Accurate solutions of diagonally dominant tridiagonal linear systems

Abstract

In this paper, we settle Higham’s conjecture for the LU factorization of diagonally dominant tridiagonal matrices. We establish a strong componentwise perturbation bound for the solution of a diagonally dominant tridiagonal linear system, independent of the traditional condition number of the coefficient matrix. We then accurately and efficiently solve the linear system by the GTH-like algorithm without pivoting, as suggested by the perturbation result.