In this article we study physical measures for $\operatorname {C}^{1+\alpha }$ partially hyperbolic diffeomorphisms with a mostly expanding center. We show that every diffeomorphism with a mostly expanding center direction exhibits a geometrical-combinatorial structure, which we call skeleton, that determines the number, basins and supports of the physical measures. Furthermore, the skeleton allows us to describe how physical measures bifurcate as the diffeomorphism changes under $C^1$ topology.

Moreover, for each diffeomorphism with a mostly expanding center, there exists a $C^1$ neighbourhood, such that diffeomorphism among a $C^1$ residual subset of this neighbourhood admits finitely many physical measures, whose basins have full volume.

We also show that the physical measures for diffeomorphisms with a mostly expanding center satisfy exponential decay of correlation for any Hölder observes. In particular, we prove that every $C^2$ , partially hyperbolic, accessible diffeomorphism with 1-dimensional center and nonvanishing center exponent has exponential decay of correlations for Hölder functions.