Smoothing factor, order of prolongation and actual multigrid convergence (Q634611)

The Fourier analysis of multigrid methods for symmetric positive (semi-) definite linear systems arising from the discretization of scalar elliptic partial differential equations is considered. The authors do not restrict themselves to the Poisson equation. The Fourier analysis is possible if the restriction and prolongation operator decompose into small blocks, when the Fourier bases of the fine grid functions and the coarse grid functions are used. This is known to be equivalent to some commutation properties of the operators in the multigrid procedure. The smoothing factor is obtained by a restriction to the high frequency modes. Its relation to the convergence factor of the two-grid method and the V-cycle is in the center of the paper. The authors mention also the analysis by ideas that are usually associated with strengthened Cauchy inequalities.