Low rank solution of data-sparse Sylvester equations

In this paper a method for solving large-scale Sylvester equations is presented. The method is based on the sign function iteration and is particularly effective for Sylvester equations with factorized righthand side. In this case, the solution will be computed in factored form as it is for instance required in model reduction. The hierarchical matrix format and the corresponding formatted arithmetic is integrated in the iteration scheme to make the method feasible for large-scale computations. Copyright c © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.