Efficient Use of an Adapting Database of Ab Initio Calculations To Generate Accurate Newtonian Dynamics.

ABSTRACT

We develop and demonstrate a method to efficiently use density functional calculations to drive classical dynamics of complex atomic and molecular systems. The method has the potential to scale to systems and time scales unreachable with current ab initio molecular dynamics schemes. It relies on an adapting dataset of independently computed Hellmann-Feynman forces for atomic configurations endowed with a distance metric. The metric on configurations enables fast database lookup and robust interpolation of the stored forces. We discuss mechanisms for the database to adapt to the needs of the evolving dynamics, while maintaining accuracy, and other extensions of the basic algorithm.