hep-th papers | Gist.Science

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.

⚛️ high-energy theory

Local Thermodynamics and Rényi Bounds on Black Hole Mergers

This paper demonstrates that while Rényi entropy inequalities can theoretically strengthen the black hole merger area bound by accounting for initial correlations beyond local thermodynamics, these stronger constraints reduce to the standard area bound for equal Schwarzschild--AdS $_4$ holes at leading semiclassical order, indicating that inferring tighter limits requires knowledge of initial correlations rather than yielding new dynamical instabilities or lighter remnants.

Sudhanva Joshi, Sunil Kumar Mishra2026-10-26

⚛️ lattice

Equation of state of hot and dense QCD using the complex Langevin equation

This paper presents the first continuum-extrapolated lattice results for the QCD equation of state at high temperatures and large baryon chemical potentials using complex Langevin simulations at the physical pion mass.

Michael Mandl, Dénes Sexty, Daniel Unterhuber2026-10-26

⚛️ general relativity

Horizon entropy does not by itself determine a force between black holes

This paper demonstrates that horizon entropy alone cannot determine the force between black holes because entropy variations depend on arbitrary horizon labelings unless temperature is uniform, a finding that resolves apparent conflicts with general relativity by showing that proposed entropic repulsion effects either vanish or arise from gauge-dependent choices rather than physical interactions.

Zhi-Wei Wang, Samuel L. Braunstein2026-10-26

⚛️ phenomenology

FeynFacet: AI agents for analytic NLO QCD

The paper introduces FeynFacet, an AI-driven workflow that autonomously develops and executes programs to perform analytic next-to-leading-order QCD calculations, successfully reproducing established results and deriving new hard functions for transverse spin transfer in proton-proton and lepton-proton collisions.

Zhong-Bo Kang, Werner Vogelsang, Congyue Zhang2026-10-26

⚛️ high-energy theory

Finite temperature Fredholm determinants for dynamical correlation functions

This paper derives the long-time, large-distance asymptotics of finite-temperature dynamical Fredholm determinants using effective form factors and parabolic-cylinder functions, demonstrating that these results recover the Euler-scale predictions of generalized hydrodynamics for hard rods.

Oleksandr Gamayun2026-10-26

⚛️ high-energy theory

Half-Completeness from Standard Gravitational Dispersion Relations

This paper demonstrates that without imposing additional high-energy bounds, standard dispersion relations and positivity only guarantee "half-completeness" (requiring either all lower-isospin states or at least one higher-isospin state) for massless SU(2) matter, while proving that scalar matter must exchange massive singlets of unbounded Lorentz spin.

Lukas W. Lindwasser, Laurentiu Rodina, Justinas Rumbutis2026-10-23

⚛️ high-energy theory

On Born-Infeld-type higher-spin interactions and supersymmetry

This paper presents a systematic, Lorentz-covariant construction of Born-Infeld-type cubic interactions for massless higher-spin fields in four-dimensional flat space, deriving unique conserved currents from higher-spin Weyl tensors and extending the framework to $\mathcal{N}=1$ and $\mathcal{N}=2$ supersymmetry using off-shell superfield formalisms.

Nikita Zaigraev2026-10-23

⚛️ high-energy theory

Exact Two-Loop Effective Potentials in de Sitter Space via Finite-Difference Methods

This paper presents the first exact two-loop determination of the renormalised effective potential for $O(N)$ -symmetric scalar theory in four-dimensional de Sitter space by utilizing exact finite-difference equations to isolate ultraviolet poles and extract the finite part of the two-loop watermelon vacuum integral.

Bruce Bassett, Sergio Luigi Cacciatori, Ugo Moschella2026-10-23

⚛️ high-energy theory

The Spectral Edge at Large Central Charge and Black Hole Statistics

This paper introduces a novel approach using $L$ -function theory to derive a refined modular bootstrap bound on the lightest scalar gap in large- $c$ unitary CFT $_2$ s, establishing that the gap scales as $\Delta_1 \leq \frac{c-1}{12} + o(c)$ with at most one exceptional value per central charge, while linking spectral edge properties to bulk spectral fluctuations.

Eric Perlmutter2026-10-23

🔭 astrophysics

ULTRAMAN: A Proposed ultrasound detector for macroscopic dark matter

The paper proposes ULTRAMAN, a passive ultrasound array experiment that detects macroscopic dark matter by identifying the correlated acoustic pressure waves generated as these compact objects traverse a target medium at supersonic speeds, offering a novel approach to constrain their mass and abundance.

Oem Trivedi, Robert J. Scherrer, Alfredo Gurrola2026-10-23

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