Function describing the energy of a physical system in terms of certain parameters
A potential energy surface (PES) or energy landscape describes the energy of a system, especially a collection of atoms, in terms of certain parameters, normally the positions of the atoms. The surface might define the energy as a function of one or more coordinates; if there is only one coordinate, the surface is called a potential energy curve or energy profile. An example is the Morse/Long-range potential.
It is helpful to use the analogy of a landscape: for a system with two degrees of freedom (e.g. two bond lengths), the value of the energy (analogy: the height of the land) is a function of two bond lengths (analogy: the coordinates of the position on the ground).[1]
The PES concept finds application in fields such as physics, chemistry and biochemistry, especially in the theoretical sub-branches of these subjects. It can be used to theoretically explore properties of structures composed of atoms, for example, finding the minimum energy shape of a molecule or computing the rates of a chemical reaction. It can be used to describe all possible conformations of a molecular entity, or the spatial positions of interacting molecules in a system, or parameters and their corresponding energy levels, typically Gibbs free energy. Geometrically, the energy landscape is the graph of the energy function across the configuration space of the system. The term is also used more generally in geometric perspectives to mathematical optimization, when the domain of the loss function is the parameter space of some system.
^Potential-energy (reaction) surface in Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 2nd ed. (the "Gold Book"). Compiled by A. D. McNaught and A. Wilkinson. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford (1997)
and 26 Related for: Potential energy surface information
A potentialenergysurface (PES) or energy landscape describes the energy of a system, especially a collection of atoms, in terms of certain parameters...
In physics, potentialenergy is the energy held by an object because of its position relative to other objects, stresses within itself, its electric charge...
Gravitational energy or gravitational potentialenergy is the potentialenergy a massive object has in relation to another massive object due to gravity...
walls of a potential well. The graph of a 2D potentialenergy function is a potentialenergysurface that can be imagined as the Earth's surface in a landscape...
In surface science, surfaceenergy (also interfacial free energy or surface free energy) quantifies the disruption of intermolecular bonds that occurs...
Activation energy can be thought of as the magnitude of the potential barrier (sometimes called the energy barrier) separating minima of the potentialenergy surface...
calculation of absolute reaction rates requires precise knowledge of potentialenergysurfaces, but it has been successful in calculating the standard enthalpy...
Electric potential (also called the electric field potential, potential drop, the electrostatic potential) is defined as the amount of work energy needed...
slightly less surface area to the entire mass of mercury. Again the two effects combine to minimize the total potentialenergy. Such a surface shape is known...
Water potential is the potentialenergy of water per unit volume relative to pure water in reference conditions. Water potential quantifies the tendency...
lower potentialenergy curve is for the neutral molecule and the upper surface is for the positive ion. Both curves plot the potentialenergy as a function...
that are explored with interatomic potentials include lattice parameters, surfaceenergies, interfacial energies, adsorption, cohesion, thermal expansion...
point along the potentialenergysurface means that a force is acting along the bonds to the molecule, there will always be a lower energy structure that...
(including but not limited to surface hopping and path integral molecular dynamics). When the potentialenergysurfaces of both the initial and the final...
Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) is a renewable energy technology that harnesses the temperature difference between the warm surface waters of the...
The Morse potential, named after physicist Philip M. Morse, is a convenient interatomic interaction model for the potentialenergy of a diatomic molecule...
In thermodynamics, the chemical potential of a species is the energy that can be absorbed or released due to a change of the particle number of the given...
mathematical physics, scalar potential, simply stated, describes the situation where the difference in the potentialenergies of an object in two different...
A thermodynamic potential (or more accurately, a thermodynamic potentialenergy) is a scalar quantity used to represent the thermodynamic state of a system...
arrangement of atoms in an arbitrary region near the saddle point of a potentialenergysurface. The region represents not one defined state, but a range of unstable...
each atom is acceptably close to zero and the position on the potentialenergysurface (PES) is a stationary point (described later). The collection of...
exploits wave power is a wave energy converter (WEC). Waves are generated primarily by wind passing over the sea's surface and also by tidal forces, temperature...
Hamiltonian (the value of the potentialenergysurface) at the equilibrium geometry of the molecule. The molecular energy levels are labelled by the molecular...
intersection of two or more potentialenergysurfaces is the set of molecular geometry points where the potentialenergysurfaces are degenerate (intersect)...
the potentialenergysurface are specifically called conformational isomers or conformers. Conformations that correspond to local maxima on the energy surface...