Basins of attraction of a one-parameter family of root-finding techniques

Abstract

Initial conditions can have a substantial impact on the behavior of iterative root-finding techniques for nonlinear equations. By allowing complex starting points and complex roots, it is possible to examine the basins of attraction in the complex plane in order to compare the performance of various iterative techniques. In this paper, a one-parameter family of third-order root-finding methods is studied by varying its parameter A within −2.0 and 2.4 and applying it to a polynomial equation of high degree (degree 25). This family includes the Euler–Chebyshev’s (A = 0), Halley’s (A = 1) and BSC (A = 2) techniques. According to the results, the one-parameter family provides the best performance for values near A = 1, which equals to the Halley’s method.

Keywords

• polynomial equations
• nonlinear equations
• iterative root-finding methods
• order of convergence
• basins of attraction
• 65j10
• 65j15
• 65h04
• 37c25