Random Tri-Diagonal Operators

In this talk I will describe recent work by myself and others (E.B. Davies (KCL), M. Lindner (Chemnitz), S. Roch (Darmstadt)) on the spectrum and essential spectrum of bi-infinite and semi-infinite (not necessarily self-adjoin) tri-diagonal random operators, and the implications of these results for the spectra of associated random matrices, and for the finite section method for infinite tri-diagonal systems. A main tool will be limit operator methods, as described in Chandler-Wilde and Lindner, Memoirs AMS, 2011), supplemented by certain symmetry arguments including a Coburn lemma for random matrices.