Mathematical aspects of molecular replacement. II. Geometry of motion spaces.

Molecular replacement (MR) is a well established computational method for phasing in macromolecular crystallography. In MR searches, spaces of motions are explored for determining the appropriate placement of rigid models of macromolecules in crystallographic asymmetric units. In the first paper of this series, it was shown that this space of motions, when endowed with an appropriate composition operator, forms an algebraic structure called a quasigroup. In this second paper, the geometric properties of these MR search spaces are explored and analyzed. This analysis includes the local differential geometry, global geometry and symmetry properties of these spaces.