[gmx-developers] Conserved energy drifts more with shorter time steps

David van der Spoel spoel at xray.bmc.uu.se
Tue Jun 2 15:08:13 CEST 2015


On 02/06/15 14:30, Berk Hess wrote:
> On 2015-06-02 14:26, David van der Spoel wrote:
>> On 02/06/15 14:05, Berk Hess wrote:
>>> I assume David is looking at the conserved energy quantity.
>> Indeed, averages and drift over 900 ps, 1000 molecules:
>>
>> Energy            Average   Err.Est.       RMSD  Tot-Drift
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Total Energy      20460.7        2.5    778.213    12.4265 (kJ/mol)
>> Conserved En.     -4384.7        380    778.283    2665.29 (kJ/mol)
>>
>>>
>>> But I just noticed that Verlet - buffer - tolerance is not mentioned,
>>> so I assume it is default. The drift estimate is an overestimate
>>> which is tighter for shorter pair list lifetimes. I guess that is the
>>> explanation. Set it very low, so you are sure the energy drift is not
>>> affected by the (too small) buffer.
>>>
>> This may be the default.
>>    verlet-buffer-tolerance        = 0.005
>> should we set it to 1e-5 or something like that?
> It depends on how low drift you want to be able to measure. You need to
> set it lower than the drift you want to be able to measure.
Ok, will try. What about the time step dependence? Any clue?


>
> Berk
>>
>>> Berk
>>>
>>> On Jun 2, 2015 1:45 PM, "Shirts, Michael R. (mrs5pt)"
>>> <mrs5pt at eservices.virginia.edu> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> How do we run more NVE than with the settings below?
>>>>
>>>>     tcoupl                         = Nose-Hoover
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Would make it not NVE.
>> Turning tcoupl off would not keep the temperature constant of course,
>> seeing that there is a drift in the conserved energy this means that
>> the temperature will change.
>>
>> However, the main question was why does "conserved-energy
>> conservation" get worse when the time step is reduced? Integration
>> should presumably become more accurate, or not? Or does one need
>> double precision for short time steps?
>>
>>
>>>>
>>>> Do you mean the conserved quantity isn't conserved?  Energy certainly
>>>> won't be conserved with Nose-Hoover.
>>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>>> Michael Shirts
>>>> Associate Professor
>>>> Department of Chemical Engineering
>>>> University of Virginia
>>>> michael.shirts at virginia.edu
>>>> (434) 243-1821
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 6/2/15, 7:22 AM, "David van der Spoel" <spoel at xray.bmc.uu.se> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On 02/06/15 12:47, Berk Hess wrote:
>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So this is not using SETTLE or LINCS?
>>>>>> With SETTLE this is a known issue.
>>>>> No this is flexible organic molecules at contant volume.
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Did you try running NVE?
>>>>> How do we run more NVE than with the settings below?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Berk
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 2015-06-02 12:43, David van der Spoel wrote:
>>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> this is in between a user and a developer query. We find that for
>>>>>>> flexible liquid simulations using gromacs 5.0.4/single precision the
>>>>>>> energy conservation gets WORSE with decreasing time step. A plot
>>>>>>> showing this is in
>>>>>>> http://folding.bmc.uu.se/images/Econserved-timestep.xvg or
>>>>>>> http://folding.bmc.uu.se/images/Econserved-timestep.pdf
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> MDP settings
>>>>>>>      coulombtype                    = PME
>>>>>>>      coulomb-modifier               = Potential-shift
>>>>>>>      rcoulomb-switch                = 0
>>>>>>>      rcoulomb                       = 1.1
>>>>>>>      epsilon-r                      = 1
>>>>>>>      epsilon-rf                     = inf
>>>>>>>      vdw-type                       = PME
>>>>>>>      vdw-modifier                   = Potential-shift
>>>>>>>      rvdw-switch                    = 0
>>>>>>>      rvdw                           = 1.1
>>>>>>>      tcoupl                         = Nose-Hoover
>>>>>>>      nsttcouple                     = 10
>>>>>>>      nh-chain-length                = 1
>>>>>>>      pcoupl                         = No
>>>>>>>      ref-t:      298.15
>>>>>>>      tau-t:         0.5
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Any clues whether we are doing something wrong? Or is there a bug?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> David van der Spoel, Ph.D., Professor of Biology
>>>>> Dept. of Cell & Molec. Biol., Uppsala University.
>>>>> Box 596, 75124 Uppsala, Sweden. Phone: +46184714205.
>>>>> spoel at xray.bmc.uu.se    http://folding.bmc.uu.se
>>>>> --
>>>>> Gromacs Developers mailing list
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>>>>
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>>
>


-- 
David van der Spoel, Ph.D., Professor of Biology
Dept. of Cell & Molec. Biol., Uppsala University.
Box 596, 75124 Uppsala, Sweden. Phone:	+46184714205.
spoel at xray.bmc.uu.se    http://folding.bmc.uu.se


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