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Transfer Operator Approach to Conformational Dynamics in Biomolecular Systems


SC 99-36 Christof Schütte, Wilhelm Huisinga, Peter Deuflhard: Transfer Operator Approach to Conformational Dynamics in Biomolecular Systems


Abstract: The article surveys the development of novel mathematical concepts and algorithmic approaches based thereon in view of their possible applicability to biomolecular design.
Both a first deterministic approach, based on the Frobenius-Perron operator corresponding to the flow of the Hamiltonian dynamics, and later stochastic approaches, based on a spatial Markov operator or on Langevin dynamics, can be subsumed under the unified mathematical roof of the transfer operator approach to effective dynamics of molecular systems. The key idea of constructing specific transfer operators especially taylored for the purpose of conformational dynamics appears as the red line throughout the paper. Different steps of the algorithm are exemplified by a trinucleotide molecular system as a small representative of possible RNA drug molecules.
Keywords: Transfer operator, Markov process, Markov chain, molecular dynamics, biomolecular conformations, canonical ensemble, transition prohability, Hamiltonian dynamics, Langevin dynamics, nearly degenerate eigenvalues, Perron cluster
MSC: 65U05, 60J25, 60J60, 47B15