Algorithm 809: PREQN

Abstract

PREQN is a package of Fortran 77 subroutins for automatically generating preconditioners for the conjugate gradient method. It is designed for solving a sequence of linear systems A _i x = b _i , i = 1…, t , where the coefficient matrices A _i are symmetric and positive definite and vary slowly. Problems of this type arise, for example, in nonlinear optimization. The preconditioners are based on limited-memory quasi-Newton updating and are recommended for problems in which (i) the coefficient matrices are not explicitly known and only matrix-vector products of the form A _i v can be computed; or (ii) the coefficient matrices are not sparse. PREQN is written so that a single call from a conjugate gradient routine performs the preconditioning operation and stores information needed for the generation of a new preconditioner.