Nano-Rover Solar Sail Dynamic Simulation
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The Nanorover Solar Sail is a concept being evaluated for the deployment of small rovers that may be used for extra-terrestial exploration.
Mixed-quantum-classical molecular dynamics simulation implies an effective quantum measurement on the electronic states by the classical motion of atoms. Based on this insight, we propose a quantum trajectory mean-field approach for nonadiabatic molecular dynamics simulations. The new protocol provides a natural interface between the separate quantum and classical treatments, without invoking artificial surface hopping algorithm. Moreover, it also bridges two widely adopted nonadiabatic dynamics methods, the Ehrenfest mean-field theory and the trajectory surface-hopping method. Excellent agreement with the exact results is illustrated with representative model systems, including the challenging ones for traditional methods.
Composition dependent structural and dynamical properties of aqueous hydrophobic 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate ([BMIM][PF{sub 6}]) ionic liquid (IL) have been investigated by using all-atom molecular dynamics simulation. We observe that addition of water does not increase significant number of dissociated ions in the solution over the pure state. As a consequence, self-diffusion coefficient of the cation and anion is comparable to each other at all water concentration similar to that is observed for the pure state. Voronoi polyhedra analysis exhibits strong dependence on the local environment of IL concentration. Void and neck distributions in Voronoi tessellation are approximately Gaussian for pure IL but upon subsequent addition of water, we observe deviation from the Gaussian behaviour with an asymmetric broadening with long tail of exponential decay at large void radius, particularly at higher water concentrations. The increase in void space and neck size at higher water concentration facilitates ionic motion, thus, decreasing dynamical heterogeneity and IL reorientation time and increases self-diffusion coefficient significantly.
The adaptive variational quantum dynamics simulation (AVQDS) method performs real-time evolution of quantum states using automatically generated parametrized quantum circuits that often contain substantially fewer gates than Trotter circuits. Here we report an improved version of the method, which we call AVQDS(T), by porting the tiling efficient trial circuits with rotations implemented simultaneously technique. The algorithm adaptively adds layers of disjoint unitary gates to the ansatz circuit so as to keep the McLachlan distance, a measure of the accuracy of the variational dynamics, below a fixed threshold. Here we perform benchmark noiseless AVQDS(T) simulations of quench dynamics in local spin models and compare with an alternative adaptive variational approach on quantum resource requirement. Quantum dynamical simulations implementing realistic noise channels are also reported. Finally, we propose a way to substantially alleviate the measurement overhead of AVQDS(T) while maintaining high accuracy by synergistically integrating quantum circuit calculations on quantum processing units with classical calculations using, e.g., tensor networks to evaluate the quantum geometric tensor. We showcase that this approach enables AVQDS(T) to deliver more accurate results than simulations using a fixed ansatz of comparable final depth for a significant time duration with fewer quantum resources.
Ionic clusters control the structure, dynamics, and transport in soft matter. Incorporating a small fraction of ionizable groups in polymers substantially reduces the mobility of the macromolecules in melts. Furthermore, these ionic groups often associate into random clusters in melts, where the distribution and morphology of the clusters impact the transport in these materials. Here, using molecular dynamic simulations we demonstrate a clear correlation between cluster size and morphology with the polymer mobility in melts of sulfonated polystyrene. We show that in low dielectric media ladderlike clusters that are lower in energy compared with spherical assemblies are formed. Reducing the electrostatic interactions by enhancing the dielectric constant leads to morphological transformation from ladderlike clusters to globular assemblies. Finally, decrease in electrostatic interaction significantly enhances the mobility of the polymer.
Requirements specification and analysis of dynamic simulation methods for launch vehicle component level simulation computer program
We carried out Brownian dynamics simulation studies of the translocation of single polymer chains across a nanosized pore under the driving of an applied field (chemical potential gradient). The translocation process can be either dominated by the entropic barrier resulted from restricted motion of flexible polymer chains or by applied forces (or chemical gradient across the wall), we focused on the latter case in our studies. Calculation of radius of gyrations at the two opposite sides of the wall shows that the polymer chains are not in equilibrium during the translocation process. Despite this fact, our results show that the one-dimensional diffusion and the nucleation model provide an excellent description of the dependence of average translocation time on the chemical potential gradients, the polymer chain length and the solvent viscosity. In good agreement with experimental results and theoretical predictions, the translocation time distribution of our simple model shows strong non-Gaussian characteristics. It is observed that even for this simple tubelike pore geometry, more than one peak of translocation time distribution can be generated for proper pore diameter and applied field strengths. Both repulsive Weeks-Chandler-Anderson and attractive Lennard-Jones polymer-nanopore interaction were studied, attraction facilitates the translocation process by shortening the total translocation time and dramatically improve the capturing of polymer chain. The width of the translocation time distribution was found to decrease with increasing temperature, increasing field strength, and decreasing pore diameter.
