Review of Particle Physics

Abstract

This biennial Review summarizes much of particle physics. Using data from previous editions, plus 2658 new measurements from 644 papers, we list, evaluate, and average measured properties of gauge bosons, leptons, quarks, mesons, and baryons. We summarize searches for hypothetical particles such as Higgs bosons, heavy neutrinos, and supersymmetric particles. All the particle properties and search limits are listed in Summary Tables. We also give numerous tables, figures, formulae, and reviews of topics such as the Standard Model, particle detectors, probability, and statistics. Among the 112 reviews are many that are new or heavily revised including those on Heavy-Quark and Soft-Collinear Effective Theory, Neutrino Cross Section Measurements, Monte Carlo Event Generators, Lattice QCD, Heavy Quarkonium Spectroscopy, Top Quark, Dark Matter, Vcb & Vub, Quantum Chromodynamics, High-Energy Collider Parameters, Astrophysical Constants, Cosmological Parameters, and Dark Matter. A booklet is available containing the Summary Tables and abbreviated versions of some of the other sections of this full Review. All tables, listings, and reviews (and errata) are also available on the Particle Data Group website: http://pdg.lbl.gov/. The 2012 edition of Review of Particle Physics is published for the Particle Data Group as article 010001 in volume 86 of Physical Review D. This edition should be cited as: J. Beringer et al. (Particle Data Group), Phys. Rev. D 86, 010001 (2012).Received 18 July 2012DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.86.010001© 2012 Regents of the University of California*The publication of the Review of Particle Physics is supported by the Director, Office of Science, Office of High Energy and Nuclear Physics, the Division of High Energy Physics of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE–AC02–05CH11231; by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Agreement No. PHY-0652989; by the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN); 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; and by the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN).