Direct Methods For Sparse Linear Systems

The sparse backslash book. Everything you wanted to know but never dared to ask about modern direct linear solvers. Chen Greif, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of British Columbia.Overall, the book is magnificent. It fills a long-felt need for an accessible textbook on modern sparse direct methods. Its choice of scope is excellent John Gilbert, Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of California, Santa Barbara.Computational scientists often encounter problems requiring the solution of sparse systems of linear equations. Attacking these problems efficiently requires an in-depth knowledge of the underlying theory, algorithms, and data structures found in sparse matrix software libraries. Here, Davis presents the fundamentals of sparse matrix algorithms to provide the requisite background. The book includes CSparse, a concise downloadable sparse matrix package that illustrates the algorithms and theorems presented in the book and equips readers with the tools necessary to understand larger and more complex software packages.With a strong emphasis on MATLAB and the C programming language, Direct Methods for Sparse Linear Systems equips readers with the working knowledge required to use sparse solver packages and write code to interface applications to those packages. The book also explains how MATLAB performs its sparse matrix computations.Audience This invaluable book is essential to computational scientists and software developers who want to understand the theory and algorithms behind modern techniques used to solve large sparse linear systems. The book also serves as an excellent practical resource for students with an interest in combinatorial scientific computing.Preface; Chapter 1: Introduction; Chapter 2: Basic algorithms; Chapter 3: Solving triangular systems; Chapter 4: Cholesky factorization; Chapter 5: Orthogonal methods; Chapter 6: LU factorization; Chapter 7: Fill-reducing orderings; Chapter 8: Solving sparse linear systems; Chapter 9: CSparse; Chapter 10: Sparse matrices in MATLAB; Appendix: Basics of the C programming language; Bibliography; Index.

Mathematics of Computing -- General.

Presents the fundamentals of sparse matrix algorithms to provide the requisite background. The book includes CSparse, a concise downloadable sparse matrix package that illustrates the algorithms and theorems presented in the book and equips readers with the tools necessary to understand larger and more complex software packages.

Although the origins of parallel computing go back to the last century, it was only in the 1970s that parallel and vector computers became available to the scientific community. The first of these machines-the 64 processor llliac IV and the vector computers built by Texas Instruments, Control Data Corporation, and then CRA Y Research Corporation-had a somewhat limited impact. They were few in number and available mostly to workers in a few government laboratories. By now, however, the trickle has become a flood. There are over 200 large-scale vector computers now installed, not only in government laboratories but also in universities and in an increasing diversity of industries. Moreover, the National Science Foundation's Super computing Centers have made large vector computers widely available to the academic community. In addition, smaller, very cost-effective vector computers are being manufactured by a number of companies. Parallelism in computers has also progressed rapidly. The largest super computers now consist of several vector processors working in parallel. Although the number of processors in such machines is still relatively small (up to 8), it is expected that an increasing number of processors will be added in the near future (to a total of 16 or 32). Moreover, there are a myriad of research projects to build machines with hundreds, thousands, or even more processors. Indeed, several companies are now selling parallel machines, some with as many as hundreds, or even tens of thousands, of processors.

Sparse Matrix Technology presents the methods, concepts, ideas, and applications of sparse matrix technology. The text provides the fundamental methods, procedures, techniques, and applications of sparse matrix technology in software development. The book covers topics on storage schemes and computational techniques needed for sparse matrix technology; sparse matrix methods and algorithms for the direct solution of linear equations; and algorithms for different purposes connected with sparse matrix technology. Engineers, programmers, analysts, teachers, and students in the computer sciences will find the book interesting.

This book deals with numerical methods for solving large sparse linear systems of equations, particularly those arising from the discretization of partial differential equations. It covers both direct and iterative methods. Direct methods which are considered are variants of Gaussian elimination and fast solvers for separable partial differential equations in rectangular domains. The book reviews the classical iterative methods like Jacobi, Gauss-Seidel and alternating directions algorithms. A particular emphasis is put on the conjugate gradient as well as conjugate gradient -like methods for non symmetric problems. Most efficient preconditioners used to speed up convergence are studied. A chapter is devoted to the multigrid method and the book ends with domain decomposition algorithms that are well suited for solving linear systems on parallel computers.

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