hep-ph papers | Gist.Science

Hep-Ph explores the fundamental forces that govern how particles interact and behave at the smallest scales imaginable. This field bridges the gap between theoretical predictions and experimental reality, helping scientists understand the building blocks of our universe without getting lost in complex mathematics. Whether investigating the Higgs boson or searching for new physics beyond current models, these studies push the boundaries of human knowledge about matter and energy.

At Gist.Science, we process every new preprint in this category as soon as it appears on arXiv. We strip away the dense jargon to offer both accessible plain-language explanations and detailed technical summaries, ensuring that groundbreaking research is understandable to everyone from students to seasoned experts. Below are the latest papers in this dynamic field, ready for you to explore with clarity and depth.

⚛️ nuclear theory

Deciphering the dynamics of nuclear collisions with elongated structure of $^{20}$ Ne

This study investigates the impact of the intrinsic geometric structure and $\alpha$ -clustering of the $^{20}$ Ne nucleus on particle production in $^{20}$ Ne- $^{20}$ Ne collisions at 5.36 TeV, revealing that while these structural features significantly modify charged particle multiplicity, their effects on transverse momentum spectra and mean transverse momentum remain modest in central collisions within a non-hydrodynamic framework.

Deependra Sharma, Arpit Singh, Sadhana Dash2026-03-18

⚛️ high-energy experiments

How to Deep-Learn the Theory behind Quark-Gluon Tagging

This paper enhances the explainability of quark-gluon jet taggers by identifying key latent features, evaluating the limitations of Shapley values in correlated inputs, and employing symbolic regression to derive compact formulas that approximate the tagger's output.

Sophia Vent, Ramon Winterhalder, Tilman Plehn2026-03-18

⚛️ phenomenology

Novel Bounds From The Weak Gravity and Festina Lente Conjectures

This paper demonstrates that combining the Weak Gravity and Festina-Lente Conjectures, along with naturalness considerations, yields novel and strengthened bounds on fifth force searches, milli-charged particles, inflation scales, and the Higgs quartic interaction, while also establishing a lower limit on $U(1)$ gauge charges.

Fayez Abu-Ajamieh, Pratik Chattopadhyay, Nobuchika Okada, Roman Pasechnik, Zhi-Wei Wang2026-03-18

⚛️ high-energy theory

Directly Probing Neutrino Interactions through CMB Phase Shift Measurements

This paper establishes a robust framework for constraining non-standard neutrino interactions by demonstrating that the characteristic phase shift in CMB acoustic oscillations retains its functional form even with temperature-dependent scattering rates, allowing researchers to use Planck and ground-based telescope data to confirm that neutrinos have been freely streaming since the early radiation-dominated epoch.

Gabriele Montefalcone, Subhajit Ghosh, Kimberly K. Boddy, Daven Wei Ren Ho, Yuhsin Tsai2026-03-18

⚛️ phenomenology

Dark matter: red or blue?

This paper presents the first calculation of light scattering on heavy dark matter within the Standard Model, revealing that the resulting energy-dependent cross-section could render dark matter appear "red" for weakly interacting particles or "blue" for purely gravitational ones, thereby offering a new method to constrain WIMP models and detect polarization effects.

A. Acar, C. Isaacson, M. Bashkanov, D. P. Watts2026-03-18

⚛️ phenomenology

Weakly model-independent determination of total expansion during inflation

This paper presents a systematic, model-independent framework for determining the total expansion during inflation by isolating reheating dynamics into a time integral dependent on the equation of state $w_{rh}$ , demonstrating that the specific profile of $w_{rh}$ can significantly alter expansion estimates even for a fixed reheating temperature.

Dayeong Choi, Subin Jeon, Jinn-Ouk Gong2026-03-18

⚛️ high-energy theory

Dark matter silences Cepheids in the Galactic Center

This paper predicts that dark matter annihilation in the Galactic Center could suppress the formation of Cepheid variable stars by inhibiting their blue loop evolution, offering a novel method to indirectly probe dark matter properties through upcoming near-infrared surveys.

Djuna Croon, Tim Linden, Jeremy Sakstein2026-03-18

⚛️ high-energy theory

Running Couplings in High-Temperature Effective Field Theory

This paper computes the two-loop renormalization-group evolution of couplings in a three-dimensional effective field theory describing the electroweak phase transition, accounting for both tree-level and radiatively induced barriers to assess the impact of higher-order corrections on perturbative calculations and lattice simulations.

Mikael Chala, Andrii Dashko, Guilherme Guedes2026-03-18

⚛️ phenomenology

Magnetic field induced anomalous pion couplings

This paper calculates effective pion-constituent quark couplings induced by relatively weak magnetic fields within Weinberg's large $N_c$ Effective Field Theory, demonstrating that these form factors vanish in the vacuum and discussing their potential phenomenological implications regarding pion fluctuations into scalar and vector meson states.

Fabio L. Braghin, Marcelo Loewe, Cristian Villavicencio2026-03-18

⚛️ nuclear experiments

Proton mass decompositions in the NNLO QCD

This paper presents next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) QCD evaluations of proton and pion mass decompositions using gravitational form factors, comparing standard quark/gluon and trace-anomaly breakdowns with a novel twist-two/twist-four separation to demonstrate its advantages and reveal distinct parton-correlation behaviors between the two hadrons.

Kazuhiro Tanaka (Juntendo Univ.)2026-03-18

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hep-ph

Deciphering the dynamics of nuclear collisions with elongated structure of 20^{20}20Ne

How to Deep-Learn the Theory behind Quark-Gluon Tagging

Novel Bounds From The Weak Gravity and Festina Lente Conjectures

Directly Probing Neutrino Interactions through CMB Phase Shift Measurements

Dark matter: red or blue?

Weakly model-independent determination of total expansion during inflation

Dark matter silences Cepheids in the Galactic Center

Running Couplings in High-Temperature Effective Field Theory

Magnetic field induced anomalous pion couplings

Proton mass decompositions in the NNLO QCD

Deciphering the dynamics of nuclear collisions with elongated structure of $^{20}$ Ne