Adaptive Gibbs samplers

Abstract

We consider various versions of adaptive Gibbs and Metropolis within-Gibbs samplers, which update their selection probabilities (and perhaps also their proposal distributions) on the fly during a run, by learning as they go in an attempt to optimise the algorithm. We present a cautionary example of how even a simple-seeming adaptive Gibbs sampler may fail to converge. We then present various positive results guaranteeing convergence of adaptive Gibbs samplers under certain conditions.