WARNING: Listed nonbonded interaction between particles larger than the table limit

GROMACS version: 2021.3
GROMACS modification: No
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I am simulating aggregation of polymer chains on a surface in acetone as solvent. When I simulate the polymers in solution (without the surface), the simulation runs fine for 100 ns. However, when I introduce the surface, the energy minimization and NVT equil steps run fine. However, the NPT production run fails with the error

WARNING: Listed nonbonded interaction between particles 46272 and 46281
at distance 4.662 which is larger than the table limit 2.302 nm.

This is likely either a 1,4 interaction, or a listed interaction inside
a smaller molecule you are decoupling during a free energy calculation.
Since interactions at distances beyond the table cannot be computed,
they are skipped until they are inside the table limit again. You will
only see this message once, even if it occurs for several interactions.

IMPORTANT: This should not happen in a stable simulation, so there is
probably something wrong with your system. Only change the table-extension
distance in the mdp file if you are really sure that is the reason.


step 99800, will finish Mon Mar 27 20:38:59 2023Segmentation fault (core dumped)

The atoms in question are the oxygen and hydrogen atoms (acetone has a formula CH3-CO-CH3). I tried creating the system from scratch multiple times but the error keeps on popping up in the production run; the solvent molecule giving the error changes but everytime the error is between the oxygen atom and one of the hydrogens in acetone. As a hack, I tried deleting the molecule throwing the error but after a few steps another acetone molecule will spit the same error. The topology was obtained from CHARMM-GUI server and is apparently correct since the polymer solution simulations work fine. The itp file is also similar to what others have also used e.g., at https://gitlab.com/MiMiC-projects/MiMiC-docs/-/archive/main/MiMiC-docs-main.tar.gz?path=docs/tutorials/AcetoneTutorial

The contents of the itp file are:

[ moleculetype ]
; name	nrexcl
ACTO	     3

[ atoms ]
; nr	type	resnr	residu	atom	cgnr	charge	mass
     1      OG2D3      1     ACTO     O1      1    -0.480000    15.9994   ; qtot -0.480
     2      CG2O5      1     ACTO     C1      2     0.400000    12.0110   ; qtot -0.080
     3      CG331      1     ACTO     C2      3    -0.230000    12.0110   ; qtot -0.310
     4      CG331      1     ACTO     C3      4    -0.230000    12.0110   ; qtot -0.540
     5       HGA3      1     ACTO    H21      5     0.090000     1.0080   ; qtot -0.450
     6       HGA3      1     ACTO    H22      6     0.090000     1.0080   ; qtot -0.360
     7       HGA3      1     ACTO    H23      7     0.090000     1.0080   ; qtot -0.270
     8       HGA3      1     ACTO    H31      8     0.090000     1.0080   ; qtot -0.180
     9       HGA3      1     ACTO    H32      9     0.090000     1.0080   ; qtot -0.090
    10       HGA3      1     ACTO    H33     10     0.090000     1.0080   ; qtot -0.000

[ bonds ]
; ai	aj	funct	b0	Kb
    1     2     1
    2     3     1
    2     4     1
    3     5     1
    3     6     1
    3     7     1
    4     8     1
    4     9     1
    4    10     1

[ pairs ]
; ai	aj	funct	c6	c12 or
; ai	aj	funct	fudgeQQ	q1	q2	c6	c12
    1     5     1
    1     6     1
    1     7     1
    1     8     1
    1     9     1
    1    10     1
    3     8     1
    3     9     1
    3    10     1
    4     5     1
    4     6     1
    4     7     1

[ angles ] 
; ai	aj	ak	funct	th0	cth	S0	Kub
    1     2     3     5
    1     2     4     5
    3     2     4     5
    2     3     5     5
    2     3     6     5
    2     3     7     5
    5     3     6     5
    5     3     7     5
    6     3     7     5
    2     4     8     5
    2     4     9     5
    2     4    10     5
    8     4     9     5
    8     4    10     5
    9     4    10     5

[ dihedrals ]
; ai	aj	ak	al	funct	phi0	cp	mult
    1     2     3     5     9
    1     2     3     6     9
    1     2     3     7     9
    4     2     3     5     9
    4     2     3     6     9
    4     2     3     7     9
    1     2     4     8     9
    1     2     4     9     9
    1     2     4    10     9
    3     2     4     8     9
    3     2     4     9     9
    3     2     4    10     9

[ dihedrals ]
; ai	aj	ak	al	funct	q0	cq
    2     3     4     1     2

I searched in the mailing list and found that this error arises during free energy simulations. However, I am not performing any free energy calculations. The production mdp is as follows:

define                  = -DPOSRES_S -DPOSRES_SURF=1000.0
integrator              = md
dt                      = 0.002
nsteps                  = 5000000
nstxtcout               = 50000
nstvout                 = 50000
nstfout                 = 50000
nstcalcenergy           = 100
nstenergy               = 1000
nstlog                  = 1000
;
cutoff-scheme           = Verlet
nstlist                 = 20
vdwtype                 = Cut-off
vdw-modifier            = Force-switch
rvdw_switch             = 1.0
rvdw                    = 1.2
rlist                   = 1.2
rcoulomb                = 1.2
coulombtype             = PME
;
tcoupl                  = v-rescale
tc_grps                 = SYSTEM
tau_t                   = 1.0
ref_t                   = 298
;
pcoupl                  = Parrinello-Rahman
pcoupltype              = isotropic
tau_p                   = 12.0
compressibility         = 4.5e-5
ref_p                   = 1.0
constraints             = none
continuation            = yes
nstcomm                 = 100
refcoord_scaling        = all

Can anyone please help me resolve the issue.
Thamks,
Raman

The surface is the problem, not the acetone. Note how things worked until you added the surface. What is the surface, is it some kind of infinite grid of atoms? Do you need infinite-molecules to be set in the .mdp file?

1 Like

Hi Justin,
Thanks for the reply.
The surface is an arc of cylinder cut out from a very large diameter carbon nanotube. It is not an infinite or periodic molecule but is finite sized.

Are the edges properly capped with H atoms? Are there atoms right at the box boundary such that they clash across periodic boundaries? When extracting a subset of atoms from something that was originally a different shape, you’ll often run into trouble like this.

Hi Justin,
I double checked the structure and gro files. The edges are hydrogen capped and all valencies are satisfied.
The minimum distance between the box edge and the nearest atom is >1 nm so I guess this is not an issue. Increasing this distance to 1.5 nm and then solvating with acetone did not solve the problem. Interestingly, if I skip the NVT equil and directly jump to NPT using Berendsen barostat, the simulation runs fine for atleast 10 ns. But Berendsen not being a preferred barostat can not be the way ahead (that’s my understanding of Berendsen). A short equil with Berendsen and then production run with P-R also fails with same error. When I use TIP3P water as solvent instead of acetone, the simulation smoothly runs through minimisation, equil and 50 ns prod runs without any problem. I am using CHARMM36 FF.

Thanks for looking into this.
Raman