Deformations of balanced metrics

Small deformations of the complex structure do not always preserve special metric properties in the Hermitian non-K\"ahler setting. In this paper, we find necessary conditions for the existence of smooth curves of balanced metrics $\{\omega_t\}_t$ which start with a fixed balanced metric $\omega$ for $t=0$, along a differentiable family of complex manifolds $\{M_t\}_t$.