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This paper analyses a novel method for constructing preconditioners for diagonally dominant symmetric positive-definite matrices. The method discussed here is based on a simple idea: we construct M by simply dropping offdiagonal non-zeros from A and modifying the diagonal elements to maintain a certain row-sum property. The preconditioners are extensions of Vaidya's augmented maximum-spanning-tree preconditioners. The preconditioners presented here were also mentioned by Vaidya in an unpublished manuscript, but without a complete analysis. The preconditioners that we present have only O(n+t2) nonzeros, where n is the dimension of the matrix and 1⩽t⩽n is a parameter that one can choose. Their construction is efficient and guarantees that the condition number of the preconditioned system is O(n2/t2) if the number of nonzeros per row in the matrix is bounded by a constant. We have developed an efficient algorithm to construct these preconditioners and we have implemented it. We used our implementation to solve a simple model problem; we show the combinatorial structure of the preconditioners and we present encouraging convergence results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent work, the author introduced a robust multilevel incomplete factorization algorithm using spanning trees of matrix graphs (Proceedings of the 1999 International Conference on Preconditioning Techniques for Large Sparse Matrix Problems in Industrial Applications, Hubert H. Humphrey Center, University of Minnesota, 1999, 251–257). Based on this idea linear and non-linear algebraic multilevel iteration (AMLI) methods are investigated in the present paper. In both cases, the preconditioner is constructed recursively from the coarsest to finer and finer levels. The considered W-cycles only need diagonal solvers on all levels and additionally evaluate a second-degree matrix polynomial (linear case), or, perform ν inner GCG-type iterations (non-linear case) on every other level. This involves the same type of preconditioner for the corresponding Schur complement. The non-linear variant has the additional benefit of being free from any method parameters to be estimated. Based on the same type of approximation property similar convergence rates are obtained for linear and non-linear AMLI, even for a very small number ν of inner iterations, e.g. ν =2,3. The presented methods are robust with respect to anisotropy and discontinuities in the coefficients of the PDEs and can also be applied to unstructured-grid problems. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider algebraic multilevel preconditioning methods based on the recursive use of a 2 × 2 block incomplete factorization procedure in which the Schur complement is approximated by a coarse grid matrix. As is well known, for discrete second-order elliptic PDEs, optimal convergence properties are proved for such basic two-level schemes under mild assumptions on the PDE coefficients, but their recursive use in a simple V-cycle algorithm does not generally lead to optimal order convergence. In the present paper, we analyse the combination of these techniques with a smoothing procedure much the same as the one used in standard multigrid algorithms, except that smoothing is not required on the finest grid. Theoretical results prove optimal convergence properties for the V-cycle under an assumption similar to the ‘approximation property’ of the classical multigrid convergence theory. On the other hand, numerical experiments made on both 2D and 3D problems show that the condition number is close to that of the two-level method. Further, the method appears robust in the presence of discontinuity and anisotropy, even when the material interfaces are not aligned with the coarse grid. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]