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.

⚛️ general relativity

On Cosmological Correlators with Boundary Contributions

This paper utilizes the cosmological bootstrap framework to establish criteria distinguishing when boundary terms in quasi-de Sitter spacetime yield non-vanishing contributions to cosmological correlators, applying these insights to systematically classify and extract boundary effects in both dS-invariant and boost-breaking massive-exchange scenarios.

Yanjiao Ma, Dong-Gang Wang, Xiangwei Wang, Yi Wang, Wenqi Yu2026-06-05
⚛️ general relativity

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Probing new signatures of ultralight axions with gravitational lensing

This paper presents the strongest constraints to date on ultralight axions in the mass range 102610^{-26} to 1024.510^{-24.5} eV using gravitational lensing data from Planck, ACT, and SPT-3G, finding that such axions can constitute at most a few percent of dark matter while noting a tentative 2.1σ2.1\sigma preference for their existence at 1024.510^{-24.5} eV that warrants further investigation.

Alex Laguë, Keir K. Rogers, Mathew S. Madhavacheril, J. Richard Bond, Erminia Calabrese, Mark J. Devlin, Jo Dunkley, Ver (…)2026-06-05
⚛️ general relativity

Inferring the stochastic gravitational-wave background from eccentric stellar-mass binary black holes with spaceborne detectors

This study employs a Bayesian framework to demonstrate that while spaceborne detectors like LISA, Taiji, and TianQin can detect the stochastic gravitational-wave background from isolated and globular cluster-formed eccentric stellar-mass binary black holes, only the background from highly eccentric binaries in active galactic nuclei exhibits a unique spectral turnover that allows for clear distinction from power-law backgrounds.

Zheng-Cheng Liang, Zhi-Yuan Li, Yi-Ming Hu2026-06-04
⚛️ general relativity

Spectral instability of parametrized black hole quasinormal modes in the high-overtone limit via the exact WKB analysis

Using exact WKB analysis and numerical verification, this paper demonstrates that while Schwarzschild black holes exhibit convergent real parts for high-overtone quasinormal modes, parametrized deviations from general relativity generically cause these frequencies to diverge, highlighting spectral instability as a distinctive feature of modified gravity theories.

Taiga Miyachi, Ryo Namba, Hidetoshi Omiya, Naritaka Oshita2026-06-04
⚛️ general relativity

Self-consistent Hubble expansion in exponential teleparallel gravity: confrontation with recent observations

This paper demonstrates that exponential teleparallel gravity is a viable cosmological model by reconstructing its Hubble expansion history and confirming its consistency with recent observational data, including OHD, DESI DR2 BAO, gravitational-wave standard sirens, and Type Ia supernovae, through statistical analyses and dynamical stability checks.

K. S. Kavya, T. Vinutha, B. Revathi, Kazuharu Bamba2026-06-04