Improving order and efficiency: Composition with a modified Newton’s method

In this paper a zero-finding technique for solving nonlinear equations more efficiently than they usually are with traditional iterative methods in which the order of convergence is improved is presented. The key idea in deriving this procedure is to compose a given iterative method with a modified Newton’s method that introduces just one evaluation of the function. To carry out this procedure some classical methods with different orders of convergence are used to obtain new methods that can be generalized in Banach spaces.     

Operator-splitting methods in respect of eigenvalue problems for nonlinear equations and applications for Burgers equations

In this article we consider iterative operator-splitting methods for nonlinear differential equations with respect to their eigenvalues. The main focus of the proposed idea is the fixed-point iterative scheme that linearizes our underlying equations. On the basis of the approximated eigenvalues of such linearized systems we choose the order of the operators for our iterative splitting scheme. The convergence properties of such a mixed method are studied and demonstrated. We confirm with numerical applications the effectiveness of the proposed scheme in comparison with the standard operator-splitting methods by providing improved results and convergence rates. We apply our results to deposition processes.     

Block iterative solvers for higher order finite volume methods

Recently, new higher order finite volume methods (FVM) were introduced in [Z. Cai, J. Douglas, M. Park, Development and analysis of higher order finite volume methods over rectangles for elliptic equations, Adv. Comput. Math. 19 (2003) 3-33], where the linear system derived by the hybridization with Lagrange multiplier satisfying the flux consistency condition is reduced to a linear system for a pressure variable by an appropriate quadrature rule. We study the convergence of an iterative solver for this linear system. The conjugate gradient (CG) method is a natural choice to solve the system, but it seems slow, possibly due to the non-diagonal dominance of the system. In this paper, we propose block iterative methods with a reordering scheme to solve the linear system derived by the higher order FVM and prove their convergence. With a proper ordering, each block subproblem can be solved by fast methods such as the multigrid (MG) method. The numerical experiments show that these block iterative methods are much faster than CG.     

An extension of Gander’s result for quadratic equations

In the study of iterative methods with high order of convergence, Gander provides a general expression for iterative methods with order of convergence at least three in the scalar case. Taking into account an extension of this result, we define a family of iterations in Banach spaces with R-order of convergence at least four for quadratic equations.     

On new higher order families of simultaneous methods for finding polynomial zeros

Two one parameter families of iterative methods for the simultaneous determination of simple zeros of algebraic polynomials are presented. The construction of these families are based on a one parameter family of the third order for finding a single root of nonlinear equation f(x)=0. Some previously derived simultaneous methods can be obtained from the presented families as special cases. We prove that the local convergence of the proposed families is of the order four. Numerical results are included to demonstrate the convergence properties of considered methods.     

Third-order iterative methods with applications to Hammerstein equations: A unified approach

The geometrical interpretation of a family of higher order iterative methods for solving nonlinear scalar equations was presented in [S. Amat, S. Busquier, J.M. Gutiérrez, Geometric constructions of iterative functions to solve nonlinear equations. J. Comput. Appl. Math. 157(1) (2003) 197-205]. This family includes, as particular cases, some of the most famous third-order iterative methods: Chebyshev methods, Halley methods, super-Halley methods, C-methods and Newton-type two-step methods. The aim of the present paper is to analyze the convergence of this family for equations defined between two Banach spaces by using a technique developed in [J.A. Ezquerro, M.A. Hernández, Halley’s method for operators with unbounded second derivative. Appl. Numer. Math. 57(3) (2007) 354-360]. This technique allows us to obtain a general semilocal convergence result for these methods, where the usual conditions on the second derivative are relaxed. On the other hand, the main practical difficulty related to the classical third-order iterative methods is the evaluation of bilinear operators, typically second-order Fréchet derivatives. However, in some cases, the second derivative is easy to evaluate. A clear example is provided by the approximation of Hammerstein equations, where it is diagonal by blocks. We finish the paper by applying our methods to some nonlinear integral equations of this type.     

Some higher-order modifications of Newton’s method for solving nonlinear equations

In this paper we consider constructing some higher-order modifications of Newton’s method for solving nonlinear equations which increase the order of convergence of existing iterative methods by one or two or three units. This construction can be applied to any iteration formula, and per iteration the resulting methods add only one additional function evaluation to increase the order. Some illustrative examples are provided and several numerical results are given to show the performance of the presented methods.     

