We define and study the harmonic heat flow for almost complex structures which are compatible with a Riemannian structure $(M, g)$. This is a tensor-valued version of harmonic map heat flow. We prove that if the initial almost complex structure $J$ has small energy (depending on the norm $| abla J|$), then the flow exists for all time and converges to a Kahler structure. We also prove that there is a finite time singularity if the initial energy is sufficiently small but there is no Kahler structure in the homotopy class. A main technical tool is a version of monotonicity formula, similar as in the theory of the harmonic map heat flow. We also construct an almost complex structure on a flat four tori with small energy such that the harmonic heat flow blows up at finite time with such an initial data.
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