Error analysis of the Björck-Pereyra algorithms for solving Vandermonde systems (Q1077867)

A forward error analysis is presented for the Björck-Pereyra algorithms used for solving Vandermonde systems of equations. This analysis applies to the case where the points defining the Vandermonde matrix are nonnegative and are arranged in increasing order. It is shown that for a particular class of Vandermonde problems the error bound obtained depends on the dimension n and on the machine precision only, being independent of the condition number of the coefficient matrix. By comparing appropriate condition numbers for the Vandermonde problem with the forward error bounds it is shown that the Björck-Pereyra algorithms introduce no more uncertainty into the numerical solution than is caused simply by storing the right-hand side vector on the computer. A technique for computing ''running'' a posteriori error bounds is derived. Several numerical experiments are presented, and it is observed that the ordering of the points can greatly affect the solution accuracy.