A report on the hypersymplectic flow

This article discusses a relatively new geometric flow, called the hypersymplectic flow. In the first half of the article we explain the original motivating ideas for the flow, coming from both 4-dimensional symplectic topology and 7-dimensional $G_2$-geometry. We also survey recent progress on the flow, most notably an extension theorem assuming a bound on scalar curvature. The second half contains new results. We prove that a complete torsion-free hypersymplectic structure must be hyperk\"ahler. We show that a certain integral bound involving scalar curvature rules out a finite time singularity in the hypersymplectic flow. We show that if the initial hypersymplectic structure is sufficiently close to being point-wise orthogonal then the flow exists for all time. Finally, we prove convergence of the flow under some strong assumptions including, amongst other things, long time existence.