Skip to content
/ hep-resources Public

Extended online version of the PDG Particle Physics Information review.

27 stars 9 forks Branches Tags Activity
Star
Notifications You must be signed in to change notification settings

particledatagroup/hep-resources

BranchesTags

Folders and files

NameName
Last commit message
Last commit date

Latest commit

 

History

155 Commits
.github/workflows
.github/workflows
 
 
.gitignore
.gitignore
 
 
README.md
README.md
 
 

Repository files navigation

Online Particle Physics Information

Online resources are used in a diverse and expanding set of ways in particle physics. Many of these resources have become central to our collective work, and we provide a curated introduction to online resources as part of the Review of Particle Physics. That list is, by necessity, incomplete.

By contrast, this repository provides an expanded and regularly updated list of resources. It is meant to be inclusive and catalog all useful resources related to particle physics. The community is warmly invited to contribute in order to ensure a broad and up to date coverage of relevant resources.

⚠️ Inclusion of a resource on this list does neither imply endorsement by the PDG nor future inclusion in the curated introduction published in the Review of Particle Physics.

How to contribute

Any contributions are highly appreciated. There are several options to do so, depending on technical familiarity with the tools in use. You can either:

  • Edit this page directly and make a Pull Request. Note that this requires some familiarity with the Markdown format and the Github workflow, as well as an account on the platform.
  • Create an issue to let the maintainers know what needs to be changed. Note that this requires a Github account.
  • Send an email to the maintainers.

Table of contents

Particle Data Group (PDG) resources

  • Review of Particle Physics (RPP): A comprehensive report on the fields of particle physics and related areas of cosmology and astrophysics, including both review articles and a compilation/evaluation of data on particle properties. The review section includes articles, tables and plots on a wide variety of theoretical and experimental topics of interest to particle physicists and astrophysicists. The particle properties section provides tables of published measurements as well as the Particle Data Group's best values and limits for particle properties such as masses, widths, lifetimes, and branching fractions, as well as an extensive summary of searches for hypothetical particles. RPP is published as a large book every two years, with partial updates made available once each year on the web.

    The printed book can be ordered: https://pdg.lbl.gov/order

    Of historical interest is the complete RPP collection which can be found online: https://pdg.lbl.gov/publications

  • Particle Physics booklet: An abridged version of the Review of Particle Physics, available as a pocket-sized 250-page booklet. It is one of the most useful summaries of physics data. The booklet contains an abbreviated set of reviews and the summary tables from the most recent edition of the Review of Particle Physics.

    The printed booklet can be ordered: https://pdg.lbl.gov/order

    A mobile version of the booklet is also available: https://pdg.lbl.gov/booklet

  • PDGLive: A web application for browsing the contents of the PDG database that contains the information published in the Review of Particle Physics. It allows one to navigate to a particle of interest, see a summary of the information available, and then proceed to the detailed information published in the Review of Particle Physics. Data entries are directly linked to the corresponding bibliographic information in INSPIRE.

  • Computer-readable files: Data files that can be downloaded from the PDG include tables of particle masses and widths, PDG Monte Carlo particle numbers, and cross-section data. The files are updated with each new edition of the Review of Particle Physics.

  • PDG API: In addition to the fixed-format data files that have been available for many years, PDG is developing new tools to access PDG data in machine-readable format (currently available as beta versions).

Particle physics information platform

  • INSPIRE: INSPIRE serves as a one-stop information platform for the particle physics community, comprising interlinked databases on literature, authors, jobs, seminars, conferences, institutions and experiments (each described in more detail below). Run in collaboration by CERN (which hosts INSPIRE), DESY, Fermilab, IHEP, IN2P3 and SLAC, it has been serving the scientific community for almost 50 years. Previously hosted at SLAC and known as SPIRES, it was the first website outside Europe and the first database on the web. Close interaction with the user community and with arXiv, ADS, HEPData, ORCID, PDG and publishers is the backbone of INSPIRE's evolution. Since 2020, it is running on a modernized platform that is continuously being improved.

Literature databases

  • ADS: The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System is a Digital Library portal offering access to 15 million bibliographic records in Astronomy and Physics. The ADS search engine also indexes the full-text for many publications in this collection and tracks citations. The system also provides access and links to a wealth of external resources, including electronic articles hosted by publishers and arXiv, data catalogs and a variety of data products hosted by the astronomy archives worldwide.

  • arXiv.org: A repository of full-text articles in physics, astronomy, mathematics, computer science, statistics, nonlinear sciences, quantitative finance, quantitative biology, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics. Papers are submitted by registered authors to arXiv, often as preprints in advance of submission to a journal for publication; includes postprints, working papers, and other relevant material. Established in 1991, the repository is interlinked with ADS and INSPIRE, among others. Readers can browse subject categories or search by author, title, abstract, date, and other fields. Receive daily update alerts for subfields by email or RSS.

  • CDS: The CERN Document Server contains records of about 700,000 CERN and non-CERN articles, preprints, theses. It includes records for internal and technical notes, official CERN committee documents, and multimedia objects. CDS is planning to focus on its role as an institutional repository covering all CERN material from the early 50s and reflecting the holdings of the CERN library. Non-CERN particle and accelerator physics content is in the process of being exported to INSPIRE.

  • INSPIRE Literature: The literature collection, the flagship of the INSPIRE suite, serves more than 1.5 million bibliographic records with a growing number of full-text articles attached and metadata including author affiliations, abstracts, references, experiments, keywords as well as links to arXiv, ADS, PDG, HEPData, publisher platforms and other servers. It provides fast metadata searches that can be easily refined using facets, plots extracted from full text, author disambiguation, author profile pages and citation analysis.

  • JACoW: The Joint Accelerator Conference Website publishes the proceedings of several accelerator conferences held around the world. A custom interface allows searching based on keywords, titles, authors, and in the full text.

  • KEK Library Preprints and Reports Database: This database contains bibliographic records of preprints and technical reports held in the KEK library, with links to the full-text images of more than 100,000 papers scanned from their worldwide preprint collection. Particularly useful for older scanned preprints. Links to it are included in INSPIRE HEP.

