What is "metadynamics"

n. (context mathematics computing physics chemistry English) An algorithmic method of simulating rare, complex systems and for calculating the free energy associated with them

Metadynamics (MTD; also abbreviated as METAD or MetaD) is a computer simulation method in computational physics, chemistry and biology. It is used to compute free energy and other state functions of a system, where ergodicity is hindered by the form of the system's energy landscape. It was first suggested by Alessandro Laio and Michele Parrinello in 2002 and is usually applied within molecular dynamics simulations. MTD closely resembles a number of recent methods such as adaptively biased molecular dynamics, adaptive reaction coordinate forces and local elevation umbrella sampling. More recently, both the original and well-tempered metadynamics were derived in the context of importance sampling and shown to be a special case of the adaptive biasing potential setting. MTD is related to the Wang-Landau sampling.