Computer simulation study of inelastic neutron scattering from liquid water

Molecular dynamics integration and molecular vibrational theory. I. New symplectic integrators

New symplectic integrators have been developed by combining molecular dynamics integration with the standard theory of molecular vibrations to solve the Hamiltonian equations of motion. The presented integrators analytically resolve the internal high-frequency molecular vibrations by introducing a translating and rotating internal coordinate system of a molecule and calculating normal modes of an isolated molecule only. The translation and rotation of a molecule are treated as vibrational motions with the vibrational frequency zero. All types of motion are thus described in terms of the normal coordinates. The method's time reversibility requirement was used to determine the equations of motion for internal coordinate system of a molecule. The calculation of long-range forces is performed numerically within the generalized second-order leap-frog scheme, in the same way as in standard second-order symplectic methods. The new methods for integrating classical equations of motion using normal mode analysis allow us to use a long integration step and are applicable to any system of molecules with one equilibrium configuration.

Nature of self-diffusion and viscosity in supercooled liquid water

The nature of the simplest transport processes in water, namely, self-diffusion and shear viscosity, is analyzed on the basis of a version of the microinhomogeneous structure model. The study predicts the existence of locally ordered groups of molecules, taking into account considerations of acoustic properties, light scattering, and computer simulation findings. In particular, it is shown that the anomalous properties of water in supercooled states are mainly connected with the existence of quasiordered regions, which we call clusters. Furthermore, the spatial sizes and evolution times of the crystal-like clusters, as well as the temperature dependence of their fraction volume, are established. Special invariants of the characteristic parameters of molecular motion are pointed out. Finally, it is shown that the self-diffusion in supercooled water is caused by the processes of formation and destruction of crystal-like clusters, while the processes of internal partial reconstruction give the main contribution to the shear viscosity coefficient.