Parallel nonlinear multisplitting methods

Summary Linear multisplitting methods are known as parallel iterative methods for solving a linear systemAx=b. We extend the idea of multisplittings to the problem of solving a nonlinear system of equationsF(x)=0. Our nonlinear multisplittings are based on several nonlinear splittings of the functionF. In a parallel computing environment, each processor would have to calculate the exact solution of an individual nonlinear system belonging to his nonlinear multisplitting and these solutions are combined to yield the next iterate. Although the individual systems are usually much less involved than the original system, the exact solutions will in general not be available. Therefore, we consider important variants where the exact solutions of the individual systems are approximated by some standard method such as Newton's method. Several methods proposed in literature may be regarded as special nonlinear multisplitting methods. As an application of our systematic approach we present a local convergence analysis of the nonlinear multisplitting methods and their variants. One result is that the local convergence of these methods is determined by an induced linear multisplitting of the Jacobian ofF.Dedicated to the memory of Peter Henrici