Adaptive resolution simulations coupling atomistic water to dissipative particle dynamics.

Abstract

Multiscale methods are the most efficient way to address the interlinked spatiotemporal scales encountered in soft matter and molecular liquids. In the literature reported hybrid approaches span from quantum to atomistic, coarse-grained, and continuum length scales. In this article, we present the hybrid coupling of the molecular dynamics (MD) and dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) methods, bridging the micro- and mesoscopic descriptions. The interfacing is performed within the adaptive resolution scheme (AdResS), which is a linear momentum conserving coupling technique. Our methodology is hence suitable to simulate fluids on the micro/mesoscopic scale, where hydrodynamics plays an important role. The presented approach is showcased for water at ambient conditions. The supramolecular coupling is enabled by a recently developed clustering algorithm SWINGER that assembles, disassembles, and reassembles clusters as needed during the course of the simulation. This allows for a seamless coupling between standard atomistic MD and DPD models. The developed framework can be readily applied to various applications in the fields of materials and life sciences, e.g., simulations of phospholipids and polymer melts, or to study the red blood cells behavior in normal and disease states.