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The formulation of Bayesian inverse problems involves choosing prior distributions; choices that seem equally reason-able may lead to significantly different conclusions. We develop a computational approach to understand the impact of the hyperparameters defining the prior on the posterior statistics of the quantities of interest. Our approach relies on global sensitivity analysis (GSA) of Bayesian inverse problems with respect to the prior hyperparameters. This, however, is a challenging problem-a naive double loop sampling approach would require running a prohibitive number of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling procedures. The present work takes a foundational step in making such a sensitivity analysis practical by combining efficient surrogate models and a tailored importance sampling approach. In particular, we can perform accurate GSA of posterior statistics of quantities of interest with respect to prior hyperparameters without the need to repeat MCMC runs. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach on a simple Bayesian linear inverse problem and a nonlinear inverse problem governed by an epidemiological model.
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HYPER-DIFFERENTIAL SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS FOR NONLINEAR BAYESIAN INVERSE PROBLEMS
We consider hyper-differential sensitivity analysis (HDSA) of nonlinear Bayesian inverse problems governed by partialdifferential equations (PDEs) with infinite-dimensional parameters. In previous works, HDSA has been used to assessthe sensitivity of the solution of deterministic inverse problems to additional model uncertainties and also different types of measurement data. In the present work, we extend HDSA to the class of Bayesian inverse problems governed by PDEs. The focus is on assessing the sensitivity of certain key quantities derived from the posterior distribution. Specifically, we focus on analyzing the sensitivity of the MAP point and the Bayes risk and make full use of the information embedded in the Bayesian inverse problem. After establishing our mathematical framework for HDSA of Bayesian inverse problems, we present a detailed computational approach for computing the proposed HDSA indices. We examine the effectiveness of the proposed approach on an inverse problem governed by a PDE modeling heat conduction.
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- PAR ID:
- 10520974
- Publisher / Repository:
- Begell House, Inc.
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- International Journal for Uncertainty Quantification
- Volume:
- 14
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 2152-5080
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 20
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1615/Int.J.UncertaintyQuantification.2023045300
