English | 简体中文
Particle Library is an offline app for the Particle Data Group Review of Particle Physics (unofficial), built for working with the data rather than just reading it. Every particle, property, measurement, decay and reference is interconnected: open a value to see all its measurements, its edition-by-edition history and trend. Review articles can be searched offline, downloaded as PDFs when needed, and highlighted and annotated. Notes anchor to the exact particle, measurement, reference or highlighted passage they came from, so values collected for your own analysis stay attached to the data. INSPIRE search is built in as well.
The first version was built over a weekend using DeepSeek Harness and DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017.
Supported platforms: macOS 12+ (universal), iPhone/iPadOS 15+, and Android 7.0+. A shared responsive Flutter layout is used across desktop and mobile.
Public TestFlight beta (iPhone/iPad): Join the beta. iOS is currently distributed through TestFlight only.
| χc1(3872) | π electric polarizability |
|---|---|
 |
 |
| Particle page with left section outline, identity, quantum numbers and right context sidebar. | Measurement page with left outline, definition, source, PDG average and right context sidebar. |
| iPhone |
|---|
 |
| Responsive layout on iPhone. |
English UI, PDG 2026 snapshot, dark desktop theme and light iPhone theme.
- Offline PDG data — read-only SQLite snapshot with SHA-256 integrity checks, first-launch staging, schema validation and lossless raw-field views.
- Search and navigation — particle names and aliases, Greek/LaTeX forms, MC numbers, PDG identifiers, topics, decays, references and free text.
- Review full-text search — search all 121 PDG Reviews offline, jump to the matching page, and see the section heading and table/figure caption for each hit.
- Entity pages — particles, topics, decay modes, series/properties and references, with summaries, all measurements, measurement values, footnotes, history, references and source records.
- Scientific data semantics —
PDG Average/PDG Fitare treated as distinct summary kinds; limits, ranges, confidence levels, scale factors and "used in average/fit" flags remain visible instead of being normalised away. - Math typesetting — inline PDG ASCII expressions, particle symbols, decay equations and units are rendered as mathematics where the source is unambiguous; otherwise the original text is preserved.
- History and trends — edition-by-edition summary values and a trend chart with asymmetric errors.
- Notes — local Markdown notes with anchors, backlinks, collections, tags, search, JSON/Markdown export/import, conflict protection, and a picker shared by every "add to note" action.
- Tags — filter, browse, rename and delete tags across all notes.
- Full backup — one ZIP with settings, favorites, notes, highlight anchors and cached review PDFs; import auto-detects the format and merges safely. On mobile, export opens the system share sheet.
- Literature — local reference metadata, INSPIRE search, BibTeX/cite-key lookup and a Zotero local bridge.
- Zotero index (desktop only) — an explicit, manually refreshed local cache of the Zotero library makes INSPIRE result matching fast and avoids one lookup per row.
- PDG reviews — on-demand PDF cache, selective cache cleanup, PDF text highlights stored as local notes with review anchors, and an annotation sidebar. Highlights are searchable, taggable and included in note export.
- PDF highlights are notes — each highlight creates a normal local note anchored to the review, so search, tags, backlinks, export and the recycle bin apply without a second annotation database.
- Desktop workspace — independently collapsible left outlines and context sidebars, draggable dividers, resizable panes and a compact mobile layout.
- Bilingual UI — Chinese and English interface with system/light/dark themes.
- Update check — a background release check plus a manual Check for updates action in Settings → About; it opens the download page.
- macOS 12 or later (universal; verified on macOS 15.6 Apple Silicon).
- iOS/iPadOS 15 or later.
- Android 7.0+ (API 24) for the preview APK.
A released build bundles the PDG snapshot. Building from source additionally requires Flutter/Xcode and the snapshot; those are contributor requirements, documented in BUILDING.md.
Source builders can download the exact snapshot used here:
Open the latest release.
-
macOS 12+ (universal): download
Particle-Library-*-macOS-universal.dmg(or the.zip). It is ad-hoc signed, not notarized. VerifySHA256SUMS.txtfirst.If macOS blocks the first launch (Gatekeeper), use one of these:
Right-click the app → Open → Openor:
System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open AnywayThe app is not notarized, so this prompt is expected. Do not disable Gatekeeper globally.
-
iPhone/iPad (TestFlight beta): join the public beta at testflight.apple.com/join/my27SMAt.
- Install TestFlight from the App Store.
- Open the join link on the iPhone/iPad and tap Accept.
- Install Particle Library from TestFlight and open it.
