A simple new way to help speed up Monte Carlo convergence rates: Energy-scaled displacement Monte Carlo

A method we call energy-scaled displacement Monte Carlo (ESDMC) whose purpose is to improve sampling efficiency and thereby speed up convergence rates in Monte Carlo calculations is presented. The method involves scaling the maximum displacement a particle may make on a trial move to the particle’s configurational energy. The scaling is such that on the average, the most stable particles make the smallest moves and the most energetic particles the largest moves. The method is compared to Metropolis Monte Carlo (MMC) and Force Bias Monte Carlo of (FBMC) by applying all three methods to a dense Lennard-Jones fluid at two temperatures, and to hot ST2 water. The functions monitored as the Markov chains developed were, for the Lennard-Jones case: melting, radial distribution functions, internal energies, and heat capacities. For hot ST2 water, we monitored energies and heat capacities. The results suggest that ESDMC samples configuration space more efficiently than either MMC or FBMC in these systems for the biasing parameters used here. The benefit from using ESDMC seemed greatest for the Lennard-Jones systems.