Avoiding Communication in Successive Band Reduction

Abstract

The running time of an algorithm depends on both arithmetic and communication (i.e., data movement) costs, and the relative costs of communication are growing over time. In this work, we present sequential and distributed-memory parallel algorithms for tridiagonalizing full symmetric and symmetric band matrices that asymptotically reduce communication compared to previous approaches. The tridiagonalization of a symmetric band matrix is a key kernel in solving the symmetric eigenvalue problem for both full and band matrices. In order to preserve structure, tridiagonalization routines use annihilate-and-chase procedures that previously have suffered from poor data locality and high parallel latency cost. We improve both by reorganizing the computation and obtain asymptotic improvements. We also propose new algorithms for reducing a full symmetric matrix to band form in a communication-efficient manner. In this article, we consider the cases of computing eigenvalues only and of computing eigenvalues and all eigenvectors.