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Bayesian model comparison in cosmology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2015

Daniel J. Mortlock
Daniel J. Mortlock*
Affiliation:
Astrophysics Group, Blackett Laboratory, and Department of Mathematics Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom email: mortlock@ic.ac.uk
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Abstract

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The standard Bayesian model formalism comparison cannot be applied to most cosmological models as they lack well-motivated parameter priors. However, if the data-set being used is separable, then it is possible to use some of the data to obtain the necessary parameter distributions, the rest of the data being retained for model comparison. While such methods are not fully prescriptive, they provide a route to applying Bayesian model comparison in cosmological situations where it could not otherwise be used.

Keywords

methods: statisticalcosmology: cosmological parameters

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