Fast methods for the iterative solution of linear elliptic and parabolic partial differential equations involving 2 space dimensions

Within the last decade, attention has been devoted to the introduction of several fast computational methods for solving the linear difference equations which are derived from the finite difference discretisation of many standard partial differential equations of Mathematical Physics. In this paper, the authors develop and extend an exact factorisation technique previously applied to parabolic equations in one space dimension to the implicit difference equations which are derived from the application of alternating direction implicit methods when applied to elliptic and parabolic partial differential equations in 2 space dimensions under a variety of boundary conditions.