⚛️ Category

gr-qc

2593 papers

Quantum gravity represents the frontier where the very large meets the very small, attempting to unify Einstein's theory of gravity with the strange rules of quantum mechanics. This field explores the fundamental fabric of spacetime, seeking to understand how the universe behaves at its most extreme scales, from the heart of black holes to the moment of the Big Bang. Because these concepts often involve complex mathematics, they can feel distant to non-specialists, yet they hold the key to a complete picture of physical reality.

At Gist.Science, we bridge this gap by processing every new preprint in this category directly from arXiv. Our team provides both plain-language explanations and detailed technical summaries for each paper, ensuring that groundbreaking research is accessible to everyone, from curious students to seasoned researchers. Below are the latest papers in quantum gravity, offering fresh insights into the nature of our cosmos.

Kinetic theory for a relativistic charged gas: mathematical foundations of the hydrodynamic limit and first-order results within the projection method

This paper establishes the mathematical foundations for deriving first-order constitutive equations of a relativistic charged gas by applying a generalized projection method within the Chapman-Enskog expansion, arguing that the trace-fixed particle frame yields a causal, stable, and strongly hyperbolic fluid theory with frame-independent transport coefficients.

Carlos Gabarrete, Ana Laura García-Perciante, Olivier Sarbach2026-04-01⚛️ gr-qc

Reassessing the Spin of Second-born Black Holes in Coalescing Binary Black Holes and Its Connection to the chi_eff-q Correlation

Using updated He-star wind prescriptions in isolated binary evolution models, this study finds that wind mass loss primarily determines the spin of second-born black holes and that neither stable mass transfer nor common-envelope channels produce a correlation between mass ratio and effective inspiral spin, suggesting alternative physical mechanisms are needed to explain the observed weak anti-correlation in GWTC-4.0.

Zi-Yuan Wang, Ying Qin, Rui-Chong Hu, Yuan-Zhu Wang, Georges Meynet, Han-Feng Song2026-04-01⚛️ gr-qc

Waveform stability for the piecewise step approximation of Regge-Wheeler potential

This paper demonstrates the stability of Schwarzschild black hole time-domain waveforms against piecewise step approximations of the Regge-Wheeler potential by interpreting potential differences as environmental perturbations, revealing that broader initial bumps more clearly imprint these small modifications, thus offering a theoretical pathway to probe black hole exterior environments.

Liang-Bi Wu, Libo Xie, Yu-Sen Zhou, Zong-Kuan Guo, Rong-Gen Cai2026-04-01⚛️ gr-qc

Dynamics of Cosmic Superstrings and the Overshoot Problem

This paper employs dynamical systems analysis to demonstrate that an initial population of NS5-brane wrapped strings can resolve the cosmological overshoot problem for the volume modulus by transferring energy to it, while simultaneously predicting a potentially detectable gravitational wave signal from the resulting high energy density of cosmic superstrings during modulus oscillations.

Luca Brunelli, Michele Cicoli, Francisco Gil Pedro2026-04-01⚛️ hep-th

Gravitational-Wave Signals for Supernova Explosions of Three-Dimensional Progenitors

This study analyzes gravitational-wave signals from two 3D core-collapse supernova simulations of massive progenitors with vigorous pre-collapse shell activity, finding that while the resulting signals are detectable by current and future interferometers, they lack unique features directly attributable to the pre-collapse dynamics despite exhibiting distinct characteristics compared to previous models.

Alessandro Lella (Dipartimento Interateneo di Fisica "Michelangelo Merlin", Bari, INFN, Bari, Universita degli Studi di Padova, INFN, Padova), Giuseppe Lucente (SLAC Nat. Acc. Lab., CA), Daniel Kresse (…)2026-04-01⚛️ gr-qc

An updated constraint for the Gravitational Wave Background from the Gamma-ray Pulsar Timing Array

This paper presents an updated analysis of Fermi LAT gamma-ray pulsar data using a regularized likelihood method that correctly models cross-pulsar correlations, yielding a consistent gravitational wave background strain amplitude upper limit of 1.2×10−141.2\times10^{-14} while demonstrating the statistical robustness of the photon-by-photon approach.

Serena Valtolina, Colin J. Clark, Rutger van Haasteren, Aurélien Chalumeau, H. Thankful Cromartie, Matthew Kerr, Lars Nieder, Aditya Parthasarathy2026-04-01⚛️ gr-qc

Eccentricity constraints disfavor single-single capture in nuclear star clusters as the origin of all LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA binary black holes

By analyzing 85 binary black hole mergers from the O4a observing run, this study finds no statistically significant evidence for orbital eccentricity, thereby ruling out single-single gravitational wave captures in nuclear star clusters as the dominant formation channel for all observed LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA events.

Nihar Gupte, M. Coleman Miller, Rhiannon Udall, Sophie Bini, Alessandra Buonanno, Jonathan Gair, Aldo Gamboa, Lorenzo Pompili, Antoni Ramos-Buades, Maximilian Dax, Stephen R. Green, Annalena Kofler, J (…)2026-04-01🔭 astro-ph