AN EWALD SUMMATION METHOD FOR PLANAR SURFACES AND INTERFACES

A method is presented for the summation of long range coulomb interactions in systems with periodicity in two dimensions and a finite thickness in the third dimension: a geometry appropriate for simulations of surfaces and interfaces containing charged particles. The numerical requirements of the method parallel those of the widely used Ewald methods for systems with periodicity in three dimensions. The method is tested using configurations from molecular dynamics simulations of monolayers of chain molecules terminated by polar tail groups.