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.

Scale dependence improvement of the quartic scalar field thermal effective potential in the optimized perturbation theory

This paper introduces a "variational renormalization group" framework that combines renormalization group improvement with optimized perturbation theory to significantly reduce renormalization scale dependence in the thermal effective potential of scalar $\lambda \phi^4$ theory, thereby enhancing the precision of critical temperature and pressure predictions for applications in cosmology and condensed matter physics.

Lucas G. Câmara, Marcus Benghi Pinto, Rudnei O. Ramos2026-05-11⚛️ hep-th

Charged rotating Casimir wormholes

This paper constructs and analyzes electrically charged, rotating traversable wormhole solutions supported by Casimir energy and thermal stress, demonstrating that specific configurations—such as those with constant ZAMO angular velocity or radially decaying rotation—can satisfy Einstein's field equations while preserving static-like properties or mitigating unrealistic long-range frame dragging.

Remo Garattini, Athanasios G. Tzikas2026-05-11⚛️ gr-qc

Holographically Emergent Gauge Theory in Symmetric Quantum Circuits

This paper establishes a holographic framework for symmetric quantum circuits that maps their dynamical phases to emergent gauge theories, revealing that volume-law phases function as quantum error-correcting codes with topological protection and that charge-sharpening transitions correspond to confinement transitions, with the latter exhibiting distinct behaviors (single vs. intermediate phases) depending on the symmetry group size $N$ .

Akash Vijay, Jong Yeon Lee2026-05-11⚛️ hep-th

On the physical running of the electric charge in a dimensionless theory of gravity

This paper demonstrates that in massless QED coupled to scaleless quadratic gravity, the physical running of the electric charge coincides with the conventional $\mu$ -running at one loop because the gravitational sector contributes only infrared-dominated soft logarithms that do not alter the gauge-independent UV beta function.

M. Gomes, A. C. Lehum, A. J. da Silva2026-05-11⚛️ hep-ph

Confinement and chiral symmetry breaking in holography: a smooth switch-off

This paper constructs a smooth interpolating family of unstable holographic geometries between confining and deconfined phases, demonstrating that both the string tension and chiral condensate decrease continuously and vanish only at the black hole limit, thereby linking the mechanisms of confinement and chiral symmetry breaking in large $N_c$ gauge theories.

Martí Berenguer, Johanna Erdmenger, Nick Evans, Wanxiang Fan, Florian Vasel2026-05-11⚛️ hep-th

Vanishing Compactness Gap and Fermionic Compact Dark Matter in Hořava-Lifshitz Gravity

This paper demonstrates that in Hořava-Lifshitz gravity, the compactness gap between black holes and neutron stars can vanish for fermionic objects above a certain mass threshold, potentially blurring the classification of LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA detections and suggesting that fermions with a mass of approximately 40 GeV could constitute compact dark matter.

Edwin J. Son, Kyungmin Kim, John J. Oh2026-05-11⚛️ gr-qc

Choice of Quantum Vacuum for Inflation Observables

This paper investigates the impact of adopting an $\alpha$ -vacuum instead of the standard Bunch-Davies vacuum on inflationary observables within the Starobinsky model, concluding that Planck data and sub-millimeter gravity constraints severely limit the viability of $\alpha$ -vacua as a de Sitter-invariant alternative.

Melo Wood-Saanaoui, Rudnei O. Ramos, Arjun Berera2026-05-11⚛️ gr-qc

When Does Critique Improve AI-Assisted Theoretical Physics? SCALAR: Structured Critic--Actor Loop for Agentic Reasoning

This paper introduces SCALAR, a structured Actor-Critic-Judge framework that demonstrates how multi-turn dialogue and specific critic feedback strategies, particularly in asymmetric pairings, significantly enhance AI performance on complex theoretical physics problems, while revealing that model scaling alone cannot overcome the hardest reasoning bottlenecks.

Vasilis Niarchos, Constantinos Papageorgakis, Alexander G. Stapleton, Sokratis Trifinopoulos2026-05-11🤖 cs.AI

Kinetic Theory of Carroll Hydrodynamics

This paper establishes the foundations of Carrollian statistical mechanics by modeling a system of interacting instantonic space-filling branes to provide a microscopic derivation of Carrollian fluid equations and formulate the initial elements of Carrollian thermodynamics.

Victor Chabirand, Adrien Fiorucci, P. Marios Petropoulos, Matthieu Vilatte2026-05-11⚛️ hep-th

The structure of multi-axion solutions to the strong CP problem

This paper investigates the general structure of multi-axion solutions to the strong CP problem, deriving a universal sum rule that reveals diverse phenomenological patterns and mass-coupling relations beyond the standard single-axion paradigm, thereby motivating an expanded experimental search program.

Mario Fernández Navarro, Marta F. Zamoro, Marko Pesut, Xavier Ponce Díaz2026-05-11⚛️ hep-ph

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