Perturbation bounds of eigenvalues of Hermitian matrices with block structures

We derive new perturbation bounds for eigenvalues of Hermitian matrices with block structures. The structures we consider range from a standard 2-by-2 block form to block tridiagonal and tridigaonal forms. The main idea is the observation that an eigenvalue is insensitive to componentwise perturbations if the corresponding eigenvector components are small. We show that the same idea can be used to explain two well-known phenomena, one concerning extremal eigenvalues of Wilkinson's matrices and another concerning the efficiency of aggressive early deflation applied to the symmetric tridiagonal QR algorithm.Comment: 12 page

Sharp error bounds for Ritz vectors and approximate singular vectors

We derive sharp bounds for the accuracy of approximate eigenvectors (Ritz vectors) obtained by the Rayleigh-Ritz process for symmetric eigenvalue problems. Using information that is available or easy to estimate, our bounds improve the classical Davis-Kahan $\sin\theta$ theorem by a factor that can be arbitrarily large, and can give nontrivial information even when the $\sin\theta$ theorem suggests that a Ritz vector might have no accuracy at all. We also present extensions in three directions, deriving error bounds for invariant subspaces, singular vectors and subspaces computed by a (Petrov-Galerkin) projection SVD method, and eigenvectors of self-adjoint operators on a Hilbert space

On the condition numbers of a multiple generalized eigenvalue

For standard eigenvalue problems, a closed-form expression for the condition numbers of a multiple eigenvalue is known. In particular, they are uniformly 1 in the Hermitian case, and generally take different values in the non-Hermitian case. We consider the generalized eigenvalue problem and identify the condition numbers of a multiple eigenvalue. Our main result is that a multiple eigenvalue generally has multiple condition numbers, even in the Hermitian definite case. The condition numbers are characterized in terms of the singular values of the outer product of the corresponding left and right eigenvectors

Gerschgorin's theorem for generalized eigenvalue problems in the Euclidean metric

We present Gerschgorin-type eigenvalue inclusion sets applicable to generalized eigenvalue problems.Our sets are defined by circles in the complex plane in the standard Euclidean metric, and are easier to compute than known similar results.As one application we use our results to provide a forward error analysis for a computed eigenvalue of a diagonalizable pencil

Fourth-order time-stepping for stiff PDEs on the sphere

We present in this paper algorithms for solving stiff PDEs on the unit sphere with spectral accuracy in space and fourth-order accuracy in time. These are based on a variant of the double Fourier sphere method in coefficient space with multiplication matrices that differ from the usual ones, and implicit-explicit time-stepping schemes. Operating in coefficient space with these new matrices allows one to use a sparse direct solver, avoids the coordinate singularity and maintains smoothness at the poles, while implicit-explicit schemes circumvent severe restrictions on the time-steps due to stiffness. A comparison is made against exponential integrators and it is found that implicit-explicit schemes perform best. Implementations in MATLAB and Chebfun make it possible to compute the solution of many PDEs to high accuracy in a very convenient fashion

Rational approximation of xnx^n

Let $E_{kk}^{(n)}$ denote the minimax (i.e., best supremum norm) error in approximation of $x^n$ on $[\kern .3pt 0,1]$ by rational functions of type $(k,k)$ with $k<n$. We show that in an appropriate limit $E_{kk}^{(n)} \sim 2\kern .3pt H^{k+1/2}$ independently of $n$, where $H \approx 1/9.28903$ is Halphen's constant. This is the same formula as for minimax approximation of $e^x$ on $(-\infty,0\kern .3pt]$.Comment: 5 page