On the abstract theory of additive and multiplicative Schwarz algorithms

Summary. In recent years, it has been shown that many modern iterative algorithms (multigrid schemes, multilevel preconditioners, domain decomposition methods etc.) for solving problems resulting from the discretization of PDEs can be interpreted as additive (Jacobi-like) or multiplicative (Gauss-Seidel-like) subspace correction methods. The key to their analysis is the study of certain metric properties of the underlying splitting of the discretization space into a sum of subspaces and the splitting of the variational problem on into auxiliary problems on these subspaces. In this paper, we propose a modification of the abstract convergence theory of the additive and multiplicative Schwarz methods, that makes the relation to traditional iteration methods more explicit. The analysis of the additive and multiplicative Schwarz iterations can be carried out in almost the same spirit as in the traditional block-matrix situation, making convergence proofs of multilevel and domain decomposition methods clearer, or, at least, more classical. In addition, we present a new bound for the convergence rate of the appropriately scaled multiplicative Schwarz method directly in terms of the condition number of the corresponding additive Schwarz operator. These results may be viewed as an appendix to the recent surveys [X], [Ys]. Received February 1, 1994 / Revised version received August 1, 1994     

Overlapping Schwarz preconditioners for spectral element methods in nonstandard domains and heterogeneous media

Overlapping Schwarz preconditioners are constructed and numerically studied for Gauss-Lobatto-Legendre (GLL) spectral element discretizations of heterogeneous elliptic problems on nonstandard domains defined by Gordon-Hall transfinite mappings. The results of several test problems in the plane show that the proposed preconditioners retain the good convergence properties of overlapping Schwarz preconditioners for standard affine GLL spectral elements, i.e. their convergence rate is independent of the number of subdomains, of the spectral degree in the case of generous overlap and of the discontinuity jumps in the coefficients of the elliptic operator, while in the case of small overlap, the convergence rate depends on the inverse of the overlap size.     

Two-level additive Schwarz preconditioners for C 0 interior penalty methods

We study two-level additive Schwarz preconditioners that can be used in the iterative solution of the discrete problems resulting from C⁰ interior penalty methods for fourth order elliptic boundary value problems. We show that the condition number of the preconditioned system is bounded by C(1+(H³/δ³)), where H is the typical diameter of a subdomain, δ measures the overlap among the subdomains and the positive constant C is independent of the mesh sizes and the number of subdomains. This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DMS-03-11790.     

Wavelet sparse approximate inverse preconditioners

We show how to use wavelet compression ideas to improve the performance of approximate inverse preconditioners. Our main idea is to first transform the inverse of the coefficient matrix into a wavelet basis, before applying standard approximate inverse techniques. In this process, smoothness in the entries ofA ⁻¹ are converted into small wavelet coefficients, thus allowing a more efficient approximate inverse approximation. We shall justify theoretically and numerically that our approach is effective for matrices with smooth inverses. Supported by grants from ONR: ONR-N00014-92-J-1890, and the Army Research Office: DAAL-03-91-C-0047 (Univ. of Tenn. subcontract ORA4466.04 Amendment 1 and 2). The first and the third author also acknowledge support from RIACS/NASA Ames NAS 2-96027 and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation as Doctoral Dissertation Fellows, respectively. the work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Information Technology Research Centre (which is funded by the Province of Ontario), and RIACS/NASA Ames NAS 2-96027.     

