English

Bayesian Integrals on Toric Varieties

Algebraic Geometry 2023-03-23 v2 Statistics Theory Statistics Theory

Abstract

We explore the positive geometry of statistical models in the setting of toric varieties. Our focus lies on models for discrete data that are parameterized in terms of Cox coordinates. We develop a geometric theory for computations in Bayesian statistics, such as evaluating marginal likelihood integrals and sampling from posterior distributions. These are based on a tropical sampling method for evaluating Feynman integrals in physics. We here extend that method from projective spaces to arbitrary toric varieties.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2204.06414,
  title  = {Bayesian Integrals on Toric Varieties},
  author = {Michael Borinsky and Anna-Laura Sattelberger and Bernd Sturmfels and Simon Telen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2204.06414},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

26 pages, 3 figures; v2: minor corrections and improvements, version equivalent to the one published in SIAGA

R2 v1 2026-06-24T10:47:02.390Z