This power iteration algorithm simply calculates the vector , normalizes, and places the result back in . The eigenvalue is approximated by , which is the Rayleigh quotient on the unit vector for the covariance matrix . If the largest singular value is well separated from the next largest one, the vector gets close to the first principal component of within the number of iterations , which is small relative to , at the total cost . The power iteration convergence can be accelerated without noticeably sacrificing the small cost per iteration using more advanced matrix-free methods, such as the Lanczos algorithm or the Locally Optimal Block Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient (LOBPCG) method.