Energy-momentum conserving integration schemes for molecular dynamics

Abstract: We address the formulation and analysis of energy and momentum conserving time integration schemes in the context of particle dynamics, and in particular atomic systems. The article identifies three critical aspects of these models that demand a careful analysis when discretized: first, the treatment of periodic boundary conditions; second, the formulation of approximations of systems with three-body interaction forces; third, their extension to atomic systems with functional potentials. These issues, and in particular their interplay with Energy-Momentum integrators, are studied in detail. Novel expressions for these time integration schemes are proposed and numerical examples are given to illustrate their performance.