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Theuse of the Zwanzig equation in the calculation of single-stepperturbations to provide first-principles (ab initio) quantum mechanics (QM) correction terms to molecular mechanics(MM) free energy cycles is well established. A rigorous test of theability to converge such calculations would be very useful in thiscontext. In this work, we perform a direct assessment of the convergenceof the MM to QM perturbation, by attempting the reverse QM to MM perturbation.This required the generation of extensive QM molecular dynamics trajectories,using density functional theory (DFT), within the representative biologicalsystem of a DNA adenosine–thymidine dimer. Over 100 ps of dynamicswith the PBE functional and 6.25 ps with the LDA functional were generated.We demonstrate that calculations with total potential energies arevery poorly convergent due to a lack of overlap of phase space distributionsbetween ensembles. While not theoretically rigorous, the use of interactionenergies provides far superior convergence, despite the presence ofnonclassical charge transfer effects within the DFT trajectories.The source of poor phase space overlap for total energies is diagnosed,the approximate quantification of overlaps suggesting that even forthe comparatively simple system considered here convergence of totalenergy calculations within a reasonable simulation time is unfeasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A comprehensive conformational analysis of both 2,3-difluorobutane diastereomers is presented based on density functional theory calculations in vacuum and in solution, as well as NMR experiments in solution. While for 1,2-difluoroethane the fluorine gauche effect is clearly the dominant effect determining its conformation, it was found that for 2,3-difluorobutane there is a complex interplay of several effects, which are of similar magnitude but often of opposite sign. As a result, unexpected deviations in dihedral angles, relative conformational energies and populations are observed which cannot be rationalised only by chemical intuition. Furthermore, it was found that it is important to consider the free energies of the various conformers, as these lead to qualitatively different results both in vacuum and in solvent, when compared to calculations based only on the electronic energies. In contrast to expectations, it was found that vicinal syn-difluoride introduction in the butane and by extension, longer hydrocarbon chains, is not expected to lead to an effective stabilisation of the linear conformation. Our findings have implications for the use of the vicinal difluoride motif for conformational control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, variants of implicit solvation models for first principles electronic structure calculations based on a direct solution of the nonhomogeneous Poisson equation in real space have been developed. These implicit solvation models are very elegant from a physical point of view as the solute cavity is defined directly via isosurfaces of the electronic density, and the molecular charge is polarized self-consistently by the reaction field of the dielectric continuum which surrounds the solute. Nevertheless, the implementation of these models is technically complex and requires great care. A certain level of care is required from users of such models as a number of numerical parameters need to be given appropriate values to obtain the most accurate and physically relevant results. Here, we describe in what parts of the solvent model each of these numerical parameters is involved and present a detailed study of how they can affect the calculation, using the solvation model which has been implemented in the ONETEP program for linear-scaling density functional theory (DFT) calculations. As ONETEP is capable of DFT calculations with thousands of atoms, we focus our investigation of the numerical parameters with a case study on protein-ligand complexes of the entire 2602-atom T4 Lysozyme L99/M102Q protein. We examine effects on solvation energies and binding energies, which are critical quantities for computational drug optimization and other types of biomolecular simulations. We propose optimal choices of these parameters suitable for routine 'production' calculations. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First principles electronic structure calculations are typically performed in terms of molecular orbitals (or bands), providing a straightforward theoretical avenue for approximations of increasing sophistication, but do not usually provide any qualitative chemical information about the system. We can derive such information via post-processing using natural bond orbital (NBO) analysis, which produces a chemical picture of bonding in terms of localized Lewis-type bond and lone pair orbitals that we can use to understand molecular structure and interactions. We present NBO analysis of large-scale calculations with the ONETEP linear-scaling density functional theory package, which we have interfaced with the NBO 5 analysis program. In ONETEP calculations involving thousands of atoms, one is typically interested in particular regions of a nanosystem whilst accounting for long-range electronic effects from the entire system. We show that by transforming the Non-orthogonal Generalized Wannier Functions of ONETEP to natural atomic orbitals, NBO analysis can be performed within a localized region in such a way that ensures the results are identical to an analysis on the full system. We demonstrate the capabilities of this approach by performing illustrative studies of large proteins-namely, investigating changes in charge transfer between the heme group of myoglobin and its ligands with increasing system size and between a protein and its explicit solvent, estimating the contribution of electronic delocalization to the stabilization of hydrogen bonds in the binding pocket of a drug-receptor complex, and observing, in situ, the n → π* hyperconjugative interactions between carbonyl groups that stabilize protein backbones. