Pseudo generators of spatial transfer operators
This work provides a theoretical foundation and practical simplification for analyzing metastable dynamics in molecular systems, potentially improving computational efficiency in conformation dynamics.
The authors show that spatial transfer operators, despite not forming a semigroup, have a well-defined generating structure with pseudo generators up to order 4 that have simple, explicit expressions without momentum averaging, enabling efficient collocation methods for conformation dynamics.
Metastable behavior in dynamical systems may be a significant challenge for a simulation based analysis. In recent years, transfer operator based approaches to problems exhibiting metastability have matured. In order to make these approaches computationally feasible for larger systems, various reduction techniques have been proposed: For example, Schütte introduced a spatial transfer operator which acts on densities on configuration space, while Weber proposed to avoid trajectory simulation (like Froyland et al.) by considering a discrete generator. In this manuscript, we show that even though the family of spatial transfer operators is not a semigroup, it possesses a well defined generating structure. What is more, the pseudo generators up to order 4 in the Taylor expansion of this family have particularly simple, explicit expressions involving no momentum averaging. This makes collocation methods particularly easy to implement and computationally efficient, which in turn may open the door for further efficiency improvements in, e.g., the computational treatment of conformation dynamics. We experimentally verify the predicted properties of these pseudo generators by means of two academic examples.