Hep-Ex explores the fascinating intersection where particle physics meets experimental reality. This field investigates how scientists build massive detectors and accelerate particles to test the fundamental laws of nature, turning abstract theories into measurable data. It is the rigorous process of searching for new particles or forces that could reshape our understanding of the universe, often requiring years of collaboration and engineering.

At Gist.Science, we ensure these discoveries become accessible to everyone. We process every new preprint in this category directly from arXiv, generating both plain-language explanations for curious readers and detailed technical summaries for specialists. Our goal is to bridge the gap between complex experimental results and public understanding without losing scientific nuance.

Below are the latest papers in Hep-Ex, freshly summarized and ready for you to explore.

Constraining the heavy leptophilic neutral gauge bosons through the Z+Z\to\ell^+\ell^-, W±±νW^\pm\to\ell^\pm\nu_\ell, and h+h\to\ell^+\ell^- decays

This paper demonstrates that loop-level corrections to the leptonic decays of the ZZ, WW, and Higgs bosons provide stronger exclusion limits on heavy, flavor-specific leptophilic ZZ^\prime gauge bosons than current direct search constraints, offering a complementary probe for new physics at the TeV scale and beyond.

Bibhabasu De, Amitabha Dey2026-03-27✓ Author reviewed ⚛️ hep-ex

Learning Pole Structures of Hadronic States using Predictive Uncertainty Estimation

This paper introduces an uncertainty-aware machine learning framework that successfully classifies the pole structures of hadronic scattering amplitudes, achieving high accuracy on synthetic data and inferring a four-pole structure for the Pccˉ(4312)+P_{c\bar{c}}(4312)^+ state in experimental LHCb data.

Felix Frohnert, Denny Lane B. Sombillo, Evert van Nieuwenburg, Patrick Emonts2026-03-26⚛️ hep-ex

The High Level Trigger and Express Data Production at STAR

To support the BES-II program at RHIC, the STAR experiment implemented a complementary dual real-time framework combining a High Level Trigger for online event selection and an Express Data Production system for rapid, near offline-quality reconstruction, enabling prompt physics analysis and demonstrating scalability for future high-luminosity experiments.

Wayne Betts, Jinhui Chen, Yuri Fisyak, Hongwei Ke, Ivan Kisel, Pavel Kisel, Grigory Kozlov, Jeffery Landgraf, Jerome Lauret, Tonko Ljubicic, Yugang Ma, Spyridon Margetis, Hao Qiu, Diyu Shen, Qiye Shou (…)2026-03-26⚛️ nucl-ex

NNLO QCD corrections to γγQQˉ\gamma \gamma \rightarrow Q\bar{Q} from Local Unitarity combined with Coulomb resummation and NLO EW effects

This paper presents state-of-the-art NNLO QCD predictions for heavy-quark pair production in direct photon fusion by applying the Local Unitarity formalism to handle infrared singularities and combining these results with NLO electroweak corrections and NLP Coulomb resummation for top, bottom, and charm quarks.

Zeno Capatti, Mathijs Fraaije, Valentin Hirschi, Lucien Huber, Ben Ruijl, Hua-Sheng Shao2026-03-26⚛️ hep-ex

Long-lived axionlike particles from electromagnetic cascades

This paper demonstrates that considering axionlike particle production from the full electromagnetic shower in beam dump targets, rather than just primary beams or specific meson decays, yields order-of-magnitude enhancements in detectable signals, thereby significantly expanding the sensitivity reach of the SHiP and BDX experiments to previously unexplored regions of ALP parameter space.

Samuel Patrone, Nikita Blinov, Ryan Plestid2026-03-26⚛️ hep-ex

Search for low-mass hidden-valley dark showers with non-prompt muon pairs in proton-proton collisions at s\sqrt{s} = 13 TeV

Using 41.6 fb1^{-1} of 13 TeV proton-proton collision data collected by the CMS experiment in 2018, this study searches for low-mass hidden-valley dark showers via non-prompt muon pairs from Higgs boson decays, setting new upper limits on the branching fraction to dark partons and establishing first constraints on extended dark-shower models with dark photons.

CMS Collaboration2026-03-26⚛️ hep-ex

Search for heavy neutral leptons in B-meson decays

Using 5 fb⁻¹ of proton-proton collision data at 13 TeV collected by the LHCb experiment, this study searches for long-lived heavy neutral leptons in B-meson decays to a muon-pion final state, finding no significant excess and setting new constraints on their mixing with muon neutrinos in the 1.6–5.5 GeV mass range for both lepton-number-conserving and violating scenarios.

LHCb collaboration, R. Aaij, A. S. W. Abdelmotteleb, C. Abellan Beteta, F. Abudinén, T. Ackernley, A. A. Adefisoye, B. Adeva, M. Adinolfi, P. Adlarson, C. Agapopoulou, C. A. Aidala, Z. Ajaltouni, S. A (…)2026-03-26⚛️ hep-ex

BB-jet fragmentation with B±J/ψK±B^{\pm} \to J/\psi K^{\pm} decays in s=13\sqrt{s} = 13 TeV $pp$ collisions at LHCb

Using 5.4 fb1^{-1} of 13 TeV proton-proton collision data collected by the LHCb detector, this study measures the jet fragmentation functions and radial profiles of B±B^{\pm} mesons reconstructed via J/ψK±J/\psi K^{\pm} decays, revealing an increasing contribution from gluon fragmentation as jet transverse momentum rises.

LHCb collaboration, R. Aaij, A. S. W. Abdelmotteleb, C. Abellan Beteta, F. Abudinén, T. Ackernley, A. A. Adefisoye, B. Adeva, M. Adinolfi, P. Adlarson, C. Agapopoulou, C. A. Aidala, Z. Ajaltouni, S. A (…)2026-03-26⚛️ hep-ex