Subtracting the fixed point from the weighted Jacobi method gives
Put . Acting on the supplied sine eigenvector gives
Therefore
and the corresponding eigenvalues of the iteration matrix are
A stationary iterative method for a linear system converges from every initial vector exactly when the spectral radius of its iteration matrix is less than one. Here ranges between and , so all modes decay for a fixed exactly when
Requiring this for every grid size gives
Indeed, leaves or amplifies the lowest mode, while any makes the highest-mode eigenvalue tend to as .
The slowest mode is , for which the Taylor expansion is
If the initial error has a nonzero component, that component is multiplied by . Hence for a constant independent of ,
This is the low-frequency obstruction to grid-independent convergence.
Weighted Jacobi method 2026-10-03
With relaxation parameter , weighted Jacobi updates by
Its iteration matrix is .