Rate exact Bayesian adaptation with modified block priors

Abstract

A novel block prior is proposed for adaptive Bayesian estimation. The prior does not depend on the smoothness of the function or the sample size. It puts sufficient prior mass near the true signal and automatically concentrates on its effective dimension. A rate-optimal posterior contraction is obtained in a general framework, which includes density estimation, white noise model, Gaussian sequence model, Gaussian regression and spectral density estimation.