On the efficiency of a class of a-stable methods

The numerical solution of systems of differential equations of the formB dx/dt=σ(t)Ax(t)+f(t),x(0) given, whereB andA (withB and —(A+AT) positive definite) are supposed to be large sparse matrices, is considered.A-stable methods like the Implicit Runge-Kutta methods based on Radau quadrature are combined with iterative methods for the solution of the algebraic systems of equations.