An efficient implementation of the thomas-algorithm for block penta-diagonal systems on vector computers

Abstract

In simulations of supernovae, linear systems of equations with a block penta-diagonal matrix possessing small, dense matrix blocks occur. For an efficient solution, a compact multiplication scheme based on a restructured version of the Thomas algorithm and specifically adapted routines for LU factorization as well as forward and backward substitution are presented. On a NEC SX-8 vector system, runtime could be decreased between 35% and 54% for block sizes varying from 20 to 85 compared to the original code with BLAS and LAPACK routines. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.