  • MathSciNet: This database of almost 4 million items provides reviews, abstracts and bibliographic information for much of the mathematical sciences literature. Over 125,000 new items, most of them classified according to the Mathematics Subject Classification, and more than 90,000 reviews of the current published literature are added each year. Author identification allows users to search for publications by author and citation data allows users to track the history and influence of research publications.

  • OSTI.GOV: A portal to free, publicly available DOE-sponsored R&D results including technical reports, bibliographic citations, journal articles, conference papers, books, multimedia and data information. It consolidates OSTI’s home page and the now-retired primary search tool SciTech Connect. It contains over 3 million records, including citations to 1.5 million journal articles, 1 million of which have digital object identifiers (DOIs) linking to full-text articles on publishers' websites.

Journals

  • CERN Journal List: This list of journals and conference series publishing particle physics content provides information on Open Access, copyright policies and terms of use for CERN authors.

  • INSPIRE Journals: A database of almost 4,000 journals relevant to HEP and related fields. Each entry displays the papers published in the journal that are included in the INSPIRE Literature database.

  • SCOAP³ Journals: A list of journals currently financed by the SCOAP³ consortium. All HEP publications in those journals are made freely available under Open Access conditions at no cost for the authors.

Conference and seminars databases

  • INSPIRE Conferences: The database of almost 30,000 past, present, and future conferences, schools, and meetings relevant to high-energy physics and related fields is searchable by title, acronym, series, date and location. Included are information about published proceedings, links to conference contributions in the INSPIRE HEP database, and links to the conference website when available. New conferences can be submitted from the entry page.

  • INSPIRE Seminars Created to support the surge of online seminars during the COVID-19 pandemic, this database already contains almost 3,000 seminars in high-energy physics and related fields. Seminars can be filtered by date, series and subject and exported to a calendar. Direct links to join the online seminar and external resources are included. All seminars are community-maintained and can be submitted from the entry page.

  • researchseminars.org A list of research seminars and conferences, organized by topic and seminars series or conference.

Research institutions

  • INSPIRE Institutions: INSPIRE Institutions contains around 12,000 institutes, laboratories, and universities, where research on particle physics and astrophysics is led. Every record includes, whenever possible, as detailed information, such as address, web links, experiments, and links to INSPIRE papers authored by people affiliated to that institution. One can search for a particular institution by name, acronym, and location.

  • Research Organization Registry (ROR): The Research Organization Registry (ROR) is a global, community-led registry of open persistent identifiers for research organizations. It includes IDs and metadata for more than 100,000 organizations and counting. Registry updates are curated through a community process and released on a rolling basis.

People

  • Astronomy Genealogy Project: The goal of the Astronomy Genealogy Project (AstroGen) is to list as many as possible of the world's astronomers (and their doctoral theses) with their academic parents (thesis advisors) and enable the reader to trace both academic ancestors and descendants. It is similar to the highly successful Mathematics Genealogy Project, but contains such additional information as links to theses, universities, and astronomers. AstroGen is a project of the Historical Astronomy Division (HAD) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS).

  • INSPIRE Authors: Searchable worldwide database of more than a hundred thousand active, departed, retired, and deceased people associated with particle physics and related fields. The affiliation history of these researchers, their e-mail addresses, ORCIDs, web pages, experiments they participated in, PhD advisor, information on their graduate students and links to their papers and seminars are provided, as well as a user interface to update this information.

  • Mathematics Genealogy Project: The intent of this project is to compile information about ALL the mathematicians of the world. The Mathematics Genealogy Project is a service of the NDSU Department of Mathematics, in association with the American Mathematical Society.

  • ORCID: Registry providing persistent digital identifiers allowing to unambiguously identify researchers. Through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, it supports automated linkages between scientists and their professional activities ensuring that their work is recognized.

Experiments

  • INSPIRE Experiments: Contains almost 4,000 past, present, and future experiments in particle physics. It lists and classifies both accelerator and non-accelerator experiments as well as theory collaborations. Includes official experiment name and number, location, and collaboration lists. Simple searches by participant, title, experiment number, institution, date approved, accelerator, or detector, return a description of the experiment, including a complete list of authors, title, overview of the experiment's goals and methods, and a link to the experiment's web page if available. Recently, it has expanded its scope to include particle accelerators besides experiments and to link them together. It has a granular taxonomy of research subjects.

  • Cosmic ray/Gamma ray/Neutrino and similar experiments: This extensive collection of experiment websites is organized by focus of study and by location. Additional sections link to educational materials, organizations, and other useful resources. The site is maintained at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, Heidelberg.

  • Wikipedia particle experiments: A list of particle experiments with Wikipedia pages.

Jobs

  • AAS Job Register: The American Astronomical Society publishes once a month graduate, postgraduate, faculty and other positions mainly in astronomy and astrophysics.

  • Academic Jobs Online: A full-service online recruiting site for academic institutions worldwide in all disciplines and areas.

  • APS Careers: A gateway for physicists, students, and physics enthusiasts to information about physics jobs and careers. It contains Physics job listings, career advice, upcoming workshops and meetings, and career and job-related resources provided by the American Physical Society.

  • INSPIRE Jobs: Lists academic and research jobs in high energy physics, nuclear physics, accelerator physics and astrophysics with the option to post a job or to receive email notices of new job listings. Several hundreds of jobs are listed all year round, with more activity during the application season.

  • IOP Careers: Career information and resources primarily aimed at university students are provided by the UK Institute of Physics.

  • Physics Today Jobs: Physics Today has listings for the latest assistant, associate, and full professor roles, plus scientist jobs in specialized disciplines like theoretical physics, astronomy, condensed matter, materials, applied physics, astrophysics, optics and lasers, computational physics, plasma physics, and others.

  • Physicsworld Jobs: A recruitment service run by IOP Publishing that connects employers from different industry sectors with jobseekers who have a background in physics and engineering.

Software packages and repositories

Most relevant software is hosted by general-purpose repositories like GitHub, GitLab or BitBucket, but here are a few specific repositories focused on astrophysics or HEP.

Repositories

  • ASCL: The Astrophysics Source Code Library (ASCL) is a free online registry for source codes of interest to astronomers and astrophysicists. It lists codes that have been used in research that has appeared in, or been submitted to, peer-reviewed publications.

