The minimax optimal convergence rate of posterior density in the weighted orthogonal polynomials

Abstract

We investigate Bayesian nonparametric density estimation via orthogonal polynomial expansions in weighted Sobolev spaces. A core challenge is establishing minimax optimal posterior convergence rates, especially for densities on unbounded domains without a strictly positive lower bound. For densities bounded away from zero, we give sufficient conditions under which the framework of \cite{shen2001} applies directly. For densities lacking a positive lower bound, the equivalence between Hellinger and weighted $L_2$-norm distance fails, invalidating the original theory. We propose a novel shifting method that lifts the true density $g_0$ to a sequence of proxy densities $g_{0,n}$. We prove a modified convergence theorem applicable to these shifted densities, preserving the optimal rate. We also construct a Gaussian sieve prior that achieves the minimax rate $\varepsilon_n=n^{-p/(2p+1)}$ for any integer $p\geq1$. Numerical results confirm that our estimator approximates the true density well and validates the theoretical convergence rate.