Tabulated interaction functions

Cubic splines for potentials

In some of the inner loops of GROMACS, look-up tables are used for computation of potential and forces. The tables are interpolated using a cubic spline algorithm. There are separate tables for electrostatic, dispersion, and repulsion interactions, but for the sake of caching performance these have been combined into a single array. The cubic spline interpolation for \(x_i \leq x < x_{i+1}\) looks like this:

(416)\[V_s(x) = A_0 + A_1 \,\epsilon + A_2 \,\epsilon^2 + A_3 \,\epsilon^3\]

where the table spacing \(h\) and fraction \(\epsilon\) are given by:

(417)\[\begin{split}\begin{aligned} h &=& x_{i+1} - x_i \\ \epsilon&=& (x - x_i)/h\end{aligned}\end{split}\]

so that \(0 \le \epsilon < 1\). From this, we can calculate the derivative in order to determine the forces:

(418)\[-V_s'(x) ~=~ -\frac{{\rm d}V_s(x)}{{\rm d}\epsilon}\frac{{\rm d}\epsilon}{{\rm d}x} ~=~ -(A_1 + 2 A_2 \,\epsilon + 3 A_3 \,\epsilon^2)/h\]

The four coefficients are determined from the four conditions that \(V_s\) and \(-V_s'\) at both ends of each interval should match the exact potential \(V\) and force \(-V'\). This results in the following errors for each interval:

(419)\[\begin{split}\begin{aligned} | V_s - V | _{max} &=& V'''' \frac{h^4}{384} + O(h^5) \\ | V_s' - V' | _{max} &=& V'''' \frac{h^3}{72\sqrt{3}} + O(h^4) \\ | V_s''- V''| _{max} &=& V'''' \frac{h^2}{12} + O(h^3)\end{aligned}\end{split}\]

V and V’ are continuous, while V” is the first discontinuous derivative. The number of points per nanometer is 500 and 2000 for mixed- and double-precision versions of GROMACS, respectively. This means that the errors in the potential and force will usually be smaller than the mixed precision accuracy.

GROMACS stores \(A_0\), \(A_1\), \(A_2\) and \(A_3\). The force routines get a table with these four parameters and a scaling factor \(s\) that is equal to the number of points per nm. (Note that \(h\) is \(s^{-1}\)). The algorithm goes a little something like this:

  1. Calculate distance vector (\(\mathbf{r}_{ij}\)) and distance r\(_{ij}\)

  2. Multiply r\(_{ij}\) by \(s\) and truncate to an integer value \(n_0\) to get a table index

  3. Calculate fractional component (\(\epsilon\) = \(s\)r\(_{ij} - n_0\)) and \(\epsilon^2\)

  4. Do the interpolation to calculate the potential \(V\) and the scalar force \(f\)

  5. Calculate the vector force \(\mathbf{F}\) by multiplying \(f\) with \(\mathbf{r}_{ij}\)

Note that table look-up is significantly slower than computation of the most simple Lennard-Jones and Coulomb interaction. However, it is much faster than the shifted Coulomb function used in conjunction with the PPPM method. Finally, it is much easier to modify a table for the potential (and get a graphical representation of it) than to modify the inner loops of the MD program.

User-specified potential functions

You can also use your own potential functions without editing the GROMACS code. The potential function should be according to the following equation

(420)\[V(r_{ij}) ~=~ \frac{q_i q_j}{4 \pi\epsilon_0} f(r_{ij}) + C_6 \,g(r_{ij}) + C_{12} \,h(r_{ij})\]

where \(f\), \(g\), and \(h\) are user defined functions. Note that if \(g(r)\) represents a normal dispersion interaction, \(g(r)\) should be \(<\) 0. C\(_6\), C\(_{12}\) and the charges are read from the topology. Also note that combination rules are only supported for Lennard-Jones and Buckingham, and that your tables should match the parameters in the binary topology.

When you add the following lines in your mdp file:

rlist           = 1.0
coulombtype     = User
rcoulomb        = 1.0
vdwtype         = User
rvdw            = 1.0

mdrun will read a single non-bonded table file, or multiple when energygrp-table is set (see below). The name of the file(s) can be set with the mdrun option -table. The table file should contain seven columns of table look-up data in the order: \(x\), \(f(x)\), \(-f'(x)\), \(g(x)\), \(-g'(x)\), \(h(x)\), \(-h'(x)\). The \(x\) should run from 0 to \(r_c+1\) (the value of table_extension can be changed in the mdp file). You can choose the spacing you like; for the standard tables GROMACS uses a spacing of 0.002 and 0.0005 nm when you run in mixed and double precision, respectively. In this context, \(r_c\) denotes the maximum of the two cut-offs rvdw and rcoulomb (see above). These variables need not be the same (and need not be 1.0 either). Some functions used for potentials contain a singularity at \(x = 0\), but since atoms are normally not closer to each other than 0.1 nm, the function value at \(x = 0\) is not important. Finally, it is also possible to combine a standard Coulomb with a modified LJ potential (or vice versa). One then specifies e.g. coulombtype = Cut-off or coulombtype = PME, combined with vdwtype = User. The table file must always contain the 7 columns however, and meaningful data (i.e. not zeroes) must be entered in all columns. A number of pre-built table files can be found in the GMXLIB directory for 6-8, 6-9, 6-10, 6-11, and 6-12 Lennard-Jones potentials combined with a normal Coulomb.

If you want to have different functional forms between different groups of atoms, this can be set through energy groups. Different tables can be used for non-bonded interactions between different energy groups pairs through the mdp option energygrp-table (see details in the User Guide). Atoms that should interact with a different potential should be put into different energy groups. Between group pairs which are not listed in energygrp-table, the normal user tables will be used. This makes it easy to use a different functional form between a few types of atoms.