Improved Local Lattice Approach for Coulombic Simulations

TL;DR

This paper presents an enhanced local lattice method for simulating Coulomb gases, improving move acceptance rates and analyzing discretization effects, with applications in biophysics.

Contribution

It introduces a coupled particle-field update procedure that significantly increases move acceptance rates in Coulomb gas simulations.

Findings

Acceptance rates improved to practical levels

Sensitivity to lattice discretization studied

Method applied to biophysical problems

Abstract

An improved approach to the simulation of strongly fluctuating Coulomb gases, based on a local lattice technique introduced by Maggs and Rossetto, is described and then tested in a problem of biophysical interest. The low acceptance rates for charged particle moves in regimes of physical interest are increased to a serviceable level by use of a coupled particle-field update procedure in the new method. Sensitivity of the results to lattice discretization effects is also studied using asymmetric lattices.