Physical Review Letters
Academic journal in physics
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Physical Review Letters (PRL), established in 1958, is a peer-reviewed, scientific journal that is published 52 times per year by the American Physical Society. The journal is considered one of the most prestigious in the field of physics. Over a quarter of Physics Nobel Prize-winning papers between 1995 and 2017 were published in it.[1]
- Rafael Fernandes
- Robert Garisto
- Abhishek Agarwal
- Serena Dalena
- Samindranath Mitra
| Discipline | Physics |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Edited by |
|
| Publication details | |
| History | 1958–present |
| Publisher | |
| Frequency | Weekly |
| partial | |
| License | CC-BY 4.0 International license |
| 9.4 (2025) | |
| Standard abbreviations | |
| ISO 4 | Phys. Rev. Lett. |
| Indexing | |
| CODEN | PRLTAO |
| ISSN | 0031-9007 (print) 1079-7114 (web) |
| LCCN | 59037543 |
| OCLC no. | 1715834 |
CD-ROM issue | |
| ISSN | 1092-0145 |
| Links | |
PRL is published both online and as a print journal. Its focus is on short articles ("letters") for a broad readership.[2] The Lead Editor (main science advisor) is Rafael Fernandes. The Chief Editor (responsible for the journal content[3]), is Robert Garisto.[4][5]
History
The journal was created in 1958, by Samuel Goudsmit, who was then the editor of Physical Review, the American Physical Society's primary journal. He turned the Letters to the Editor section of Physical Review into a new standalone flagship journal: Physical Review Letters. It was the first journal intended for the rapid publication of short articles, a format that eventually became popular in many other fields.[6]
Notable articles
- 1964 PRL symmetry breaking papers
- First report of a functional scanning tunneling microscope (1982)[7]
- Invention of the atomic force microscope (1986)[8]
- First direct observation of gravitational waves (2016)[9]
- A list of PRLs cited for recent Nobel prizes.
Scope
PRL covers all areas of physics and related topics. The journal is divided into the following sections:[4]
- Quantum Information, Science, and Technology
- Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Gravitation
- Particles and Fields
- Nuclear Physics
- Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
- Physics of Fluids, Earth & Planetary Science, and Climate
- Plasma and Solar Physics, Accelerators and Beams
- Condensed Matter and Materials
- Statistical Physics; Classical, Nonlinear, and Complex Systems
- Polymers, Chemical Physics, Soft Matter, Biological Physics
A section before the table of contents highlights a small number of particularly notable articles in each edition.[10][11]
Journal ranking summary
The following table presents the most recent journal ranking metrics for Physical Review Letters based on data from Scopus and Web of Science categories.
Journal ranking summary (2023) [12]
| Source | Category | Rank | Percentile | Quartile |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scopus | General Physics and Astronomy in Physics and Astronomy | 13/243 | 94.65 | Q1 |
| Web of Science (IF) | Physics, Multidisciplinary | 9/112 | 91.96 | Q1 |
| Web of Science (JCI) | Physics, Multidisciplinary | 7/112 | 93.75 | Q1 |
Abstracting, indexing, and impact factor
Physical Review Letters is indexed in the following bibliographic databases:[4]
- Chemical Abstracts
- Computer & Control Abstracts
- Current Physics Index
- Electrical & Electronics Index
- Energy Research Abstracts
- GeoRef
- INSPEC
- International Aerospace Abstracts
- Mathematical Reviews
- Medline
- Metals Abstracts
- Nuclear Science Abstracts
- Physics Abstracts
- PubSCIENCE
- SPIN
- World Aluminum Abstracts