Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2019 / iii / Paper 350 / 1 / a

Let ${\pi }_0$ be the probability density function of the unknown and $\rho$ that of the noise, both relative to Lebesgue measure. By independence of random variables, the conditional distribution of the measurement given $u$ has density $\rho (m-Au)$. Thus its likelihood function and the joint density areThe Bayesian model evidence is the marginal data densityBayes' theorem gives the posterior density solving this Bayesian inverse problem:This formula applies when $0<Z(m)<\infty$. Since $\int Z(m)dm=1$ by Tonelli theorem, these conditions hold almost everywhere under the marginal data law. Values of a conditional distribution at exceptional data are not determined by the joint law. The posterior mean or a maximum a posteriori estimate can then give a point estimate, while the full posterior density describes the remaining uncertainty.