A scalar Calabi-type flow in Hermitian Geometry: Short-time existence and stability

We introduce a new geometric flow of Hermitian metrics which evolves an initial metric along the second derivative of the Chern scalar curvature. The flow depends on the choice of a background metric, it always reduces to a scalar equation and preserves some special classes of Hermitian structures, as balanced and Gauduchon metrics. We show that the flow has always a unique short-time solution and we provide a stability result when the background metric is Kaehler-Einstein with nonpositive scalar curvature.