Weak Convergence Rates for Euler-Type Approximations of Semilinear Stochastic Evolution Equations with Nonlinear Diffusion Coefficients

Strong convergence rates for time-discrete numerical approximations of semilinear stochastic evolution equations (SEEs) with smooth and regular nonlinearities are well understood in the literature. Weak convergence rates for time-discrete numerical approximations of such SEEs have, loosely speaking, been investigated since 2003 and are far away from being well understood: roughly speaking, no essentially sharp weak convergence rates are known for time-discrete numerical approximations of parabolic SEEs with nonlinear diffusion coefficient functions. In the recent article (Conus et al. in Ann Appl Probab 29(2):653–716, 2019) this weak convergence problem has been solved in the case of spatial spectral Galerkin approximations for semilinear SEEs with nonlinear diffusion coefficient functions. In this article we overcome this weak convergence problem in the case of a class of time-discrete Euler-type approximation methods (including exponential and linear-implicit Euler approximations as special cases) and, in particular, we establish essentially sharp weak convergence rates for linear-implicit Euler approximations of semilinear SEEs with nonlinear diffusion coefficient functions. Key ingredients of our approach are applications of a mild Itô-type formula and the use of suitable semilinear integrated counterparts of the time-discrete numerical approximation processes.