Definitions

Physical Constants

Quantity Symbol Value
Speed of light in vacuum c 2.998×108  m s-1
Planck’s constant h 4.136×1024  GeV s
Planck’s constant reduced h/2π 6.582×1025 GeV s
c 1.973×1016 GeV m
197.3 MeV fm
(c)2 3.894×1032 GeV2 m2
Electron charge (magnitude) e 1.602×1019 C
Fine structure constant αe2/4πε0c 7.297×103=1/137.04
Electron mass me 0.511 MeV/c2
Proton mass mp 1.00728 u
0.9383 GeV/c2
Neutron mass mn 1.00866 u
0.9396 GeV/c2
W boson mass MW 80.40 GeV/c2
Z boson mass MZ 91.19 Gev/c2
Fermi coupling constant GF/(c)3 1.166×105 GeV-2
Other useful quantities e2/4πε0 1.440 MeV fm

Conversion Factors

1 eV = 1.602×1019 J = 11605 K 1 eV/c2 = 1.783×1036 kg
1 fermi 1 fm = 1015 m 1 barn 1b = 1028m2
1 u = 931.5 MeV/c2

Natural Units When using natural units, where =c=1 then the following conversion factors can be useful.

Times 1 GeV-1 = 6.58×1025 s
Length 1 GeV-1 = 0.197 fm
Cross-section 1 GeV-2 = 0.389 mb