  We report a study of the basins of attraction for potential energy minima
defined by different minimisation algorithms for an atomic system. We find that
whereas some minimisation algorithms produce compact basins, others produce
basins with complex boundaries or basins consisting of disconnected parts. Such
basins deviate from the "correct" basin of attraction defined by
steepest-descent pathways, and the differences can be controlled to some extent
by adjustment of the maximum step size. The choice of the most convenient
minimisation algorithm depends on the problem in hand. We show that while
L-BFGS is the fastest minimiser, the FIRE algorithm is also quite fast, and can
lead to less fragmented basins of attraction.
