The free energetics of water density fluctuations in bulk water, at interfaces, and in hydrophobic confinement inform the hydration of hydrophobic solutes as well as their interactions and assembly. The characterization of such free energetics is typically performed using enhanced sampling techniques such as umbrella sampling. In umbrella sampling, order parameter distributions obtained from adjacent biased simulations must overlap in order to estimate free energy differences between biased ensembles.Many biased simulations are typically required to ensure such overlap, which exacts a steep computational cost. We recently introduced a sparse sampling method, which circumvents the overlap requirement by using thermodynamic integration to estimate free energy differences between biased ensembles. Here we build upon and generalize sparse sampling for characterizing the free energetics of water density fluctuations in systems near liquid-vapor coexistence. We also introduce sensible heuristics for choosing the biasing potential parameters and strategies for adaptively refining them, which facilitate the estimation of such free energetics accurately and efficiently. We illustrate the method by characterizing the free energetics of cavitation in a large volume in bulk water. We also use sparse sampling to characterize the free energetics of capillary evaporation for water confined between two hydrophobic plates. In both cases, sparse sampling is nearly two orders of magnitude faster than umbrella sampling. Given its efficiency, the sparse sampling method is particularly well suited for characterizing free energy landscapes for systems wherein umbrella sampling is prohibitively expensive. arXiv:1803.05279v1 [cond-mat.stat-mech]

We introduce an accurate and efficient method for characterizing surface wetting and interfacial properties, such as the contact angle made by a liquid droplet on a solid surface, and the vapor-liquid surface tension of a fluid. The method makes use of molecular simulations in conjunction with the indirect umbrella sampling technique to systematically wet the surface and estimate the corresponding free energy. To illustrate the method, we study the wetting of a family of Lennard-Jones surfaces by water. We estimate contact angles for surfaces with a wide range of attractions for water by using our method and also by using droplet shapes. Notably, as surface -water attractions are increased, our method is able to capture the transition from partial to complete wetting. Finally, the method is straightforward to implement and computationally efficient, providing accurate contact angle estimates in roughly 5 nanoseconds of simulation time. A. IntroductionWetting of solid surfaces by fluids is important in diverse disciplines, including but not limited to surface chemistry, materials characterization, oil and gas recovery 1-5 . In general, the wettability of a solid by a fluid is characterized by a wetting coefficient, k ≡ (γ SV − γ SL )/γ VL , where γ represents surface tension, and the subscripts correspond to the coexisting vapor (V), liquid (L) and solid (S) phases. The wetting coefficient is also related to the contact angle (θ ) that a liquid droplet (surrounded by its vapor) makes with a solid surface; according to Young's equation, cos θ = (γ SV − γ SL )/γ VL = k. Thus, the extent to which a fluid prefers to wet a solid, or the preference of the solid for the

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