LOO-PIT: A sensitive posterior test

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Nguyen, Alan B. H., Bonici, Marco, McGee, Glen, Percival, Will J.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Nguyen, Alan B. H.
Bonici, Marco
McGee, Glen
Percival, Will J.
author_facet Nguyen, Alan B. H.
Bonici, Marco
McGee, Glen
Percival, Will J.
contents With the advent of the next generation of astrophysics experiments, the volume of data available to researchers will be greater than ever. As these projects will significantly drive down statistical uncertainties in measurements, it is crucial to develop novel tools to assess the ability of our models to fit these data within the specified errors. We introduce to astronomy the Leave One Out-Probability Integral Transform (LOO-PIT) technique. This first estimates the LOO posterior predictive distributions based on the model and likelihood distribution specified, then evaluates the quality of the match between the model and data by applying the PIT to each estimated distribution and data point, outputting a LOO-PIT distribution. Deviations between this output distribution and that expected can be characterised visually and with a standard Kolmogorov--Smirnov distribution test. We compare LOO-PIT and the more common $χ^2$ test using both a simplified model and a more realistic astrophysics problem, where we consider fitting Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in galaxy survey data with contamination from emission line interlopers. LOO-PIT and $χ^2$ tend to find different signals from the contaminants, and using these tests in conjunction increases the statistical power compared to using either test alone. We also show that LOO-PIT outperforms $χ^2$ in certain realistic test cases.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_03507
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle LOO-PIT: A sensitive posterior test
Nguyen, Alan B. H.
Bonici, Marco
McGee, Glen
Percival, Will J.
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
With the advent of the next generation of astrophysics experiments, the volume of data available to researchers will be greater than ever. As these projects will significantly drive down statistical uncertainties in measurements, it is crucial to develop novel tools to assess the ability of our models to fit these data within the specified errors. We introduce to astronomy the Leave One Out-Probability Integral Transform (LOO-PIT) technique. This first estimates the LOO posterior predictive distributions based on the model and likelihood distribution specified, then evaluates the quality of the match between the model and data by applying the PIT to each estimated distribution and data point, outputting a LOO-PIT distribution. Deviations between this output distribution and that expected can be characterised visually and with a standard Kolmogorov--Smirnov distribution test. We compare LOO-PIT and the more common $χ^2$ test using both a simplified model and a more realistic astrophysics problem, where we consider fitting Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in galaxy survey data with contamination from emission line interlopers. LOO-PIT and $χ^2$ tend to find different signals from the contaminants, and using these tests in conjunction increases the statistical power compared to using either test alone. We also show that LOO-PIT outperforms $χ^2$ in certain realistic test cases.
title LOO-PIT: A sensitive posterior test
topic Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.03507