Spectral approximation of banded Laurent matrices with localized random perturbations (Q5957556)

Given a continuous complex-valued function \(A\) on the complex unit circle \({\mathbb{T}}\) let us denote by \((a_n)_{n\in \mathbb{Z}}\) the sequence of its Fourier coefficients and by \(L(a)\) the matrix \((a_{j-k})_{j,k\in Z}.\) The matrix \(L(a)\) is called the Laurent matrix with the symbol \(a,\) and it is well-known that \(L(a)\) indices a bounded operator on \(\ell^2(\mathbb{Z})\) whose spectrum is the range \(a({\mathbb{T}})\) of a, \(spL(a)=a({\mathbb{T}}).\) Let \(C_n(a)\) be the \(n\times n\) circulant matrix for \(n>2r+1,\) where \(a(t)=\sum_{j=-r}^{r}a_jt^j\) \((t\in \mathbb{T})\) is a trigonometrical polynomial. The spectrum of \(C_n(a)\) is \(a({\mathbb{T}}_n),\) where \({\mathbb{T}}_n\) denotes the set of the \(nth\) unit roots. Thus, the spectrum of \(C_n(a)\) approximates the spectrum of \(L(a)\) as \(n\to+\infty.\) This paper addresses the relationship between the spectra of \(L(a)+K\) and \(C_n(a)+P_nKP_n\) as \(n\to+\infty\) when \(K=(K_{ij})\) is a deterministic or random matrix whose nonzero entries are all situated in a fixed finite set \(E\) of sites \((j,k)\) with \(j,k\in (1,2,\dots,m),\) and where \(P_nKP_n=(K_{jk})_{j,k=1}^{n}.\) In the language of physics, the authors concern with the problem of whether the passage from the ``finite volume case'' to the ``infinite volume case'' is continuous or not. Related problems arise not only in physics, but also in the population biology, small-world networks, non-Hermitian quantum mechanics, etc.