QR decomposition
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In linear algebra, the QR decomposition of a matrix is a decomposition of the matrix into an orthogonal and a triangular matrix. The QR decomposition is often used to solve the linear least squares problem. The QR decomposition is also the basis for a particular eigenvalue algorithm, the QR algorithm.
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[edit] Definition
A QR decomposition of a real square matrix A is a decomposition of A as
where Q is an orthogonal matrix (meaning that QTQ = I ) and R is an upper triangular matrix. Analogously, we can define the QL, RQ, and LQ decompositions of A.
More generally, we can factor a complex m×n matrix (with m ≥ n) as the product of an m×n unitary matrix (in the sense that Q∗Q = I ) and an n×n upper triangular matrix.
If A is nonsingular, then this factorization is unique if we require that the diagonal elements of R are positive.
[edit] Computing the QR decomposition
There are several methods for actually computing the QR decomposition, such as by means of the Gram-Schmidt decomposition, Householder transformations, or Givens rotations. Each has a number of advantages and disadvantages.
[edit] Computing QR by means of Gram-Schmidt
Recall the Gram-Schmidt method, with the vectors to be considered in the process as columns of the matrix . Then
Naturally then, we rearrange the equations so the ais are the subject, to get the following
Each of these projections of the vectors onto one of these ej are merely the inner product of the two, since the vectors are normed.
Now these equations can be written in matrix form, viz.,
But the product of each row and column of the matrices above give us a respective column of A that we started with, and together, they give us the matrix A, so we have factorized A into an orthogonal matrix Q (the matrix of eks), via Gram Schmidt, and the obvious upper triangular matrix as a remainder R.
Alternatively, can be calculated as follows:
Recall that Then, we have
Note that and QQT = I, so QT = Q − 1.
[edit] Example
Consider the decomposition of
Recall the orthogonal matrix Q such that
Then, we can calculate Q by means of Gram-Schmidt as follows:
Thus, we have
Considering numerical errors of finite precision operation in MATLAB, we have that
[edit] Computing QR by means of Householder reflections
A Householder reflection (or Householder transformation) is a transformation that takes a vector and reflects it about some plane. We can use this property to calculate the QR factorization of a matrix.
Q can be used to reflect a vector in such a way that all coordinates but one disappear.
Let be an arbitrary m-dimensional column vector such that |||| = |α| for a scalar α (if the algorithm is implemented using floating-point arithmetic, then α should get the opposite sign as the first coordinate of to avoid loss of significance).
Then, where is the vector (1,0,...,0)T, and ||·|| the Euclidean norm, set
Q is a Householder matrix and
This can be used to gradually transform an m-by-n matrix A to upper triangular form. First, we multiply A with the Householder matrix Q1 we obtain when we choose the first matrix column for x. This results in a matrix QA with zeros in the left column (except for the first row).
This can be repeated for A′ (obtained from Q1A by deleting the first row and first column), resulting in a Householder matrix Q′2. Note that Q′2 is smaller than Q1. Since we want it really to operate on Q1A instead of A′ we need to expand it to the upper left, filling in a 1, or in general:
After t iterations of this process, t = min(m − 1,n),
is a upper triangular matrix. So, with
A = QR is a QR decomposition of A.
This method has greater numerical stability than the Gram-Schmidt method above.
- The following table gives the number of operations in the k-th step of the QR-Decomposition by the Householder transformation
Operation | Number of operations in the k-th step |
---|---|
multiplications | 2(n − k + 1)2 |
additions | (n − k + 1)2 + (n − k + 1)(n − k) + 2 |
division | 1 |
square root | 1 |
Summing these numbers of the (n − 1) steps the complexity of the algorithm is given by
[edit] Example
Let us calculate the decomposition of
First, we need to find a reflection that transforms the first column of matrix A, vector , to
Now,
and
- .
Here,
- α = 14 and
Therefore
- and , and then
Now observe:
so we already have almost a triangular matrix. We only need to zero the (3, 2) entry.
Take the (1, 1) minor, and then apply the process again to
By the same method as above, we obtain the matrix of the Householder transformation
after performing a direct sum with 1 to make sure the next step in the process works properly.
Now, we find
The matrix Q is orthogonal and R is upper triangular, so A = QR is the required QR-decomposition.
[edit] Computing QR by means of Givens rotations
QR decompositions can also be computed with a series of Givens rotations. Each rotation zeros an element in the subdiagonal of the matrix, forming the R matrix. The concatenation of all the Givens rotations forms the orthogonal Q matrix.
In practice, Givens rotations are not actually performed by building a whole matrix and doing a matrix multiplication. A Givens rotation procedure is used instead which does the equivalent of the sparse Givens matrix multiplication, without the extra work of handling the sparse elements. The Givens rotation procedure is useful in situations where only a relatively few off diagonal elements need to be zeroed, and is more easily parallelized than Householder transformations.
[edit] Example
Let us calculate the decomposition of
First, we need to form a rotation matrix that will zero the lowermost left element, . We form this matrix using the Givens rotation method, and call the matrix G1. We will first rotate the vector (6, − 4), to point along the X axis. This vector has an angle . We create the orthogonal Givens rotation matrix, G1:
And the result of G1A now has a zero in the element.
We can similarly form Givens matrices G2 and G3, which will zero the sub-diagonal elements a21 and a32, forming a triangular matrix R. The orthogonal matrix QT is formed from the concatenation of all the Givens matrices QT = G3G2G1. Thus, we have G3G2G1A = QTA = R, and the QR decomposition is A = QR.
[edit] Connection to a determinant or a product of eigenvalues
We can use QR decomposition to find the absolute value of the determinant of a square matrix. Suppose a matrix is decomposed as A = QR. Then we have
Since Q is unitary, | det(Q) | = 1. Thus,
where rii are the entries on the diagonal of R.
Furthermore, because the determinant equals the product of the eigenvalues, we have
where λi are eigenvalues of A.
We can extend the above properties to non-square complex matrix A by introducing the definition of QR-decomposition for non-square complex matrix and replacing eigenvalues with singular values.
Suppose a QR decomposition for a non-square matrix A:
where O is a zero matrix and Q is an unitary matrix.
From the properties of SVD and determinant of matrix, we have
where σi are singular values of A.
Note that the singular values of A and R are identical, although the complex eigenvalues of them may be different. However, if A is square, it holds that
In conclusion, QR decomposition can be used efficiently to calculate a product of eigenvalues or singular values of matrix.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Roger A. Horn and Charles R. Johnson, Matrix Analysis, Section 2.6, Cambridge University Press, 1985. ISBN 0-521-30586-1 hardback, ISBN 0-521-38632-2 paperback.
[edit] External links
- Online Matrix Calculator Performs QR decomposition of matrices.
- LAPACK users manual gives details of subroutines to calculate the QR decomposition
- Mathematica users manual gives details and examples of routines to calculate QR decomposition
- ALGLIB includes a partial port of the LAPACK to C++, C#, Delphi, etc.