Semiparametric Bernstein-von Mises theorems for reversible diffusions

Abstract

We establish a general semiparametric Bernstein-von Mises theorem for Bayesian nonparametric priors based on continuous observations in a periodic reversible multidimensional diffusion model. We consider a wide range of functionals satisfying an approximate linearization condition, including several nonlinear functionals of the invariant measure. Our result is applied to Gaussian and Besov-Laplace priors, showing these can perform efficient semiparametric inference and thus justifying the corresponding Bayesian approach to uncertainty quantification. Our theoretical results are illustrated via numerical simulations.