I am trying to understand what it means exactly for the spectrum of an operator to be closed. I am considering infinite dimensional operators.
Say we know, for example, that the point spectrum of some operator is made up of 4 values, $\{1,2,3,4\}$ does that mean that all numbers in $[1,4]$ are in the spectrum (in the residual or continuous spectrum) since by definition the spectrum is closed? Alternatively, is the $\{1,2,3,4\}$ set considered closed but just disjoint so that we don't necessarily have all of $[1,4]$ in the spectrum.
Can the spectrum be disjoint EDIT: not disjoint, disconnected?
I am afraid that I might be misunderstanding this idea.
I had a problem where the eigenvalues in the point spectrum were dense in $[0,1]$ and we concluded that the spectrum is made up of the closure of $[0,1]$. So I am wondering if the density was the important aspect of that, or if it works that way in general.
Let $T(e_1)=e_1,T(e_2)=2e_2,T(e_3)=3e_3,T(e_4)=4e_4,Te_j=e_j$ for all $j>4$ where $\{e_j\}$ is the standard orthonormal basis for $l^{2}$. Then $1,2,3,4$ are eigen values of $T$. If $\lambda \notin \{1,2,3,4\}$ you can solve the equation $Tx-\lambda x=y$. You will get a unique solution for any $y \in l^{2}$. Hence $T-\lambda I$ is a bijection. Automatically the inverse is continuous (by OMT) so $\lambda $ is n at in the spectrum. Thus $\sigma (T)=\{1,2,3,4\}$. [The solution of $Tx-\lambda x=y$ is given by $x_j=\frac {y_j} {1-\lambda} $ if $j >4$ and $x_j=\frac {y_j} {j-\lambda} $ if $j \leq 4$]. Incidentally, you are using the word disjoint for disconnected. The statement $A$ is disjoint has no meaning.