
826 + \end{figure}
827 +
828 + Molecular torques were only available from the systems which contained
829 + rigid molecules (i.e. the systems containing water).  The data in
830 + fig. \ref{fig:trqMag} is taken from this smaller sampling pool.
831 +
832 + Torques appear to be much more sensitive to charges at a longer
833 + distance.   The striking feature in comparing the new electrostatic
834 + methods with {\sc spme} is how much the agreement improves with increasing
835 + cutoff radius.  Again, the weakly damped and undamped {\sc sf} method
836 + appears to be reproducing the {\sc spme} torques most accurately.  
837 +
838 + Water molecules are dipolar, and the reaction field method reproduces
839 + the effect of the surrounding polarized medium on each of the
840 + molecular bodies. Therefore it is not surprising that reaction field
841 + performs best of all of the methods on molecular torques.
842 +
843 + \subsection{Directionality of the Force and Torque Vectors}
844 +
845 + It is clearly important that a new electrostatic method can reproduce
846 + the magnitudes of the force and torque vectors obtained via the Ewald
847 + sum. However, the {\it directionality} of these vectors will also be
848 + vital in calculating dynamical quantities accurately.  Force and
849 + torque directionalities were investigated by measuring the angles
850 + formed between these vectors and the same vectors calculated using
851 + {\sc spme}.  The results (Fig. \ref{fig:frcTrqAng}) are compared through the
852 + variance ($\sigma^2$) of the Gaussian fits of the angle error
853 + distributions of the combined set over all system types.
854 +
855 + \begin{figure}
856 + \centering
857 + \includegraphics[width=5.5in]{./frcTrqAngplot.pdf}
858 + \caption{Statistical analysis of the width of the angular distribution
859 + that the force and torque vectors from a given electrostatic method
860 + make with their counterparts obtained using the reference Ewald sum.
861 + Results with a variance ($\sigma^2$) equal to zero (dashed line)
862 + indicate force and torque directions indistinguishable from those
863 + obtained using {\sc spme}.  Different values of the cutoff radius are
864 + indicated with different symbols (9\AA\ = circles, 12\AA\ = squares,
865 + and 15\AA\ = inverted triangles).}
866 + \label{fig:frcTrqAng}
867 + \end{figure}
868  
869 + Both the force and torque $\sigma^2$ results from the analysis of the
870 + total accumulated system data are tabulated in figure
871 + \ref{fig:frcTrqAng}. Here it is clear that the Shifted Potential ({\sc
872 + sp}) method would be essentially unusable for molecular dynamics
873 + unless the damping function is added.  The Shifted Force ({\sc sf})
874 + method, however, is generating force and torque vectors which are
875 + within a few degrees of the Ewald results even with weak (or no)
876 + damping.
877 +
878 + All of the sets (aside from the over-damped case) show the improvement
879 + afforded by choosing a larger cutoff radius.  Increasing the cutoff
880 + from 9 to 12 \AA\ typically results in a halving of the width of the
881 + distribution, with a similar improvement when going from 12 to 15
882 + \AA .
883 +
884 + The undamped {\sc sf}, group-based cutoff, and reaction field methods
885 + all do equivalently well at capturing the direction of both the force
886 + and torque vectors.  Using the electrostatic damping improves the
887 + angular behavior significantly for the {\sc sp} and moderately for the
888 + {\sc sf} methods.  Overdamping is detrimental to both methods.  Again
889 + it is important to recognize that the force vectors cover all
890 + particles in all seven systems, while torque vectors are only
891 + available for neutral molecular groups.  Damping is more beneficial to
892 + charged bodies, and this observation is investigated further in the
893 + accompanying supporting information.
894 +
895 + Although not discussed previously, group based cutoffs can be applied
896 + to both the {\sc sp} and {\sc sf} methods.  The group-based cutoffs
897 + will reintroduce small discontinuities at the cutoff radius, but the
898 + effects of these can be minimized by utilizing a switching function.
