Physical Review journals among top research publications in latest Journal Citation Reports

High rankings demonstrate the impact, reach, and influence of the American Physical Society’s journals.

The American Physical Society’s portfolio of peer-reviewed journals continues to rank among the top publications in physics, according to the 2024 Journal Citation Reports by Clarivate Analytics. The annual report assessed more than 22,000 academic journals across 250 research fields and gave high marks in impact, reach, and influence to the Physical Review journals across several categories.

Among this year’s highlights, Physical Review Letters remains the most-cited journal in multidisciplinary physics, Reviews of Modern Physics continues to have the highest impact factor in the multidisciplinary physics category, and 14 journals saw an increase in their impact factor. Notably, Physical Review X’s impact factor increased from 11.6 to 15.7 and PRX Quantum’s rose to 11.0 from 9.3, making it the highest-ranking primary research journal in the quantum science and technology category.

Many of the Physical Review journals also placed in the top quartile for impact factor in at least one category: Physical Review D (5.3), Physical Review E (2.4), Physical Review Letters (9.0), Physical Review Physics Education Research (3.6), Physical Review Research (4.2), Physical Review X (15.7), PRX Quantum (11.0), and Reviews of Modern Physics (44.8). Physical Review D and Physical Review Physics Education Research achieved this ranking in two categories, and PRX Quantum in three categories.

In terms of total citations, five Physical Review journals rank in the top 1% of all indexed journals, and nine are in the top 3%. Physical Review Letters leads this group as the ninth most-cited journal overall, followed by Physical Review B at 14 and Physical Review D at 27.

In a metric called the normalized eigenfactor, Physical Review Letters is once again the most-influential multidisciplinary physics journal, with a value indicating that it is 60 times more influential than the average scholarly journal. Physical Review B is ranked 45th in this metric and is 37 times more influential than the average journal, while Physical Review D is ranked 59th and is 33 times more influential than the average journal.

As a signatory of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, the American Physical Society recognizes that a journal’s impact factor is just one of several metrics that together provide a more comprehensive view of journal quality. That is why the Society provides other measurements like the h-5 index, CiteScore, and SJR on its Journal Metrics page.

The Society is grateful to the scientific community for supporting the Physical Review journals and contributing to these achievements.