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I want to calculate the Kullback–Leibler divergence between a multivariate $t$ distribution and a multivariate normal distribution, for different values of the degrees of freedom $\nu$.

However, this requires a multiple integration that seems to be difficult to calculate numerically for dimensions larger than 2. Is there a known result to calculate this integral or a numerical trick?

I understand there are general multivariate numerical integration methods. I was just wondering if there is a simpler ad hoc tool I could use as these are popular distributions, so I guess there may be some simpler tools.

Arya McCarthy
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1 Answers1

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There is a numerical solution based on one-dimensional numerical integrals here:

Kullback Leibler divergence between a multivariate t and a multivariate normal distributions

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I doubt there is a closed form solution, but the 1D numerical integral seems simple.