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

Parton Fragmentation Functions Extracted with a Physics-Informed Neural Network

This paper introduces a novel Physics-Informed Neural Network (PINN) approach that eliminates the need for traditional parameterized forms and separate DGLAP evolution to directly extract non-perturbative parton fragmentation functions from experimental data, demonstrating their accuracy and universal applicability across a wide range of collision energies.

Si-Wei Dai, Fu-Peng Li, Long-Gang Pang, Xin-Nian Wang, Ben-Wei Zhang, Han-Zhong Zhang2026-01-29
⚛️ phenomenology

Dark matter motivated sterile neutrino contribution to neutrinoless double beta decay

This paper investigates the impact of keV-scale sterile neutrinos, motivated by dark matter and constrained by the exact seesaw relation in a type-I framework, on neutrinoless double beta decay, revealing that their presence significantly modifies the effective mass by eliminating cancellation regions in the normal hierarchy and distorting the parameter space in the inverted hierarchy.

Debashree Priyadarsini Das, Sasmita Mishra2026-01-29
⚛️ phenomenology

Decoding Zc(4430)Z_c(4430) and Zc(4200)Z_c(4200): The role of PP-wave charmed mesons

This study employs the One-Boson Exchange potential and the Complex Scaling Method to investigate hidden-charm tetraquark states composed of SS-wave and PP-wave charmed mesons, demonstrating that incorporating three-body decay effects is essential for reproducing the large experimental widths and identifying D∗Dˉ1(2420)D^*\bar{D}_1(2420) and D∗Dˉ2∗(2460)D^*\bar{D}_2^*(2460) molecules as candidates for Zc(4430)Z_c(4430) and DDˉ0∗(2300)D\bar{D}_0^*(2300) or DDˉ1(2430)D\bar{D}_1(2430) molecules as candidates for Zc(4200)Z_c(4200).

Jian-Bo Cheng, Zi-Yang Lin, Jun-Zhang Wang, Shi-Lin Zhu2026-01-29
⚛️ nuclear theory

Relaxation time approximation revisited and non-analytical structure in retarded correlators

This paper provides a rigorous mathematical justification for the energy-independent relaxation time approximation in hard interactions, proposes a method to restore collision invariance, and elucidates how interaction types (hard versus soft) and physical parameters determine the non-analytical structures, such as hydrodynamic poles or gapless branch-cuts, in retarded correlators.

Jin Hu2026-01-28
⚛️ phenomenology

RelExt: A New Dark Matter Tool for the Exploration of Dark Matter Models

The paper introduces RelExt, a C++ program designed to efficiently scan the parameter spaces of Standard Model extensions with a Dark Matter candidate by automatically generating amplitudes, solving the Boltzmann equation for relic density, and integrating with other tools to test theoretical and experimental constraints.

Rodrigo Capucha, Karim Elyaouti, Milada Margarete Mühlleitner, Johann Plotnikov, Rui Santos2026-01-28