ReThinker: Scientific Reasoning by Rethinking with Guided Reflection and Confidence Control
On the map: LLM reasoning → Knowledge- and tool-augmented reasoning
Abstract (arXiv)
Expert-level scientific reasoning remains challenging for large language models, particularly on benchmarks such as Humanity's Last Exam (HLE), where rigid tool pipelines, brittle multi-agent coordination, and inefficient test-time scaling often limit performance. We introduce ReThinker, a confidence-aware agentic framework that orchestrates retrieval, tool use, and multi-agent reasoning through a stage-wise Solver-Critic-Selector architecture. Rather than following a fixed pipeline, ReThinker dynamically allocates computation based on model confidence, enabling adaptive tool invocation, guided multi-dimensional reflection, and robust confidence-weighted selection. To support scalable training without human annotation, we further propose a reverse data synthesis pipeline and an adaptive trajectory recycling strategy that transform successful reasoning traces into high-quality supervision. Experiments on HLE, GAIA, and XBench demonstrate that ReThinker consistently outperforms state-of-the-art foundation models with tools and existing deep research systems, achieving state-of-the-art results on expert-level reasoning tasks.
Key facts. Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Knowledge- and tool-augmented reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 32 of its 46 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 4 Feb 2026.
Builds on
32 of 46 references.
Closest ancestors · 2
Same direction, newest first
- 2025Eigen-1: Adaptive Multi-Agent Refinement with Monitor-Based RAG for Scientific Reasoning25 Sep
- 2025WebThinker: Empowering Large Reasoning Models with Deep Research Capability30 Apr
Other references · 30
- 2022ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Modelscited by 8,355
- 2022Self-Consistency Improves Chain of Thought Reasoning in Language Modelscited by 5,601
- 2023Reflexion: Language Agents with Verbal Reinforcement Learningcited by 4,064
- 2023Let's Verify Step by Stepcited by 3,598
- 2021WebGPT: Browser-assisted question-answering with human feedbackcited by 1,722
- 2023The Rise and Potential of Large Language Model Based Agents: A Surveycited by 1,422
- 2025s1: Simple test-time scalingcited by 1,311
- 2023GAIA: a benchmark for General AI Assistantscited by 1,084
- 2022Program of Thoughts Prompting: Disentangling Computation from Reasoning for Numerical Reasoning Taskscited by 1,057
- 2023Large Language Models as Optimizerscited by 830
- 2025DeepSeek-V3.2: Pushing the Frontier of Open Large Language Modelscited by 755
- 2023Siren's Song in the AI Ocean: A Survey on Hallucination in Large Language Modelscited by 695
18 more
- 2023ChemCrow: Augmenting large-language models with chemistry toolscited by 609
- 2024Executable Code Actions Elicit Better LLM Agentscited by 537
- 2025Kimi K2: Open Agentic Intelligencecited by 523
- 2025Humanity's Last Examcited by 467
- 2023Universal Self-Consistency for Large Language Model Generationcited by 198
- 2025WebDancer: Towards Autonomous Information Seeking Agencycited by 180
- 2025xbench: Tracking Agents Productivity Scaling with Profession-Aligned Real-World Evaluationscited by 118
- 2025WebExplorer: Explore and Evolve for Training Long-Horizon Web Agentscited by 86
- 2025MiroThinker: Pushing the Performance Boundaries of Open-Source Research Agents via Model, Context, and Interactive Scalingcited by 72
- 2025Think Twice: Enhancing LLM Reasoning by Scaling Multi-round Test-time Thinkingcited by 46
- 2025Evaluation of Best-of-N Sampling Strategies for Language Model Alignmentcited by 38
- 2024Evaluating the Evaluator: Measuring LLMs' Adherence to Task Evaluation Instructionscited by 34
- 2025Training LLM-Based Agents with Synthetic Self-Reflected Trajectories and Partial Maskingcited by 16
- 2025SCOPE: Prompt Evolution for Enhancing Agent Effectivenesscited by 16
- 2025Evaluating Position Bias in Large Language Model Recommendationscited by 14
- 2025A Theoretical Study on Bridging Internal Probability and Self-Consistency for LLM Reasoningcited by 13
- 2025Adaptive Termination for Multi-round Parallel Reasoning: An Universal Semantic Entropy-Guided Frameworkcited by 10
- 2025Probabilistic Reasoning with LLMs for k-anonymity Estimationcited by 2
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2026: 4.
4 papers.
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- 2026PoTRE: Test-Time Reasoning inspired by Cognitive Heterogeneitycited by 0
- 2026Uncertainty Quantification for LLM Agents: A Taxonomy, an Evaluation Protocol, and an Empirical Studycited by 0
- 2026Uncertainty Quantification for LLM Agents: A Taxonomy, an Evaluation Protocol, and an Empirical Study7 Sep 2026
- 2026PoTRE: Test-Time Reasoning inspired by Cognitive Heterogeneity22 Jul 2026
- 2026Verilog-Evolve: Feedback-Driven and Skill-Evolving Verilog Generation26 May 2026
- 2026DLLM Agent: See Farther, Run Faster7 Feb 2026
Similar, not cited
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