Collective Variables Based on Multipole Expansion of Ewald Summation for Crystallization

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Lei, YaoKun, Li, MaoDong, Yang, Yi Isaac
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Lei, YaoKun
Li, MaoDong
Yang, Yi Isaac
author_facet Lei, YaoKun
Li, MaoDong
Yang, Yi Isaac
contents Crystallization, a fundamental phase transition process governing material formation in natural and industrial contexts, involves the spontaneous emergence of long-range structural order from disordered phases. This long-range periodicity involves spatial and molecular orientation order. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of crystallization require collective variables (CVs) that accurately distinguish this long-\range periodicity. Existing CVs based on local descriptors (e.g., bond-orientational order) often lack transferability across crystal structures. To address this, we propose a unified CV framework derived from the multipole expansion of Ewald summation: a mathematical formalism bridging X-ray diffraction (XRD) principles and electrostatic energy computation in MD. By projecting atomic configurations onto a basis of spherical harmonics (complete for angular function representation), our CV achieves high-fidelity encoding of both translational and orientational order. Metadynamics simulations demonstrate that this CV drives efficient sampling of polymorphic pathways for known crystals and predicts stable phases even without crystal structures. This approach shows potential as a transferable platform for ab initio crystal structure prediction.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_08960
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Collective Variables Based on Multipole Expansion of Ewald Summation for Crystallization
Lei, YaoKun
Li, MaoDong
Yang, Yi Isaac
Statistical Mechanics
Materials Science
Soft Condensed Matter
Crystallization, a fundamental phase transition process governing material formation in natural and industrial contexts, involves the spontaneous emergence of long-range structural order from disordered phases. This long-range periodicity involves spatial and molecular orientation order. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of crystallization require collective variables (CVs) that accurately distinguish this long-\range periodicity. Existing CVs based on local descriptors (e.g., bond-orientational order) often lack transferability across crystal structures. To address this, we propose a unified CV framework derived from the multipole expansion of Ewald summation: a mathematical formalism bridging X-ray diffraction (XRD) principles and electrostatic energy computation in MD. By projecting atomic configurations onto a basis of spherical harmonics (complete for angular function representation), our CV achieves high-fidelity encoding of both translational and orientational order. Metadynamics simulations demonstrate that this CV drives efficient sampling of polymorphic pathways for known crystals and predicts stable phases even without crystal structures. This approach shows potential as a transferable platform for ab initio crystal structure prediction.
title Collective Variables Based on Multipole Expansion of Ewald Summation for Crystallization
topic Statistical Mechanics
Materials Science
Soft Condensed Matter
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.08960