The wikipedia article on Garbage Collection (software) is one place to start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_collection_(computer_s...

Here is a list of garbage collection papers (newest is 2002) https://sites.cs.ucsb.edu/~ckrintz/racelab/gc/papers/

Here is an old paper (1994?) that surveys different kinds of software Garbage Collection. https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~fp/courses/15411-f08/misc/wilson94-g...

I am concerned that you are new to CS and you want to 'improve' a working system's garbage collection code. But good luck anyway. Finding a new fast GC is like searching for the Holy Grail.