Weak convergence of the backward Euler method for stochastic Cahn--Hilliard equation with additive noise

Abstract: We prove a weak rate of convergence of a fully discrete scheme for stochastic Cahn--Hilliard equation with additive noise, where the spectral Galerkin method is used in space and the backward Euler method is used in time. Compared with the Allen--Cahn type stochastic partial differential equation, the error analysis here is much more sophisticated due to the presence of the unbounded operator in front of the nonlinear term. To address such issues, a novel and direct approach has been exploited which does not rely on a Kolmogorov equation but on the integration by parts formula from Malliavin calculus. To the best of our knowledge, the rates of weak convergence are revealed in the stochastic Cahn--Hilliard equation setting for the first time.