Approximation of approximation numbers by truncation

LetA be a bounded linear operator onsome infinite-dimensional separable Hilbert spaceH and letA _n be the orthogonal compression ofA to the span of the firstn elements of an orthonormal basis ofH. We show that, for eachk1, the approximation numberss _k(A_n) converge to the corresponding approximation numbers _k(A) asn. This observation implies almost at once some well known results on the spectral approximation of bounded selfadjoint operators. For example, it allows us to identify the limits of all upper and lower eigenvalues ofA _n in the case whereA is selfadjoint. These limits give us all points of the spectrum of a selfadjoint operator which lie outside the convex hull of the essential spectrum. Moreover, it follows that the spectrum of a selfadjoint operatorA with a connected essential spectrum can be completely recovered from the eigenvalues ofA _n asn goes to infinity.