Sparsity-Directed Decomposition for Gaussian Elimination on Matrices

This is a concise critical survey of the theory and practice relating to the ordered Gaussian elimination on sparse systems. A new method of renumbering by clusters is developed, and its properties described. By establishing a correspondence between matrix patterns and directed graphs, a sequential binary partition is used to decompose the nodes of a graph into clusters. By appropriate ordering of the nodes within each cluster and by selecting clusters, one at a time, both optimal ordering and a useful form of matrix banding are achieved. Some results pertaining to the compatibility between optimal ordering for sparsity and the usual pivoting for numerical accuracy are included.