Temperature Dependence of the Hydrophobic Hydration and Interaction of Simple Solutes: An Examination of Five Popular Water Models

We examine five different popular rigid water models (SPC, SPCE, TIP3P, TIP4P and TIP5P) using MD simulations in order to investigate the hydrophobic hydration and interaction of apolar Lennard-Jones solutes as a function of temperature in the range between $275 {K}$ and $375 {K}$. For all investigated models and state points we calculate the excess chemical potential for the noble gases and Methane.All water models exhibit too small hydration entropies, but show a clear hierarchy. TIP3P shows poorest agreement with experiment whereas TIP5P is closest to the experimental data at lower temperatures and SPCE is closest at higher temperatures. A rescaling procedure inspired by information theory model of Hummer et al. ({\em Chem.Phys.}258, 349-370 (2000)) suggests that the differences between the different models and real water can be explained on the basis of the density curves at constant pressure. In addition, the models that give a good representation of the water structure at ambient conditions (TIP5P, SPCE and TIP4P) show considerably better agreement with the experimental data than SPC and TIP3P. We calculate the hydrophobic interaction between Xenon particles directly from a series of 60 ns simulation runs.We find that the temperature dependence of the association is related to the strength of the solvation entropy. Nevertheless, differences between the models seem to require a more detailed molecular picture.The TIP5P model shows by far the strongest temperature dependence.The suggested density-rescaling is also applied to the Xenon-Xenon contact-pair configuration, indicating the presence of a temperature where the hydrophobic interaction turns into purely repulsive.The predicted association for Xenon in real water suggest the presence a strong variation with temperature.Comment: 19 pages, 16 figures, revtex4 twocolums, removed typos, accepted for publication in J.Chem. Phy

Heat Capacity Effects Associated with the Hydrophobic Hydration and Interaction of Simple Solutes: A Detailed Structural and Energetical Analysis Based on MD Simulations

We examine the SPCE and TIP5P water models to study heat capacity effects associated with the hydrophobic hydration and interaction of Xenon particles. We calculate the excess chemical potential for Xenon employing the Widom particle insertion technique. The solvation enthalpy and excess heat capacity is obtained from the temperature dependence of the chemical potentials and, alternatively, directly by Ewald summation, as well as a reaction field based method. All three different approaches provide consistent results. The reaction field method allows a separation of the individual components to the heat capacity of solvation into solute/solvent and solvent/solvent parts, revealing the solvent/solvent part as the dominating contribution. A detailed spacial analysis of the heat capacity of the water molecules around a pair of Xenon particles at different separations reveals that the enhanced heat capacity of the water molecules in the bisector plane between two Xenon atoms is responsible for the maximum of the heat capacity observed at the desolvation barrier, recently reported by Shimizu and Chan ({\em J. Am. Chem. Soc.},{\bf 123}, 2083--2084 (2001)). The about 60% enlarged heat capacity of water in the concave part of the joint Xenon-Xenon hydration shell is the result of a counterplay of strengthened hydrogen bonds and an enhanced breaking of hydrogen bonds with increasing temperature. Differences between the two models concerning the heat capacity in the Xenon-Xenon contact state are attributed to the different water model bulk heat capacities, and to the different spacial extension of the structure effect introduced by the hydrophobic particles. Similarities between the different states of water in the joint Xenon-Xenon hydration shell and the properties of stretched water are discussed.Comment: 14 pages, 16 figures, twocolumn revte

Evolution of the structure of amorphous ice - from low-density amorphous (LDA) through high-density amorphous (HDA) to very high-density amorphous (VHDA) ice

