ECV_MULTITHERMAL
This is part of the opes module
It is only available if you configure PLUMED with ./configure –enable-modules=opes . Furthermore, this feature is still being developed so take care when using it and report any problems on the mailing list.

Expand a simulation to sample multiple temperatures simultaneously.

The internal energy \(U\) of of the system should be used as ARG.

\[ \Delta u_{\beta'}=(\beta'-\beta) U\, , \]

where \(\beta'\) are the temperatures to be sampled and \(\beta\) is the temperature at which the simulation is conducted. In case of fixed volume, the internal energy is simply the potential energy given by the ENERGY colvar \(U=E\), and you will run a multicanonical simulation. If instead the simulation is at fixed pressure \(p\), the contribution of the volume must be added \(U=E+pV\) (see example below).

By defauly the needed steps in temperatures are automatically guessed from few initial unbiased MD steps, as descibed in [60]. Otherwise you can manually set this number with TEMP_STEPS. In both cases the steps will be geometrically spaced in temperature. Use instead the keyword NO_GEOM_SPACING for a linear spacing in the inverse temperature (beta), that typically increases the focus on lower temperatures. Finally, you can use instead the keyword TEMP_SET_ALL and explicitly provide each temperature.

You can reweight the resulting simulation at any temperature in the chosen range, using e.g. REWEIGHT_TEMP_PRESS. A similar target distribution can be sampled using TD_MULTICANONICAL.

Examples

Fixed volume, multicanonical simulation:

Click on the labels of the actions for more information on what each action computes
tested on master
ene: ENERGY 
ecv: ECV_MULTITHERMAL 
ARG
compulsory keyword the label of the internal energy of the system.
=ene
TEMP
compulsory keyword ( default=-1 ) temperature.
=300
TEMP_MIN
the minimum of the temperature range
=300
TEMP_MAX
the maximum of the temperature range
=800 opes: OPES_EXPANDED
ARG
compulsory keyword the label of the ECVs that define the expansion.
=ecv.ene
PACE
compulsory keyword how often the bias is updated
=500

which, if your MD code passes the temperature to PLUMED, is equivalent to:

Click on the labels of the actions for more information on what each action computes
tested on master
ene: ENERGY 
ecv: ECV_MULTITHERMAL 
ARG
compulsory keyword the label of the internal energy of the system.
=ene
TEMP_MAX
the maximum of the temperature range
=800 opes: OPES_EXPANDED
ARG
compulsory keyword the label of the ECVs that define the expansion.
=ecv.ene
PACE
compulsory keyword how often the bias is updated
=500

If instead the pressure is fixed and the volume changes, you shuld calculate the internal energy first, \(U=E+pV\)

Click on the labels of the actions for more information on what each action computes
tested on master




Notice that \(p=0.06022140857\) corresponds to 1 bar when using the default PLUMED units.

Glossary of keywords and components
Compulsory keywords
TEMP ( default=-1 ) temperature. If not specified tries to get it from MD engine
ARG the label of the internal energy of the system. If volume is fixed it is calculated by the ENERGY colvar
Options
NUMERICAL_DERIVATIVES ( default=off ) calculate the derivatives for these quantities numerically
NO_GEOM_SPACING

( default=off ) do not use geometrical spacing in temperature, but instead linear spacing in inverse temperature

TEMP_MIN the minimum of the temperature range
TEMP_MAX the maximum of the temperature range
TEMP_STEPS the number of steps in temperature
TEMP_SET_ALL manually set all the temperatures