A fully parallel algorithm for the symmetric eigenvalue problem

In this paper we present a parallel algorithm for the symmetric algebraic eigenvalue problem. The algorithm is based upon a divide and conquer scheme suggested by Cuppen for computing the eigensystem of a symmetric tridiagonal matrix. We extend this idea to obtain a parallel algorithm that retains a number of active parallel processes that is greater than or equal to the initial number throughout the course of the computation. We giv e a new deflation technique which together with a robust root finding technique will assure computation of an eigensystem to full accuracy in the residuals and in the orthogonality of eigenvectors. A brief analysis of the numerical properties and sensitivity to round off error is presented to indicate where numerical difficulties may occur. The algorithm is able to exploit parallelism at all levels of the computation and is well suited to a variety of architectures.