Faster Molecular Dynamics with Neural Network Potentials via Distilled Multiple Time-Stepping and Non-Conservative Forces

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Main Authors: Gouraud, Nicolaï, Cattin, Côme, Plé, Thomas, Adjoua, Olivier, Lagardère, Louis, Piquemal, Jean-Philip
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Gouraud, Nicolaï
Cattin, Côme
Plé, Thomas
Adjoua, Olivier
Lagardère, Louis
Piquemal, Jean-Philip
author_facet Gouraud, Nicolaï
Cattin, Côme
Plé, Thomas
Adjoua, Olivier
Lagardère, Louis
Piquemal, Jean-Philip
contents Following our previous work (J. Phys. Chem. Lett., 2026, 17, 5, 1288-1295), we propose the DMTS-NC approach, a distilled multi-time-step (DMTS) strategy using non-conservative (NC) forces to further accelerate atomistic molecular dynamics simulations using foundation neural network models such as FeNNix-Bio1. There, a dual-level reversible reference system propagator algorithm (RESPA) formalism couples a target accurate conservative potential to a simplified distilled representation optimized for the production of non-conservative forces. Despite being non-conservative, the distilled architecture is designed to enforce key physical priors, such as equivariance under rotation and cancellation of atomic force components. These choices facilitate the distillation process and therefore improve drastically the robustness of simulation, significantly limiting abnormal discrepancies between the two models, thus achieving excellent agreement with the forces data. Overall, the DMTS-NC scheme is found to be more stable and efficient than its conservative counterpart with additional speedups reaching 15-30% over DMTS. Requiring no fine-tuning steps, it is easier to implement and can be pushed to the limit of the systems physical resonances to maintain accuracy while providing maximum efficiency. We obtain additional speedup by combining hydrogen mass repartitioning (HMR), High Hydrogen Friction (HHF) to further extended the largest timestep up to 10fs of our schemes while conserving stability and accuracy. As for DMTS, DMTS-NC is applicable to any neural network potential and can be applied to approaches that are computationally heavier than FeNNix-Bio1. We show a proof of principle applying the approach to the distillation of MACE-OFF23 with consequent speedups ranging from 3.66 to 5.64 compared to single timestep.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_14975
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Faster Molecular Dynamics with Neural Network Potentials via Distilled Multiple Time-Stepping and Non-Conservative Forces
Gouraud, Nicolaï
Cattin, Côme
Plé, Thomas
Adjoua, Olivier
Lagardère, Louis
Piquemal, Jean-Philip
Chemical Physics
Machine Learning
Following our previous work (J. Phys. Chem. Lett., 2026, 17, 5, 1288-1295), we propose the DMTS-NC approach, a distilled multi-time-step (DMTS) strategy using non-conservative (NC) forces to further accelerate atomistic molecular dynamics simulations using foundation neural network models such as FeNNix-Bio1. There, a dual-level reversible reference system propagator algorithm (RESPA) formalism couples a target accurate conservative potential to a simplified distilled representation optimized for the production of non-conservative forces. Despite being non-conservative, the distilled architecture is designed to enforce key physical priors, such as equivariance under rotation and cancellation of atomic force components. These choices facilitate the distillation process and therefore improve drastically the robustness of simulation, significantly limiting abnormal discrepancies between the two models, thus achieving excellent agreement with the forces data. Overall, the DMTS-NC scheme is found to be more stable and efficient than its conservative counterpart with additional speedups reaching 15-30% over DMTS. Requiring no fine-tuning steps, it is easier to implement and can be pushed to the limit of the systems physical resonances to maintain accuracy while providing maximum efficiency. We obtain additional speedup by combining hydrogen mass repartitioning (HMR), High Hydrogen Friction (HHF) to further extended the largest timestep up to 10fs of our schemes while conserving stability and accuracy. As for DMTS, DMTS-NC is applicable to any neural network potential and can be applied to approaches that are computationally heavier than FeNNix-Bio1. We show a proof of principle applying the approach to the distillation of MACE-OFF23 with consequent speedups ranging from 3.66 to 5.64 compared to single timestep.
title Faster Molecular Dynamics with Neural Network Potentials via Distilled Multiple Time-Stepping and Non-Conservative Forces
topic Chemical Physics
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.14975