We present a density functional for first-principles molecular dynamics simulations that includes the electrostatic effects of a continuous dielectric medium. It allows for numerical simulations of molecules in solution in a model polar solvent. We propose a smooth dielectric model function to model solvation into water and demonstrate its good numerical properties for total energy calculations and constant energy molecular dynamics.

ABSTRACT:A new continuum solvation model for density functional theory firstprinciples simulations is presented in the context of plane wave Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics. The Poisson problem-with dielectric function representing the solvent effects-is solved by a compact finite difference method on a regular grid. The smoothness of the solute-solvent transition, and the density-based solute cavity, provide good numerical properties to the model and allow for total energy calculations, reaction barriers calculations, and energy-conserving molecular dynamics.

We have formulated and implemented a real-space ab initio method for electronic structure calculations in terms of nonorthogonal orbitals defined on a grid. A multigrid preconditioner is used to improve the steepest descent directions used in the iterative minimization of the energy functional. Unoccupied or partially occupied states are included using a density matrix formalism in the subspace spanned by the nonorthogonal orbitals. The freedom introduced by the nonorthogonal real-space description of the orbitals allows for localization constraints that linearize the cost of the most expensive parts of the calculations, while keeping a fast convergence rate for the iterative minimization with multigrid acceleration. Numerical tests for carbon nanotubes show that very accurate results can be obtained for localization regions with radii of 8 bohr. This approach, which substantially reduces the computational cost for very large systems, has been implemented on the massively parallel Cray T3E computer and tested on carbon nanotubes containing more than 1000 atoms.

The electrostatic continuum solvent model developed by [Fattebert and Gygi J. Comput. Chem. 23, 662 (2002); Int. J. Quantum Chem. 93, 139 (2003)] is combined with a first-principles formulation of the cavitation energy based on a natural quantum-mechanical definition for the surface of a solute. Despite its simplicity, the cavitation contribution calculated by this approach is found to be in remarkable agreement with that obtained by more complex algorithms relying on a large set of parameters. Our model allows for very efficient Car-Parrinello simulations of finite or extended systems in solution and demonstrates a level of accuracy as good as that of established quantum-chemistry continuum solvent methods. We apply this approach to the study of tetracyanoethylene dimers in dichloromethane, providing valuable structural and dynamical insights on the dimerization phenomenon.

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