⚛️ Category

hep-th

4416 papers

Hep-Th, or high-energy theoretical physics, explores the fundamental building blocks of our universe and the forces that govern them. Researchers in this field use complex mathematics to understand everything from subatomic particles to the behavior of black holes, often pushing the boundaries of what we know about space and time.

At Gist.Science, we monitor the arXiv repository to ensure you stay ahead of the curve in this rapidly evolving discipline. For every new preprint uploaded to arXiv under this category, our team generates both accessible plain-language overviews and detailed technical summaries, making cutting-edge research understandable regardless of your background.

Below are the latest papers in high-energy theoretical physics, curated to help you navigate the most significant recent discoveries.

⚛️ phenomenology

Isocurvature-Free QCD Axion Dark Matter from Inflaton-Driven Early QCD: the Necessity of Inflationary Plateaus

This paper demonstrates that a direct inflaton-gluon coupling which dynamically raises the QCD confinement scale during inflation can suppress axion isocurvature perturbations and generate dark matter, but this mechanism analytically requires plateau-like inflationary potentials (p≥2p \ge 2) to maintain perturbative control while simultaneously shifting the scalar spectral index to bluer values.

Katherine Freese, Evangelos I. Sfakianakis, Barmak Shams Es Haghi2026-05-15
⚛️ high-energy theory

Non-Invertible Symmetries on Tensor-Product Hilbert Spaces and Quantum Cellular Automata

This paper establishes that (1+1)-dimensional fusion category symmetries on tensor-product Hilbert spaces can be systematically realized with quantum cellular automata if and only if they are weakly integral, providing a general lattice construction and proving that the resulting QCA and symmetry-operator indices are uniquely determined by the underlying categorical data.

Rui Wen, Kansei Inamura, Sakura Schafer-Nameki2026-05-15
⚛️ general relativity

First look at continuous spin gravity: Time delay signatures

This paper develops a formalism for coupling matter to continuous spin gravity and calculates time-delay signatures in gravitational wave detectors, suggesting that current and future instruments could constrain the continuous spin scale ρg\rho_g to be below ∼10−14\sim 10^{-14} eV for ground-based interferometers and ∼10−24\sim 10^{-24} eV for pulsar timing arrays.

Shayarneel Kundu, Philip Schuster, Natalia Toro2026-05-14
⚛️ high-energy theory

AdS3 axion wormholes as stable contributions to the Euclidean gravitational path integral

This paper generalizes the stability of Euclidean Giddings-Strominger axion wormholes from 4D Minkowski to AdS3 spacetime by explicitly constructing and analyzing regular classical solutions, thereby establishing them as stable contributions to the 3D gravitational path integral with potential implications for resolving wormhole paradoxes like the factorization problem.

Andrew Loveridge, Hao-Yu Sun2026-05-14
⚛️ high-energy theory

Baryons, Skyrmions and θθ-periodicity anomaly in chiral and vector-like gauge theories

This paper investigates baryons, Skyrmions, and θ\theta-periodicity anomalies in chiral and vector-like SU(N)SU(N) gauge theories with mixed-representation matter, revealing that Skyrmions are absent in chiral models (where heavy stable baryons suggest a mismatch requiring deeper dynamical mechanisms) but present in vector-like models, while also determining that domain wall dynamics in the Color-flavor locked phase match the anomaly without new degrees of freedom only when the color group is fully broken.

Stefano Bolognesi, Andrea Luzio, Giacomo Santoni2026-05-14
⚛️ high-energy theory

Generation of gravitating solutions with Baryonic charge from Einstein-Scalar-Maxwell seeds

This paper establishes the first exact correspondence between Einstein-scalar-Maxwell theory and gauged Skyrme-Maxwell-Einstein models, enabling the transfer of electrovacuum solution-generating techniques to construct new exact solutions with nonvanishing baryonic charge, including a rotating configuration where baryonic charge quantization enforces a quantization of the Kerr rotation parameter.

Fabrizio Canfora, Anibal Neira, Seung Hun Oh2026-05-14