title: Note on the S-matrix propagation algorithm.
abstract: A set of full-matrix recursion formulas for the W --> S variant of the S-matrix algorithm is derived, which includes the recent results of some other authors as a subset. In addition, a special type of symmetry that is often found in the structure of coefficient matrices (W matrices) that appear in boundary-matching conditions is identified and fully exploited for the purpose of increasing computation efficiency. Two tables of floating-point operation (flop) counts for both the new W --> S variant and the old W --> t --> S variant of the S-matrix algorithm are given. Comparisons of flop counts show that in performing S-matrix recursions in the absence of the symmetry, it is more efficient to go directly from W matrices to S matrices. In the presence of the symmetry, however, using t matrices is equally and sometimes more advantageous, provided that the symmetry is utilized.
authors.affiliation: Department of Precision Instruments, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China. lifengli@tsinghua.edu.cn
authors.forename: Lifeng
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Li