Application of the Linearized MD Approach for Computing Equilibrium Solvation Free Energies of Charged and Dipolar Solutes in Polar Solvents

The linearized MD technique is developed in order to treat systematically free energies of simple charged and dipolar solutes in water. The solvent electrostatic response field in the solute region is modeled by averaging instantaneous fields found in a MD computation for solvent configurations confined within a cavity that conforms to the real shape of the solute particle. At this stage, all electrostatic interactions are explicitly treated inside the cavity. The solvent in the external region (outside the cavity) is modeled in terms of a standard continuum theory. For nonspherical cavities, the present approach is more accurate than the field computation employed at the preceding MD stage, where spherically truncated Coulomb potentials are modified by the reaction field corrections. We considered two different linearization schemes based on a computation of either the average response field or of its fluctuations. Only the first algorithm proved to be successful. For a series of single-charged monatomic...