Learning Collective Variables with Synthetic Data Augmentation through Physics-inspired Geodesic Interpolation

In molecular dynamics simulations, rare events, such as protein folding, are typically studied using enhanced sampling techniques, most of which are based on the definition of a collective variable (CV) along which acceleration occurs. Obtaining an expressive CV is crucial, but often hindered by the lack of information about the particular event, e.g., the transition from unfolded to folded conformation. We propose a simulation-free data augmentation strategy using physics-inspired metrics to generate geodesic interpolations resembling protein folding transitions, thereby improving sampling efficiency without true transition state samples. Leveraging interpolation progress parameters, we introduce a regression-based learning scheme for CV models, which outperforms classifier-based methods when transition state data are limited and noisy.