Exploration of conformational phase space in polymer melts: a comparison of parallel tempering and conventional molecular dynamics simulations

Parallel tempering molecular dynamics simulations have been performed for 1,4-polybutadiene polymer melts in the 323 K-473 K temperature domain at atmospheric pressure. The parallel tempering approach provides a vast improvement in the equilibration and sampling of conformational phase space for the atomistic melt chains in comparison with conventional molecular dynamics simulations even for molecular weights and temperatures considered to be routinely accessible via the latter technique.