Unique QM/MM Potential Energy Surface Exploration Using Microiterations

The determination and the characterization of important points of a potential energy surface can be carried out routinely using any molecular modelling software based on either a quantum mechanical (QM) or a classical (molecular mechanics, MM) description of the particle interactions. However the coupling of the QM and MM descriptions (QM/MM) gives rise to severe efficiency limitations during a geometry optimization of the whole system, especially when both subsystems are coupled electrostatically. This work introduces two simple improvements, mainly developed in the framework of the electrostatic potential fitted method to ensure the uniqueness of the QM/MM potential energy surface. The first one aims to improve the approximate Hessian matrix used in the QM optimization step. The second one tries to recouple electrostatically the QM and MM subsystems when microiterations are used. These methods are tested on a very simple system (a QM water molecule in a MM water box) before to be applied to the investigation of the light absorption in the rhodopsin protein at the multireference second-order perturbation level of theory (CASPT2). This work is dedicated to the memory of Prof. B. O. Roos. He was a great support for the implementation of the QM/MM method in the Molcas package. (C) 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem 111: 3339-3346, 2011