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| PhysRevLett | |
|---|---|
| Title | Physical Review Letters |
| Discipline | Physics |
| Abbreviation | Phys. Rev. Lett. |
| Publisher | American Physical Society |
| Country | United States |
| Frequency | Weekly |
| History | 1958–present |
| Issn | 0031-9007 |
PhysRevLett
Physical Review Letters is a peer-reviewed scientific journal publishing short reports of significant fundamental research in physics. Founded in 1958, it is published by the American Physical Society and has played a central role in disseminating results from particle physics, condensed matter, quantum information, astrophysics, and atomic, molecular, and optical physics. Over decades it has intersected with the careers and works of figures such as Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, and institutions like CERN, Los Alamos National Laboratory, MIT, and Harvard University.
The journal was established during a period of postwar growth in physics that involved organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Bell Labs, Caltech, and Princeton University. Early editorial stewardship connected to editors and scientists like John Hasbrouck van Vleck, Samuel Goudsmit, Philip Morrison, and ties to policy actors including the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy. Landmark developments during the Cold War era, including research linked to Manhattan Project veterans and collaborations with Los Alamos National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, influenced editorial priorities. The journal adapted through technological and institutional changes involving arXiv, SPIRES, Inspire-HEP, and shifting publishing models involving entities such as Elsevier and Springer.
PhysRevLett's scope emphasizes concise reports of significant advances from contributors affiliated with universities and laboratories including Stanford University, University of Cambridge, University of California, Berkeley, Columbia University, Yale University, University of Tokyo, and Imperial College London. Editorial policy balances novelty, broad interest, and technical rigor, referencing standards practiced by organizations such as the Committee on Publication Ethics and modeled alongside journals like Science (journal), Nature (journal), Physical Review A, Physical Review B, and Reviews of Modern Physics. The journal's priorities reflect input from prize committees such as the Nobel Prize in Physics, Wolf Prize, Dirac Medal, and Breakthrough Prize, and its selection procedures interact with citation practices recognized by Institute for Scientific Information and Clarivate.
PhysRevLett issues weekly volumes circulated through institutional subscriptions at universities such as Oxford University, Cambridge University, University of Chicago, and laboratories including Fermilab, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, and DESY. The format emphasizes short "Letters" with structured abstracts and figures, comparable to formats used by Nature Physics and Science Advances. Access models have evolved with initiatives involving arXiv, institutional repositories at Max Planck Society, and open-access mandates from funders like the European Research Council, Wellcome Trust, and National Institutes of Health.
The journal has published milestone reports tied to discoveries and theoretical developments from researchers associated with Murray Gell-Mann, John Bardeen, Lev Landau, Peter Higgs, Yoichiro Nambu, Andrei Sakharov, Steven Weinberg, Sheldon Glashow, and experimental collaborations such as ATLAS experiment, CMS experiment, LIGO Scientific Collaboration, BICEP2, and Super-Kamiokande. Highly cited works include results underpinning the understanding of superconductivity, the quantum Hall effect, Bose–Einstein condensation, and entanglement experiments linked to teams at MIT, Harvard, University of Innsbruck, and NIST. The journal's influence is reflected in citations recorded by Web of Science, inclusion in prize-awarded bodies like the Nobel Committee, and historical recognition through retrospectives at institutions such as the American Institute of Physics.
PhysRevLett is indexed in bibliographic services such as Web of Science, Scopus, Inspire-HEP, Google Scholar, and CrossRef. Journal-level metrics are tracked by entities including Clarivate Analytics (Journal Citation Reports), SCImago, and Eigenfactor; article-level impact is visible through citation counts used by universities such as University College London and agencies like the National Science Foundation for assessment. The journal's impact factor and h-index have been compared with those of Nature, Science, Reviews of Modern Physics, and subfield journals such as Physical Review D and Physical Review Letters-adjacent titles.
The editorial structure involves professional editors, an editorial board comprised of academics from institutions such as ETH Zurich, University of California, Santa Barbara, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Tsinghua University, and rotating advisory boards with ties to societies like the American Physical Society and the European Physical Society. The peer review process solicits referees from networks including researchers at Princeton University, Cornell University, University of Michigan, Seoul National University, and large collaborations such as IceCube Neutrino Observatory. Decisions reflect referee reports and editor judgment, aligning with standards endorsed by bodies like the Committee on Publication Ethics.
The journal has faced critique and controversy over issues involving access policies debated with groups such as Open Access advocates, disputes over priority and retractions involving researchers at Stanford University and Harvard University, and editorial decisions scrutinized during high-profile episodes connected to results from collaborations like BICEP2 and OPERA experiment. Debates have involved stakeholders including the European Commission, Wellcome Trust, and academic consortia at Max Planck Society and Research Councils UK, touching on reproducibility, peer review transparency, and commercialization pressures tied to global publishers such as Elsevier and Springer Nature.
Category:Physics journals