Bounding the convergence time of the Gibbs sampler in Bayesian image restoration

agibbs(mathstat.yorku.ca SUMMARY This paper shows how coupling methodology can be used to give precise, a priori bounds on the convergence time of Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms for which a partial order exists on the state space which is preserved by the Markov chain transitions. This methodology is applied to give a bound on the convergence time of the random scan Gibbs sampler used in the Bayesian restoration of an image of N pixels. For our algorithm, in which only one pixel is updated at each iteration, the bound is a constant times N2. The proportionality constant is given and is easily calculated. These bounds also give an indication of the running time of coupling from the past algorithms.

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