Configurational temperature in active matter. I. Lines of invariant physics in the phase diagram of the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck model

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Timesteps: Excess Entropy Scaling for Rapid Estimation of Diffusion Coefficients in Molecular-Dynamics Simulations of Fluids

In molecular-dynamics simulations of fluids, the Einstein-Helfand (EH) and Green-Kubo (GK) relationships are frequently used to compute a variety of transport coefficients, including diffusion coefficients. These relationships are formally valid in the limit of infinite sampling time: The error in the estimate of a transport coefficient (relative to an infinitely long simulation) asymptotically approaches zero as more dynamics are simulated and recorded. In practice, of course, one can only simulate a finite number of particles for a finite amount of time. In this work, we show that in this pre-asymptotic regime, an approach for estimating diffusion coefficients based upon excess entropy scaling (EES) achieves a significantly lower error than either EH or GK relationships at fixed online sampling time. This approach requires access only to structural information at the level of the radial distribution function (RDF). We further demonstrate that the use of a recently developed RDF mollification scheme significantly reduces the amount of sampling time needed to converge to the long-time value of the diffusion coefficient. We also demonstrate favorable sample-to-sample variances in the diffusion coefficient estimate obtained using EES as compared to those obtained using EH and GK.

Noether-Constrained Correlations in Equilibrium Liquids

Liquid structure carries deep imprints of an inherent thermal invariance against a spatial transformation of the underlying classical many-body Hamiltonian. At first order in the transformation field Noether's theorem yields the local force balance. Three distinct two-body correlation functions emerge at second order, namely the standard two-body density, the localized force-force correlation function, and the localized force gradient. An exact Noether sum rule interrelates these correlators. Simulations of Lennard-Jones, Yukawa, soft-sphere dipolar, Stockmayer, Gay-Berne and Weeks-Chandler-Andersen liquids, of monatomic water and of a colloidal gel former demonstrate the fundamental role in the characterization of spatial structure.

Configurational temperature in active matter. II. Quantifying the deviation from thermal equilibrium

This paper proposes using the configurational temperature T_{conf} for quantifying how far an active-matter system is from thermal equilibrium. We measure this "distance" by the ratio of the systemic temperature T_{s} to T_{conf}, where T_{s} is the canonical-ensemble temperature for which the average potential energy is equal to that of the active-matter system. T_{conf} is "local" in the sense that it is the average of a function, which depends only on how the potential energy varies in the vicinity of a given configuration. In contrast, T_{s} is a global quantity. The quantity T_{s}/T_{conf} is straightforward to evaluate in a computer simulation; equilibrium simulations in conjunction with a single steady-state active-matter configuration are enough to determine T_{s}/T_{conf}. We validate the suggestion that T_{s}/T_{conf} quantifies the deviation from thermal equilibrium by data for the radial distribution function of the 3D Kob-Andersen and 2D Yukawa active-matter models with active Ornstein-Uhlenbeck and active Brownian Particle dynamics. Moreover, we show that T_{s}/T_{conf}, structure, and dynamics of the homogeneous phase are all approximately invariant along the motility-induced phase separation boundary in the phase diagram of the 2D Yukawa model. The measure T_{s}/T_{conf} is not limited to active matter and can be used for quantifying how far any system involving a potential-energy function, e.g., a driven Hamiltonian system, is from thermal equilibrium.