A Fully Matrix-Free Three-Grid Preconditioner for the Time-Harmonic Maxwell Equations at Extreme Scale

Abstract

Three-dimensional time-harmonic Maxwell simulations generate massive complex indefinite systems whose mesh coarsening is strictly limited by phase accuracy. Although matrix-free finite element kernels utilize GPU throughput efficiently, standard multilevel solvers are ultimately bottlenecked by the memory and communication costs of exact coarse-grid factorizations. We present a fully matrix-free, factorization-free three-grid preconditioner for curl-conforming N{\'e}delec discretizations with perfectly matched layers (PML) and optimally blended quadrature. The method employs an outer FGMRES to solve the unshifted fine-grid equation, while an intermediate-grid correction is computed by a fixed-work FGMRES preconditioned with a complex-shifted $2h$--$4h$ cycle. This strategically confines the complex shift to an auxiliary preconditioner, preserving the physical Maxwell operator. A local Fourier analysis derives the blended Maxwell branches and compatible edge transfers, identifying robust shift and Jacobi damping parameters. Validated against the analytical Maxwell Green tensor, our approach demonstrates extreme scalability: using a single solver configuration, both homogeneous and highly heterogeneous systems with approximately 10.89 billion complex edge unknowns are solved in 42.0--72.0 seconds on just 64 NVIDIA A100 GPUs.