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intrinsic sampling method (ISM) is a powerful tool that allows the exploration of interfacial properties from molecular simulations by fitting a function that represents the local boundary between two phases. However, owing to the non-physical nature of an "intrinsic" surface, there remains an ambiguity surrounding the comparison of theoretical properties with the physical world. It is therefore important that the ISM remains internally consistent when reproducing simulated properties which match experiments, such as the surface tension or interfacial density distribution. We show that the current ISM procedure causes an over-fitting of the surface to molecules in the interface region, leading to a biased distribution of curvature at these molecular coordinates. We assert that this biased distribution is a cause of the disparity between predicted interfacial densities upon convolution to a laboratory frame, an artefact which has been known to exist since the development of the ISM. We present an improvement to the fitting procedure of the ISM in an attempt to alleviate the ambiguity surrounding the true nature of an intrinsic surface. Our "surface reconstruction" method is able to amend the shape of the interface so as to reproduce the global curvature distribution at all sampled molecular coordinates. We present the effects that this method has on the ISM predicted structure of a simulated Lennard-Jones fluid air-liquid interface. Additionally, we report an unexpected relationship between surface thermodynamic predictions of our reconstructed ISM surfaces and those of extended capillary wave theory, which is of current interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an unexpected finite size effect affecting interfacial molecular simulations that is proportional to the width-to-surface-area ratio of the bulk phase Ll/A. This finite size effect has a significant impact on the variance of surface tension values calculated using the virial summation method. A theoretical derivation of the origin of the effect is proposed, giving a new insight into the importance of optimising system dimensions in interfacial simulations. We demonstrate the consequences of this finite size effect via a new way to estimate the surface energetic and entropic properties of simulated air-liquid interfaces. Our method is based on macroscopic thermodynamic theory and involves comparing the internal energies of systems with varying dimensions. We present the testing of these methods using simulations of the TIP4P/2005 water forcefield and a Lennard-Jones fluid model of argon. Finally, we provide suggestions of additional situations, in which this finite size effect is expected to be significant, as well as possible ways to avoid its impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, we use density functional theory to investigate the electronic structure of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) oligomers with co-located AlCl4− anions, a promising combination for energy storage. The 1980s bipolaron model remains the dominant interpretation of the electronic structure of PEDOT despite recent theoretical progress that has provided new definitions of bipolarons and polarons. By considering the influence of oligomer length, oxidation or anion concentration and spin state, we find no evidence for many of the assertions of the 1980s bipolaron model and so further contribute to a new understanding. No self-localisation of positive charges in PEDOT is found, as predicted by the bipolaron model at the hybrid functional level. Instead, our results show distortions that exhibit a single or a double peak in bond length alternations and charge density. Either can occur at different oxidation or anion concentrations. Rather than representing bipolarons or polaron pairs in the original model, these are electron distributions driven by a range of factors. Distortions can span an arbitrary number of nearby anions. We also contribute a novel conductivity hypothesis. Conductivity in conducting polymers has been observed to reduce at anion concentrations above 0.5. We show that at high anion concentrations, the energy of the localised, non-bonding anionic orbitals approaches that of the system HOMO due to Coulombic repulsion between anions. We hypothesize that with nucleic motion in the macropolymer, these orbitals will interfere with the hopping of charge carriers between sites of similar energy, lowering conductivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]