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.

⚛️ phenomenology

New benchmarks for direct detection of freeze-in dark matter in vector portal models

This paper investigates the potential of future direct detection experiments to observe MeV-scale freeze-in dark matter in vector portal models (including dark photons and U(1)LiLjU(1)_{L_i-L_j} or U(1)BLU(1)_{B-L} extensions), demonstrating that low reheating temperatures enable significant parameter space accessibility via nuclear recoils and solar neutrino signals, even for subcomponent dark matter fractions.

David Cerdeño, Patrick Foldenauer, Rafael López Noé, Óscar Zapata2026-03-18
⚛️ nuclear theory

Exploring Intruder Levels of Nuclei (96Zr, 98Zr, 98MO) Within the Framework of IBM-2 Model

This study utilizes the Interacting Boson Model-2 (IBM-2) to successfully investigate the rare intruder nuclear levels in 96Zr^{96}\text{Zr}, 98Zr^{98}\text{Zr}, and 98Mo^{98}\text{Mo}, attributing their anomalous positions to double subshell closures and demonstrating strong agreement between theoretical predictions and experimental data for various transition rates.

Zainab S. M., Ali N. Sabbar, Ali Mahdi Abdul Hussein2026-03-17
⚛️ lattice

Tensor-polarized twist-3 parton distribution functions fLT(x)f_{LT}(x) for the spin-1 deuteron by using twist-2 relations

This paper calculates the tensor-polarized twist-3 parton distribution function fLT(x)f_{LT}(x) for the spin-1 deuteron by applying twist-2 relations to the known twist-2 function f1LL(x)f_{1LL}(x), demonstrating that fLT(x)f_{LT}(x) is comparable in magnitude to f1LL(x)f_{1LL}(x) and suggesting that current and future facilities like JLab and the EIC are well-suited to investigate these higher-twist effects.

S. Kumano, Kenshi Kuroki2026-03-17
⚛️ phenomenology

Scalaron dark matter dynamics: effects of Higgs non-minimal coupling to gravity

This paper investigates how a non-minimal coupling between the Higgs field and gravity influences the dynamics of the scalaron as a dark matter candidate in R2R^2-gravity, revealing that the interplay between this coupling and the scalaron's self-interaction can either suppress the trilinear interaction to enable a misalignment mechanism or dominate the relic density, thereby constraining the scalaron mass to the meV range and establishing a new upper bound on the product of the coupling and mass from LHC Higgs data.

Shibendu Gupta Choudhury, Koushik Dutta, Deep Ghosh2026-03-17