899 + Though there are no significant benefits or drawbacks observed in
900 + $\Delta E$ and the force and torque magnitudes when doing this, there
901 + is a measurable improvement in the directionality of the forces and
902 + torques. Table \ref{tab:groupAngle} shows the angular variances
903 + obtained using group based cutoffs along with the results seen in
904 + figure \ref{fig:frcTrqAng}.  The {\sc sp} (with an $\alpha$ of 0.2
905 + \AA$^{-1}$ or smaller) shows much narrower angular distributions when
906 + using group-based cutoffs. The {\sc sf} method likewise shows
907 + improvement in the undamped and lightly damped cases.
908 +
909 + \begin{table}[htbp]
910 +   \centering
911 +   \caption{Statistical analysis of the angular
912 +   distributions that the force (upper) and torque (lower) vectors
913 +   from a given electrostatic method make with their counterparts
914 +   obtained using the reference Ewald sum.  Calculations were
915 +   performed both with (Y) and without (N) group based cutoffs and a
916 +   switching function.  The $\alpha$ values have units of \AA$^{-1}$
917 +   and the variance values have units of degrees$^2$.}
918 +
919 +   \begin{tabular}{@{} ccrrrrrrrr @{}}
920 +      \\
921 +      \toprule
922 +      & & \multicolumn{4}{c}{Shifted Potential} & \multicolumn{4}{c}{Shifted Force} \\
923 +      \cmidrule(lr){3-6}
924 +      \cmidrule(l){7-10}
925 +            $R_\textrm{c}$ & Groups & $\alpha = 0$ & $\alpha = 0.1$ & $\alpha = 0.2$ & $\alpha = 0.3$ & $\alpha = 0$ & $\alpha = 0.1$ & $\alpha = 0.2$ & $\alpha = 0.3$\\
926 +      \midrule
927 +    
928 + 9 \AA   & N & 29.545 & 12.003 & 5.489 & 0.610 & 2.323 & 2.321 & 0.429 & 0.603 \\
929 +        & \textbf{Y} & \textbf{2.486} & \textbf{2.160} & \textbf{0.667} & \textbf{0.608} & \textbf{1.768} & \textbf{1.766} & \textbf{0.676} & \textbf{0.609} \\
930 + 12 \AA  & N & 19.381 & 3.097 & 0.190 & 0.608 & 0.920 & 0.736 & 0.133 & 0.612 \\
931 +        & \textbf{Y} & \textbf{0.515} & \textbf{0.288} & \textbf{0.127} & \textbf{0.586} & \textbf{0.308} & \textbf{0.249} & \textbf{0.127} & \textbf{0.586} \\
932 + 15 \AA  & N & 12.700 & 1.196 & 0.123 & 0.601 & 0.339 & 0.160 & 0.123 & 0.601 \\
933 +        & \textbf{Y} & \textbf{0.228} & \textbf{0.099} & \textbf{0.121} & \textbf{0.598} & \textbf{0.144} & \textbf{0.090} & \textbf{0.121} & \textbf{0.598} \\      
934 +
935 +      \midrule
936 +      
937 + 9 \AA   & N & 262.716 & 116.585 & 5.234 & 5.103 & 2.392 & 2.350 & 1.770 & 5.122 \\
938 +        & \textbf{Y} & \textbf{2.115} & \textbf{1.914} & \textbf{1.878} & \textbf{5.142} & \textbf{2.076} & \textbf{2.039} & \textbf{1.972} & \textbf{5.146} \\
939 + 12 \AA  & N & 129.576 & 25.560 & 1.369 & 5.080 & 0.913 & 0.790 & 1.362 & 5.124 \\
940 +        & \textbf{Y} & \textbf{0.810} & \textbf{0.685} & \textbf{1.352} & \textbf{5.082} & \textbf{0.765} & \textbf{0.714} & \textbf{1.360} & \textbf{5.082} \\
941 + 15 \AA  & N & 87.275 & 4.473 & 1.271 & 5.000 & 0.372 & 0.312 & 1.271 & 5.000 \\
942 +        & \textbf{Y} & \textbf{0.282} & \textbf{0.294} & \textbf{1.272} & \textbf{4.999} & \textbf{0.324} & \textbf{0.318} & \textbf{1.272} & \textbf{4.999} \\
943 +
944 +      \bottomrule
945 +   \end{tabular}
946 +   \label{tab:groupAngle}
947 + \end{table}
948 +
949 + One additional trend in table \ref{tab:groupAngle} is that the
950 + $\sigma^2$ values for both {\sc sp} and {\sc sf} converge as $\alpha$
951 + increases, something that is more obvious with group-based cutoffs.
