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ZDISTANCES
This is part of the multicolvar module

Calculate the z components of the vectors connecting one or many pairs of atoms. You can then calculate functions of the distribution of values such as the minimum, the number less than a certain quantity and so on.

Description of components

When the label of this action is used as the input for a second you are not referring to a scalar quantity as you are in regular collective variables. The label is used to reference the full set of quantities calculated by the action. This is usual when using MultiColvar functions. Generally when doing this the previously calculated multicolvar will be referenced using the DATA keyword rather than ARG.

This Action can be used to calculate the following scalar quantities directly. These quantities are calculated by employing the keywords listed below. These quantities can then be referenced elsewhere in the input file by using this Action's label followed by a dot and the name of the quantity. Some amongst them can be calculated multiple times with different parameters. In this case the quantities calculated can be referenced elsewhere in the input by using the name of the quantity followed by a numerical identifier e.g. label.lessthan-1, label.lessthan-2 etc. When doing this and, for clarity we have made the label of the components customizable. As such by using the LABEL keyword in the description of the keyword input you can customize the component name

Quantity Keyword Description
dhenergy DHENERGY the Debye-Huckel interaction energy. You can calculate this quantity multiple times using different parameters
between BETWEEN the number/fraction of values within a certain range. This is calculated using one of the formula described in the description of the keyword so as to make it continuous. You can calculate this quantity multiple times using different parameters.
lessthan LESS_THAN the number of values less than a target value. This is calculated using one of the formula described in the description of the keyword so as to make it continuous. You can calculate this quantity multiple times using different parameters.
mean MEAN the mean value. The output component can be refererred to elsewhere in the input file by using the label.mean
min MIN the minimum value. This is calculated using the formula described in the description of the keyword so as to make it continuous.
moment MOMENTS the central moments of the distribution of values. The second moment would be referenced elsewhere in the input file using label.moment-2, the third as label.moment-3, etc.
morethan MORE_THAN the number of values more than a target value. This is calculated using one of the formula described in the description of the keyword so as to make it continuous. You can calculate this quantity multiple times using different parameters.
The atoms involved can be specified using
ATOMS the atoms involved in each of the collective variables you wish to calculate. Keywords like ATOMS1, ATOMS2, ATOMS3,... should be listed and one CV will be calculated for each ATOM keyword you specify (all ATOM keywords should define the same number of atoms). The eventual number of quantities calculated by this action will depend on what functions of the distribution you choose to calculate. You can use multiple instances of this keyword i.e. ATOMS1, ATOMS2, ATOMS3...
Or alternatively by using
GROUP Calculate the distance between each distinct pair of atoms in the group
Or alternatively by using
GROUPA Calculate the distances between all the atoms in GROUPA and all the atoms in GROUPB. This must be used in conjuction with GROUPB.
GROUPB Calculate the distances between all the atoms in GROUPA and all the atoms in GROUPB. This must be used in conjuction with GROUPA.
Options
NUMERICAL_DERIVATIVES ( default=off ) calculate the derivatives for these quantities numerically
NOPBC ( default=off ) ignore the periodic boundary conditions when calculating distances
SERIAL ( default=off ) do the calculation in serial. Do not parallelize
LOWMEM ( default=off ) lower the memory requirements
VERBOSE ( default=off ) write a more detailed output
MEAN

( default=off ) take the mean of these variables. The final value can be referenced using label.mean

TOL this keyword can be used to speed up your calculation. When accumulating sums in which the individual terms are numbers inbetween zero and one it is assumed that terms less than a certain tolerance make only a small contribution to the sum. They can thus be safely ignored as can the the derivatives wrt these small quantities.
MIN calculate the minimum value. To make this quantity continuous the minimum is calculated using \( \textrm{min} = \frac{\beta}{ \log \sum_i \exp\left( \frac{\beta}{s_i} \right) } \) The value of \(\beta\) in this function is specified using (BETA= \(\beta\)) The final value can be referenced using label.min.
LESS_THAN calculate the number of variables less than a certain target value. This quantity is calculated using \(\sum_i \sigma(s_i)\), where \(\sigma(s)\) is a switchingfunction. The final value can be referenced using label.less_than. You can use multiple instances of this keyword i.e. LESS_THAN1, LESS_THAN2, LESS_THAN3... The corresponding values are then referenced using label.less_than-1, label.less_than-2, label.less_than-3...
DHENERGY calculate the Debye-Huckel interaction energy. This is a alternative implementation of DHENERGY that is particularly useful if you want to calculate the Debye-Huckel interaction energy and some other function of set of distances between the atoms in the two groups. The input for this keyword should read DHENERGY={I= \(I\) TEMP= \(T\) EPSILON= \(\epsilon\)}. You can use multiple instances of this keyword i.e. DHENERGY1, DHENERGY2, DHENERGY3...
MORE_THAN calculate the number of variables more than a certain target value. This quantity is calculated using \(\sum_i 1.0 - \sigma(s_i)\), where \(\sigma(s)\) is a switchingfunction. The final value can be referenced using label.more_than. You can use multiple instances of this keyword i.e. MORE_THAN1, MORE_THAN2, MORE_THAN3... The corresponding values are then referenced using label.more_than-1, label.more_than-2, label.more_than-3...
BETWEEN calculate the number of values that are within a certain range. These quantities are calculated using kernel density estimation as described on histogrambead. The final value can be referenced using label.between. You can use multiple instances of this keyword i.e. BETWEEN1, BETWEEN2, BETWEEN3... The corresponding values are then referenced using label.between-1, label.between-2, label.between-3...
HISTOGRAM calculate a discretized histogram of the distribution of values. This shortcut allows you to calculates NBIN quantites like BETWEEN.
MOMENTS

calculate the moments of the distribution of collective variables. The \(m\)th moment of a distribution is calculated using \(\frac{1}{N} \sum_{i=1}^N ( s_i - \overline{s} )^m \), where \(\overline{s}\) is the average for the distribution. The moments keyword takes a lists of integers as input or a range. Each integer is a value of \(m\). The final calculated values can be referenced using moment- \(m\).

Examples

See documentation for XDISTANCES for examples of how to use this command. You just need to substitute ZDISTANCES for XDISTANCES to investigate the z component rather than the x component.