  • GenSer: The Generator Services project collaborates with Monte Carlo (MC) generator authors and with LHC experiments in order to prepare validated LCG compliant code for both theoretical and experimental communities at the LHC, sharing the user support duties, providing assistance for the development of the new object-oriented generators, and guaranteeing the maintenance of the older packages on the LCG supported platforms. The project consists of the generators repository, validation, HepMC record and MCDB event databases.

  • Hepforge: A development environment for high-energy physics software projects, in particular housing many event-generator related projects, that offers a ready-made, easy-to-use set of web-based tools, including shell account with up-to-date development tools, web page hosting, subversion, git and Mercurial code management systems, mailing lists, bug tracker and wiki system.

Particle physics software

Most custom particle physics software is maintained by collaborations. These collaborations (usually theory collaborations rather than experimental collaborations) are listed in the INSPIRE database. Here we present a list of these software packages, sorted by the INSPIRE Experiments classification. The links point to the record in the Experiments database.

Data Analysis

  • CheckMATE: A program package which accepts simulated event files in many formats for any given model. The program then determines whether the model is excluded or not at 95% C.L. by comparing to many recent experimental analyses.

  • GAMBIT: A global fitting code for generic Beyond the Standard Model theories, designed to allow fast and easy definition of new models, observables, likelihoods, scanners and backend physics codes.

  • Gfitter: The generic fitting package Gfitter comprises a framework for the statistical analysis of parameter estimation problems in HEP.

  • MUSES: Developing a new cyberinfrastructure to provide the scientific community novel tools to answer critical interdisciplinary questions in nuclear physics, gravitational wave astrophysics, and heavy-ion physics.

  • ROOT: This framework for data processing in high-energy physics, born at CERN, offers applications to store, access, process, analyze and represent data or perform simulations.

  • Rivet: The Rivet toolkit, a system for validation of Monte Carlo event generators, provides a large set of experimental analyses useful for MC generator development, validation, and tuning.

  • SModelS: SModelS is based on a general procedure to decompose Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) collider signatures presenting a Z2 symmetry into Simplified Model Spectrum (SMS) topologies. It provides a way to cast BSM predictions for the LHC in a model independent framework, which can be directly confronted with the relevant experimental constraints.

  • Scikit-HEP: A community-driven project with the aim of providing Particle Physics at large with an ecosystem for data analysis in Python. The project started in Autumn 2016 and is under active development. It focuses on providing core and common tools for the community but also on improving the interoperability between HEP tools and the scientific ecosystem in Python as well as the discoverability of utility packages and projects.

  • ZFITTER: A Fortran package for the evaluation of radiative corrections (quantum corrections), as predicted in the Standard Model of elementary particles, to a variety of observable quantities, notably those related to the Z-boson resonance peak studied at LEP, CERN.

Lattice Gauge Theory

  • ALPHA: Numerical investigation of the running coupling in QCD, quark masses, non-perturbative renormalization, Symanzik improvement and Heavy Quark Effective Theory (HQET).

  • ETM: Simulating lattice QCD with two degenerate flavours of quarks by means of the twisted mass formulation tuned to maximal twist.

  • MILC: The MILC Code is a set of codes written in C developed by the MIMD Lattice Computation (MILC) collaboration for doing simulations of four dimensional SU(3) lattice gauge theory on MIMD parallel machines. The MILC Code is publicly available for research purposes.

  • QUDA: Library for performing calculations in lattice QCD on GPUs using NVIDIA's CUDA platform. The current release includes optimized solvers for Wilson, Clover-improved Wilson,Twisted mass, Staggered, Improved staggered, Domain wall and Mobius fermion actions.

  • USQCD: The software suite enables lattice QCD computations to be performed with high performance across a variety of architectures. The website contains links to the project web pages of the individual software modules, as well as to complete lattice QCD application packages which use them.

  • tmLQCD: This freely available software suite provides a set of tools to be used in lattice QCD simulations, mainly a HMC implementation for Wilson and Wilson twisted mass fermions and inverter for different versions of the Dirac operator.

Parton Distribution Fits

  • APFEL: A library for performing DGLAP evolution up to next-to-next-to-leading-order in QCD and leading-order in QED, both with pole and MS masses.

  • CTEQ: CTEQ provides numerical table files for the computation of CT18 next-to-leading order (NLO) and next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) parton distribution functions.  They can be interpolated with the help of a standalone Fortran interface and demonstration program , as well as the tables with interpolated values of the QCD coupling alpha_s and PDFs. A simple C++ interface for the CTEQ-TEA PDFs with CTEQ6.6 or later is also offered.

  • HOPPET: A Fortran 95 package for carrying out QCD DGLAP evolution and other common manipulations of parton distribution functions (PDFs).

  • LHAPDF: HEP community standard library for parton distribution function interpolation, including official collection of PDF data sets.

  • MAP-Collaboration: The MAP collaboration is aimed at studying the three-dimensional structure of hadrons.

  • MSHT: Stand-alone Fortran, C++ and Mathematica code to provide public access to the MSHT20 PDFs.

  • NNPDF: NNPDF determines PDFs using as an unbiased modeling tool Neural Networks, trained using Genetic Algorithms, and used to construct a Monte Carlo representation of PDFs and their uncertainties: a probability distribution in a space of functions.

  • TMDplotter: Allows to plot TMDs and PDFs as a function of different variables.

  • xFitter: An open source QCD fit framework to extract PDFs and assess the impact of new data.

Simulation tools

  • VEGAS: A general purpose algorithm for multidimensional integration. It is an iterative and adaptive Monte Carlo scheme.

Simulation tools - Detector Simulation

  • Delphes: A C++ framework, performing a fast multipurpose detector response simulation.

  • FLUKA: A fully integrated particle physics MonteCarlo simulation package, with applications in high-energy experimental physics and engineering, shielding, detector and telescope design, cosmic ray studies, dosimetry, medical physics and radio-biology.

  • Garfield: Garfield simulates gaseous detectors both two-dimensional chambers made of wires and planes, such as drift chambers, TPCs and multiwire counters, where exact fields are often known, and three dimensional chamber configurations where exact fields are not known, even for seemingly simple arrangements like two crossing wires.

