Fully nonlinear parabolic equations of real forms on Hermitian manifolds

Over many decades fully nonlinear PDEs, and the complex Monge-Ampère equation in particular played a central role in the study of complex manifolds. Most previous works focused on problems that can be expressed through equations involving real <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="left-parenthesis 1 comma 1 right-parenthesis"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo stretchy="false">(</mml:mo> <mml:mn>1</mml:mn> <mml:mo>,</mml:mo> <mml:mn>1</mml:mn> <mml:mo stretchy="false">)</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">(1,1)</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> forms. As many important questions, especially those linked to higher cohomology classes, in algebraic and complex geometry involve real <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="left-parenthesis p comma p right-parenthesis"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo stretchy="false">(</mml:mo> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> <mml:mo>,</mml:mo> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> <mml:mo stretchy="false">)</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">(p, p)</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> forms for <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="p greater-than 1"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> <mml:mo>&gt;</mml:mo> <mml:mn>1</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">p &gt; 1</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> , there is a strong need to develop PDE techniques to study these questions. In this paper we consider a fully nonlinear equation for <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="left-parenthesis p comma p right-parenthesis"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo stretchy="false">(</mml:mo> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> <mml:mo>,</mml:mo> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> <mml:mo stretchy="false">)</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">(p, p)</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> forms on compact Hermitian manifolds. We establish the existence of classical solutions for a large class of these equations by a parabolic approach, proving the long-time existence and convergence of solutions to the elliptic case.