  The Minima Hopping global optimization method uses physically realizable
molecular dynamics moves in combination with an energy feedback that guarantees
the escape from any potential energy funnel. For the purpose of finding
reactions pathways, we argue that Minima Hopping is particularly suitable as a
guide through the potential energy landscape and as a generator for pairs of
minima that can be used as input structures for methods capable of finding
transition states between two minima. For Lennard-Jones benchmark systems we
compared this Minima Hopping guided path search method to a known approach for
the exploration of potential energy landscapes that is based on deterministic
mode-following. Although we used a stabilized mode-following technique that
reliably allows to follow distinct directions when escaping from a local
minimum, we observed that Minima Hopping guided path search is far superior in
finding lowest-barrier reaction pathways. We therefore suggest that Minima
Hopping guided path search can be used as a simple and efficient way to
identify energetically low-lying chemical reaction pathways. Finally we applied
the Minima Hopping guided path search approach to 75-atom and 102-atom Lennard
Jones systems. For the 75-atom system we found pathways whose highest energies
are significantly lower than the highest energy along the previously published
lowest-barrier pathway. Furthermore, many of these pathways contain a smaller
number of intermediate transition states than the previously publish
lowest-barrier pathway. In case of the 102-atom system Minima Hopping guided
path search found a previously unknown and energetically low-lying funnel.
