David S. Watkins

Jared L. Aurentz, Thomas Mach, Leonardo Robol et al.

This work is a continuation of "Fast and backward stable computation of roots of polynomials" by J.L. Aurentz, T. Mach, R. Vandebril, and D.S. Watkins, SIAM Journal on Matrix Analysis and Applications, 36(3): 942--973, 2015. In that paper we introduced a companion QR algorithm that finds the roots of a polynomial by computing the eigenvalues of the companion matrix in $O(n^{2})$ time using $O(n)$ memory. We proved that the method is backward stable. Here we introduce, as an alternative, a companion QZ algorithm that solves a generalized eigenvalue problem for a companion pencil. More importantly, we provide an improved backward error analysis that takes advantage of the special structure of the problem. The improvement is also due, in part, to an improvement in the accuracy (in both theory and practice) of the turnover operation, which is the key component of our algorithms. We prove that for the companion QR algorithm, the backward error on the polynomial coefficients varies linearly with the norm of the polynomial's vector of coefficients. Thus the companion QR algorithm has a smaller backward error than the unstructured QR algorithm (used by MATLAB's \texttt{roots} command, for example), for which the backward error on the polynomial coefficients grows quadratically with the norm of the coefficient vector. The companion QZ algorithm has the same favorable backward error as companion QR, provided that the polynomial coefficients are properly scaled.

Jared Aurentz, Thomas Mach, Leonardo Robol et al.

In the last decade matrix polynomials have been investigated with the primary focus on adequate linearizations and good scaling techniques for computing their eigenvalues and eigenvectors. In this article we propose a new method for computing a factored Schur form of the associated companion pencil. The algorithm has a quadratic cost in the degree of the polynomial and a cubic one in the size of the coefficient matrices. Also the eigenvectors can be computed at the same cost. The algorithm is a variant of Francis's implicitly shifted QR algorithm applied on the companion pencil. A preprocessing unitary equivalence is executed on the matrix polynomial to simultaneously bring the leading matrix coefficient and the constant matrix term to triangular form before forming the companion pencil. The resulting structure allows us to stably factor each matrix of the pencil as a product of $k$ matrices of unitary-plus-rank-one form, admitting cheap and numerically reliable storage. The problem is then solved as a product core chasing eigenvalue problem. A backward error analysis is included, implying normwise backward stability after a proper scaling. Computing the eigenvectors via reordering the Schur form is discussed as well. Numerical experiments illustrate stability and efficiency of the proposed methods.