  • Geant4: This is a toolkit for the simulation of the passage of particles through matter. Its areas of application include high energy, nuclear and accelerator physics, as well as studies in medical and space science.

  • GeantV: GeantV seeks to exploit the increasing parallelism of new generations of CPUs to offer detector simulation that are both detailed and fast.

  • LArSoft: Developing and supporting a shared base of physics software across Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber experiments.

  • MARS: MARS is a Monte Carlo code for inclusive and exclusive simulation of three-dimensional hadronic and electromagnetic cascades, muon, heavy-ion and low-energy neutron transport in accelerator, detector, spacecraft and shielding components in the energy range from a fraction of an electronvolt up to 100 TeV.

  • MODE: Targeting the use of differentiable programming in design optimization of detectors for particle physics applications, extending from fundamental research at accelerators, in space, and in nuclear physics and neutrino facilities, to industrial applications employing the technology of radiation detection.

Simulation tools - Event Simulation

  • ALPGEN: A collection of codes for the generation of multi-parton processes in hadronic collisions.

  • AcerMC: Generation of Standard Model background processes in pp collisions at the LHC.

  • Ariadne: A program for simulation of QCD cascades implementing the colour dipole model.

  • CASCADE: Hadron level Monte Carlo generator for ep and pp scattering applying Transverse Momentum Dependent (TMD) parton densities and parton shower.

  • EPJPSI: Monte Carlo calculations for J/ψ mesons in high energy γ-p, ep, pp̅ and pp collisions.

  • FastJet: FastJet is a software package for jet finding in pp and e+e- collisions. It includes fast native implementations of many sequential recombination clustering algorithms, plugins for access to a range of cone jet finders and tools for advanced jet manipulation.

  • FeynArts: Mathematica package for the generation and visualization of Feynman diagrams and amplitudes.

  • FeynCalc: Mathematica package for symbolic evaluation of Feynman diagrams and algebraic calculations in quantum field theory and elementary particle physics.

  • FeynRules: Mathematica package that allows the calculation of Feynman rules in momentum space for any QFT physics model.

  • GENIE: Modern and universal event generator framework and tools in support of neutrino experiments.

  • GLoBES: Software package for the simulation of long baseline neutrino oscillation experiments.

  • GiBUU: Unified theory and transport framework in the MeV and GeV energy regimes for elementary reactions on nuclei.

  • GoSam: This package allows for the automated calculation of one-loop amplitudes for multi-particle processes in renormalizable quantum field theories.

  • HDECAY: HDECAY determines the partial decay widths and branching ratios of the Higgs bosons within the Standard Model.

  • Herwig: A multi-purpose particle physics event generator. It is able to perform simulations at next-to-leading order in QCD. It is based on key physics motivations such as coherent parton showers (including both angular-ordered and dipole evolution), the cluster hadronization model, an eikonal multiple interaction model and has highly flexible BSM capabilities.

  • JETSCAPE: Comprehensive software framework to provide a systematic, rigorous approach to simulating the complex dynamical environment of relativistic heavy-ion collisions.

  • MC@NLO: Fortran package to implement a scheme for combining a Monte Carlo event generator with next-to-leading-order calculations of rates for QCD processes.

  • MCFM: MCFM (Monte Carlo for FeMtobarn processes) is a program designed to calculate cross-sections for various femtobarn-level processes at hadron-hadron colliders.

  • MadGraph: A framework that aims at providing all the elements necessary for SM and BSM phenomenology, such as the computations of cross sections, the generation of hard events and their matching with event generators, and the use of a variety of tools relevant to event manipulation and analysis.

  • NUISANCE: C++ framework which facilitates detailed studies of neutrino interaction cross-section models implemented in Monte Carlo neutrino event generators.

  • NuWro: Monte Carlo neutrino event generator that includes all basic dynamics for neutrino scattering processes (for both neutral and charged currents).

  • OpenLoops: A fully automated implementation for fast numerical evaluation of tree and one-loop matrix elements for any Standard Model process.

  • PHOTOS: A Universal Monte Carlo for QED radiative corrections

  • POWHEG: A framework to match next-to-leading-order calculations with event generators.

  • PYTHIA: A multi-purpose particle physics event generator. It contains theory and models for a number of physics aspects, including hard and soft interactions, parton distributions, initial- and final-state parton showers, multiparton interactions, fragmentation and decay.

  • RAPGAP: Monte Carlo program that generates a full hadron event record according to the HEP common standards.

  • RunDec: Packages for running and decoupling the strong coupling and quark masses.

  • SMASH: A relativistic hadronic transport approach including all well-established hadrons up to a mass of ~ 2 GeV as degrees of freedom.

  • Sherpa: A multi-purpose particle physics event generator for the Simulation of High-Energy Reactions of PArticles in lepton-lepton, lepton-photon, photon-photon, lepton-hadron and hadron-hadron collisions.

  • WHIZARD: A system designed for the efficient calculation of multi-particle scattering cross sections and simulated event samples.

Astrophysics software

Most custom astrophysics software is maintained by collaborations. These collaborations (usually theory collaborations rather than experimental collaborations) are listed in the INSPIRE database. Here we present a list of these software packages, sorted by the INSPIRE Experiments classification. The links point to the record in the Experiments database.

Data Analysis

  • Astropy: The Astropy Project is a community effort to develop a single core package for Astronomy in Python and foster interoperability between Python astronomy packages.

  • Commander3: Commander is an Optimal Monte-carlo Markov chAiN Driven EstimatoR which implements fast and efficient end-to-end CMB posterior exploration through Gibbs sampling.

  • Cosmoglobe: Cosmoglobe is a collaboration between individual scientists aiming to understand the microwave sky, working together within an Open Science framework.

  • Gammapy: Gammapy is a community-developed, open-source Python package for gamma-ray astronomy built on Numpy, Scipy and Astropy.

  • Starlink: Starlink was a UK Project supporting astronomical data processing. It was shut down in 2005 but its open-source software continued to be developed at the Joint Astronomy Centre until March 2015. It is currently maintained by the East Asian Observatory. The open-source software products are a collection of applications and libraries, usually focused on a specific aspect of data reduction or analysis.

