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Figure 1: Left: The 2016 Review leaning
against all previous editions (image credit: Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory). Right: some of the booklets published
between 1988 and 2024.
The 2024 edition, S. Navas et al., Phys. Rev. D 110, 030001 (2024) (published in August 2024 and revised in December 2025) has been prepared by a large collaboration from 173 institutions worldwide. It includes the data from previous editions and 2717 new measurements from 869 publications. There are 120 updated reviews on topics such as the quark model, meson and baryon properties, quantum chromodynamics, CP-violation, neutrino oscillations, the Higgs boson, supersymmetry, big-bang cosmology and hypothetical particles and concepts. The Review also includes write-ups on probability, statistics, accelerators and detectors, as well as updated tables of the fundamental physical constants. The Review (more than 3000 pages) consists of two volumes, volume 1 appearing in print, while volume 2 (the “Listings” containing full details on data and bibliographic references) is available only online. With its updated database and bibliographic references the Review has become an invaluable tool for researchers and is the most cited publication in Particle Physics, with recent issues being cited more than 6000 times. The total number of citations since its foundation 67 years ago has now reached 100'000.
The Particle Data Group also publishes an abridged version of the Review, a pocket booklet (a simple wallet card in the early days) which is appreciated in particular by undergraduate and graduate university students (figure 1, right). The Review and the booklets are available to anyone in print and online for free. An interactive site is available.
The Particle Data Group was initiated in 1957 by W. H. Barkas, M. Gell-Mann and A. H. Rosenfeld [1] and is coordinated by a team at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). The publication of the Review is supported by the Director, Office of Science,Office of High Energy Physics of the U.S. Department of Energy; by an implementing arrangement between the governments of Japan (MEXT: Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) and the United States (DOE) on cooperative research and development; by the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN); and by the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN). Individual collaborators receive support for their PDG activities from their respective institutes or funding agencies.
Mesons are made of quark-antiquark pairs and baryons out of three quarks, antibaryons out of three antiquarks. Fundamental concepts are explained in a report on the quark model [2]. Since a few years further mesons and baryons (hadrons) have been observed which do not fit in this scheme, but consist of two quarks-two antiquarks (the "tetraquark" mesons), four quarks and one antiquark (the "pentaquark" baryons) or other structures with exotic properties, such as hybrid mesons (see also Figure 3 below). Figure 2 from the Review lists the mesons and baryons that have been observed so far. The naming scheme has been updated in 2024 and is explained here.
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Figure 2: Current status of mesons and baryons
(from RPP
2025).
The Meson Team
The Meson Team of the Particle Data Group is
reviewing the current knowledge of meson resonances. Figure 3
shows, as an example of the Listings,
an excerpt on the p1(1600) meson with properties (quantum numbers) incompatible with a quark-antiquark structure.
an excerpt on the p1(1600) meson with properties (quantum numbers) incompatible with a quark-antiquark structure.
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Figure 3: Excerpt from the Review, showing a
typical compilation of the current knowledge on the p1(1600) meson (for details
see p11600).
Several specialized articles have also been submitted to the Review by the Meson Team.
The current status of meson resonances, including those not made of quark-antiquark pairs is described in the following reviews:
Several specialized articles have also been submitted to the Review by the Meson Team.
The current status of meson resonances, including those not made of quark-antiquark pairs is described in the following reviews:
| Spectroscopy of Light Meson Resonances pdf |
| Scalar Mesons below 1 GeV pdf |
| Spectroscopy of mesons containing two heavy quarks pdf |
| Branching ratios of psi(2S) and chi_c(0,1,2) pdf |
| Width determination of the upsilon states pdf |
| Heavy non q-qbar mesons pdf |
The current members of the Meson Team are:
| Claude Amsler (Marietta
Blau Institute for Particle Physics, Vienna, Austria, and Universität Zürich, Switzerland) [Coordination] |
| Simona Giovannella (LNF Frascati, Italy) |
| Thomas Gutsche (Universität
Tübingen, Germany) |
| Christoph Hanhart
(Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany) |
| Juan Hernandez (Universitad de
Valencia, Spain) |
| Carlos Lourenco (CERN, Geneva,
Switzerland) |
| Alberto Masoni (INFN Sezione
di Cagliari, Italy) |
| Mikhail Mikhasenko (Ruhr
Universität, Bochum, Germany) |
| Ryan Mitchell (Indiana
University, Bloomington, USA) |
| Sergio Navas (Universidad de
Granada, Spain) |
| Claudia Patrignani (Università
di Bologna and INFN, Rimini, Italy) |
| Klaus Peters (Universität Frankfurt, Germany) |
| Christoph Schwanda (Institute of High Energy Physics, Vienna, Austria) |
| Stefan Spanier (University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA) |
| Graziano Venanzoni (INFN Sezione di Pisa, Italy) |
| Changzheng Yuan (IHEP Beijing, China) |
An early photograph of the meson team on
the CERN premises, together with other members of the PDG, is
shown in figure 4.
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Figure 4: Members of the Particle Data Group
in February 1996 during a meeting at CERN. From left to right
are F. James (CERN),
N. Törnqvist (Helsinki), A. Gurtu (Tata Inst., India), M. Roos (Helsinki), B. Armstrong (LBNL), K. Mönig (CERN),
S. Eidelman (Budker Institute, Novosibirsk), J. Hernandez (Valencia), M. Aguilar-Benitez (CIEMAT, Madrid),
A. Hicks (CERN), C. Caso (Genova), P. Gee (LBNL), and C. Amsler (Zürich)
(Image credit Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory).
N. Törnqvist (Helsinki), A. Gurtu (Tata Inst., India), M. Roos (Helsinki), B. Armstrong (LBNL), K. Mönig (CERN),
S. Eidelman (Budker Institute, Novosibirsk), J. Hernandez (Valencia), M. Aguilar-Benitez (CIEMAT, Madrid),
A. Hicks (CERN), C. Caso (Genova), P. Gee (LBNL), and C. Amsler (Zürich)
(Image credit Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory).
[1] M. Gell-Mann and A.H
Rosenfeld, Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science 7
(1957) 407;
see also
A.H. Rosenfeld, Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science 25
(1975) 555
[2] Quark Model, C.
Amsler (Stefan Meyer Institute), V. Crede (Florida State U.) and
T. DeGrand (Colorado U., Boulder)