Positive semi-definite matrices commonly occur as normal matrices of least squares problems in statistics or as kernel matrices in machine learning and approximation theory. They are typically large and dense. Thus algorithms to solve systems with such a matrix can be very costly. A core idea to reduce computational complexity is to approximate the matrix by one with a low rank. The optimal and well understood choice is based on the eigenvalue decomposition of the matrix. Unfortunately, this is computationally very expensive.
Cheaper methods are based on Gaussian elimination but they require pivoting. We will show how invariant matrix theory provides explicit error formulas for an averaged error based on volume sampling. The formula leads to ratios of elementary symmetric polynomials on the eigenvalues. We discuss some new an old bounds and include several examples where an expected error norm can be computed exactly.
We propose a new approximate factorization for solving linear systems with symmetric positive definite sparse matrices. In a nutshell the algorithm is to apply hierarchically block Gaussian elimination and additionally compress the fill-in. The systems that have efficient compression of the fill-in mostly arise from discretization of partial differential equations. We show that the resulting factorization can be used as an efficient preconditioner and compare the proposed approach with state-of-art direct and iterative solvers.
We describe a new algorithm for Gaussian Elimination suitable for general (unsymmetric and possibly singular) sparse matrices, of any entry type, which has a natural parallel and distributed-memory formulation but degrades gracefully to sequential execution. We present a sample MPI implementation of a program computing the rank of a sparse integer matrix using the proposed algorithm. Some preliminary performance measurements are presented and discussed, and the performance of the algorithm is compared to corresponding state-of-the-art algorithms for floating-point and integer matrices.
We show that, using the Crouzeix-Raviart scheme, a cheap algebraic transformation, applied to the coupled velocity-pressure linear systems issued from the transient or steady Stokes or Navier-Stokes problems, leads to a linear system only involving as many auxiliary variables as the velocity components. This linear system, which is symmetric positive definite in the case of the transient Stokes problem and symmetric invertible in the case of the steady Stokes problem, with the same stencil as that of the velocity matrix, provides the exact solution of the initial coupled linear system. Numeric…
Domain decomposition (DD) methods are widely used as preconditioner techniques. Their effectiveness relies on the choice of a locally constructed coarse space. Thus far, this construction was mostly achieved using non-assembled matrices from discretized partial differential equations (PDEs). Therefore, DD methods were mainly successful when solving systems stemming from PDEs. In this paper, we present a fully algebraic multilevel DD method where the coarse space can be constructed locally and efficiently without any information besides the coefficient matrix. The condition number of the precon…
Randomized methods are becoming increasingly popular in numerical linear algebra. However, few attempts have been made to use them in developing preconditioners. Our interest lies in solving large-scale sparse symmetric positive definite linear systems of equations where the system matrix is preordered to doubly bordered block diagonal form (for example, using a nested dissection ordering). We investigate the use of randomized methods to construct high quality preconditioners. In particular, we propose a new and efficient approach that employs Nyström's method for computing low rank approximat…
In an iterative approach for solving linear systems with ill-conditioned, symmetric positive definite (SPD) kernel matrices, both fast matrix-vector products and fast preconditioning operations are required. Fast (linear-scaling) matrix-vector products are available by expressing the kernel matrix in an $\mathcal{H}^2$ representation or an equivalent fast multipole method representation. Preconditioning such matrices, however, requires a structured matrix approximation that is more regular than the $\mathcal{H}^2$ representation, such as the hierarchically semiseparable (HSS) matrix representa…
This paper proposes an efficient method for computing selected generalized eigenpairs of a sparse Hermitian definite matrix pencil $(A,B)$. Based on Zolotarev's best rational function approximations of the signum function and conformal mapping techniques, we construct the best rational function approximation of a rectangular function supported on an arbitrary interval via function compositions with partial fraction representations. This new best rational function approximation can be applied to construct spectrum filters of $(A,B)$ with a smaller number of poles than a direct construction with…
Gaussian elimination with partial pivoting (GEPP) has long been among the most widely used methods for computing the LU factorization of a given matrix. However, this method is also known to fail for matrices that induce large element growth during the factorization process. In this paper, we propose a new scheme, Gaussian elimination with randomized complete pivoting (GERCP) for the efficient and reliable LU factorization of a given matrix. GERCP satisfies GECP (Gaussian elimination with complete pivoting) style element growth bounds with high probability, yet costs only marginally higher tha…
