United-atom model

In the united-atom model the Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle CH_2} and Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle CH_3} units are treated as one point, i.e. the hydrogen atoms are incorporated within the carbon atoms and are not expressed explicitly. Many force fields make use of this approximation in order to reduce the computational overheads. For example, n-hexane consists of 6 carbon atoms and 14 hydrogen atoms. A fully-atomistic model of n-hexane would require 20 interaction sites. Using the united-atom approximation, this reduces to two $CH_{3}$ sites and four Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle CH_2} sites, a significant reduction.