English

Local order parameters for use in driving homogeneous ice nucleation with all-atom models of water

Statistical Mechanics 2012-11-22 v2 Chemical Physics

Abstract

We present a local order parameter based on the standard Steinhardt-Ten Wolde approach that is capable both of tracking and of driving homogeneous ice nucleation in simulations of all-atom models of water. We demonstrate that it is capable of forcing the growth of ice nuclei in supercooled liquid water simulated using the TIP4P/2005 model using overbiassed umbrella sampling Monte Carlo simulations. However, even with such an order parameter, the dynamics of ice growth in deeply supercooled liquid water in all-atom models of water are shown to be very slow, and so the computation of free energy landscapes and nucleation rates remains extremely challenging.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1208.6033,
  title  = {Local order parameters for use in driving homogeneous ice nucleation with all-atom models of water},
  author = {Aleks Reinhardt and Jonathan P. K. Doye and Eva G. Noya and Carlos Vega},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1208.6033},
  year   = {2012}
}

Comments

This version incorporates the minor changes made to the paper following peer review