fix hmc command — LAMMPS documentation

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# fix hmc command

## Syntax

    fix ID group-ID hmc N seed T keyword values ...

- ID, group-ID are documented in fix command

- hmc = style name of this fix command

- N = invoke a Monte Carlo step every N steps

- seed = random # seed (positive integer)

- T = temperature for assigning velocities and acceptance criterion

- one or more keyword/value pairs may be appended

      keyword = rigid or resample or mom
        rigid value = rigidID
           rigidID = ID of fix rigid/small command
        resample value = yes or no
        mom value = yes or no

## Examples

    fix 1 all hmc 10 123 500
    fix hmc_water all hmc 100 123 298.15 rigid 1
    fix 2 all hmc 10 12345 300 mom no resample yes

## Description

Added in version 22Jul2025.

This fix implements the hybrid or Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) algorithm. The basic idea is to use molecular dynamics (MD) to generate trial MC “moves” which are then accepted or rejected via the Metropolis criterion. In this context, an MC “move” is the new configuration of particles after N MD steps, i.e. all the particles in the system have moved to new positions. HMC generates a canonical distribution in configuration space. More details on the theory behind HMC can be found in the references, (Mehlig) and (Mehlig).

The details of the HMC algorithm for a repeating series of $N$ MD steps are as follows:

(1) The configuration of the system is stored along with its current total energy. This includes all particle positions and velocities and other per-atom properties (e.g. dipole orientation vector for particles with dipole moments).

(2) The system is time integrated in the NVE ensemble for the specified N MD steps and the new energy is calculated. The new configuration is the trial “move” to accept or reject.

(3) The energy change \(\Delta{H}\) in the Hamiltonian of the system due to the “move” is calculated by the following equation:

\[\Delta{H} = H(q',p') - H(q,p)\]

The new configuration is then accepted/rejected according to the Metropolis criterion with probability:

\[p^{acc} = min(1,e^{\frac{-\Delta{H}}{k_B T}})\]

where T is the specified temperature.

The idea of HMC is to use a timestep large enough that total energy is not conserved. The change in total energy (the Hamiltonian) is what the Metropolis criterion is based on, not the change in potential energy.

(4) If accepted, the new configuration becomes the starting point for the next trial MC “move”. If resample is yes then the velocities are resampled at this point as well.

(5) If rejected, the old configuration (from N steps ago) is restored and new momenta (velocities) are assigned to each particle in the fix group by randomly resampling from a normal distribution at the specified temperature $T$ using the following equation:

\[p_{x,y,z} = \textbf{N}(0,1) \sqrt{\frac{k_B T}{2 m^2}}\]

The velocity-modified “old” configuration becomes the starting point for the next trial MC “move”.

Note

HMC should be run with a larger timestep than would be used for traditional MD, which enables total energy fluctuations and generation of new conformations which MD would not normally generate as quickly. The timestep size may also affect the acceptance ratio as a larger timestep will lead to larger and more extreme MC moves which are less likely to be accepted. The timestep size must strike a balance between allowing the total energy to change and generating errors such as lost atoms due to atomic overlap. This means that during the MD portion of the algorithm, unphysical dynamics will take place, such as large temperature fluctuations and large forces between atoms. This is expected and is part of the HMC algorithm, as the MD step is not intended to produce a physically realistic trajectory, but rather to generate a new configuration of particles that can be accepted or rejected based on the Metropolis criterion.

Note

High acceptance ratios indicate that the MC algorithm is inefficient, as it is not generating new configurations of particles any faster than MD would on its own. In the limit of an acceptance ratio of 1.0, the algorithm is equivalent to MD (with momentum resampling every N timesteps if resample = yes), and no benefit is gained from MC. A good rule of thumb is to aim for an acceptance ratio of 0.5 to 0.8, which can be monitored via the output of this fix. This can be achieved by adjusting the N parameter and the timestep size. Increasing either of these values will increase the size of the total energy fluctuations, which can decrease acceptance ratio. Increasing N will also increase the computation time for each MC step, as more MD steps are performed before each acceptance/rejection decision. As noted above, increasing the timestep too much can lead to LAMMPS errors due to lost atoms or bonds, so both of these parameters should be chosen carefully.

Note

This fix is designed to be used only for constant NVE simulations. No thermostat or barostat should be used, though LAMMPS does not check for this. A fix nve command must be defined to perform time integration for the MD portion of the algorithm. See the explanation of the rigid keyword below for an exception when rigid bodies are defined. Also note that only per-atom data is restored on MC move rejection, so anything which adds or remove particles, changes the box size, or has some external state not dependent on per-atom data will have undefined behavior.

The keyword/value options are as follows:

The rigid keyword enables use of HMC for systems containing a collection of small rigid bodies, with or without solvent (atomic fluid or non-rigid molecular fluid).

The rigidID value should be the ID of a fix rigid/small or fix rigid/nve/small command which defines the rigid bodies. Its integrator will be used during the MD timesteps. If there are additional particles in the system, e.g. solvent, they should be time-integrated by a fix nve command as explained above.

The resample keyword determines whether velocities are also resampled upon acceptance in step (4) above, in addition to step (5). If resample = yes, velocities are resampled upon acceptance. If resample = no (default), velocities are not resampled upon acceptance.

The mom keyword sets the linear momentum of the ensemble of particles each time velocities are reset in steps (4 or 5) above. If mom = yes (default), the linear momentum of the ensemble of velocities is zeroed. If mom = no, the linear momentum of the ensemble of velocities is not zeroed.

This fix creates several additional computes for monitoring the energy and virial of the system and storing/restoring the system state. This is done internally, as if these commands had been issued, where ID is the ID of this fix:

    compute hmc_ke_ID all ke
    compute hmc_pe_ID all pe
    compute hmc_peatom_ID all pe/atom
    compute hmc_press_ID all pressure NULL virial
    compute hmc_pressatom_ID all stress/atom NULL virial

The output of these computes can be accessed by the input script, along with the other outputs described in the next section.

## Restart, fix_modify, output, run start/stop, minimize info

No information about this fix is written to binary restart files. None of the fix_modify options are relevant to this fix.

This fix calculates a global scalar and global vector of length 5, which can be accessed by various output commands. The scalar is the fraction (0-1) of attempted MC moves which have been accepted. The vector stores the following quantities:

- 1 = cumulative number of accepted moves

- 2 = cumulative number of rejected moves

- 3 = change in potential energy for last trial move

- 4 = change in kinetic energy for last trial move

- 5 = change in total energy (kinetic + potential energy) for last trial move

These values are updated once every N timesteps. The scalar and cumulative counts are “intensive”; the three energies are “extensive” and are in energy units.

No parameter of this fix can be used with the start/stop keywords of the run command. This fix is not invoked during energy minimization.

## Restrictions

This fix is part of the MC package and requires the RIGID package to be installed. It is only enabled if LAMMPS was built with both packages. See the Build package doc page for more info.

## Related commands

fix nvt, fix gcmc, fix tfmc

## Default

The option defaults are resample = no and mom = yes.

(Mehlig1) Mehlig, B., Heermann, D. W., & Forrest, B. M. (1992). Hybrid Monte Carlo method for condensed-matter systems. Physical Review B, 45(2), 679.

(Mehlig2) Mehlig, B., Heermann, D. W., & Forrest, B. M. (1992). Exact langevin algorithms. Molecular Physics, 76(6), 1347-1357.