952 + The complimentary error function inserted into the potential weakens
953 + the electrostatic interaction as the value of $\alpha$ is increased.
954 + However, at larger values of $\alpha$, it is possible to overdamp the
955 + electrostatic interaction and to remove it completely.  Kast
956 + \textit{et al.}  developed a method for choosing appropriate $\alpha$
957 + values for these types of electrostatic summation methods by fitting
958 + to $g(r)$ data, and their methods indicate optimal values of 0.34,
959 + 0.25, and 0.16 \AA$^{-1}$ for cutoff values of 9, 12, and 15 \AA\
960 + respectively.\cite{Kast03} These appear to be reasonable choices to
961 + obtain proper MC behavior (Fig. \ref{fig:delE}); however, based on
962 + these findings, choices this high would introduce error in the
963 + molecular torques, particularly for the shorter cutoffs.  Based on our
964 + observations, empirical damping up to 0.2 \AA$^{-1}$ is beneficial,
965 + but damping may be unnecessary when using the {\sc sf} method.
966 +
967 + \subsection{Short-Time Dynamics: Velocity Autocorrelation Functions of NaCl Crystals}
968 +
969 + Zahn {\it et al.} investigated the structure and dynamics of water
970 + using eqs. (\ref{eq:ZahnPot}) and
971 + (\ref{eq:WolfForces}).\cite{Zahn02,Kast03} Their results indicated
972 + that a method similar (but not identical with) the damped {\sc sf}
973 + method resulted in properties very similar to those obtained when
974 + using the Ewald summation.  The properties they studied (pair
975 + distribution functions, diffusion constants, and velocity and
976 + orientational correlation functions) may not be particularly sensitive
977 + to the long-range and collective behavior that governs the
978 + low-frequency behavior in crystalline systems.  Additionally, the
979 + ionic crystals are the worst case scenario for the pairwise methods
980 + because they lack the reciprocal space contribution contained in the
981 + Ewald summation.  
982 +
983 + We are using two separate measures to probe the effects of these
984 + alternative electrostatic methods on the dynamics in crystalline
985 + materials.  For short- and intermediate-time dynamics, we are
986 + computing the velocity autocorrelation function, and for long-time
987 + and large length-scale collective motions, we are looking at the
988 + low-frequency portion of the power spectrum.
989 +
990 + \begin{figure}
991 + \centering
992 + \includegraphics[width = \linewidth]{./vCorrPlot.pdf}
993 + \caption{Velocity autocorrelation functions of NaCl crystals at
994 + 1000 K using {\sc spme}, {\sc sf} ($\alpha$ = 0.0, 0.1, \& 0.2), and {\sc
995 + sp} ($\alpha$ = 0.2). The inset is a magnification of the area around
996 + the first minimum.  The times to first collision are nearly identical,
997 + but differences can be seen in the peaks and troughs, where the
998 + undamped and weakly damped methods are stiffer than the moderately
999 + damped and {\sc spme} methods.}
1000 + \label{fig:vCorrPlot}
1001 + \end{figure}
1002 +
1003 + The short-time decay of the velocity autocorrelation function through
1004 + the first collision are nearly identical in figure
1005 + \ref{fig:vCorrPlot}, but the peaks and troughs of the functions show
1006 + how the methods differ.  The undamped {\sc sf} method has deeper
1007 + troughs (see inset in Fig. \ref{fig:vCorrPlot}) and higher peaks than
1008 + any of the other methods.  As the damping parameter ($\alpha$) is
1009 + increased, these peaks are smoothed out, and the {\sc sf} method
1010 + approaches the {\sc spme} results.  With $\alpha$ values of 0.2 \AA$^{-1}$,
1011 + the {\sc sf} and {\sc sp} functions are nearly identical and track the
1012 + {\sc spme} features quite well.  This is not surprising because the {\sc sf}
1013 + and {\sc sp} potentials become nearly identical with increased
1014 + damping.  However, this appears to indicate that once damping is
1015 + utilized, the details of the form of the potential (and forces)
1016 + constructed out of the damped electrostatic interaction are less
1017 + important.
