An efficient and accurate implementation of centroid molecular dynamics using a Gaussian approximation

An approximate method for Centroid Molecular Dynamics (CMD) is presented which uses a Gaussian approximation. The resulting method, called Gaussian CMD (GCMD), is 100-1000 times faster than CMD because it replaces explicit path-integral sampling, which is the most time-consuming part of CMD, with a Gaussian averaging, which can be done analytically. Several methods for computing the Gaussian width parameter in the GCMD approach are also presented. This new method is shown to give satisfactory results for the position correlation function in simple one-dimensional systems when CMD itself is consistent with the exact result. The GCMD and CMD results are also compared for the case of 1-dimensional systems coupled to harmonic baths, with good success. GCMD is further compared to CMD with good success for liquid para-hydrogen at two different temperatures, 14 K and 25 K, and for ortho-deuterium at 20.7 K.