===affil2: ===firstname: Erin ===firstname4: ===firstname3: Jacob ===lastname2: Olson ===keyword1: AMG ===lastname: Molloy ===firstname5: ===affil6: ===lastname3: Schroder ===email: emolloy2@illinois.edu ===keyword2: NOT_SPECIFIED ===keyword_other2: ===lastname6: ===affil5: ===otherauths: ===lastname4: ===affil4: ===lastname7: ===competition: no ===affil7: ===firstname7: ===postal: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Department of Computer Science ===firstname6: ===ABSTRACT: Given a coarse grid, the ideal prolongation operator is defined by $\mathbf{P}_\star = \begin{bmatrix} \mathbf{W} & \mathbf{I} \end{bmatrix}^T$, where the weight matrix, $\mathbf{W} = -\mathbf{A}_{FF}^{-1} \mathbf{A}_{FC}$ , interpolates a set of fine grid variable ($F$-points) from a set of coarse grid variable ($C$-points), and the identity matrix, $\mathbf{I}$, represents the injection of $C$-points to and from the coarse grid (Falgout and Vassilevski, 2004). In this talk, we consider $\mathbf{P}_\star$, constructed from both traditional $C/F$ splittings and $C/F$ splittings corresponding to aggregates, for several challenging problems. We demonstrate the effects of the $C/F$ splitting on the convergence of multigrid hierarchies constructed with $\mathbf{P}_\star$. Finally, we argue that $\mathbf{P}_\star$ may be misleading in demonstrating the ``ideal'' nature of interpolation of a given $C/F$ splitting by providing numerical evidence that hierarchies built using $\mathbf{P}_\star$ converge more slowly than hierarchies built from alternative prolongation operators with the same $C/F$ splitting. This is important as we wish to minimize the number of levels in a multigrid hierarchy by coarsening aggressively to yield a small set of C points for which $\mathbf{P}_\star$ may have relatively poor convergence. ===affil3: ===keyword_other1: ===lastname5: ===affilother: ===title: Is the ideal approximation operator always “ideal” for a particular C/F splitting? ===firstname2: Luke