Schur complement based preconditioners for twofold and block tridiagonal saddle point problems

Abstract: In this paper, we consider using Schur complements to design preconditioners for twofold and block tridiagonal saddle point problems. One type of the preconditioners are based on the nested (or recursive) Schur complement, the other is based on an additive type Schur complement after permuting the original saddle point systems. We analyze different preconditioners incorporating the exact Schur complements. We show that some of them will lead to positively stable preconditioned systems if proper signs are selected in front of the Schur complements. These positive-stable preconditioners outperform other preconditioners if the Schur complements are further approximated inexactly. Numerical experiments for a 3-field formulation of the Biot model are provided to verify our predictions.