[Date Index] [Thread Index] [Author Index]

Re: Eigenvalues of sparse arrays

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg102268] Re: Eigenvalues of sparse arrays
• From: Roman <rschmied at gmail.com>
• Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 05:47:42 -0400 (EDT)
• References: <200907310952.FAA19221@smc.vnet.net> <h50sjj$6pl$1@smc.vnet.net>

Abhishkek,

the Arnoldi method is best suited to calculate the *largest*
eigenvalues, not the *smallest* as you desire. But there is an easy
solution. First, here are the options for using the Arnoldi method
with sparse matrices in Mathematica:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.soft-sys.math.mathematica/browse_thread/thread/2a41064c0dbe5d54/26f379d722f6e1c8?hl=en#26f379d722f6e1c8

In particular the "Shift and Invert Spectral Transformation Mode" is
interesting here. When you want to calculate the *smallest*
eigenvalues by magnitude, Mathematica uses the Arnoldi method to
calculate the *largest* eigenvalues of the *inverse* of your matrix.
But since your matrix has two zero eigenvalues, it is not invertible,
and something seems to break in this method. The remedy is to *shift*
the matrix by a small amount before inverting, something like

Eigenvalues[SparseArray[s] // N, 6, Method -> {Arnoldi, MaxIterations -
> 10^5, Criteria -> Magnitude, Shift -> 0.01}] // Sort

What this does is to calculate the largest 6 eigenvalues of Inverse[s
+0.01], then back-transform the results to give you the corresponding
6 smallest eigenvalues of s.

The error Mathematica makes in your original calculation seems to be
that it takes a default value of zero for the shift: in fact,

Eigenvalues[SparseArray[s] // N, 6, Method -> {Arnoldi, MaxIterations -
> 10^5, Criteria -> Magnitude, Shift -> 0}] // Sort

again gives the wrong answer.

Here's the documentation on Arnoldi stuff as used in Mathematica:
http://www.caam.rice.edu/software/ARPACK/

Hope this works out!
Roman.