Avoiding breakdown in incomplete factorizations in low precision arithmetic

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Scott, Jennifer, Tůma, Miroslav
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Scott, Jennifer
Tůma, Miroslav
author_facet Scott, Jennifer
Tůma, Miroslav
contents The emergence of low precision floating-point arithmetic in computer hardware has led to a resurgence of interest in the use of mixed precision numerical linear algebra. For linear systems of equations, there has been renewed enthusiasm for mixed precision variants of iterative refinement. We consider the iterative solution of large sparse systems using incomplete factorization preconditioners. The focus is on the robust computation of such preconditioners in half precision arithmetic and employing them to solve symmetric positive definite systems to higher precision accuracy; however, the proposed ideas can be applied more generally. Even for well-conditioned problems, incomplete factorizations can break down when small entries occur on the diagonal during the factorization. When using half precision arithmetic, overflows are an additional possible source of breakdown. We examine how breakdowns can be avoided and we implement our strategies within new half precision Fortran sparse incomplete Cholesky factorization software. Results are reported for a range of problems from practical applications. These demonstrate that, even for highly ill-conditioned problems, half precision preconditioners can potentially replace double precision preconditioners, although unsurprisingly this may be at the cost of additional iterations of a Krylov solver.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2401_17957
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Avoiding breakdown in incomplete factorizations in low precision arithmetic
Scott, Jennifer
Tůma, Miroslav
Numerical Analysis
65F08 (Primary) 65F10 (Secondary)
G.1.3; G.4
The emergence of low precision floating-point arithmetic in computer hardware has led to a resurgence of interest in the use of mixed precision numerical linear algebra. For linear systems of equations, there has been renewed enthusiasm for mixed precision variants of iterative refinement. We consider the iterative solution of large sparse systems using incomplete factorization preconditioners. The focus is on the robust computation of such preconditioners in half precision arithmetic and employing them to solve symmetric positive definite systems to higher precision accuracy; however, the proposed ideas can be applied more generally. Even for well-conditioned problems, incomplete factorizations can break down when small entries occur on the diagonal during the factorization. When using half precision arithmetic, overflows are an additional possible source of breakdown. We examine how breakdowns can be avoided and we implement our strategies within new half precision Fortran sparse incomplete Cholesky factorization software. Results are reported for a range of problems from practical applications. These demonstrate that, even for highly ill-conditioned problems, half precision preconditioners can potentially replace double precision preconditioners, although unsurprisingly this may be at the cost of additional iterations of a Krylov solver.
title Avoiding breakdown in incomplete factorizations in low precision arithmetic
topic Numerical Analysis
65F08 (Primary) 65F10 (Secondary)
G.1.3; G.4
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.17957