Convergence of nested classical iterative methods for linear systems

Classical iterative methods for the solution of algebraic linear systems of equations proceed by solving at each step a simpler system of equations. When this system is itself solved by an (inner) iterative method, the global method is called a two-stage iterative method. If this process is repeated, then the resulting method is called a nested iterative method. We study the convergence of such methods and present conditions on the splittings corresponding to the iterative methods to guarantee convergence for any number of inner iterations. We also show that under the conditions presented, the spectral radii of the global iteration matrices decrease when the number of inner iterations increases. The proof uses a new comparison theorem for weak regular splittings. We extend our results to larger classes of iterative methods, which include iterative block Gauss-Seidel. We develop a theory for the concatenation of such iterative methods. This concatenation appears when different numbers of inner iterations are performed at each outer step. We also analyze block methods, where different numbers of inner iterations are performed for different diagonal blocks.