Weak solutions for a stochastic mean curvature flow of two-dimensional graphs

Abstract

We study a stochastically perturbed mean curvature flow for graphs in $${\mathbb {R}}^3$$ over the two-dimensional unit-cube subject to periodic boundary conditions. The stochastic perturbation is a one dimensional white noise acting uniformly in all points of the surface in normal direction. We establish the existence of a weak martingale solution. The proof is based on energy methods and therefore presents an alternative to the stochastic viscosity solution approach. To overcome difficulties induced by the degeneracy of the mean curvature operator and the multiplicative gradient noise present in the model we employ a three step approximation scheme together with refined stochastic compactness and martingale identification methods.