1018 +
1019 + \subsection{Collective Motion: Power Spectra of NaCl Crystals}
1020 +
1021 + To evaluate how the differences between the methods affect the
1022 + collective long-time motion, we computed power spectra from long-time
1023 + traces of the velocity autocorrelation function. The power spectra for
1024 + the best-performing alternative methods are shown in
1025 + fig. \ref{fig:methodPS}.  Apodization of the correlation functions via
1026 + a cubic switching function between 40 and 50 ps was used to reduce the
1027 + ringing resulting from data truncation.  This procedure had no
1028 + noticeable effect on peak location or magnitude.
1029 +
1030 + \begin{figure}
1031 + \centering
1032 + \includegraphics[width = \linewidth]{./spectraSquare.pdf}
1033 + \caption{Power spectra obtained from the velocity auto-correlation
1034 + functions of NaCl crystals at 1000 K while using {\sc spme}, {\sc sf}
1035 + ($\alpha$ = 0, 0.1, \& 0.2), and {\sc sp} ($\alpha$ = 0.2).  The inset
1036 + shows the frequency region below 100 cm$^{-1}$ to highlight where the
1037 + spectra differ.}
1038 + \label{fig:methodPS}
1039 + \end{figure}
1040 +
1041 + While the high frequency regions of the power spectra for the
1042 + alternative methods are quantitatively identical with Ewald spectrum,
1043 + the low frequency region shows how the summation methods differ.
1044 + Considering the low-frequency inset (expanded in the upper frame of
1045 + figure \ref{fig:dampInc}), at frequencies below 100 cm$^{-1}$, the
1046 + correlated motions are blue-shifted when using undamped or weakly
1047 + damped {\sc sf}.  When using moderate damping ($\alpha = 0.2$
1048 + \AA$^{-1}$) both the {\sc sf} and {\sc sp} methods give nearly identical
1049 + correlated motion to the Ewald method (which has a convergence
1050 + parameter of 0.3119 \AA$^{-1}$).  This weakening of the electrostatic
1051 + interaction with increased damping explains why the long-ranged
1052 + correlated motions are at lower frequencies for the moderately damped
1053 + methods than for undamped or weakly damped methods.
1054 +
1055 + To isolate the role of the damping constant, we have computed the
1056 + spectra for a single method ({\sc sf}) with a range of damping
1057 + constants and compared this with the {\sc spme} spectrum.
1058 + Fig. \ref{fig:dampInc} shows more clearly that increasing the
1059 + electrostatic damping red-shifts the lowest frequency phonon modes.
1060 + However, even without any electrostatic damping, the {\sc sf} method
1061 + has at most a 10 cm$^{-1}$ error in the lowest frequency phonon mode.
1062 + Without the {\sc sf} modifications, an undamped (pure cutoff) method
1063 + would predict the lowest frequency peak near 325 cm$^{-1}$.  {\it
1064 + Most} of the collective behavior in the crystal is accurately captured
1065 + using the {\sc sf} method.  Quantitative agreement with Ewald can be
1066 + obtained using moderate damping in addition to the shifting at the
1067 + cutoff distance.
