Physical Review Letters

Physical Review Letters
Title	Physical Review Letters
Abbreviation	Phys. Rev. Lett.
Discipline	Physics
Editor	Reinhardt B. Schuhmann
Publisher	American Physical Society
Country	United States
History	1958–present
Frequency	Weekly
Openaccess	Hybrid
Impact	12.5
ISSN	0031-9007
EISSN	1079-7114
Website	https://journals.aps.org/prl/
CODEN	PRLTAO

Physical Review Letters. Established in 1958 by the American Physical Society, it is a premier peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes short, high-impact research letters across all fields of physics. It is renowned for its rigorous editorial standards and rapid dissemination of groundbreaking discoveries, serving as a critical communication channel for the global physics community. The journal's weekly publication schedule and selective acceptance criteria have made it one of the most prestigious and widely cited venues in the physical sciences.

History and background

The journal was launched in July 1958 under the leadership of Samuel Goudsmit, who served as its first editor, as a rapid-publication companion to the established Physical Review series. Its creation was driven by the post-World War II expansion of physics research, particularly in areas like particle physics and condensed matter physics, which demanded faster dissemination of significant results than the traditional journal format allowed. The founding was influenced by the success of similar rapid-communication journals in Europe, such as Physics Letters, and was supported by key figures within the American Physical Society like W.V. Houston and Karl K. Darrow. Over the decades, it has maintained its core mission while adapting to the digital age, introducing online submission in the 1990s and becoming a cornerstone of the APS Physics publishing platform.

Scope and content

The journal covers seminal advances in all core and interdisciplinary areas of physics, including but not limited to astrophysics, atomic physics, biophysics, chemical physics, computational physics, cosmology, fluid dynamics, geophysics, materials science, mathematical physics, mechanics, nanotechnology, nuclear physics, optics, plasma physics, quantum information science, statistical mechanics, and string theory. It publishes concise "Letters" that report on original, urgent, and broadly important research, often featuring groundbreaking experimental results, theoretical predictions, or novel methodologies. Content typically includes discoveries related to phenomena like high-temperature superconductivity, the Higgs boson, gravitational waves, topological insulators, and advances in quantum computing, as confirmed by institutions like CERN, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, and IBM.

Editorial process and peer review

The editorial process is overseen by a team of professional editors, including the Editor-in-Chief, who is a distinguished physicist, and is supported by an international board of Associate Editors specializing in various subfields. Manuscripts undergo a stringent single-blind peer review process, where reviewers are selected for their expertise by the editorial team, often including researchers from major facilities like Fermilab, Max Planck Institute, or Stanford University. The criteria for acceptance prioritize scientific urgency, fundamental importance, and broad interest to the physics community, with a typical acceptance rate below 30%. The journal is known for its rapid decision timeline, aided by an electronic submission system, and maintains high ethical standards in line with guidelines from the Committee on Publication Ethics.

Impact and influence

It is consistently ranked among the most influential journals in physics, with a very high impact factor and Eigenfactor score, reflecting its extensive citation in subsequent research published in journals like Science, Nature, and The Astrophysical Journal. Its articles frequently report discoveries that lead to Nobel Prizes, such as those awarded for the fractional quantum Hall effect, the accelerating expansion of the universe, and neutrino oscillations. The journal shapes global research directions, influences funding decisions by agencies like the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy, and is a key metric in academic evaluations at universities worldwide, including MIT, Harvard University, and the University of Tokyo.

Notable articles

The journal has published numerous landmark papers that have defined modern physics. These include the 1964 paper by Peter Higgs and others introducing the Higgs mechanism, the 1986 report by Karl Alexander Müller and Johannes Georg Bednorz on high-temperature superconductivity in copper oxide perovskites, and the 1998 publication by the Super-Kamiokande collaboration presenting evidence for neutrino mass. Other seminal works include the 2015 announcement of the first direct detection of gravitational waves by LIGO from a binary black hole merger and key advances in quantum teleportation by groups like Anton Zeilinger's team. These articles are often among the most cited in the history of the physical sciences.

Related publications

It is the flagship rapid-communication journal of the American Physical Society's family of publications, which includes the longer-form Physical Review series split into specialized sections like Physical Review A (Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics), Physical Review B (Condensed Matter and Materials Physics), Physical Review C (Nuclear Physics), Physical Review D (Particles, Fields, Gravitation, and Cosmology), and Physical Review E (Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics). Other related APS journals include Reviews of Modern Physics, which publishes comprehensive review articles, and Physical Review Applied, focusing on applied research. Competitors and complementary journals include Nature Physics, Science, Physics Letters, and the PNAS.

Category:American Physical Society academic journals Category:Physics journals Category:English-language journals Category:Publications established in 1958 Category:Weekly journals