Preconditioned MHSS iteration methods for a class of block two-by-two linear systems with applications to distributed control problems

We construct a preconditioned modified Hermitian and skew-Hermitian splitting (PMHSS) iteration scheme for solving and preconditioning a class of block two-by-two linear systems arising from the Galerkin finite element discretizations of a class of distributed control problems. The convergence theory of this class of PMHSS iteration methods is established and the spectral properties of the PMHSS-preconditioned matrix are analysed. Numerical experiments show that the PMHSS preconditioners can be quite competitive when used to precondition Krylov subspace iteration methods such as GMRES. © 2012 The author. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. All rights reserved.