1068 +
1069 + \begin{figure}
1070 + \centering
1071 + \includegraphics[width = \linewidth]{./increasedDamping.pdf}
1072 + \caption{Effect of damping on the two lowest-frequency phonon modes in
1073 + the NaCl crystal at 1000~K.  The undamped shifted force ({\sc sf})
1074 + method is off by less than 10 cm$^{-1}$, and increasing the
1075 + electrostatic damping to 0.25 \AA$^{-1}$ gives quantitative agreement
1076 + with the power spectrum obtained using the Ewald sum.  Overdamping can
1077 + result in underestimates of frequencies of the long-wavelength
1078 + motions.}
1079 + \label{fig:dampInc}
1080 + \end{figure}
1081 +
1082   \section{Conclusions}
1083  
1084 + This investigation of pairwise electrostatic summation techniques
1085 + shows that there are viable and computationally efficient alternatives
1086 + to the Ewald summation.  These methods are derived from the damped and
1087 + cutoff-neutralized Coulombic sum originally proposed by Wolf
1088 + \textit{et al.}\cite{Wolf99} In particular, the {\sc sf}
1089 + method, reformulated above as eqs. (\ref{eq:DSFPot}) and
1090 + (\ref{eq:DSFForces}), shows a remarkable ability to reproduce the
1091 + energetic and dynamic characteristics exhibited by simulations
1092 + employing lattice summation techniques.  The cumulative energy
1093 + difference results showed the undamped {\sc sf} and moderately damped
1094 + {\sc sp} methods produced results nearly identical to {\sc spme}.  Similarly
1095 + for the dynamic features, the undamped or moderately damped {\sc sf}
1096 + and moderately damped {\sc sp} methods produce force and torque vector
1097 + magnitude and directions very similar to the expected values.  These
1098 + results translate into long-time dynamic behavior equivalent to that
1099 + produced in simulations using {\sc spme}.
1100 +
1101 + As in all purely-pairwise cutoff methods, these methods are expected
1102 + to scale approximately {\it linearly} with system size, and they are
1103 + easily parallelizable.  This should result in substantial reductions
1104 + in the computational cost of performing large simulations.
1105 +
1106 + Aside from the computational cost benefit, these techniques have
1107 + applicability in situations where the use of the Ewald sum can prove
1108 + problematic.  Of greatest interest is their potential use in
1109 + interfacial systems, where the unmodified lattice sum techniques
1110 + artificially accentuate the periodicity of the system in an
1111 + undesirable manner.  There have been alterations to the standard Ewald
1112 + techniques, via corrections and reformulations, to compensate for
1113 + these systems; but the pairwise techniques discussed here require no
1114 + modifications, making them natural tools to tackle these problems.
1115 + Additionally, this transferability gives them benefits over other
1116 + pairwise methods, like reaction field, because estimations of physical
1117 + properties (e.g. the dielectric constant) are unnecessary.
1118 +
1119 + If a researcher is using Monte Carlo simulations of large chemical
1120 + systems containing point charges, most structural features will be
1121 + accurately captured using the undamped {\sc sf} method or the {\sc sp}
1122 + method with an electrostatic damping of 0.2 \AA$^{-1}$.  These methods
1123 + would also be appropriate for molecular dynamics simulations where the
1124 + data of interest is either structural or short-time dynamical
1125 + quantities.  For long-time dynamics and collective motions, the safest
1126 + pairwise method we have evaluated is the {\sc sf} method with an
1127 + electrostatic damping between 0.2 and 0.25
1128 + \AA$^{-1}$.
1129 +
1130 + We are not suggesting that there is any flaw with the Ewald sum; in
1131 + fact, it is the standard by which these simple pairwise sums have been
1132 + judged.  However, these results do suggest that in the typical
1133 + simulations performed today, the Ewald summation may no longer be
1134 + required to obtain the level of accuracy most researchers have come to
1135 + expect.
1136 +
1137   \section{Acknowledgments}
1138 + Support for this project was provided by the National Science
1139 + Foundation under grant CHE-0134881.  The authors would like to thank
1140 + Steve Corcelli and Ed Maginn for helpful discussions and comments.
1141  
1142 < \newpage
1142 > \newpage
1143  
1144 < \bibliographystyle{achemso}
1144 > \bibliographystyle{jcp2}
1145   \bibliography{electrostaticMethods}
1146  
1147  

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