The root and Bell’s disk iteration methods are of the same error propagation characteristics in the simultaneous determination of the zeros of a polynomial, Part II: Round-off error analysis by use of interval arithmetic

In Part I (Ikhile, 2008) [4], it was established that the root and Bell’s disk/point iteration methods with or without correction term are of the same asymptotic error propagation characteristics in the simultaneous determination of the zeros of a polynomial. This concluding part of the investigation is a study in round-offs, its propagation and its effects on convergence employing interval arithmetic means. The purpose is to consequently draw attention on the effects of round-off errors introduced from the point arithmetic part, on the rate of convergence of the generalized root and Bell’s simultaneous interval iteration algorithms and its enhanced modifications introduced in Part I for the numerical inclusion of all the zeros of a polynomial simultaneously. The motivation for studying the effects of round-off error propagation comes from the fact that the readily available computing devices at the moment are limited in precision, more so that accuracy expected from some programming or computing environments or from these numerical methods are or can be machine dependent. In fact, a part of the finding is that round-off propagation effects beyond a certain controllable order induces overwhelmingly delayed or even a severely retarded convergence speed which manifest glaringly as poor accuracy of these interval iteration methods in the computation of the zeros of a polynomial simultaneously. However, in this present consideration and even in the presence of overwhelming influence of round-offs, we give conditions under which convergence is still possible and derive the error/round-off relations along with the order/RR-order of convergence of these methods with the results extended to similar interval iteration methods for computing the zeros of a polynomial simultaneously, especially to Bell’s interval methods for refinement of zeros that form a cluster. Our findings are instructive and quite revealing and supported by evidence from numerical experiments. The analysis is preferred in circular interval arithmetic.