A two-level additive Schwarz preconditioner for nonconforming plate elements

Summary. A two-level additive Schwarz preconditioner is developed for the systems resulting from the discretizations of the plate bending problem by the Morley finite element, the Fraeijs de Veubeke finite element, the Zienkiewicz finite element and the Adini finite element. The condition numbers of the preconditioned systems are shown to be bounded independent of mesh sizes and the number of subdomains in the case of a generous overlap. Received February 1, 1994 / Revised version received October 24, 1994     

Multilevel Schwarz methods

Summary We consider the solution of the algebraic system of equations which result from the discretization of second order elliptic equations. A class of multilevel algorithms are studied using the additive Schwarz framework. We establish that the condition number of the iteration operators are bounded independent of mesh sizes and the number of levels. This is an improvement on Dryja and Widlund's result on a multilevel additive Schwarz algorithm, as well as Bramble, Pasciak and Xu's result on the BPX algorithm. Some multiplicative variants of the multilevel methods are also considered. We establish that the energy norms of the corresponding iteration operators are bounded by a constant less than one, which is independent of the number of levels. For a proper ordering, the iteration operators correspond to the error propagation operators of certain V-cycle multigrid methods, using Gauss-Seidel and damped Jacobi methods as smoothers, respectively.This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grants NSF-CCR-8903003 at Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University and NSF-ASC-8958544 at Department of Computer Science, University of Maryland.     

Additive Schwarz algorithms for parabolic convection-diffusion equations

Summary In this paper, we consider the solution of linear systems of algebraic equations that arise from parabolic finite element problems. We introduce three additive Schwarz type domain decomposition methods for general, not necessarily selfadjoint, linear, second order, parabolic partial differential equations and also study the convergence rates of these algorithms. The resulting preconditioned linear system of equations is solved by the generalized minimal residual method. Numerical results are also reported.This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant NSF-CCR-8903003 at the Courant Institute, New York University and in part by the National Science Foundation under contract number DCR-8521451 and ECS-8957475 at Yale University     

Schwarz preconditioners for the spectral element discretization of the steady Stokes and Navier-Stokes equations

Summary. The - spectral element discretization of the Stokes equation gives rise to an ill-conditioned, indefinite, symmetric linear system for the velocity and pressure degrees of freedom. We propose a domain decomposition method which involves the solution of a low-order global, and several local problems, related to the vertices, edges, and interiors of the subdomains. The original system is reduced to a symmetric equation for the velocity, which can be solved with the conjugate gradient method. We prove that the condition number of the iteration operator is bounded from above by , where C is a positive constant independent of the degree N and the number of subdomains, and is the inf-sup condition of the pair -. We also consider the stationary Navier-Stokes equations; in each Newton step, a non-symmetric indefinite problem is solved using a Schwarz preconditioner. By using an especially designed low-order global space, and the solution of local problems analogous to those decribed above for the Stokes equation, we are able to present a complete theory for the method. We prove that the number of iterations of the GMRES method, at each Newton step, is bounded from above by . The constant C does not depend on the number of subdomains or N, and it does not deteriorate as the Newton iteration proceeds. Received March 2, 1998 / Revised version received October 12, 1999 / Published online March 20, 2001     

Multilevel iterative methods for mixed finite element discretizations of elliptic problems

Summary For solving second order elliptic problems discretized on a sequence of nested mixed finite element spaces nearly optimal iterative methods are proposed. The methods are within the general framework of the product (multiplicative) scheme for operators in a Hilbert space, proposed recently by Bramble, Pasciak, Wang, and Xu [5,6,26,27] and make use of certain multilevel decomposition of the corresponding spaces for the flux variable.     

Additive Schwarz methods for the Crouzeix-Raviart mortar finite element for elliptic problems with discontinuous coefficients

In this paper, we propose two variants of the additive Schwarz method for the approximation of second order elliptic boundary value problems with discontinuous coefficients, on nonmatching grids using the lowest order Crouzeix-Raviart element for the discretization in each subdomain. The overall discretization is based on the mortar technique for coupling nonmatching grids. The convergence behavior of the proposed methods is similar to that of their closely related methods for conforming elements. The condition number bound for the preconditioned systems is independent of the jumps of the coefficient, and depend linearly on the ratio between the subdomain size and the mesh size. The performance of the methods is illustrated by some numerical results. This work has been supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the special funds for major state basic research projects (973) under 2005CB321701 and the National Science Foundation (NSF) of China (No.10471144) This work has been supported in part by the Bergen Center for Computational Science, University of Bergen     