Using molecular dynamics, we have studied the behaviour of cylindrical [001]-oriented Fe and FeCr nanowires under uniaxial tensile strain with both an embedded atom method (EAM) and a Tersoff-like bond order potential. The mechanical properties were analysed and the deformation mechanism was studied and compared between the potentials. The effects of chromium content and size of the wire were studied. Both potentials show elongation by deformation twinning in the 〈111〉/(211) system resulting in a significantly stiffer and stronger [110]-axial nanowire. The pure iron nanowires are elastically softer than bulk iron and an addition of chromium has both a softening and weakening effect. The bond order potential shows a strong dependence on chromium concentration, while the dependence is considerably weaker for the EAM potential.
We have carried out classical molecular dynamics simulations in order to get insight into the atomistic mechanisms of the deformation during nanoindentation of the pristine and irradiated forms of a sodium borosilicate glass. In terms of the glass hardness, we have found that the primary factor affecting the decrease of hardness after irradiation is depolymerization rather than free volume, and we argue that this is a general trend applicable to other borosilicate glasses with similar compositions. We have analyzed the changes of the short- and medium-range structures under deformation and found that the creation of oxygen triclusters is an important mechanism in order to describe the deformation of highly polymerized borosilicate glasses and is essential in the understanding of the folding of large rings under stress. We have equally found that the less polymerized glasses present a higher amount of relative densification, while the analysis of bond-breaking during the nanoindentation has showed that shear flow is more likely to appear around sodium atoms. The results provided in this study can be proven to be useful in the interpretation of experimental results.
Ab initio molecular dynamics simulations of low energy recoil events in wurtzite AlN have been performed to determine threshold displacement energies, defect production and evolution mechanisms, role of partial charge transfer during the process, and the influence of irradiation-induced defects on the properties of AlN. Here, the results show that the threshold displacement energies, E d , along the direction parallel to the basal planes are smaller than those perpendicular to the basal planes. The minimum E d values are determined to be 19 eV and 55 eV for N and Al atom, respectively, which occur along the [$\overline{11}20$] direction. In general, the threshold displacement energies for N are smaller than those for Al atom, indicating the N defects would be dominant under irradiation. The defect production mechanisms have been analyzed. It is found that charge transfer and redistribution for both the primary knock-on atom and the subsequent recoil atoms play a significant role in defect production and evolution. Similar to the trend in oxide materials, there is a nearly linear relationship between E d and the total amount of charge transfer at the potential energy peak in AlN, which provides guidance on the development of charge-transfer interatomic potentials for classic molecular dynamics simulations. Finally, the response behavior of AlN to low energy irradiation is qualitatively investigated. The existence of irradiation-induced defects significantly modifies the electronic structure, and thus affects the magnetic, electronic and optical properties of AlN. In conclusion, these findings further enrich the understanding of defects in the wide bandgap semiconductor of AlN.
Nonadiabatic excited-state molecular dynamics underpin many photophysical and photochemical phenomena, such as exciton dynamics, charge separation and transport. In this work, we present an efficient nonadiabatic molecular dynamic (NAMD) simulation method based on time-dependent density functional tight-binding (TDDFTB) theory. Specifically, the adiabatic electronic structure, an essential NAMD input, is described at the TDDFTB level. Here, the nonadiabatic effects originating from the coupled motions of electrons and nuclei are treated by the trajectory surface hopping algorithm. To improve the computational efficiency, nonadiabatic couplings between excited states within the TDDFTB method are derived and implemented using an analytical approach. Further, the time-dependent nonadiabatic coupling scalars are calculated based on the overlap between molecular orbitals rather than the Slater determinants to speed up the simulations. In addition, the electronic decoherence scheme and a state reassigned unavoided crossings algorithm, which has been implemented in the NEXMD software, are used to improve the accuracy of the simulated dynamics and handle trivial unavoided crossings. Finally, the photoinduced nonadiabatic dynamics of a benzene molecule are simulated to demonstrate our implementation. The results for excited state NAMD simulations of benzene molecule based on TDDFTB method compare well that obtained with numerically expensive time-dependent density functional theory. The proposed methodology provides an attractive theoretical simulation tool for predicting the photophysical and photochemical properties of complex materials.
The interface for VENUS and NWChem, and the resulting software package for direct dynamics simulations are described. The coupling of the two codes is considered to be a tight coupling. The two codes are compiled and linked together and act as one executable with data being passed between the two codes through routine calls. The advantages of this type of coupling are discussed. The interface has been designed to have as little interference as possible with the core codes of both VENUS and NWChem. VENUS is the code that propagates the direct dynamics trajectories and, therefore, is the program that drives the overall execution of VENUS/NWChem. VENUS has remained an essentially sequential code, which uses the highly parallel structure of NWChem. Subroutines of the interface which accomplish the data transmission and communication between the two computer programs are described. Recent examples of the use of VENUS/NWChem for direct dynamics simulations are summarized.
A coupled dynamical system is defined as an assembly of rigid/flexible bodies that may be coupled by kinematic connections. The interfaces between bodies are modeled using hinges having 0 to 6 degrees of freedom. The equations of motion are presented for a mechanical system of n flexible bodies in a topological tree configuration. The Lagrange form of the D'Alembert principle was employed to derive the equations. The equations of motion are augmented by the kinematic constraint equations. This augmentation is accomplished via the method of singular value decomposition.
