About the Physical Review Journals

In 1913, the APS took over the operation of the Physical Review, which had been founded in 1893 at Cornell University. The Physical Review was followed by Reviews of Modern Physics in 1929, and by Physical Review Letters in 1958. Over the years, Physical Review has subdivided into five separate sections A, B, C, D, E, as the fields of physics proliferated and the number of submissions grew. Two online-only journals, Special Topics — Accelerators and Beams and Special Topics — Physics Education Research were launched in 1998 and 2005, respectively. In 2008, to assist readers in identifying exceptional research, APS launched Physics, a free, online publication containing commentaries, condensed review articles, and summaries of selected papers in Physical Review Letters and the Physical Review series.

The journals of the APS embody the mission of the Society "to advance and diffuse the knowledge of Physics." We strive to produce journals of the highest quality, and at the same time, to keep our journals accessible to researchers and students at institutions of all types and sizes, everywhere in the world, through ongoing efforts to reduce production costs and through policies such as tiered pricing and reduced-price or free subscriptions for developing countries.

A PDF of our Journals Brochure is available here.

Physical Review Letters

In the late 1950's, Editor Sam Goudsmit decided to collect the Letters to the Editor of the Physical Review into a new standalone journal entitled Physical Review Letters (PRL). PRL featured short, important papers from all branches of physics, and quickly assumed a place among the most prestigious publications in any scientific discipline. Today PRL is the world's foremost physics letters journal, providing rapid publication of short reports of significant fundamental research in all fields of physics. International in scope, the journal provides its diverse readership with weekly coverage of major advances in physics and cross disciplinary developments. PRL's topical sections are devoted to general physics (including statistical and quantum mechanics, quantum information, etc.), gravitation and astrophysics; elementary particles and fields; nuclear physics; atomic, molecular, and optical physics; nonlinear dynamics, fluid dynamics, classical optics; plasma and beam physics; condensed matter; and soft-matter, biological, and interdisciplinary physics. More information...

Reviews of Modern Physics

Reviews of Modern Physics (RMP) serves both students and senior researchers in a broad range of fields. Its review articles offer in-depth treatment of a research area, surveying recent work and providing an introduction that is aimed at physics graduate students and nonspecialists. These reviews also feature bibliographies that are of great value to the specialist. The journal's shorter Colloquia describe recent work of interest to all physicists, especially work at the frontiers of physics, which may have an impact on several different subfields. More information...

Physical Review A

Physical Review A (PRA) provides a dependable resource of worldwide developments in the rapidly evolving area of atomic, molecular and optical physics and related fundamental concepts. The journal contains articles on quantum mechanics including quantum information theory, atomic and molecular structure and dynamics, collisions and interactions (including interactions with surfaces and solids), clusters (including fullerenes), atomic and molecular processes in external fields, matter waves (including Bose-Einstein condensation) and quantum optics. New sections on quantum communication, computation, cryptography and matter waves are growing rapidly. More information...

Physical Review B

Physical Review B (PRB) is the largest and most comprehensive international journal specializing in condensed matter and materials physics. PRB appears monthly in two sections, B1 and B15; each section is further divided into two parts.

B1: Structure, phase transitions, ferroelectrics, nonordered systems, liquids, quantum solids, magnetism, superconductivity, superfluidity

B15: Electronic structure, photonic crystals, semiconductors, mesoscopic systems, surfaces, clusters, fullerenes, graphene nanoscience

More information...

Physical Review C

Physical Review C (PRC) contains research articles reporting experimental and theoretical results in all aspects of nuclear physics, including the nucleon-nucleon interaction, few-body systems, nuclear structure, nuclear reactions, relativistic nuclear collisions, hadronic physics and QCD, electroweak interaction, symmetries, and nuclear astrophysics. More information...

Physical Review D

Physical Review D (PRD), a leading journal in elementary particle physics, field theory, gravitation, and cosmology, appears monthly in two sections, D1 and D15:

D1: reports on experimental high-energy physics, phenomenologically oriented theory of particles and fields, cosmic ray physics, electroweak interactions, applications of QCD and lattice-gauge theory.

