title: Development and application of a particle-particle particle-mesh Ewald method for dispersion interactions.
abstract: For inhomogeneous systems with interfaces, the inclusion of long-range dispersion interactions is necessary to achieve consistency between molecular simulation calculations and experimental results. For accurate and efficient incorporation of these contributions, we have implemented a particle-particle particle-mesh Ewald solver for dispersion (r(-6)) interactions into the LAMMPS molecular dynamics package. We demonstrate that the solver's O(N log N) scaling behavior allows its application to large-scale simulations. We carefully determine a set of parameters for the solver that provides accurate results and efficient computation. We perform a series of simulations with Lennard-Jones particles, SPC/E water, and hexane to show that with our choice of parameters the dependence of physical results on the chosen cutoff radius is removed. Physical results and computation time of these simulations are compared to results obtained using either a plain cutoff or a traditional Ewald sum for dispersion.
authors.affiliation: Aachener Verfahrenstechnik: Molecular Simulations and Transformations, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, and AICES Graduate School, RWTH Aachen University, Schinkelstr. 2, 52062 Aachen, Germany. isele@aices.rwth-aachen.de
authors.forename: Rolf E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Isele-Holder
authors.forename: Wayne
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Mitchell
authors.forename: Ahmed E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Ismail
mesh_terms: D006586:Hexanes / Q000737:chemistry; D008958:Models, Molecular; D055585:Physical Phenomena; D013500:Surface Tension; D014867:Water / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D006586:Hexanes; D014867:Water