  Hamiltonian splitting methods are an established technique to derive stable
and accurate integration schemes in molecular dynamics, in which additional
accuracy can be gained using force gradients. For rigid bodies, a tradition
exists in the literature to further split up the kinetic part of the
Hamiltonian, which lowers the accuracy. The goal of this note is to comment on
the best combination of optimized splitting and gradient methods that avoids
splitting the kinetic energy. These schemes are generally applicable, but the
optimal scheme depends on the desired level of accuracy. For simulations of
liquid water it is found that the velocity Verlet scheme is only optimal for
crude simulations with accuracies larger than 1.5%, while surprisingly a
modified Verlet scheme (HOA) is optimal up to accuracies of 0.4% and a fourth
order gradient scheme (GIER4) is optimal for even higher accuracies.
