Proper orthogonal descriptors for efficient and accurate interatomic potentials

NC Nguyen and A Rohskopf, JOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL PHYSICS, 480, 112030 (2023).

DOI: 10.1016/j.jcp.2023.112030

We present the proper orthogonal descriptors for efficient and accuracy representation of the potential energy surface. The potential energy surface is represented as a many -body expansion of parametrized potentials in which the potentials are functions of atom positions and parameters. The proper orthogonal decomposition is employed to decompose the parametrized potentials into a set of proper orthogonal descriptors (PODs). Because of the rapid convergence of the proper orthogonal decomposition, relevant snapshots can be sampled exhaustively to represent the atomic neighborhood environment accurately with a small number of descriptors. The proper orthogonal descriptors are used to develop interatomic potentials by using a linear expansion of the descriptors and determining the expansion coefficients from a weighted least-squares regression against a density functional theory (DFT) training set. We present a comprehensive evaluation of the POD potentials on previously published DFT data sets comprising Li, Mo, Cu, Ni, Si, Ge, and Ta elements. The data sets represent a diverse pool of metals, transition metals, and semiconductors. The accuracy of the POD potentials are comparable to that of state-of-the-art machine learning potentials such as the spectral neighbor analysis potential (SNAP) and the atomic cluster expansion (ACE).(c) 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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