Simulation tools

  • CAMELS: The goal of the CAMELS project is to provide theory predictions for different observables as a function of cosmology and astrophysics, and it is the largest suite of cosmological (magneto-)hydrodynamic simulations designed to train machine learning algorithms.

  • FLAMINGO: A project of the Virgo consortium for cosmological supercomputer simulations

  • GADGET: Code for cosmological N-body/SPH simulations on massively parallel computers with distributed memory.

  • Illustris: The Illustris project is a set of large-scale cosmological simulations, including the most ambitious simulation of galaxy formation yet performed. The calculation tracks the expansion of the universe, the gravitational pull of matter onto itself, the motion or "hydrodynamics" of cosmic gas, as well as the formation of stars and black holes.

  • MESA: MESA focuses on accurate, one-dimensional stellar evolution Calculations.

  • SwiftSim: Swift is a modern, highly-parallel gravity and smoothed particle hydrodynamics solver for astrophysical and cosmological applications

Simulation tools - Event Simulation

  • CORSIKA: Detailed simulation of extensive air showers initiated by high energy cosmic ray particles. Protons, light nuclei up to iron, photons, and many other particles may be treated as primaries. The particles are tracked through the atmosphere until they undergo reactions with the air nuclei or, in the case of instable secondaries, decay.

Web apps

  • APFEL Web: This online parton density function plotter allows to compare predictions for different PDF fits.

  • ColliderReach: A tool to give a simple estimate of the relation between the mass reaches of different proton-proton collider configurations.

Mobile apps

  • arXiv eXplorer: Android app for browsing and searching arXiv.org, and for reading, saving and sharing articles.

  • Collider: This mobile app allows users to see data from the ATLAS experiment at the LHC.

  • GravLens3: Allows you to simulate the effect of a gravitational lens on your iPhone or iPad.

  • TAPAs: Toolkit for Accelerator Physics on Androids. It allows "back-of-the-envelope" accelerator physics calculations, with 50 inter-linked types of calculations.

Data repositories and preservation

Data is increasingly deposited in general-purpose repositories like Zenodo, figshare or the Open Science Framework, but here are a few specific repositories focused on physics.

Data repositories

Particle physics

  • HEPData: The HEPData project, funded by the STFC (UK) and based at Durham University, has been built up over the past four decades as a unique repository for scattering data from experimental particle physics papers. It currently comprises the data points from plots and tables related to several thousand publications including those from the LHC. The data from HEPData can also be accessed through INSPIRE. A new enhanced service was recently developed in collaboration with CERN.

  • CERN Open Data: The CERN Open Data portal provides data from real collision events, as well as simulated and simplified datasets, produced by the experiments at the LHC, virtual machines to reproduce the analysis environment, and software to process the data. It serves over 2 PB of data in total and encourages their use for both educational and research purposes.

  • DOE Data Explorer: DOE Data Explorer is the Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) search tool for finding U.S. Department of Energy-funded, publicly available, scientific data records submitted by data centers, repositories, and other organizations funded by the Department.

  • HepSim: A repository with Monte Carlo simulations for particle-collision experiments. It contains predictions from parton shower models and includes Monte Carlo events after fast and full detector simulations and event reconstruction.

  • ILDG: The International Lattice Data Grid is an international organization which provides standards, services, methods and tools that facilitate the sharing and interchange of lattice QCD gauge configurations among scientific collaborations by uniting their regional data grids. It offers semantic access with local tools to worldwide distributed data.

  • MCPLOTS: MCPLOTS is a repository of Monte Carlo plots comparing High Energy Physics event generators to a wide variety of available experimental data. The website is supported by the LHC Physics Centre at CERN.

Astrophysics

  • CfA Dataverse: This astronomy data repository at Harvard is open to all scientific data from astronomical institutions worldwide.

  • NASA's HEASARC: The High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC) is the primary archive for NASA's (and other space agencies') missions dealing with electromagnetic radiation from extremely energetic phenomena ranging from black holes to the Big Bang.

  • NASA archives: The NASA archives provide access to raw and processed datasets from numerous NASA missions.

    Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST): Hubble telescope, other missions (UV, optical).

    NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive: Spitzer, Herschel, Planck telescope, other mission

  • NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED): An astronomical database that collates and cross-correlates information on extragalactic objects. It contains their positions, basic data, and names as well as bibliographic references to published papers, and notes from catalogs and other publications. NED supports searches for objects and references, and offers browsing capabilities for abstracts of articles of extragalactic interest.

  • NASA Astronomical Virtual Observatories: A major priority for NASA is making its astronomy holdings available through standard interfaces to the science community. These pages describe the work of the NASA Astronomical Virtual Observatories (NAVO), a collaboration of NASA's astronomy archives, who have developed a comprehensive model for distributing data through standardized machine-queryable interfaces.

  • SIMBAD: The SIMBAD astronomical database provides basic data, cross-identifications, bibliography and measurements for astronomical objects outside the solar system. It can be queried by object name, coordinates and various criteria. Lists of objects and scripts can be submitted.

  • Virtual Solar Observatory: Search for Solar Physics Data Products

  • VizieR: VizieR provides access to the most complete library of published astronomical catalogues and data tables, available online organized in a self-documented database. Query tools allow users to select relevant data tables and extract and format records matching given criteria. Currently, more than 19,000 catalogues are available.

General physics

  • NIST Physical Measurement Laboratory: The National Institute of Standards and Technology provides access to physical reference data (physical constants, atomic spectroscopy data, x-ray and gamma-ray data, radiation dosimetry data, nuclear physics data and more) and measurements and calibrations data (dimensional and electromagnetic measurements).

  • Springer Materials - The Landolt-Börnstein Database:

    Landolt-Börnstein is a data collection covering all areas of physical sciences and engineering, such as particle physics, electronic structure and transport, magnetism, superconductivity. International experts scan the primary literature in more than 8,000 peer-reviewed journals and evaluate and select the most useful information to be included in the database. It includes more than 130,000 online documents, 1,2 million references, and covers 250,000 chemical substances. SpringerMaterials Interactive allows one to visualise and analyse data. The search functionality is freely accessible and the search results are displayed in their context, whereas the full text is secured to subscribers.