D15: covers general relativity, quantum theory of gravitation, cosmology, particle astrophysics, formal aspects of theory of particles and fields, general and formal development in gauge field theories and string theory.

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Physical Review E

Physical Review E (PRE), interdisciplinary in scope, focuses on many-body phenomena, including recent developments in quantum and classical chaos and soft matter physics. It has sections on statistical physics, equilibrium and transport properties of fluids, liquid crystals, complex fluids, polymers, chaos, fluid dynamics, plasma physics, classical physics, and computational physics. In addition, the journal features sections on two rapidly growing areas: biological physics and granular materials. More information...

Physical Review Special Topics - Accelerators and Beams

Physical Review Special Topics - Accelerators and Beams (PRST-AB), is a peer reviewed, purely electronic journal, distributed without charge to readers and funded by contributions from national laboratories. It covers the full range of accelerator science and technology: subsystem and component technologies, beam dynamics; accelerator applications; and design, operation, and improvement of accelerators used in science and industry. This includes accelerators for high energy and nuclear physics, synchrotron radiation production, spallation neutron sources, medical therapy, and intense beam applications. More information...

Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research

Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research (PRST-PER) is a peer reviewed electronic-only journal sponsored by The American Physical Society (APS), the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) and the APS Forum on Education. The journal covers the full range of experimental and theoretical research on the teaching and/or learning of physics. PRST-PER is distributed without charge and financed by publication charges to the authors or to the authors' institutions. The criteria for acceptance of articles include the high scholarly and technical standards of our other Physical Review journals. Authors may submit review articles, replication studies, descriptions of the development and use of new assessment tools, presentations of research techniques and methodology comparisons/critiques will be considered. More information...

Physical Review Online (PROLA)

PROLA is the Physical Review Online Archive that ensures the immediate and long-term accessibility of the journal content published by the American Physical Society (APS). More information...

Annual Index

As a free service to the community, we offer browsable author indexes. In general, we will provide separate indexes for each journal and a combined one for all of Physical Review, Letters, and Reviews of Modern Physics. A primary entry includes article title (special characters are transliterated), complete author list (except when there are more than 40 authors), collaboration name for large collaborations, PACS numbers, and proper bibliographic citation for the article. There is also a hyperlink to the article's online-journal abstract. Secondary entries under each author's name hyperlink to the main entry for the article.

Physics

Each week Physics highlights a few important papers from the family of Physical Review journals, with commentaries written by prominent physicists and designed to be understood by nonspecialists. Physics also features overviews of fields of strong current interest. Physics strives to bring new developments in all areas of physics to all physicists, including students. More information...

Physical Review Focus

Physical Review Focus is a free online service that provides brief explanations of selected research papers from Physical Review and Physical Review Letters at a level accessible to students and researchers in all fields of physics. The stories are written in the style of a news article, including color images and occasionally related videos. Each story provides a hyperlink to the abstract of the research paper featured. Focus serves as an excellent introduction to current research topics. More information...

Virtual Journals in Science and Technology

Virtual Journals are online publications that collect relevant papers from a broad range of physical science journals. The present series of five Virtual Journals offers researchers quick, convenient access to the latest developments in:

  • VJ of Nanoscale Science and Technology, Editor: David Awschalom, University of California, Santa Barbara, http://www.vjnano.org, ISSN: 1553-9644 (online)
  • VJ of Biological Physics Research, Editor: Robert H. Austin, Princeton University, http://www.vjbio.org, ISSN: 1553-9628 (online)
  • VJ of Quantum Information, Editor: David P. DiVincenzo, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, http://www.vjquantuminfo.org, ISSN: 1553-961X (online)
  • VJ of Applications of Superconductivity, Editor: John Clem, Iowa State University, http://www.vjsuper.org, ISSN: 1553-9636 (online)
  • VJ of Ultrafast Science, Editor: Philip Bucksbaum, University of Michigan, http://www.vjultrafast.org, ISSN: 1553-9601 (online)

More information...