Particle Data Group - Review of Particle Physics

The Review of Particle Physics (formerly Review of Particle Properties, Data on Particles and Resonant States, and Data on Elementary Particles and Resonant States) is a voluminous, 1,200+ page reference work which summarizes particle properties and reviews the current status of elementary particle physics, general relativity and big-bang cosmology. Usually singled out for citation analysis, it is currently the most cited article in high energy physics, being cited more than 2,000 times annually in the scientific literature (as of 2009).

The Review is currently divided into 3 sections:

• Particle Physics Summary Tables—Brief tables of particles: gauge and higgs bosons, leptons, quarks, mesons, baryons, constraints for the search for hypothetical particles and violation of physical laws.
• Reviews, Tables and Plots—Review of fundamental concepts from mathematics and statistics, table of Clebsch-Gordan coefficients, periodic table of elements, table of electronic configuration of the elements, brief table of material properties, review of current status in the fields of Standard Model, Cosmology, and experimental method of particle physics, and with tables of fundamental physical and astronomical constants (many from CODATA and the Astronomical Almanac).
• Particle Listings—Comprehensive version of the Particle Physics Summary Tables, with all significant measurements fully referenced.

A condensed version of the Review, with the Summary Tables, a significantly shortened Reviews, Tables and Plots, and without the Particle Listings, is available as a 300 page, pocket-sized Particle Physics Booklet.

The history of Review of Particle Physics can be traced back to the 1957 article Hyperons and Heavy Mesons (Systematics and Decay) by Murray Gell-Mann and Arthur H. Rosenfeld, and the unpublished update tables for its data with the title Data for Elementary Particle Physics (University of California Radiation Laboratory Technical Report UCRL-8030) that were circulated before the actual publication of the original article. In 1963, Matts Roos independently published a compilation Data on Elementary Particles and Resonant States. On his suggestion, the two publications were merged a year later into the 1964 Data on Elementary Particles and Resonant States.

The publication underwent three renaming thereafter: 1965 into Data on Particles and Resonant States, 1970 into Review of Particle Properties, and 1996 into the present form Review of Particle Physics. Starting with 1972, the Review no longer appear exclusively in Reviews of Modern Physics, but also in Physics Letters B, European Physical Journal C, Journal of Physics G, and Physical Review D (depending on the year).