title: A Systematic Comparison of Pairwise and Many-Body Silica Potentials.
abstract: The role of many-body effects in modeling silica was investigated using self-consistent force matching. Both pairwise and polarizable classical force fields were developed systematically from ab initio density functional theory force calculations, allowing for a direct comparison of the role of polarization in silica. It was observed that the pairwise potential performed remarkably well at reproducing the basic silica tetrahedral structure. However, the Si-O-Si angle that links the silica tetrahedra showed small but distinct differences with the polarizable potential, a result of the inability of the pairwise potential to properly account for variations in the polarization of the oxygens. Furthermore, the transferability of the polarizable potential was investigated and suggests that additional forces may be necessary to more completely describe silica annealing.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Columbia University, 3000 Broadway, Mail Code 3103, New York City, New York 10027.
authors.forename: Sterling
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Paramore
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Columbia University, 3000 Broadway, Mail Code 3103, New York City, New York 10027.
authors.forename: Liwen
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Columbia University, 3000 Broadway, Mail Code 3103, New York City, New York 10027.
authors.forename: Bruce J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Berne