Positive definite balancing Neumann–Neumann preconditioners for nearly incompressible elasticity

In this paper, a positive definite Balancing Neumann–Neumann (BNN) solver for the linear elasticity system is constructed and analyzed. The solver implicitly eliminates the interior degrees of freedom in each subdomain and solves iteratively the resulting Schur complement, involving only interface displacements, using a BNN preconditioner based on the solution of a coarse elasticity problem and local elasticity problems with natural and essential boundary conditions. While the Schur complement becomes increasingly ill-conditioned as the materials becomes almost incompressible, the BNN preconditioned operator remains well conditioned. The main theoretical result of the paper shows that the proposed BNN method is scalable and quasi-optimal in the constant coefficient case. This bound holds for material parameters arbitrarily close to the incompressible limit. While this result is due to an underlying mixed formulation of the problem, both the interface problem and the preconditioner are positive definite. Numerical results in two and three dimensions confirm these good convergence properties and the robustness of the methods with respect to the almost incompressibility of the material.     

Preconditioning cubic spline collocation discretizations of elliptic equations

Summary. This work considers the uniformly elliptic operator defined by in (the unit square) with boundary conditions: on and on and its discretization based on Hermite cubic spline spaces and collocation at the Gauss points. Using an interpolatory basis with support on the Gauss points one obtains the matrix . We discuss the condition numbers and the distribution of -singular values of the preconditioned matrices where is the stiffness matrix associated with the finite element discretization of the positive definite uniformly elliptic operator given by in with boundary conditions: on on . The finite element space is either the space of continuous functions which are bilinear on the rectangles determined by Gauss points or the space of continuous functions which are linear on the triangles of the triangulation of using the Gauss points. When we obtain results on the eigenvalues of . In the general case we obtain bounds and clustering results on the -singular values of . These results are related to the results of Manteuffel and Parter [MP], Parter and Wong [PW], and Wong [W] for finite element discretizations as well as the results of Parter and Rothman [PR] for discretizations based on Legendre Spectral Collocation. Received January 1, 1994 / Revised version received February 7, 1995     

Schwarz alternating and iterative refinement methods for mixed formulations of elliptic problems,part I: Algorithms and numerical results

Summary We describe sequential and parallel algorithms based on the Schwarz alternating method for the solution of mixed finite element discretizations of elliptic problems using the Raviart-Thomas finite element spaces. These lead to symmetric indefinite linear systems and the algorithms have some similarities with the traditional block Gauss-Seidel or block Jacobi methods with overlapping blocks. The indefiniteness requires special treatment. The sub-blocks used in the algorithm correspond to problems on a coarse grid and some overlapping subdomains and is based on a similar partition used in an algorithm of Dryja and Widlund for standard elliptic problems. If there is sufficient overlap between the subdomains, the algorithm converges with a rate independent of the mesh size, the number of subdomains and discontinuities of the coefficients. Extensions of the above algorithms to the case of local grid refinement is also described. Convergence theory for these algorithms will be presented in a subsequent paper.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 the Army Research Office under Grant DAAL 03-91-G-0150, while the author was a Visiting Assistant Researcher at UCLA     

Eigenvalue estimates for a preconditioned Galerkin matrix arising from mixed finite element discretizations of viscous incompressible flows

The article deals with Galerkin matrices arising with finite element discretizations of the Navier–Stokes system. Usually these matrices are indefinite and nonsymmetric. They have to be preconditioned if a related linear system is to be solved efficiently by an iterative method. We consider preconditioning by a pressure mass matrix. It is shown how upper and lower bounds of the eigenvalues of a preconditioned Galerkin matrix may be found by variational arguments.     

