On the roots of the orthogonal polynomials and residual polynomials associated with a conjugate gradient method

In this paper we explore two sets of polynomials, the orthogonal polynomials and the residual polynomials, associated with a preconditioned conjugate gradient iteration for the solution of the linear system Ax = b . In the context of preconditioning by the matrix C , we show that the roots of the orthogonal polynomials, also known as generalized Ritz values, are the eigenvalues of an orthogonal section of the matrix C A while the roots of the residual polynomials, also known as pseudo‐Ritz values (or roots of kernel polynomials), are the reciprocals of the eigenvalues of an orthogonal section of the matrix ( C A ) −1 . When C A is selfadjoint positive definite, this distinction is minimal, but for the indefinite or nonselfadjoint case this distinction becomes important. We use these two sets of roots to form possibly nonconvex regions in the complex plane that describe the spectrum of C A .