Quasichemical theory with a soft cutoff.

In view of the wide success of molecular quasichemical theory of liquids, this paper develops the soft-cutoff version of that theory. This development allows molecular dynamics simulations to be used for the calculation of solvation free energy, whereas the hard-cutoff version of the theory needs Monte Carlo simulations. This development also shows how fluids composed of molecules with smooth repulsive interactions can be treated analogously to the molecular-field theory of the hard-sphere fluid. In the treatment of liquid water, quasichemical theory with soft-cutoff conditioning does not change the fundamental convergence characteristics of the theory using hard-cutoff conditioning. In fact, hard cutoffs are found here to work better than softer ones in that case.