GENERALIZED SIMULATED ANNEALING ALGORITHMS USING TSALLIS STATISTICS -APPLICATION TO CONFORMATIONAL OPTIMIZATION OF A TETRAPEPTIDE

A Monte Carlo simulated annealing algorithm based on the generalized e ntropy of Tsallis is presented. The algorithm obeys detailed balance a nd reduces to a steepest descent algorithm at low temperatures. Applic ation to the conformational optimization of a tetrapeptide demonstrate s that the algorithm is more effective in locating low energy minima t han standard simulated annealing based on molecular dynamics or Monte Carlo methods.