The density functional theory based molecular dynamics simulation method ("Car-Parrinello") was applied in a numerical study of the electronic properties, hydrogen bonding, and infrared spectroscopy of the trans and cis isomer of N-methylacetamide in aqueous solution. A detailed analysis of the electronic structure of the solvated molecules, in terms of localized Wannier functions and Born atomic charges, is presented. Two schemes for the computation of the solute infrared absorption spectrum are investigated:  In the first method the spectrum is determined by Fourier transforming the time correlation function of the solute dipole as determined from the Wannier function analysis. The second method uses instead the molecular current-current correlation function computed from the Born charges and atomic velocities. The resulting spectral properties of trans- and cis-NMA are carefully compared to each other and to experimental results. We find that the two solvated isomers can be clearly distinguished by their infrared spectral profile in the 1000-2000 cm(-)(1) range.

A general method for obtaining effective normal modes of a molecular system from molecular dynamics simulations is presented. The method is based on a localization criterion for the Fourier transformed velocity time-correlation functions of the effective modes. For a given choice of the localization function used, the method becomes equivalent to the principal mode analysis (PMA) based on covariance matrix diagonalization. On the other hand, a proper choice of the localization function leads to a novel method with a strong analogy with the usual normal mode analysis of equilibrium structures, where the Hessian system at the minimum energy structure is replaced by the thermal averaged Hessian, although the Hessian itself is never actually calculated. This method does not introduce any extra numerical cost during the simulation and bears the same simplicity as PMA itself. It can thus be readily applied to ab initio molecular dynamics simulations. Three such examples are provided here. First we recover effective normal modes of an isolated formaldehyde molecule computed at 20 K in very good agreement with the results of a normal mode analysis performed at its equilibrium structure. We then illustrate the applicability of the method for liquid phase studies. The effective normal modes of a water molecule in liquid water and of a uracil molecule in aqueous solution can be extracted from ab initio molecular dynamics simulations of these two systems at 300 K.