Two-Way Shooting in OpenPathSampling

Authors: David W.H. Swenson

This module adds the ability to do two-way shooting to OpenPathSampling.

Purpose of Module

Different types of dynamics are better suited for different kinds of Monte Carlo moves in path sampling. “One-way shooting,” which was already implemented in OpenPathSampling, is an efficient approach for sampling paths when the dynamics are chaotic or diffusive. However, it requires stochastic dynamics, and therefore isn’t appropriate for deterministic dynamics, as should be used with ballistic processes. For ballistic processes and deterministic dynamics, the “two-way shooting” move, which is implemented in this module, should be used. These moves differ in that one-way shooting selects a frame as a shooting point and evolves the trajectory either forward or backward, keeping part of the original trajectory, whereas two-way shooting selects a shooting point, modified it (usually by changing the velocities) and evolves both forward and backward. In one-way shooting, the stochastic dynamics obviates the need to modify the shooting point.

The shooting point selection methods used by one-way shooting can be re-used for two-way shooting. However, two-way shooting requires a SnapshotModifier, which one-way shooting does not. The basics of the SnapshotModifier, as well as an implementation which completely randomizes the velocities according to the Boltzmann distribution, were included in a module to do committor simulations.

This module implements the movers and move strategies necessary to support two-way shooting:

  • AbstractTwoWayShootingMover, subclass of EngineMover. There’s a possibility that generalized ensembles may behave differently if you shoot the forward part of the path first, versus the backward part of the path. This isn’t the case for common TIS and TPS ensembles, but in case it is important for other ensembles, we create separate forward-first and backward-first two way shooting movers. This class is a common abstract base class for both.
  • ForwardFirstTwoWayShootingMover, subclass of AbstractTwoWayShootingMover, which implements two-way shooting where the forward half-trajectory is generated first.
  • BackwardFirstTwoWayShootingMOver, subclass of AbstractTwoWayShootingMover, which implements two-way shooting where the backward half-trajectory is generated first.
  • TwoWayShootingMover, subclass of RandomChoiceMover, which randomly selects to either shoot forward-first or backward-first.
  • TwoWayShootingStrategy, subclass of MoveStrategy, which generates a TwoWayShootingMover for every ensemble of interest.

In addition, this module implements new snapshot modifiers to change the velocities of the shooting point:

  • GeneralizedDirectionModifier, subclass of SnapshotModifier, which acts as an abstract base class for the specific velocity direction modifiers.
  • VelocityDirectionModifier, subclass of GeneralizedDirectionModifier, which modifies all the velocities of the selected subset of atoms.
  • SingleAtomVelocityDirectionModifier, subclass of GeneralizedDirectionModifier, which modifies the velocities on one of the selected subset of atoms.

Beyond these, the previously existing RandomVelocities snapshot modifier is also likely to be used with two-way shooting.

Background Information

This module builds on OpenPathSampling, a Python package for path sampling simulations. To learn more about OpenPathSampling, you might be interested in reading:

Testing

Tests in OpenPathSampling use the nose package.

This module has been included in the OpenPathSampling core. Its tests can be run by setting up a developer install of OpenPathSampling and running the command nosetests from the root directory of the repository.