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Torsion potentials

A torsion type is defined by a quadruplet of atom types, a functional form and the corresponding parameters values. The order of the atom types in the quadruplet is that of the figure.

Image title
A torsion angle between atoms 1, 2, 3 and 4.

To express the torsion angle \(\phi\), it is useful to define first the vectors \(\mathbf{V}\) and \(\mathbf{W}\):

\[ \mathbf{V} = \frac{\mathbf{r}_{21}\times \mathbf{r}_{23}}{\lVert \mathbf{r}_{21} \lVert \lVert \mathbf{r}_{23} \lVert} \]
\[ \mathbf{W} = \frac{\mathbf{r}_{34}\times \mathbf{r}_{23}}{\lVert \mathbf{r}_{34} \lVert \lVert \mathbf{r}_{23} \lVert}. \]

The torsion angle \(\phi\) is then given by its cosine and sign:

\[ \cos{\phi} = \mathbf{V}\cdot\mathbf{W} \]
\[ \text{sgn }\phi = \text{sgn} \left ( \mathbf{V}\times\mathbf{W}\cdot\mathbf{r}_{23} \right ) \]

The following types of torsion potentials are defined in exastamp: