Self-adjointness of unbounded tridiagonal operators and spectra of their finite truncations

Abstract

This paper addresses two different but related questions regarding an unbounded symmetric tridiagonal operator: its self-adjointness and the approximation of its spectrum by the eigenvalues of its finite truncations. The sufficient conditions given in both cases improve and generalize previously known results. It turns out that, not only self-adjointness helps to study limit points of eigenvalues of truncated operators, but the analysis of such limit points is a key help to prove self-adjointness. Several examples show the advantages of these new results compared with previous ones. Besides, an application to the theory of continued fractions is pointed out.