TY - GEN A1 - Fischer, Alexander A1 - Schütte, Christof A1 - Deuflhard, Peter A1 - Cordes, Frank T1 - Hierarchical Uncoupling-Coupling of Metastable Conformations N2 - Uncoupling-coupling Monte Carlo (UCMC) combines uncoupling techniques for finite Markov chains with Markov chain Monte Carlo methodology. UCMC aims at avoiding the typical metastable or trapping behavior of Monte Carlo techniques. From the viewpoint of Monte Carlo, a slowly converging long-time Markov chain is replaced by a limited number of rapidly mixing short-time ones. Therefore, the state space of the chain has to be hierarchically decomposed into its metastable conformations. This is done by means of combining the technique of conformation analysis as recently introduced by the authors, and appropriate annealing strategies. We present a detailed examination of the uncoupling-coupling procedure which uncovers its theoretical background, and illustrates the hierarchical algorithmic approach. Furthermore, application of the UCMC algorithm to the $n$-pentane molecule allows us to discuss the effect of its crucial steps in a typical molecular scenario. T3 - ZIB-Report - 01-03 KW - almost invariant sets KW - bridge sampling KW - metastability KW - hierarchical annealing KW - hybrid Monte Carlo KW - $n$-pentane molecule KW - ratio of normalizing co Y1 - 2001 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-6296 ER -