Minima hopping guided path search: An efficient method for finding complex chemical reaction pathways

The Minima Hopping global optimization method uses physically realizable molecular dynamics moves in combination with an energy feedback that guarantees the escape from any potential energy funnel. For the purpose of finding reaction pathways, we argue that Minima Hopping is particularly suitable as a guide through the potential energy landscape and as a generator for pairs of minima that can be used as input structures for methods capable of finding transition states between two minima. For Lennard-Jones benchmark systems we compared this Minima Hopping guided path search method to a known approach for the exploration of potential energy landscapes that is based on deterministic mode-following. Although we used a stabilized mode-following technique that reliably allows to follow distinct directions when escaping from a local minimum, we observed that Minima Hopping guided path search is far superior in finding lowest-barrier reaction pathways. We, therefore, suggest that Minima Hopping guided path search can be used as a simple and efficient way to identify energetically low-lying chemical reaction pathways. Finally, we applied the Minima Hopping guided path search approach to 75-atom and 102-atom Lennard-Jones systems. For the 75-atom system we found pathways whose highest energies are significantly lower than the highest energy along the previously published lowest-barrier pathway. Furthermore, many of these pathways contain a smaller number of intermediate transition states than the previously publish lowest-barrier pathway. In case of the 102-atom system Minima Hopping guided path search found a previously unknown and energetically low-lying funnel.