A new optimal eighth-order Ostrowski-type family of iterative methods for solving nonlinear equations (Q463216)

Summary: Based on Ostrowski's method, a new family of eighth-order iterative methods for solving nonlinear equations by using weight function methods is presented. Per iteration the new methods require three evaluations of the function and one evaluation of its first derivative. Therefore, this family of methods has the efficiency index which equals 1.682. \textit{H. T. Kung} and \textit{J. F. Traub} [J. Assoc. Comput. Mach. 21, 643--651 (1974; Zbl 0289.65023)] conjectured that a multipoint iteration without memory based on \(N\) evaluations could achieve optimal convergence order \(2^{n-1}\). Thus, we provide a new class which agrees with the conjecture of Kung-Traub for \(n = 4\). Numerical comparisons are made to show the performance of the presented methods.