We report results of molecular dynamics simulations of amorphous ice for pressures up to 22.5 kbar. The high-density amorphous ice (HDA) as prepared by pressure-induced amorphization of Ih ice at T=80 K is annealed to T=170 K at various pressures to allow for relaxation. Upon increase of pressure, relaxed amorphous ice undergoes a pronounced change of structure, ranging from the low-density amorphous ice (LDA) at p=0, through a continuum of HDA states to the limiting very high-density amorphous ice (VHDA) regime above 10 kbar. The main part of the overall structural change takes place within the HDA megabasin, which includes a variety of structures with quite different local and medium-range order as well as network topology and spans a broad range of densities. The VHDA represents the limit to densification by adapting the hydrogen-bonded network topology, without creating interpenetrating networks. The connection between structure and metastability of various forms upon decompression and heating is studied and discussed. We also discuss the analogy with amorphous and crystalline silica. Finally, some conclusions concerning the relation between amorphous ice and supercooled water are drawn.Comment: 11 pages, 12 postscript figures. To be published in The Journal of Chemical Physic

Gas Enrichment at Liquid-Wall Interfaces

Molecular dynamics simulations of Lennard-Jones systems are performed to study the effects of dissolved gas on liquid-wall and liquid-gas interfaces. Gas enrichment at walls is observed which for hydrophobic walls can exceed more than two orders of magnitude when compared to the gas density in the bulk liquid. As a consequence, the liquid structure close to the wall is considerably modified, leading to an enhanced wall slip. At liquid-gas interfaces gas enrichment is found which reduces the surface tension.Comment: main changes compared to version 1: flow simulations are included as well as different types of gase

Coarse-Grained Model for Phospholipid/Cholesterol Bilayer

We construct a coarse-grained (CG) model for dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC)/cholesterol bilayers and apply it to large-scale simulation studies of lipid membranes. Our CG model is a two-dimensional representation of the membrane, where the individual lipid and sterol molecules are described by point-like particles. The effective intermolecular interactions used in the model are systematically derived from detailed atomic-scale molecular dynamics simulations using the Inverse Monte Carlo technique, which guarantees that the radial distribution properties of the CG model are consistent with those given by the corresponding atomistic system. We find that the coarse-grained model for the DPPC/cholesterol bilayer is substantially more efficient than atomistic models, providing a speed-up of approximately eight orders of magnitude. The results are in favor of formation of cholesterol-rich and cholesterol-poor domains at intermediate cholesterol concentrations, in agreement with the experimental phase diagram of the system. We also explore the limits of the novel coarse-grained model, and discuss the general validity and applicability of the present approach

Structure and dielectric properties of polar fluids with extended dipoles: results from numerical simulations

The strengths and short-comings of the point-dipole model for polar fluids of spherical molecules are illustrated by considering the physically more relevant case of extended dipoles formed by two opposite charges $\pm q$ separated by a distance $d$ (dipole moment $\mu=q d$). Extensive Molecular Dynamics simulations on a high density dipolar fluid are used to analyse the dependence of the pair structure, dielectric constant \eps and dynamics as a function of the ratio $d/\sigma$ (\sig is the molecular diameter), for a fixed dipole moment $\mu$. The point dipole model is found to agree well with the extended dipole model up to d/\sig \simeq 0.3. Beyond that ratio, \eps shows a non-trivial variation with d/\sig. When d/\sig>0.6, a transition is observed towards a hexagonal columnar phase; the corresponding value of the dipole moment, \mu^2/\sig^3 k T=3, is found to be substantially lower than the value of the point dipole required to drive a similar transition.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figures; Paper submitted to Molecular Physic

Metastability of life

The physical idea of the natural origin of diseases and deaths has been presented. The fundamental microscopical reason is the destruction of any metastable state by thermal activation of a nucleus of a nonreversable change. On the basis of this idea the quantitative theory of age dependence of death probability has been constructed. The obtained simple Death Laws are very accurately fulfilled almost for all known diseases.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figure

Anharmonicity and self-similarity of the free energy landscape of protein G

The near-native free energy landscape of protein G is investigated through 0.4 microseconds-long atomistic molecular dynamics simulations in explicit solvent. A theoretical and computational framework is used to assess the time-dependence of salient thermodynamical features. While the quasi-harmonic character of the free energy is found to degrade in a few ns, the slow modes display a very mild dependence on the trajectory duration. This property originates from a striking self-similarity of the free energy landscape embodied by the consistency of the principal directions of the local minima, where the system dwells for several ns, and of the virtual jumps connecting them.Comment: revtex, 6 pages, 5 figure