Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 ii Paper 1 39A Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
The Householder-John theorem states that if is Hermitian positive definite and is also Hermitian positive definite, then is invertible and . The associated stationary iteration therefore converges from every starting vector. For designing a method, choose a splitting with easily solved and verify the positive-definiteness condition on ; it is a sufficient certificate and does not require computing every iteration-matrix eigenvalue.
For completeness, put . If for , then , a contradiction. If , then . The case contradicts invertibility of . Taking scalar products and using Hermitian symmetry giveshence . The usual spectral-radius convergence criterion now proves the stated conclusion.
For the given scheme take the matrix splittingSince is real symmetric, , and since it is positive definite, every diagonal entry in is positive. Thusis positive definite exactly for . The theorem applies, and the iteration matrix has spectral radius below one. The unique solution is its fixed point, so . ThereforeThe scheme is successive over-relaxation; at it becomes the Gauss-Seidel method.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 ii Paper 1 40C a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
Choose a matrix splitting with invertible. Then is equivalent toand the associated stationary iterative method for a linear system isFor the Jacobi method, write with diagonal and strictly lower and upper triangular, and takeThusThe iteration converges for every initial vector exactly when the spectral radius of its iteration matrix satisfies