English

On the Choice of Sign Defining Householder Transformations

Numerical Analysis 2023-10-10 v2 Numerical Analysis

Abstract

It is well known that, when defining Householder transformations, the correct choice of sign in the standard formula is important to avoid cancellation and hence numerical instability. In this note we point out that when the "wrong" choice of sign is used, the extent of the resulting instability depends in a somewhat subtle way on the data leading to cancellation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2309.02443,
  title  = {On the Choice of Sign Defining Householder Transformations},
  author = {Michael L. Overton and Pinze Yu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2309.02443},
  year   = {2023}
}