title: Optimizing the driving function for nonequilibrium free-energy calculations in the linear regime: a variational approach.
abstract: We consider the issue of optimizing linear-regime nonequilibrium simulations to estimate free-energy differences. In particular, we focus on the problem of finding the best-possible driving function lambda(t) that, for a given thermodynamic path, simulation algorithm, and amount of computational effort, minimizes dissipation. From the fluctuation-dissipation theorem it follows that, in the linear-response regime, the dissipation is controlled by the magnitude and characteristic correlation time of the equilibrium fluctuations in the driving force. As a result, the problem of finding the optimal switching scheme involves the solution of a standard problem in variational calculus: the minimization of a functional with respect to the switching function. In practice, the minimization involves solving the associated Euler-Lagrange equation subject to a set of boundary conditions. As a demonstration we apply the approach to the simple, yet illustrative problem of computing the free-energy difference between two classical harmonic oscillators with very different characteristic frequencies.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Física, Universidade de São Paulo, Caixa Postal 66318, 05315-970 São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
authors.forename: Maurice
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: de Koning