Bounds for the round-off errors in the richardson second order method

Abstract

The application of the Richardson second order iterative method to positive definite, symmetric linear equations is investigated. Absolute and statistical bounds for the round-off error are derived. The statistical theory agrees well with numerical experiments, until the accumulated round-off error becomes of the order of magnitude of the error in the computed solution. After this point the statistical dependence between the local round-off errors makes the observed variances larger than the theoretical variances.