Frozen divided difference scheme for solving systems of nonlinear equations

The development of an inverse first-order divided difference operator for functions of several variables, as well as a direct computation of the local order of convergence of an iterative method is presented. A generalized algorithm of the secant method for solving a system of nonlinear equations is studied and the maximum computational efficiency is computed. Furthermore, a sequence that approximates the order of convergence is generated for the examples and it confirms in a numerical way that the order of the methods is well deduced.     

Convergence of block two-stage iterative methods for symmetric positive definite systems

Summary. We study the convergence of two-stage iterative methods for solving symmetric positive definite (spd) systems. The main tool we used to derive the iterative methods and to analyze their convergence is the diagonally compensated reduction (cf. [1]). Received December 11, 1997 / Revised version received March 25, 1999 / Published online May 30, 2001     

Fourier analysis of schwarz alternating methods for piecewise hermite bicubic orthogonal spline collocation

The rates of convergence of two Schwarz alternating methods are analyzed for the iterative solution of a discrete problem which arises when orthogonal spline collocation with piecewise Hermite bicubics is applied to the Dirichlet problem for Poisson's equation on a rectangle. In the first method, the rectangle is divided into two overlapping subrectangles, while three overlapping subrectangles are used in the second method. Fourier analysis is used to obtain explicit formulas for the convergence factors by which theH ¹-norm of the errors is reduced in one iteration of the Schwarz methods. It is shown numerically that while these factors depend on the size of overlap, they are independent of the partition stepsize. Results of numerical experiments are presented which confirm the established rates of convergence of the Schwarz methods.This research was supported in part by funds from the National Science Foundation grant CCR-9103451.     

A biparametric family of optimally convergent sixteenth-order multipoint methods with their fourth-step weighting function as a sum of a rational and a generic two-variable function

A biparametric family of four-step multipoint iterative methods of order sixteen to numerically solve nonlinear equations are developed and their convergence properties are investigated. The efficiency indices of these methods are all found to be 16^1/5≈1.741101, being optimally consistent with the conjecture of Kung-Traub. Numerical examples as well as comparison with existing methods developed by Kung-Traub and Neta are demonstrated to confirm the developed theory in this paper.     

A family of three-point methods of optimal order for solving nonlinear equations

A family of three-point iterative methods for solving nonlinear equations is constructed using a suitable parametric function and two arbitrary real parameters. It is proved that these methods have the convergence order eight requiring only four function evaluations per iteration. In this way it is demonstrated that the proposed class of methods supports the Kung-Traub hypothesis (1974) [3] on the upper bound 2ⁿ of the order of multipoint methods based on n+1 function evaluations. Consequently, this class of root solvers possesses very high computational efficiency. Numerical examples are included to demonstrate exceptional convergence speed with only few function evaluations.     

Dynamics of a new family of iterative processes for quadratic polynomials

In this work we show the presence of the well-known Catalan numbers in the study of the convergence and the dynamical behavior of a family of iterative methods for solving nonlinear equations. In fact, we introduce a family of methods, depending on a parameter m∈N∪{0}. These methods reach the order of convergence m+2 when they are applied to quadratic polynomials with different roots. Newton’s and Chebyshev’s methods appear as particular choices of the family appear for m=0 and m=1, respectively. We make both analytical and graphical studies of these methods, which give rise to rational functions defined in the extended complex plane. Firstly, we prove that the coefficients of the aforementioned family of iterative processes can be written in terms of the Catalan numbers. Secondly, we make an incursion into its dynamical behavior. In fact, we show that the rational maps related to these methods can be written in terms of the entries of the Catalan triangle. Next we analyze its general convergence, by including some computer plots showing the intricate structure of the Universal Julia sets associated with the methods.     

Improvements of the efficiency of some three-step iterative like-Newton methods

An improvement of the local order of convergence is presented to increase the efficiency of the iterative method with an appropriate number of evaluations of the function and its derivative. The third and fourth order of known two-step like Newton methods have been improved and the efficiency has also been increased.     

