Allen Rosalind J, Valeriani Chantal, Rein Ten Wolde Pieter
SUPA, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Mayfield Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JZ, UK.
J Phys Condens Matter. 2009 Nov 18;21(46):463102. doi: 10.1088/0953-8984/21/46/463102. Epub 2009 Oct 26.
Rare events are ubiquitous in many different fields, yet they are notoriously difficult to simulate because few, if any, events are observed in a conventional simulation run. Over the past several decades, specialized simulation methods have been developed to overcome this problem. We review one recently developed class of such methods, known as forward flux sampling. Forward flux sampling uses a series of interfaces between the initial and final states to calculate rate constants and generate transition paths for rare events in equilibrium or nonequilibrium systems with stochastic dynamics. This review draws together a number of recent advances, summarizes several applications of the method and highlights challenges that remain to be overcome.
罕见事件在许多不同领域中普遍存在，但因其在常规模拟运行中观测到的事件极少（若有的话），故而极难模拟。在过去几十年里，人们开发了专门的模拟方法来克服这一问题。我们回顾了最近开发的一类此类方法，即前向通量采样。前向通量采样利用初始态和终态之间的一系列界面来计算速率常数，并为具有随机动力学的平衡或非平衡系统中的罕见事件生成过渡路径。本综述汇集了一些最新进展，总结了该方法的若干应用，并突出了仍有待克服的挑战。
