Large linear systems with sparse, non-symmetric matrices arise in the
modeling of Markov chains or in the discretization of convection-diffusion
problems. Due to their potential to solve sparse linear systems with an effort
that is linear in the number of unknowns, algebraic multigrid (AMG) methods are
of fundamental interest for such systems. For symmetric positive definite
matrices, fundamental theoretical convergence results are established, and
efficient AMG solvers have been developed. In contrast, for non-symmetric
matrices, theoretical convergence results have been provided only recently. A
property that is sufficient for convergence is that the matrix be an M-matrix.
In this paper, we present how the simulation of incompressible fluid flows with
particle methods leads to large linear systems with sparse, non-symmetric
matrices. In each time step, the Poisson equation is approximated by meshfree
finite differences. While traditional least squares approaches do not guarantee
an M-matrix structure, an approach based on linear optimization yields
optimally sparse M-matrices. For both types of discretization approaches, we
investigate the performance of a classical AMG method, as well as an AMLI type
method. While in the considered test problems, the M-matrix structure turns out
not to be necessary for the convergence of AMG, problems can occur when it is
violated. In addition, the matrices obtained by the linear optimization
approach result in fast solution times due to their optimal sparsity.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figure