Bayesian Inverse Problems with Heterogeneous Variance

Abstract: We consider inverse problems in Hilbert spaces under correlated Gaussian noise and use a Bayesian approach to find their regularised solution. We focus on mildly ill-posed inverse problems with the noise being generalised derivative of fractional Brownian motion, using a novel wavelet - based approach we call vaguelette-vaguelette. It allows us to apply sequence space methods without assuming that all operators are simultaneously diagonalisable. The results are proved for more general bases and covariance operators. Our primary aim is to study the posterior contraction rate in such inverse problems over Sobolev classes of true functions, comparing it to the derived minimax rate. Secondly, we study the effect of plugging in a consistent estimator of variances in sequence space on the posterior contraction rate, for instance where there are repeated observations. This result is also applied to the problem where the forward operator is observed with error. Thirdly, we show that an adaptive empirical Bayes posterior distribution contracts at the optimal rate, in the minimax sense, under a condition on prior smoothness, with a plugged in maximum marginal likelihood estimator of the prior scale. These theoretical results are illustrated on simulated data.