A Modified Newton-Type Method with Sixth-Order

Convergence for Solving Nonlinear Equations

Li Sun1 and Liang Fang2

1
College of Information Science and engineering, Shandong Agricultural University, 271018,
Tai'an, China
2
College of Mathematics and System Science, Taishan University, 271021, Tai'an, China
sunlishi@hotmail.com, fangliang3@163.com

Abstract. In this paper, we present and analyze a sixth-order convergent

method for solving nonlinear equations. The method is free from second
derivatives and permits f'(x)=0 in some points. It requires three evaluations of
the given function and two evaluations of its derivative in each step. Some
numerical examples illustrate that the presented method is more efficient and
performs better than classical Newton's method.

Keywords: Nonlinear equations; Newton's method; Iterative method; Order of

convergence.

1 Introduction
In this paper, we consider iterative methods to find a simple root x* of a nonlinear
⊆
equation f(x) = 0, where f: D R→R for an open interval D is a scalar function and it
is sufficiently smooth in a neighborhood of x*.
It is well known that classical Newton's method (NM) is a basic and important
method for solving non-linear equation [1] by the iterative scheme
f(xn)
xn+1=xn- , (1)
f'(xn)
which is quadratically convergent in the neighborhood of x*. In recent years, much
attention has been given to develop iterative methods for solving nonlinear equations
and many iterative methods have been developed [2-14].
Motivated and inspired by the on going activities in this direction, in this paper, we
present a sixth-order convergent method. The method is free from second derivatives
and permits f'(x)=0 in some points. It requires three evaluations of the given function
and two evaluations of its derivative in each step. Several examples are given to
illustrate the efficiency and advantage of the method.

2 The Method and Its Convergence

Let us consider the following iterative method.
Algorithm 1. For given x0, we consider double Newton-type iteration scheme for
solving non-linear equation [1] by the iterative scheme

S. Lin and X. Huang (Eds.): CSEE 2011, Part IV, CCIS 217, pp. 470–473, 2011.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011
 A Modified Newton-Type Method with Sixth-Order Convergence 471

f(xn)
yn=xn- , (2)
λnf(xn)+f'(xn)
f(yn)
zn=yn- , (3)
μnf(yn)+f'(xn)
f(zn)
xn+1=zn- , (4)
νnf(zn)+f'(zn)
where λn are real numbers chosen such that 0≤|λn|,|μn|,|νn|≤1, n=1,2,… and
sign(λnf(xn))=sign(f'(xn)), sign(μnf(yn))=sign(f'(xn)), sign(νnf(zn))=sign(f'(zn)), where
sign(x) is the sign function.
For Algorithm 1, we have the following convergence result.

⊆
Theorem 1. Assume that the function f: D R→R has a single root x* D, where D ⊆
is an open interval. If f(x) has first, second and third derivatives in the interval D, then
Algorithm 1 is fifth-order convergent in a neighborhood of x* and it satisfies error
equation
en+1=4c22(λn+c2)2(νn+c2)en6+O(en7), (5)
(k)
f (x*)
where en=xn-x*, ck= ,k=2,3,....
k!f'(x*)
f(k)(x*)
Proof. Let x* be the simple root of f(x), ck= ,k=2,3,… and en=xn-x*. Consider
k!f'(x*)
the iteration function F(x) defined by
f(z(x))
F(x) =z(x)- , (6)
νnf(z(x))+f'(z(x))

f(y(x)) f(x)
where z(x)=y(x)- , y(x)=x- .
μnf(y(x))+f'(x) λnf(x)+f'(x)
By some computations using Maple we can obtain F(x*)=x*, F(i)(x*)=0, i=1,2,3,4,5,
and
90f''(x*)2[f''(x*)+2λnf'(x*)]2[f''(x*)+2νnf'(x*)]
F(6)(x*)= . (7)
f'(x*)5
Furthermore, from the Taylor expansion of F(xn) around x*, we get

F''(x*) F'''(x*)
xn+1=F(xn) =F(x*)+F’(x*)(xn-x*)+ (xn-x*)2 + (xn-x*)3
2! 3!
(8)
F(4)(x*) F(5)(x*) F(6)(x*)
+ (xn-x*)4 + (xn-x*)5 + (xn-x*)6 +O((xn-x*)7).
4! 5! 6!
Substituting (7) into (8) yields
xn+1=x*+ en+1=4c22(λn+c2)2(νn+c2)en6+O(en7). (9)
Therefore, we have
472 L. Sun and L. Fang

en+1=4c22(λn+c2)2(νn+c2)en6+O(en7), (10)
which means the order of convergence of the Algorithm 1 is six. The proof is
completed.
Now, we consider efficiency index defined as p1/w, where p is the order of the
method and w is the number of function evaluations per iteration required by the
method. It is not hard to see that the efficiency index of the Algorithm 1 is 1.431
which is better than that of Newton's method (NM) 1.414.

3 Numerical Results
Now, we employ Algorithm 1 presented in the paper to solve some nonlinear
equations and compare it with NM. Displayed in Table 1 are the number of iterations
(ITs) required such that |f(xn)|<1.E-14.

In table 1, we use the following functions.

f1(x)=sin(x+1)-x+2, x*=2.07076672709785.
f2(x)=x3+ex-x+1, x*=-1.38070588484698.
f3(x)=(x-1)3-1, x*=2.

Table 1. Comparison of Algorithm 1 and Newton's method

Functions xo NM Algorithm 1
f1 -1 Failure 6
f1 0 72 4
f2 0 Failure 5
f2 -1 8 3
f3 1 Failure 8
f3 1.01 28 11

The computational results in Table 1 show that Algorithm 1 require less ITs than
NM. Therefore, the present sixth-order convergent method is of practical interest and
can compete with NM.

4 Conclusion
In this paper, we present and analyze a sixth-order convergent method for solving
nonlinear equations under mild conditions. The method is free from second
derivatives and permits f'(x)=0 in some points. It requires three evaluations of the
given function and two evaluations of its derivative in each step. Several numerical
tests demonstrate that the sixth-order method given in this paper is more efficient and
performs better than classical Newton's method.

Acknowledgements. The work is supported by Project of Shandong Province Higher

Educational Science and Technology Program (J10LA51).
 A Modified Newton-Type Method with Sixth-Order Convergence 473

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