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Creating a Metadata File
The actual creation of a metadata file requires several key
components. The first part of the file needs to be the declaration of
all of the molecule prototypes used in the simulation. This is
typically done through included meta-data files. Only the molecules
actually present in the simulation need to be declared; however, OOPSE allows for the declaration of more molecules than are
needed. This gives the user the ability to build up a library of
commonly used molecules into a single include file.
Once all prototypes are declared, the ordering of the rest of the
script is less stringent. The molecular composition of the simulation
is specified with component statements. Each different type of
molecule present in the simulation is considered a separate
component. The number of components must be declared before the first
component block statement (an example is shown in
Sch. 2.3). The component blocks tell OOPSE the
number of molecules that will be in the simulation, and the order in
which the components blocks are declared sets the ordering of the real
atoms in the configuration file as well as in the output files. The
remainder of the script then sets the various simulation parameters
for the system of interest.
The required set of parameters that must be present in all simulations
is given in Table 2.1. Since the user can use OOPSE to perform energy minimizations as well as molecular dynamics
simulations, one of the minimizer or ensemble keywords
must be present. The ensemble keyword is responsible for
selecting the integration method used for the calculation of the
equations of motion. An in depth discussion of the various methods
available in OOPSE can be found in
Sec. 4. The minimizer keyword selects
which minimization method to use, and more details on the choices of
minimizer parameters can be found in
Sec. 5. The forceField statement is
important for the selection of which forces will be used in the course
of the simulation. OOPSE supports several force fields, as
outlined in Sec. 3. The force fields are
interchangeable between simulations, with the only requirement being
that all atoms needed by the simulation are defined within the
selected force field.
For molecular dynamics simulations, the time step between force
evaluations is set with the dt parameter, and runTime will
set the time length of the simulation. Note, that runTime is an
absolute time, meaning if the simulation is started at t = 10.0 ns
with a runTime of 25.0 ns, the simulation will only run for an
additional 15.0 ns.
For energy minimizations, it is not necessary to specify dt or
runTime.
The final required parameter is the initialConfig
statement. This will set the initial coordinates for the system, as
well as the initial time if the useInitalTime flag is set to
true. The format of the file specified in initialConfig,
is given in Sec. 2.4. Additional parameters are
summarized in Table 2.2.
It is important to note the fundamental units in all files which are
read and written by OOPSE. Energies are in
kcal
mol
, distances are in
Å
, times are in fs
,
translational velocities are in
Å fs
, and masses are
in
amu
. Orientational degrees of freedom are described using
quaternions (unitless, but
),
body-fixed angular momenta (
amu Å radians
fs
), and body-fixed moments of inertia (
amu Å
).
Table 2.1:
Meta-data Keywords: Required Parameters
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Table 2.2:
Meta-data Keywords: General Parameters
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