A numerical study of iterative refinement schemes for weakly singular integral equations

Three iterative refinement schemes are studied for approximating the solutions of linear weakly singular Fredholm integral equations of the second kind. The rates of convergence and computational costs of the three schemes are studied and compared with the classical approach by applying them respectively to: (i) a sparse linear system associated with an integral equation modelling a real life Astrophysics problem, and (ii) an integral equation whose associated linear problem is dense.