A projection method for the numerical solution of linear systems in separable stiff differential equations

This paper deals with the efficient implementation of implicit methods for solving stiff ODEs, in the case of Jacobians with separable sets of eigenvalues. For solving the linear systems required we propose a method which is particularly suitable when the large eigenvalues of the Jacobian matrix are few and well separated from the small ones. It is based on a combination of an initial iterative procedure, which reduces the components of the vector error along to the nondominant directions of J and a projection Krylov method which reduces the components of the vector error along to the directions corresponding to the large eigenvalues. The technique solves accurately and cheaply the linear systems in the Newton's method, and computes the number of stiff eigenvalues of J when this information is not explicitly available. Numerical results are given as well as comparisons with the LSODE code.