Finding free-energy landmarks of chemical reactions

Shiga, Motoyuki   ; Tuckerman, M. E.*

Predicting reaction pathways is one of the most important goals in theoretical and computational chemistry. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to search for free-energy landmarks, i.e., minima and the saddle points, of chemical reactions in an automated manner using a combination of steepest descent and gentlest ascent methods. As demonstrations, we present applications to the ring-opening reaction of benzocyclobutene and an SN2 reaction in aqueous solution.