Papers › Nested sampling for physical scientists

Nested sampling for physical scientists

31 May 2022arXiv:2205.15570links table onlyarchive 2025-07-28

Greg Ashton, Noam Bernstein, Johannes Buchner, Xi Chen, Gábor Csányi, Andrew Fowlie, Farhan Feroz, Matthew Griffiths, Will Handley, Michael Habeck, Edward Higson, Michael Hobson, Anthony Lasenby, David Parkinson, Livia B. Pártay, Matthew Pitkin, Doris Schneider, Joshua S. Speagle, Leah South, John Veitch, Philipp Wacker, David J. Wales, David Yallup

The archive published only this paper's code-link row. Authors, date and abstract are from arXiv's metadata (CC0), read from the Kaggle arXiv metadata snapshot of 2026-09-12 where its title matched the archive's; the title is the archive's.

We review Skilling's nested sampling (NS) algorithm for Bayesian inference and more broadly multi-dimensional integration. After recapitulating the principles of NS, we survey developments in implementing efficient NS algorithms in practice in high-dimensions, including methods for sampling from the so-called constrained prior. We outline the ways in which NS may be applied and describe the application of NS in three scientific fields in which the algorithm has proved to be useful: cosmology, gravitational-wave astronomy, and materials science. We close by making recommendations for best practice when using NS and by summarizing potential limitations and optimizations of NS.

Code

Repository list and official/mentioned flags are the archive's, frozen 2025-07-28. Reachability, where shown, is from one Syntology probe window (2026-09-16 to 2026-09-18); repositories not probed show nothing. GitHub stars are not tracked.

Code Syntology ran Syntology

Not run by Syntology. Nothing on this page verifies that the listed code works.

Results from the paper archive 2025-07-28

No leaderboard rows for this paper in the archive.

Report a problem or propose a change · a person checks every report against the paper or source before anything changes; decisions are listed on /corrections