The effect of non-optimal bases on the convergence of Krylov subspace methods

There are many examples where non-orthogonality of a basis for Krylov subspace methods arises naturally. These methods usually require less storage or computational effort per iteration than methods using an orthonormal basis (optimal methods), but the convergence may be delayed. Truncated Krylov subspace methods and other examples of non-optimal methods have been shown to converge in many situations, often with small delay, but not in others. We explore the question of what is the effect of having a non-optimal basis. We prove certain identities for the relative residual gap, i.e., the relative difference between the residuals of the optimal and non-optimal methods. These identities and related bounds provide insight into when the delay is small and convergence is achieved. Further understanding is gained by using a general theory of superlinear convergence recently developed. Our analysis confirms the observed fact that in exact arithmetic the orthogonality of the basis is not important, only the need to maintain linear independence is. Numerical examples illustrate our theoretical results.