Past exam of the numerical linear algebra course of the University of Oxford 2025 3 a iii Solution 2026-10-25
The claim is true, withIt is a symmetric positive-definite matrix: for every nonzero vector , the fact that is an invertible matrix gives . Since , every candidate satisfiesThe generalized minimal residual method therefore minimizes precisely this weighted norm of the error over the linear span of . The same matrix works for every and does not depend on .
Past exam of the numerical linear algebra course of the University of Oxford 2025 3 a i Solution 2026-10-25
Write and . The Arnoldi decomposition and giveBecause has orthonormal columns, it preserves the Euclidean norm. The generalized minimal residual method therefore reduces to the small linear least-squares problemUse Givens rotations on the upper Hessenberg matrix to obtain a QR decompositionwhere is an orthogonal matrix and is an upper triangular matrix. Then solve by backward substitution in a triangular system and form . The resulting minimum linear-system residual has Euclidean norm .
The small problem has a unique answer: if , the Arnoldi decomposition gives . The invertible matrix implies , and the orthonormality of then gives . Thus has full column rank and is nonsingular.