Schwarz alternating and iterative refinement methods for mixed formulations of elliptic problems,part II: Convergence theory

Summary In this paper we discuss bounds for the convergence rates of several domain decomposition algorithms to solve symmetric, indefinite linear systems arising from mixed finite element discretizations of elliptic problems. The algorithms include Schwarz methods and iterative refinement methods on locally refined grids. The implementation of Schwarz and iterative refinement algorithms have been discussed in part I. A discussion on the stability of mixed discretizations on locally refined grids is included and quantiative estimates for the convergence rates of some iterative refinement algorithms are also derived.Department of Mathematics, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071-3036. This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant NSF-CCR-8903003, while the author was a graduate student at New York University, and in part by NSF Grant ASC 9003002, while the author was a Visiting, Assistant Researcher at UCLA.     

A family of multi-point iterative methods for solving systems of nonlinear equations

We extend to n$n$-dimensional case a known multi-point family of iterative methods for solving nonlinear equations. This family includes as particular cases some well known and also some new methods. The main advantage of these methods is they have order three or four and they do not require the evaluation of any second or higher order Fréchet derivatives. A local convergence analysis and numerical examples are provided.     

A novel method for robust minimisation of univariate functions with quadratic convergence

We describe a novel method for minimisation of univariate functions which exhibits an essentially quadratic convergence and whose convergence interval is only limited by the existence of near maxima. Minimisation is achieved through a fixed-point iterative algorithm, involving only the first and second-order derivatives, that eliminates the effects of near inflexion points on convergence, as usually observed in other minimisation methods based on the quadratic approximation. Comparative numerical studies against the standard quadratic and Brent's methods demonstrate clearly the high robustness, high precision and convergence rate of the new method, even when a finite difference approximation is used in the evaluation of the second-order derivative.     

Preconditioned iterative methods for a class of nonlinear eigenvalue problems

This paper proposes new iterative methods for the efficient computation of the smallest eigenvalue of symmetric nonlinear matrix eigenvalue problems of large order with a monotone dependence on the spectral parameter. Monotone nonlinear eigenvalue problems for differential equations have important applications in mechanics and physics. The discretization of these eigenvalue problems leads to nonlinear eigenvalue problems with very large sparse ill-conditioned matrices monotonically depending on the spectral parameter. To compute the smallest eigenvalue of large-scale matrix nonlinear eigenvalue problems, we suggest preconditioned iterative methods: preconditioned simple iteration method, preconditioned steepest descent method, and preconditioned conjugate gradient method. These methods use only matrix-vector multiplications, preconditioner-vector multiplications, linear operations with vectors, and inner products of vectors. We investigate the convergence and derive grid-independent error estimates for these methods. Numerical experiments demonstrate the practical effectiveness of the proposed methods for a model problem.     

An efficient higher order family of root finders

A one parameter family of iterative methods for the simultaneous approximation of simple complex zeros of a polynomial, based on a cubically convergent Hansen–Patrick's family, is studied. We show that the convergence of the basic family of the fourth order can be increased to five and six using Newton's and Halley's corrections, respectively. Since these corrections use the already calculated values, the computational efficiency of the accelerated methods is significantly increased. Further acceleration is achieved by applying the Gauss–Seidel approach (single-step mode). One of the most important problems in solving nonlinear equations, the construction of initial conditions which provide both the guaranteed and fast convergence, is considered for the proposed accelerated family. These conditions are computationally verifiable; they depend only on the polynomial coefficients, its degree and initial approximations, which is of practical importance. Some modifications of the considered family, providing the computation of multiple zeros of polynomials and simple zeros of a wide class of analytic functions, are also studied. Numerical examples demonstrate the convergence properties of the presented family of root-finding methods.     

Semismooth Newton and Newton iterative methods for HJB equation

In this paper, some semismooth methods are considered to solve a nonsmooth equation which can arise from a discrete version of the well-known Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation. By using the slant differentiability introduced by Chen, Nashed and Qi in 2000, a semismooth Newton method is proposed. The method is proved to have monotone convergence by suitably choosing the initial iterative point and local superlinear convergence rate. Moreover, an inexact version of the proposed method is introduced, which reduces the cost of computations and still preserves nice convergence properties. Some numerical results are also reported.