Structure Approximation-Based Preconditioning for Solving Tempered Fractional Diffusion Equations

Tempered fractional diffusion equations constitute a critical class of partial differential equations with broad applications across multiple physical domains. In this paper, the Crank–Nicolson method and the tempered weighted and shifted Grünwald formula are used to discretize the tempered fractional diffusion equations. The discretized system has the structure of the sum of the identity matrix and a diagonal matrix multiplied by a symmetric positive definite (SPD) Toeplitz matrix. For the discretized system, we propose a structure approximation-based preconditioning method. The structure approximation lies in two aspects: the inverse approximation based on the row-by-row strategy and the SPD Toeplitz approximation by the $\tau$ matrix. The proposed preconditioning method can be efficiently implemented using the discrete sine transform (DST). In spectral analysis, it is found that the eigenvalues of the preconditioned coefficient matrix are clustered around 1, ensuring fast convergence of Krylov subspace methods with the new preconditioner. Numerical experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed preconditioner.