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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2023 May 9.
Published in final edited form as: Annu Rev Biophys. 2021 Dec 21;51:79–98. doi: 10.1146/annurev-biophys-100421-110959

Figure 1:

Figure 1:

Anisotropic displacement parameters (ADPs) can provide detailed information about atomic motion. ADPs assume Gaussian-distributed displacements, consistent with Boltzmann-weighted motion in a harmonic well in the PES. Isotropic ADPs (a) show magnitude but not direction of atomic motion, while anisotropic ADPs (b) provide detailed information about both magnitude and preferred directions of atomic displacement. Isotropic ADPs correspond to motion in an isotropic PES well (c) , while anisotropic ADPs correspond to motion in a PES well with different widths in each direction (d). V is the potential energy, and q is the generalized coordinate.