A comparison of chain-of-states based methods for finding minimum energy pathways
(MEPs) is presented. In each method, a set of images along an initial pathway between two
local minima is relaxed to find a MEP. We compare the nudged elastic band (NEB), doubly
nudged elastic band, string, and simplified string methods, each with a set of commonly
used optimizers. Our results show that the NEB and string methods are essentially
equivalent and the most efficient methods for finding MEPs when coupled with a suitable …