Can replicates of energy minimization have same potential energy

User discussions
1

GROMACS version:
GROMACS modification: Yes/No
I have energy minimized my structure using gromacs for 20 ps following the lysozyme tutorial.

I did 3 such replicates for the minimization. The potential energy for all these 3 replicates was the same and there were no differences in the log files except the id.seed values.

I am confused as if energy minimization is a stochastic process Shouldn’t there be some difference in the values??

2

There’s no concept of time when you run energy minimization. Also, energy minimization is not stochastic (at least not the algorithms used in GROMACS). Check Energy Minimization - GROMACS 2024.1 documentation for more details. So, it sounds good that your three replicates were identical.