  An improved neighbor list algorithm is proposed to reduce unnecessary
interatomic distance calculations in molecular simulations. It combines the
advantages of Verlet table and cell linked list algorithms by using cell
decomposition approach to accelerate the neighbor list construction speed, and
data sorting method to lower the CPU data cache miss rate, as well as partial
updating method to minimize the unnecessary reconstruction of the neighbor
list. Both serial and parallel performance of molecular dynamics simulation are
evaluated using the proposed algorithm and compared with those using
conventional Verlet table and cell linked list algorithms. Results show that
the new algorithm outperforms the conventional algorithms by a factor of 2~3 in
cases of both small and large number of atoms.
