Motivations for an arbitrary precision interval arithmetic and the MPFI library

Nowadays, computations involve more and more operations and consequently errors. The limits of applicability of some numerical algorithms are now reached: for instance the theoretical stability of a dense matrix factorization (LU or QR) is ensured under the assumption that n 3 u < 1, where n is the dimension of the matrix and u = 1 + − 1, with 1 + the smallest floating-point larger than 1; this means that n must be less than 200,000, which is almost reached by modern simulations. The numerical quality of solvers is now an issue, and not only their mathematical quality. Let us cite studies performed by the CEA (French Nuclear Agency) on the simulation of nuclear plant accidents and also softwares controlling and possibly correcting numerical programs, such as Cadna [10] or Cena [20]. Another approach consists in computing with certified enclosures, namely interval arithmetic [21, 2, 18]. The fundamental principle of this arithmetic consists in replacing every number by an interval enclosing it. For instance, π cannot be exactly represented using a binary or decimal arithmetic, but i