Data preservation activities

Particle physics

  • CERN Analysis Preservation: CERN Analysis Preservation is a platform for preserving knowledge and assets of individual physics analyses in LHC collaborations. Its aim is to capture and document all the elements needed to understand and rerun an analysis even several years later: data, software, environment, workflow, context, and documentation. This platform is currently in a pilot stage. It is accessible by LHC experimental groups (standard collaboration access restrictions are applied).

  • DASPOS: A collective effort to explore the realisation of a viable data, software and algorithm preservation architecture in High Energy Physics

  • DPHEP: DPHEP coordinates the efforts to define and implement Data Preservation and Long Term Analysis in HEP. DPHEP, which was initiated as a study group in 2008-2009, includes all major HEP experiments and labs. In 2014, it has become a Collaboration through the signature of a Collaboration Agreement by a number of large funding agencies. The group is endorsed by the International Committee for Future Accelerators (ICFA).

    DPHEP regularly organizes workshops, creates status reports, and maintains links with similar activities in other disciplines. Details of the organizational structure, the objectives, workshops and publications can be found on the website.

  • REANA: REANA (REusable ANAlyses) is a system for instantiating research data analyses on the cloud using container-based solutions. It complements CERN Analysis Preservation permitting the reuse and revalidation of preserved analyses. It is being developed in close collaboration with DASPOS and RECAST.

  • RECAST for ATLAS: RECAST is a framework for re-using existing analyses prepared within ATLAS for subsequent publications by reinterpreting the analysis with respect to new models of physics. The approach exploits the fact that the Standard Model backgrounds of a search must only be estimated once.

Astrophysics

More formal and advanced data preservation activity is ongoing in the field of Experimental Astrophysics, including:

Particle physics education and outreach sites

A useful list of resources can also be found at https://www.ukri.org/what-we-do/public-engagement/public-engagement-stfc/engage-with-our-areas-of-science-and-technology-stfc/particle-physics/particle-physics-resources/

Science Educators' Networks

  • IPPOG: The International Particle Physics Outreach Group is a network of scientists, science educators and communication specialists working across the globe in informal science education and outreach for particle physics. The IPPOG collaboration comprises 30 members: 33 countries, 6 experiments and CERN as an international laboratory. Two national laboratories (DESY and GSI) are Associated Members.

  • Interactions.org: Designed to serve as a central resource for communicators of particle physics, the regularly updated website provides links to current particle physics news from the world's media as well as press releases from member labs, high-resolution photos and graphics from the particle physics laboratories of the world; thematic hubs (10th anniversary of the Higgs boson, Dark Matter Day).

  • QuarkNet: The QuarkNet Collaboration is a national program that partners high school science teachers with particle physicists working in experiments at CERN or Fermilab. The network consists of over 50 centers at research groups in universities and labs across the United States. About 100,000 students from 500+ U.S. high schools learn fundamental physics as they participate in inquiry-oriented investigations and analyze authentic data online. QuarkNet is supported in part by the National Science Foundation and Fermilab.

  • Netzwerk Teilchenwelt: Behind the project are about 200 researchers from 30 institutes and universities doing research in particle physics, astroparticle physics and hadron and nuclear physics in Germany and at CERN. Exciting young scientists throughout Germany for particle physics and accompanying them from school to top-level particle physics research—that's what they have set their sights on.

Physics Courses

  • MIT OpenCourseWare - Physics: These MIT course materials reflect almost all the undergraduate and graduate subjects taught at MIT. In addition to physics courses, supplementary educational resources are also available.

  • OnlineCourses.com: A collection of online tests, video lectures, and related course materials from mostly prestigious universities around the world.

Masterclasses

  • Cosmic Ray Studies: There are more than 12 projects around the world that address young people and teachers giving them an opportunity to explore cosmic particles, collecting, uploading and analyzing data and sharing results. Two annual events include International Cosmic Day and International Muon Week.

  • Hands-On Universe: This program enables students to investigate the Universe while applying tools and concepts from science, math and technology.

  • HYPATIA: HYPATIA (Hybrid Pupil’s Analysis Tool for Interactions in ATLAS) is a tool for high school students to inspect the graphic visualization of particle collision products in the ATLAS detector at CERN.

  • International Masterclasses: Each year about 13,000 high school students in 55 countries come to one of about 225 nearby universities or research centres for a day to unravel the mysteries of particle physics. Lectures from active scientists give insight in topics and methods of basic research enabling the students to perform measurements on real data from one of seven experiments. At the end of the day, like an international research collaboration, participants join a video conference for discussion and combination of results. The program is coordinated from Institut fur Kern- und Teilchenphysik at TU Dresden and the Notre Dame University QuarkNet Center within the framework of the International Particle Physics Outreach Group (IPPOG). CERN, Fermilab and TRIUMF support videoconferences.

  • World Wide Data Day: An annual event in which students from around the world can analyze data from the Large Hadron Collider and share results over a 24-hour span, with videoconferences with physicists in locations around the world.

  • LHC physics Masterclasses: Lectures from active scientists give insight into methods of basic research, enabling the students to perform measurements on real data from LHC experiments. Like in a real research collaboration, the participants then discuss their results and compare with expectations.

    ALICE: https://www.physicsmasterclasses.org/index.php?cat=physics&page=alice

    ATLAS: http://atlas-minerva.web.cern.ch/atlas-minerva

    CMS: https://cms.cern/interact-with-cms/cms-physics-masterclass

    LHCb: http://lhcb-public.web.cern.ch/lhcb-public/en/LHCb-outreach/masterclasses/en

  • IceCube Masterclass: The program is inspired by the International Masterclasses program started by IPPOG and is coordinated by the Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center with support from QuarkNet.

General Sites

  • Contemporary Physics Education Project (CPEP): CPEP offers beautifully illustrated charts that present the current understanding of physics in areas ranging from quarks to the cosmos, incorporating recent discoveries such as the Higgs boson and gravitational waves.

  • APS Public Engagement: This site maintained by the American Physical Society provides information about the APS’ public engagement in science program, including resources for physicists, teachers and students.

General Physics Activities

  • HyperPhysics: An exploration environment for concepts in physics employing concept maps and other linking strategies and providing opportunities for numerical exploration.