Requires iOS/iPadOS 15+ and an Apple ID. iOS is currently distributed through TestFlight only; builds expire after 90 days. This is a pre-release beta. This TestFlight link covers iPhone/iPad; macOS and Android are distributed through GitHub Releases.
-
Android 7.0+ (API 24): one signed APK for arm64 phones/tablets:
Particle-Library-*-Android-arm64-v8a.apk(32-bit devices are no longer built). See Android build notes.Android 0.2.0 and later use a new signing key. The 0.1.x key was lost, so Android treats 0.2.x as a different app and will not install it over 0.1.x. 0.2.x builds can be updated in place. Before uninstalling: in 0.1.x open Settings → Data → Export full backup; uninstall the old app, install the current 0.2.x build, then import that backup. Uninstalling without a backup deletes the local notes, and Android auto-backup is off.
-
Windows/Linux/web: not built for this release.
The macOS app bundles the PDG snapshot; the release build is self-contained for
end users. Source builders download
pdgall-2026.0.sqlite
directly from the official PDG API page.
The bundled snapshot is the official PDG file; the app verifies its pinned
SHA-256 before opening it. The checksum and build steps are documented in
assets/README.md. The app also ships two separate,
read-only derived assets:
pdg_notes_2026.sqlite— additional pdgLive enrichment: entry summaries and old-name notes, the 209 pdgLive-related references with INSPIRE record IDs and cite keys, citation links, entry-to-review links, summary “See also” particle links, and particle-status marks (1–4 stars from the baryon group pages, established•bullets from the meson group pages);review_index_2026.sqlite— a page-level full-text index built from the 121 PDG Review PDFs.
The 209 references are those cited by the pdgLive notes. For other official references, the app fetches BibTeX/cite keys from INSPIRE on demand.
The short macOS path (verified):
# Download the official snapshot first; see assets/README.md:
# curl -LO https://pdg.lbl.gov/2026/api/pdgall-2026.0.sqlite
# mv pdgall-2026.0.sqlite assets/
flutter pub get
flutter test
flutter build macos --release
open "build/macos/Build/Products/Release/Particle Library.app"flutter analyze
flutter testThe test suite covers the snapshot contract, display semantics, math parsing, notes/tags, PDF annotation coordinates and persistence, Zotero cache parsing, and UI helpers. Tests run offline by default; live-service tests are opt-in.
- The PDG snapshot is read-only and checksum-verified.
- Notes live in a separate SQLite database in the app support directory; settings, favorites and recent searches live in a JSON file there.
- The Zotero index also lives in the app support directory.
- Review PDFs are downloaded from the PDG website on demand.
- Zotero is accessed read-only through its local API at
http://127.0.0.1:23119; the Zotero index is updated only when you press the button in Settings. - On macOS/Android, update checks contact jsDelivr, raw.githubusercontent.com and api.github.com; they do not auto-install anything. On iOS, updates are delivered through TestFlight or the App Store.
- No telemetry, analytics or account service is used, and none is planned.
lib/ Flutter application
test/ unit and widget tests
assets/ icons/theme assets; the PDG snapshot is supplied separately
macos/ macOS runner
ios/ iOS runner
android/ Android runner and release signing
tool/ release/packaging helper scripts
docs/ build, release and user documentation
If you use Particle Library in academic work, please cite the latest version of the Review of Particle Physics by the Particle Data Group:
F. Takahashi et al. (Particle Data Group),
Review of Particle Physics,
Int. J. Mod. Phys. A 41, 2630011 (2026).
https://doi.org/10.1142/S0217751X26300115
This app also has a DOI which always resolves to the latest archived version:
Guo, Feng-Kun. Particle Library.
Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23460981
GitHub also displays this metadata from CITATION.cff.
- Documentation index
- Build instructions
- Android notes
- Platform support
- Licensing notes
- Update checks
- Releasing
- Privacy policy
Build, platform, release, licensing, update and privacy docs are in English; the user README is bilingual.
- Application code: Mozilla Public License 2.0 (MPL-2.0); see LICENSE. Source: https://github.com/fkguo/Particle-Library. Copyright 2026 Particle Library contributors.
- PDG data snapshot: CC BY 4.0, with attribution to the Particle Data Group. The MPL-2.0 license does not cover the data.
- PDG review PDFs: downloaded from the PDG on demand and subject to PDG's terms.
- Third-party packages: see THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.
Particle Library is an independent project. PDG data are used under CC BY 4.0 with attribution.