Orderings for factorized sparse approximate inverse preconditioners

The influence of reorderings on the performance of factorized sparse approximate inverse preconditioners is considered. Some theoretical results on the effect of orderings on the fill-in and decay behavior of the inverse factors of a sparse matrix are presented. It is shown experimentally that certain reorderings, like minimum degree and nested dissection, can be very beneficial. The benefit consists of a reduction in the storage and time required for constructing the preconditioner, and of faster convergence of the preconditioned iteration in many cases of practical interest.