  • PhET Interactive Simulations: Founded in 2002 by Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman, the PhET Interactive Simulations project at the University of Colorado Boulder creates free interactive math and science simulations. PhET sims are based on extensive education research and engage students through an intuitive, game-like environment where students learn through exploration and discovery.

Particle Physics Resources

Citizen Science

  • Higgs Hunters: A web-based citizen science project to help search for unknown exotic particles in the LHC data. (Last updated in 2018.)

  • LHC @ home: Volunteer computing platform where participants donate computer idle time to help physicists compare theory with experiment, in the search for new fundamental particles and answers to questions about the Universe.

Classroom Activities Collections

Interactive Sites

  • Lancaster Particle Physics: Suitable for 16+ students, this site offers a number of simulations and explanations of particle physics, including a section on the LHC.
  • Quarked!: Adventures in the Subatomic Universe: This project, targeted to kids aged 7-12 (and their families), brings subatomic physics to life through a multimedia project including an interactive website, a facilitated program for museums and schools, and an educational outreach program.

Planetarium Show

  • Phantom of the Universe: A planetarium show about dark matter that covers astrophysics, an underground experiment, and the LHC. It is distributed to planetariums for free.

Video/Film

  • Angels and Demons: With the aim of looking at the myth versus reality of antimatter and science at CERN this site describes the science behind the story including a set of videos.

  • CollidingParticles: A series of films following a team of physicists involved in research at the LHC.

  • Videos by Don Lincoln: Short YouTube videos on basic particle physics and cosmology.

  • CERN-Solvay Online videos: Part of the CERN-Solvay Education programme, this is an online course for students to learn about a scientific topic related to CERN’s science and technology.

  • Even Bananas: Explore the fascinating world of fundamental particles called neutrinos with University of Oxford scientist Dr. Kirsty Duffy.

Websites

  • Imagine the Universe: This site is for students age 14 and up and for anyone interested in learning about the Universe.
  • Particle Adventure: An interactive tour of quarks, neutrinos, antimatter, extra dimensions, dark matter, accelerators and particle detectors from the Particle Data Group of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Simple elegant graphics and translations into 16 languages.

Lab Education Offices

  • Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) Educational Programs: Connecting today’s world-class research to tomorrow’s STEM problem solvers.

  • Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) Educational Programs: The Office of Educational Programs mission is to design, develop, implement, and facilitate workforce development and education initiatives that support the scientific mission at Brookhaven National Laboratory and the Department of Energy.

  • CERN's education programmes: CERN’s education and outreach programs cover from ages 5 to high-school students to university students. Specifically, CERN offers the Beamline for Schools Competition, challenging high-school students from around the world to propose an experiment to carry out at a real research laboratory and the CERN Solay camp for high-school students. The Laboratory also runs residential programmes for high-school teachers from around the world and a summer programme for undergraduate students.

  • DESY Education: DESY Hamburg offers a regular series of public lectures and the DESY Science Café for young and old alike.

  • DESY Zeuthen Outreach: Posters, photos, lectures, videos and blogs. Projects for teachers and students include School Labs, Cosmic@Web, Teilchenwelt and International Cosmic Day.

  • Fermilab Office of Education and Public Outreach: Provides education resources and information about activities for educators, physicists, students and visitors to the Lab. In addition to information about 25 programs, the website provides online data-based investigations for high school students, online versions of exhibits in the Lederman Science Center, links to particle physics discovery resources, web-based instructional resources, tips for education and outreach, and links to the Lederman Science Center and the Teacher Resource Center.

  • INFN Global education and outreach Collisioni.infn is the web space dedicated to cultural and educational initiatives of the INFN.

  • Science Education at Jefferson Lab: Jefferson Lab's long-term commitment to science education continues to focus on increasing the number of teachers with a substantial background in math and science, strengthening the motivation and preparation of all students, especially minorities and females, and addressing the serious under representation of minorities and females in science, math, engineering and technology careers.

  • Joint Institute for Nuclear Research Education (JINR): The JINR educational portal has resources, programs for teachers and school students and lab tours.

  • Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati Educational (INFN-LNF): INFN-LNF educational programs are addressed to students, teachers and general audiences of every age, from Italy and abroad. Insights and education about the INFN-LNF research are offered thanks to the organization of guided tours and open days, stages for students, refresher courses for teachers, seminars and divulgation events. The aim is to create a constant exchange between the research world and society, thanks to direct contact and via the internet and other social media. See also the global INFN education and outreach site https://collisioni.infn.it/en/.

  • Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso Outreach Activities: The Lab offers pupils the opportunity to approach the fascinating world of Physics and Science in general through stages, summer schools and training camps. It makes young researchers’ skills and competences available to people both in public events, such as the Open Day and the European Researchers’ Night, and in guided tours to visit the underground experimental halls.

  • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) Workforce Development and Education: Working with our partners both within and outside Berkeley Lab, LBNL promotes equal access to scientific and technical careers for students from all backgrounds, supports STEM teachers, and build scientific literacy through innovative education programs. The lab also supports educational outreach efforts from Berkeley Lab’s divisions by providing program development assistance, materials, funding, volunteers, project management, marketing, and administrative support.

  • Perimeter Institute Outreach: Perimeter Institute shares ideas with students, teachers, and like-minded people through programs and resources that communicate the power, joy, and mystery of science. Perimeter’s award-winning Outreach team brings science to life and raises scientific literacy through classroom resources, public lectures, teacher workshops, an educator network, and a summer school where students interact with Perimeter researchers.

  • Sanford Underground Research Facility Education and Outreach: Leveraging research being conducted underground at Sanford Lab, staff provide training, teaching tools and materials for teachers so they can inspire and challenge students.

  • SNOLAB Outreach: The goal at SNOLAB is to develop new educational material that fosters an appreciation of the field of astroparticle physics. The education team endeavours to facilitate an exchange of knowledge with the public and scientists from around the world to better understand our solar system. The desired outcome of the educational work is to have a network of healthy and resilient community partners with informed and active citizens better equipped to understand the goals here at SNOLAB now and in the future.

  • TRIUMF for the Public: TRIUMF offers outreach programs for high-school students, teachers, and the general public with a mission of promoting science and research in the public arena. TRIUMF’s outreach activities are also designed to tell Canadian students, teachers, and the public about the excitement of curiosity-driven research and about how a laboratory like TRIUMF adds value to Canada in new technologies, medical applications, and highly qualified people.

