Physics and Astronomy Classification Scheme® (PACS)

The current (2008) PACS scheme is provided in various formats:

HTML
ASCII
Alphabetic Index
Special Edition (contains embedded mapping instructions for codes deleted from PACS 2006)

General Information

The Physics and Astronomy Classification Scheme® (PACS) was developed by the American Institute of Physics (AIP) and has been used in Physical Review since 1975 to identify fields and sub-fields of physics. It is used in a variety of ways, for example, in the online journals as a tool in searching for articles by subject. PACS is arranged hierarchically, by subdivision of the whole spectrum of subject matter in physics- and astronomy-related sciences into segments and then repeating the process of subdivision down to four levels.

If you are new to the PACS scheme, or would like further information, it is available here at AIP.

If you have comments about the PACS scheme, or want to suggest changes or point out errors, please use the feedback form.

Earlier versions of PACS, no longer used for current papers: