A new block preconditioner for complex symmetric indefinite linear systems (Q513672)

The authors develop a new block preconditioner for solving a class of symmetric indefinite linear systems. The original problem is equivalently rewritten as a real block two-by-two linear system; after that, a new block preconditioner is built which is based on the new splitting of the coefficient matrix. Then the relaxing technique is applied to modify this new preconditioner in order to improve the approximation to the coefficient matrix. Theoretical properties of this new preconditioner are investigated and results show that all the eigenvalues of the preconditioned matrix are located in the interval \((0,1]\). An upper bound of the degree of the minimal polynomial of the new preconditioned matrix is also derived. Reported numerical examples show that the new preconditioner is more effective than the HSS (Hermitian and skew-Hermitian splitting) preconditioner in improving the convergence behavior of the restarted GMRES method.