ON THE FUNCTIONAL REPRESENTATION OF BOND-ENERGY FUNCTIONS

Ab initio calculations are used to test the ability of various representations to reproduce bond energies. It is found that expansion in 1/R, where R is the bond length, is remarkably efficient and is consistently better than the usual R expansion. A quadratic form in 1/R is better than a cubic representation in R and sometimes even as good as a quartic representation. A cubic function in 1/R is, in all cases studied, better performing than the quartic expansion in R. It is also found that parameters derived with the 1/R expansion are defined more sharply than those derived for the R expansion. It is suggested that the 1/R expansion may be computationally more efficient for simulations of large biomolecules and for constructions of reactive force fields than the standard bond functions. (C) 1994 by John Wiley and Sons, Inc.