Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2005 / iii / Paper 45 / 3 / iv / Solution

Use the joint prior density $g(\theta ,t)=\pi (\theta )q(t)$ as the proposal for rejection sampling. Since the Poisson probability $a_k(\theta ,t)$ lies in $[0,1]$, the following algorithm is valid:

The joint density of a proposed pair together with its acceptance event is $g(\theta ,t)a_k(\theta ,t)$. Its integral is $m_k$, so conditioning on acceptance gives precisely $g{a}_k/m_k$, the desired posterior density. Repeating independent proposal trials until each acceptance produces independent posterior observations. This is Bayesian rejection sampling for a segregating-site count.

An equivalent implementation simulates $S^{\ast }\sim \mathrm{Poisson}(\theta L/2)$ and accepts exactly when $S^{\ast }=k$. Its acceptance probability is the same Poisson mass. Propose from the joint prior and accept according to the exact observed-count likelihood. No approximation to the posterior distribution is involved in the accepted draws.