Numerical Accuracy Matters: Applications of Machine Learned Potential Energy Surfaces

The role of numerical accuracy in training and evaluating neural network-based potential energy surfaces is examined for different experimental observables. For observables that require third- and fourth-order derivatives of the potential energy with respect to Cartesian coordinates single-precision arithmetics as is typically used in ML-based approaches is insufficient and leads to roughness of the underlying PES as is explicitly demonstrated. Increasing the numerical accuracy to double-precision gives a smooth PES with higher-order derivatives that are numerically stable and yield meaningful anharmonic frequencies and tunneling splitting as is demonstrated for H₂CO and malonaldehyde. For molecular dynamics simulations, which only require first-order derivatives, single-precision arithmetics appears to be sufficient, though.