Sparse matrix

A matrix with a small number of non-zero entries. Systems of linear equations with such matrices occur, in particular, in approximating differential equations by finite differences or variational-differences equations (cf. Approximation of a differential equation by difference equations).

Comments

Sparseness of a matrix is a property that can be advantageously exploited in numerical linear algebra, cf. [a1] for a survey.

References

[a1]	Z. Zlatev, "Iterative improvement of direct solutions of large and sparse problems" , Kluwer (1991) (Translated from Russian)