Concept

Separation ratio — where it appears

The size of two clusters of points relative to the distance between them. A hierarchical matrix's admissibility test compares it against a constant, before any entry of the matrix is read, to decide whether the block between those clusters may be compressed. Holding it below one threshold is what bounds every compressed block's rank.

Named by 2 essays across one field — each of them below, with the objects they name alongside it.

n = 512, leaf 16blocks, tightest to loosest592and at the loosest94mean rank, tightest3.3and at the loosest8.9052104156208260the separation constantstored per unknown0.20.30.40.50.951.4stored per unknownmean rank, compressed blocksboth curves move togetherwhich is what the other two knobs never do

A geometry setting that is a second accuracy

The tolerance raises every rank and moves no block; the leaf moves every block and no rank. The constant that decides how far apart two clusters must be before their block may be compressed moves both — 592 blocks at mean rank 3.25 at one end and 94 at mean rank 8.94 at the other — and the storage falls the whole way while the error against the dense matrix rises by a factor of 3.5, at a tolerance that never changed. It has no best setting, and it is not a third knob on the storage.

hierarchy · Storage growth
n = 512, ε = 10⁻⁸1/r, least at leaf16log r, least at leaf8cos(40r)/r, least at leaf16cos(120r)/r, least at leaf1604794141188235leaf sizestored per unknown481632641/rlog rcos(40r)/rcos(120r)/rthe rank doubles and the optimum does not movewhich the next figure explains

A prediction that arrives a decade late

A rougher kernel raises every rank, a higher rank raises the side at which compressing a block stops paying, so the leaf that stores least should rise. Across four kernels whose largest rank runs 5, 5, 9 and 10, it is 16 on three of them and a tie between 8 and 16 on the fourth. The prediction is right in sign and out by a decade of tolerance, and the reason is a ceiling: an oscillation multiplies the rank by exactly two — 3 and 6, 4 and 8, 5 and 10, 6 and 12, 7 and 14 — at any frequency, because a cosine of a difference is a rank-two function.

hierarchy · Storage growth

Named alongside it

The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.

AdmissibilityCluster treeHierarchical matrixLow-rank approximationNumerical rankStorageToleranceTruncationOff-diagonal rankWeak admissibility

All concepts