Vol. 10 (2025): 70 years of particle physics

Daniel Treille and Felicitas Pauss

This document presents a selection of topics in Particle Physics, from the early periods of its existence until today.

It is aimed at specialists in the field, hoping to inform the young ones about the past and recalls important moments to the seniors who want to refresh their memory.

Many highlights of our field are described, but less bright periods, doubts, and temporarily wrong paths are not kept hidden, and problems are presented as they appeared at the time.

An attempt was made to find the right balance between technology and physics, and to acknowledge in a fair way the important contributions of actors with very different profiles.

The document includes various comments and points of view, but always only drawn from published material.

The document proposes many references, which are mostly publications, entries in the INSPIRE data base or free access books, e.g., the book “Technology Meets Research” . However, it also contains  interesting figures that have been taken from public lectures given by experts at conferences, workshops and in physics schools, with the relevant sources cited. As far as possible, the reference gives direct access to the relevant material.

Furthermore, this document describes the most up-to-date results and presents the major questions left open. From these, one can deduce possible guidelines for the future, but considerations of strategy and discussions on what may come next in terms of machines and programmes are not part of this document.

The fundamentals of the different subjects are usually only referenced to, but some topics are explained by including short introductory texts.

Besides the Particle Physics Standard Model (PPSM) another “Standard Model” exists, including what we know about our universe, its content and possibly its history. This document also deals with the relations between both domains.

The work started as a review of 60 years of Particle Physics at the Société Française de Physique (SFP), and initially emphasised the French contributions to these fields. This aspect has been largely removed, and the document attempts to cover contributions from key players around the world, although activities involving CERN programs still occupy a large part. This is motivated by CERN’s 70th birthday, celebrated in 2024.