Implementation of replica-exchange umbrella sampling in GAMESS

Abstract

In GAMESS-US quantum chemistry package, both replica-exchange molecular dynamics (REMD) and the umbrella sampling (US) methods are available. However, prior to this work, the replica-exchange umbrella sampling (REUS) method, combining REMD and US, was not implemented. REUS affords a more efficient conformational sampling than the conventional US method and is often used in MD simulations. We implemented REUS in GAMESS-US and improved some routines of the existing REMD code. A density-functional tight-binding REMD (DFTB-REMD) simulation of alanine deca-peptide and a DFTB-MD REUS simulation of proton transfer in malonaldehyde were performed. The results of DFTB-MD REUS simulations performed with three different simulation packages were compared to validate our GAMESS-US implementation.