Matrix \mu in multivariate normal

Questions
1

Hi, we are trying to estimate a multivariate normal model: X\sim MVN(\mu,\Sigma). It is understandable that when \mu is passed as an n-dimentional vector, then \Sigma must be n\times n and its element ij denotes covariance between X_i and X_j.
From docs:

cov = np.array([[1., 0.5], [0.5, 2]])
mu = np.zeros(2)
vals = pm.MvNormal(‘vals’, mu=mu, cov=cov, shape=(5, 2))

However, we discovered by chance that \mu does not have to be a vector, but also a squared matrix. The model works, no error message is displayed, and we get quite nice results. But we do not understand HOW the model works exactly.

Questions:

  • Does it interpret each row/column of the matrix as a multivariate normal variable?
  • And what is the interpetation of \Sigma in this case?

Thanks in advance for any clues :slight_smile:

Struggling researchers - Agata and Tomek

2

Each row of the matrix is treated as independent. It should be the same thing (but faster) as

pm.MatrixNormal('vals', mu, np.diag(np.ones(5, dtype=np.int32)), cov, shape=(5,2))

3

Thank you kindly, Sir :slight_smile: