Relaxation (iterative method)

In numerical mathematics, relaxation methods are iterative methods for solving systems of equations, including nonlinear systems.

Relaxation methods were developed for solving large sparse linear systems, which arose as finite-difference discretizations of differential equations. They are also used for the solution of linear equations for linear least-squares problems and also for systems of linear inequalities, such as those arising in linear programming. They have also been developed for solving nonlinear systems of equations.