Efficient implementation and application of the artificial bee colony algorithm to low-dimensional optimization problems

We adapt a swarm-intelligence-based optimization method (the artificial bee colony algorithm, ABC) to enhance its parallel scaling properties and to improve the escaping behavior from deep local minima. Specifically, we apply the approach to the geometry optimization of Lennard-Jones clusters. We illustrate the performance and the scaling properties of the parallelization scheme for several system sizes (5–20 particles). Our main findings are specific recommendations for ranges of the parameters of the ABC algorithm which yield maximal performance for Lennard-Jones clusters and Morse clusters. The suggested parameter ranges for these different interaction potentials turn out to be very similar; thus, we believe that our reported values are fairly general for the ABC algorithm applied to chemical optimization problems.