Hi all,

I'm interested in calculating the free-energy change when a frozen part of the 
system changes. The change, in general, implies a change in coordinates and in 
non-bonded parameters.

As far as I know, there's no efficient way to calculate this currently in 
gromacs. The only way I see is adding the two endpoints of the frozen fragment, 
and progressively turn on and off the electrostatic and vdw interactions (that 
is, use a dual-topology approach). This can be calculated either with TI or 
with BAR.

But this is quite cumbersome, and it would be more efficient if one could 
change the frozen coordinates with lambda. Something similar can be done with 
position restraints, but these don't give a frozen enough geometry, and I'm not 
sure the results would be quite reliable.

When calculating dH/dlambda with a frozen fragment, the contributions from the 
changing charges and non-bonded parameters are correctly included, what is 
missing is the contribution from the changing coordinates, and I believe this 
can be obtained if I can get an output of the average force (in vector form) on 
each affected atom. Is there some way to get this information (without storing 
the forces for the whole system)? Assuming that forces on frozen atoms are 
calculated at all.

With the average force I can get the contribution to dH/dlambda, but this would 
only work with TI, for BAR I would need to be able to calculate the energy with 
different coordinates, and I'm afraid that's harder.

Any other ideas on how to calculate the free energy when the coordinates of a 
frozen fragment change?

Thanks.
Ignacio
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