Advantages of a Lowe-Andersen thermostat in molecular dynamics simulations

The Lowe-Andersen thermostat is a momentum conserving and Galilean invariant analog of the Andersen thermostat. Like the Andersen thermostat it has the advantage of being local. We show that by using a minimal thermostat interaction radius in a molecular dynamics simulation, it perturbs the system dynamics to a far lesser extent than the Andersen method. This alleviates a well known drawback of the Andersen thermostat by allowing high thermostatting rates without the penalty of significantly suppressed diffusion in the system. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.