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Main Authors: Luo, Yufei, Gu, Xiang, Sun, Jian
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.17229
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author Luo, Yufei
Gu, Xiang
Sun, Jian
author_facet Luo, Yufei
Gu, Xiang
Sun, Jian
contents Transition states (TSs) are crucial for understanding reaction mechanisms, yet their exploration is limited by the complexity of experimental and computational approaches. Here we propose TS-DFM, a flow matching framework that predicts TSs from reactants and products. By operating in molecular distance geometry space, TS-DFM explicitly captures the dynamic changes of interatomic distances in chemical reactions. A network structure named TSDVNet is designed to learn the velocity field for generating TS geometries accurately. On the benchmark dataset Transition1X, TS-DFM outperforms the previous state-of-the-art method React-OT by 30\% in structural accuracy. These predicted TSs provide high-quality initial structures, accelerating the convergence of CI-NEB optimization. Additionally, TS-DFM can identify alternative reaction paths. In our experiments, even a more favorable TS with lower energy barrier is discovered. Further tests on RGD1 dataset confirm its strong generalization ability on unseen molecules and reaction types, highlighting its potential for facilitating reaction exploration.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_17229
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Generating transition states of chemical reactions via distance-geometry-based flow matching
Luo, Yufei
Gu, Xiang
Sun, Jian
Machine Learning
Chemical Physics
Transition states (TSs) are crucial for understanding reaction mechanisms, yet their exploration is limited by the complexity of experimental and computational approaches. Here we propose TS-DFM, a flow matching framework that predicts TSs from reactants and products. By operating in molecular distance geometry space, TS-DFM explicitly captures the dynamic changes of interatomic distances in chemical reactions. A network structure named TSDVNet is designed to learn the velocity field for generating TS geometries accurately. On the benchmark dataset Transition1X, TS-DFM outperforms the previous state-of-the-art method React-OT by 30\% in structural accuracy. These predicted TSs provide high-quality initial structures, accelerating the convergence of CI-NEB optimization. Additionally, TS-DFM can identify alternative reaction paths. In our experiments, even a more favorable TS with lower energy barrier is discovered. Further tests on RGD1 dataset confirm its strong generalization ability on unseen molecules and reaction types, highlighting its potential for facilitating reaction exploration.
title Generating transition states of chemical reactions via distance-geometry-based flow matching
topic Machine Learning
Chemical Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.17229