A numerical study of optimized sparse preconditioners

Preconditioning strategies based on incomplete factorizations and polynomial approximations are studied through extensive numerical experiments. We are concerned with the question of the optimal rate of convergence that can be achieved for these classes of preconditioners.Our conclusion is that the well-known Modified Incomplete Cholesky factorization (MIC), cf. e.g., Gustafsson [20], and the polynomial preconditioning based on the Chebyshev polynomials, cf. Johnson, Micchelli and Paul [22], have optimal order of convergence as applied to matrix systems derived by discretization of the Poisson equation. Thus for the discrete two-dimensional Poisson equation withn unknowns,O(n ^1/4) andO(n ^1/2) seem to be the optimal rates of convergence for the Conjugate Gradient (CG) method using incomplete factorizations and polynomial preconditioners, respectively. The results obtained for polynomial preconditioners are in agreement with the basic theory of CG, which implies that such preconditioners can not lead to improvement of the asymptotic convergence rate.By optimizing the preconditioners with respect to certain criteria, we observe a reduction of the number of CG iterations, but the rates of convergence remain unchanged.Supported by The Norwegian Research Council for Science and the Humanities (NAVF) under grants no. 413.90/002 and 412.93/005.Supported by The Royal Norwegian Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (NTNF) through program no. STP.28402: Toolkits in industrial mathematics.     

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.     

Two preconditioners based on the multi-level splitting of finite element spaces

Summary The hierarchical basis preconditioner and the recent preconditioner of Bramble, Pasciak and Xu are derived and analyzed within a joint framework. This discussion elucidates the close relationship between both methods. Special care is devoted to highly nonuniform meshes; exclusively local properties like the shape regularity of the finite elements are utilized.The author was supported by the Konrad-Zuse-Zentrum für Informationstechnik Berlin, Federal Republic of Germany     

Convergence estimates for an higher order optimized Schwarz method for domains with an arbitrary interface

Optimized Schwarz methods form a class of domain decomposition methods for the solution of elliptic partial differential equations. Optimized Schwarz methods employ a first or higher order boundary condition along the artificial interface to accelerate convergence. In the literature, the analysis of optimized Schwarz methods relies on Fourier analysis and so the domains are restricted to be regular (rectangular). In this paper, we express the interface operator of an optimized Schwarz method in terms of Poincare-Steklov operators. This enables us to derive an upper bound of the spectral radius of the operator arising in this method of 1−O(h^1/4) on a class of general domains, where h is the discretization parameter. This is the predicted rate for a second order optimized Schwarz method in the literature on rectangular subdomains and is also the observed rate in numerical simulations.     

Circulant preconditioners for second order hyperbolic equations

Linear systems arising from implicit time discretizations and finite difference space discretizations of second-order hyperbolic equations in two dimensions are considered. We propose and analyze the use of circulant preconditioners for the solution of linear systems via preconditioned iterative methods such as the conjugate gradient method. Our motivation is to exploit the fast inversion of circulant systems with the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). For second-order hyperbolic equations with initial and Dirichlet boundary conditions, we prove that the condition number of the preconditioned system is ofO() orO(m), where is the quotient between the time and space steps andm is the number of interior gridpoints in each direction. The results are extended to parabolic equations. Numerical experiments also indicate that the preconditioned systems exhibit favorable clustering of eigenvalues that leads to a fast convergence rate.     

A note on best conditioned preconditioners

We discuss the solution of Hermitian positive definite systemsAx=b by the preconditioned conjugate gradient method with a preconditionerM. In general, the smaller the condition number(M ^–1/2 AM ^–1/2 ) is, the faster the convergence rate will be. For a given unitary matrixQ, letM _Q = {Q* _N Q | _n is ann-by-n complex diagonal matrix} andM _Q ⁺ ={Q* _n Q | _n is ann-by-n positive definite diagonal matrix}. The preconditionerM _b that minimizes(M ^–1/2 AM ^–1/2 ) overM _Q ⁺ is called the best conditioned preconditioner for the matrixA overM _Q ⁺ . We prove that ifQAQ* has Young's Property A, thenM _b is nothing new but the minimizer of M –A _F overM _Q . Here · _F denotes the Frobenius norm. Some applications are also given here.