The Fluid Dynamics Branch at MSFC has positioned itself to support a wide range of customers in need of Cryogenic Fluid Management (CFM) analysis. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tool used for all manner of internal and external propulsion applications has been extended and refined to better model cryogenic propellant storage and tanking operations. Through the CFM Portfolio project, several validation activities were initiated. Validation of propellant tank self-pressurization, autogenous pressurization, slosh-induced ullage collapse, and jet-induced mixing all aid in defining model accuracy. The on-going validation effort has enabled confident application of the tool to in-line design and evaluation of CFM hardware and operations. Recent project support included defining the impact of in-space slosh dynamics on reaction control system mass for Space Launch System (SLS) upper stages. Propellant mixing strategies were defined to improve performance of a thermal vent system for a Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) partner. Design support of in-space maneuvers, tank hardware, and autogenous pressurization operations was also provided through Human Landing System (HLS) collaboration work. The branch has engaged the CFM community to share recent findings and capabilities through several forums including conferences, technical interchange meetings, and workshops. Development and demonstration of CFM modeling capabilities continues in this work on the no-vent fill of propellant tank in micro-gravity to meet the needs of NASA and its industry partners in the endeavor to sustainably reach the Moon and beyond.
In atomistic spin dynamics simulations, the time cost of constructing the space- and time-displaced pair correlation function in real space increases quadratically as the number of spins N, leading to significant computational effort. The GEMM subroutine can be adopted to accelerate the calculation of the dynamical spin-spin correlation function, but the computational cost of simulating large spin systems (>40000 spins) on CPUs remains expensive. In this work, we perform the simulation on the graphics processing unit (GPU), a hardware solution widely used as an accelerator for scientific computing and deep learning. Here we show that GPUs can accelerate the simulation up to 25-fold compared to multi-core CPUs when using the GEMM subroutine on both. To hide memory latency, we fuse the element-wise operation into the GEMM kernel using CUTLASS that can improve the performance by 26% ~ 33% compared to implementation based on cuBLAS. Furthermore, we perform the on-the-fly calculation in the epilogue of the GEMM subroutine to avoid saving intermediate results on global memory, which makes the large-scale atomistic spin dynamics simulation feasible and affordable.
The lack of a reliable method to evaluate the convergence of molecular dynamics simulations has contributed to discrepancies in different areas of molecular dynamics. Here, the method of information entropy is introduced to molecular dynamics for stationarity assessment. The Shannon information entropy formalism is used to monitor the convergence of the atom motion to a steady state in a continuous spatial domain and is also used to assess the stationarity of calculated multidimensional fields such as the temperature field in a discrete spatial domain. It is demonstrated in this work that monitoring the information entropy of the atom position matrix provides a clear indicator of reaching steady state in radiation damage simulations, non-equilibrium molecular dynamics thermal conductivity computations, and simulations of Poiseuille and Couette flow in nanochannels. A main advantage of the present technique is that it is non-local and relies on fundamental quantities available in all molecular dynamics simulations. Unlike monitoring average temperature, the technique is applicable to simulations that conserve total energy such as reverse non-equilibrium molecular dynamics thermal conductivity computations and to simulations where energy dissipates through a boundary as in radiation damage simulations. The method is applied to simulations of iron using the Tersoff/ZBL splined potential, silicon using the Stillinger–Weber potential, and to Lennard–Jones fluid. Its applicability to both solids and fluids shows that the technique has potential for generalization to other areas in molecular dynamics.
Simulating the unitary dynamics of a quantum system is a fundamental problem of quantum mechanics, in which quantum computers are believed to have significant advantage over their classical counterparts. One prominent such instance is the simulation of electronic dynamics, which plays an essential role in chemical reactions, non-equilibrium dynamics, and material design. These systems are time-dependent, which requires that the corresponding simulation algorithm can be successfully concatenated with itself over different time intervals to reproduce the overall coherent quantum dynamics of the system. In this paper, we quantify such simulation algorithms by the property of being fully-coherent: the algorithm succeeds with arbitrarily high success probability 1 − δ while only requiring a single copy of the initial state. Here we subsequently develop fully-coherent simulation algorithms based on quantum signal processing (QSP), including a novel algorithm that circumvents the use of amplitude amplification while also achieving a query complexity additive in time t, ln(1/δ), and ln(1/ϵ) for error tolerance ϵ: $Θ‖\mathscr{H}‖|t|+ln(1/ϵ)+ln(1/δ)$. Furthermore, we numerically analyze these algorithms by applying them to the simulation of the spin dynamics of the Heisenberg model and the correlated electronic dynamics of an H2 molecule. Since any electronic Hamiltonian can be mapped to a spin Hamiltonian, our algorithm can efficiently simulate time-dependent ab initio electronic dynamics in the circuit model of quantum computation. Accordingly, it is also our hope that the present work serves as a bridge between QSP-based quantum algorithms and chemical dynamics, stimulating a cross-fertilization between these exciting fields.