Stereographic projection path-integral simulations of (HF)n clusters

Electrolyte clusters as hydrogen sponges: diffusion Monte Carlo simulations

We carry out Diffusion Monte Carlo simulations of up to five hydrogen molecules aggregated with two Stockmayer clusters that solvate a single lithium ion. The first one contains six point dipole solvent particles with parameters tuned to emulate nitromethane. The second cluster is a relative large system investigated recently [G. DiEmma, S. Kalette, and E. Curotto, Chem. Phys. Lett. 2019, 725, 80-86]. In both cases we find that the aggregated hydrogen molecules perturb significantly the ground state of the host cluster and form a distorted tetrahedral cage around the Li⁺ ion. The fifth hydrogen molecule is absorbed by the larger Stockmayer cluster while remaining in the proximity of the solvated charge.

Graph theoretical enumeration of topology-distinct structures for hydrogen fluoride clusters (HF)n (n ≤ 6)

A graph theoretical procedure to generate all the possible topology-distinct structures for hydrogen fluoride (HF) clusters is presented in this work. The hydrogen bond matrix is defined and used to enumerate the topology-distinct structures of hydrogen fluoride (HF)n (n = 2-8) clusters. From close investigation of the structural patterns obtained, several restrictions that should be satisfied for a structure of the HF clusters to be stable are found. The corresponding digraphs of generated hydrogen bond matrices are used as the theoretical framework to obtain all the topology-distinct local minima for (HF)n (n ≤ 6), at the level of MP2/6-31G**(d, p) of ab initio MO method and B3LYP/6-31G**(d, p) of density functional theory method. For HF clusters up to tetramers, the local minimum structures that we generated are same as those in the literature. For HF pentamers and hexamers, we found some new local minima structures which had not been obtained previously.

Ring polymer dynamics in curved spaces

We formulate an extension of the ring polymer dynamics approach to curved spaces using stereographic projection coordinates. We test the theory by simulating the particle in a ring, T(1), mapped by a stereographic projection using three potentials. Two of these are quadratic, and one is a nonconfining sinusoidal model. We propose a new class of algorithms for the integration of the ring polymer Hamilton equations in curved spaces. These are designed to improve the energy conservation of symplectic integrators based on the split operator approach. For manifolds, the position-position autocorrelation function can be formulated in numerous ways. We find that the position-position autocorrelation function computed from configurations in the Euclidean space R(2) that contains T(1) as a submanifold has the best statistical properties. The agreement with exact results obtained with vector space methods is excellent for all three potentials, for all values of time in the interval simulated, and for a relatively broad range of temperatures.

Rigid quantum Monte Carlo simulations of condensed molecular matter: Water clusters in the n=2→8 range

The numerical advantage of quantum Monte Carlo simulations of rigid bodies relative to the flexible simulations is investigated for some simple systems. The results show that if high frequency modes in molecular condensed matter are predominantly in the ground state, the convergence of path integral simulations becomes nonuniform. Rigid body quantum parallel tempering simulations are necessary to accurately capture thermodynamic phenomena in the temperature range where the dynamics are influenced by intermolecular degrees of freedom; the stereographic projection path integral adapted for quantum simulations of asymmetric tops is a significantly more efficient strategy compared with Cartesian coordinate simulations for molecular condensed matter under these conditions. The reweighted random series approach for stereographic path integral Monte Carlo is refined and implemented for the quantum simulation of water clusters treated as an assembly of rigid asymmetric tops.