Educational Programs of Experiments

  • ATLAS Education: The ATLAS Experiment has a wide range of educational resources available for students and teachers. Categories include primary and secondary school students, university students, teachers, citizen scientists, for which there are several multimedia and other types of resources.

  • CMS Education and Outreach Resources: Access to just over 100 resources from Activities and Games to Artworks to Visualizations. The resources cover a range of topics and are available in several languages.

  • HiSPARC at UCU: HiSPARC is an outreach, educational and research experiment on cosmic rays detection, which was initiated in the Netherlands in 2004. It brings together secondary school students and teachers, undergraduate students and university researchers in the quest to understand the origin of the most energetic particles in our universe. HSPARC has stations in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Denmark and Namibia.

  • IceCube Education and Outreach: IceCube is committed to bringing science to a wider audience. The experiment provides a range of learning opportunities for high school students, research experiences for teachers and undergraduates, learning activities for the classroom or at home, and webcasts.

  • KASCADE and KASCADE-Grande KDKC: The aim of the project KCDC (KASCADE Cosmic Ray Data Centre) is the installation and establishment of a public data centre for high-energy astroparticle physics based on the data of the KASCADE experiment.

  • LIGO Education Resources: Something fun and educational for K-12 educators, parents and interested students. Includes classroom activities, field trips, activities to try at home, ask a scientist, teacher professional development, readings and videos.

  • MINERvA Neutrinos in the Classroom: Information and educational materials provide high school physics students with an in-depth hands-on interactive experience with real high-energy particle physics. The materials should be suitable for a 1-2 weeks module on particle physics as it’s done by professional scientists.

  • VIRGO Educational Resources: Useful resources (websites, texts, videos) for teachers and students related to gravitational waves and the interferometers like Virgo.

  • Pierre Auger Observatory's Educational Pages: The site offers information about cosmic rays and their detection, and provides material for students and teachers, including masterclasses.

News

Newsletters and Magazines

Online news

Art in Physics

  • Arts@CERN - When Art Meets Science: Arts at CERN is the leading art and science programme promoting the dialog between artists and particle physicists. Programmes include artistic residencies, art commissions, exhibitions and events.

    The Collide residency programme aims to develop expert knowledge in the arts through the connection with fundamental science. Since 2011 the COLLIDE award calls to artists to win a fully funded residency for up to 3 months.

    Connect is a residency program launched in 2021 with the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia. It offers a combined residency: at CERN and at an international location in collaboration with scientific and cultural organizations in Chile, South Africa, and India.

  • Art of Physics Competition: The Canadian Association of Physicists organizes this competition. The first was launched in 1992, with the aim of stimulating interest, especially among non-scientists, in some of the captivating imagery associated with physics. The challenge is to capture photographically a beautiful or unusual physics phenomenon and explain it in less than 200 words in terms that everyone can understand.

  • Fermilab Art Gallery: The convergence of art and science occurs daily in the Fermilab Art Gallery open to the public. To initiate and stimulate communication and interactions among scientists, artists and the public, the laboratory hosts an artist-in-residence program. The artist-in-residence interacts with scientists to learn about their research and how it connects to society. They use this information to create a body of work, leading to presentations in the community and possibly an exhibition of the artwork at Fermilab.

  • TRIUMF Science through Art: TRIUMF's Science through Art initiatives explore the space where art and science collide. These programs bring artists and TRIUMF researchers, engineers, technicians, tradespeople, and students together to explore new ways of thinking about science, discovery, creativity, and our universe.

Social Media

Many particle physics institutions and collaborations have a presence on social media, with Facebook, X (Twitter), and Instagram as particularly popular. These resources are typically used to communicate with the general public, but some of the highlighting of results and communications target physicists as an audience.

List of Experiments that have noted their X (Twitter) accounts on INSPIRE can be found here: https://inspirehep.net/experiments?sort=mostrecent&size=25&page=1&q=urls.description%3ATWITTER

List of Institutions that have noted their X (Twitter) accounts on INSPIRE can be found here: https://inspirehep.net/institutions?sort=mostrecent&size=25&page=1&q=urls.description%3ATWITTER

List of physicists on podcasts, Mastodon and Bluesky at TrueSciPhi: https://truesciphi.org/home_sci.html#pmapod

High Energy Physics regional efforts

  • Developing Regions A summary of HEP activities and efforts in Africa, Latin America and other regions that may be classified and developing or emerging. The report is not exhaustive and based on the expert knowledge of the authors at the time of information gathering; the narrative was developed in July 2023 and would require period periodic updates, as the HEP landscape changes. Details may be found in arXiv eprint 2308.15373.

  • European Strategy for Particle Physics The European Strategy for Particle Physics provides a clear prioritization of European ambitions in advancing the science of particle physics. It takes into account the worldwide particle physics landscape and developments in related fields, and is initiated by the CERN Council to coordinate activities across a large, international and fast-moving community with the aim of maximising scientific returns.

  • Japan's Strategy for Future Projects in High Energy Physics The final report from Japan's Committee on Future Projects in High Energy Physics.

  • US Particle Physics Community Planning Exercise (Snowmass) Snowmass is organized by the Division of Particles and Fields (DPF) of the American Physical Society. Snowmass is a scientific study. It provides an opportunity for the entire particle physics community to come together to identify and document a scientific vision for the future of particle physics in the U.S. and its international partners. Snowmass will define the most important questions for the field of particle physics and identify promising opportunities to address them. P5 will take the scientific input from Snowmass and develop a strategic plan for U.S. particle physics that can be executed over a 10 year timescale, in the context of a 20-year global vision for the field.

  • US Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5) P5 reports to HEPAP (High-Energy Physics Advisory Panel) that advises the High-Energy Physics program of the DOE Office of Science and Division of Physics of the NSF. It will build on the "Snowmass" community study to hash out priorities for the next 10 years within 20-year context.

About

Extended online version of the PDG Particle Physics Information review.

Resources

Readme
Activity
Custom properties

Stars

27 stars

Watchers

6 watching

Forks

9 forks
Report repository

Releases

No releases published

Packages

 
 
 

Contributors 7