About 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.
2011 JCR Data
Impact Factor: 7.370
5-Year Impact Factor: 7.013
Total Cites: 335,444
Immediacy Index: 2.147
Cited Half-life: 7.8
2011 Eigenfactor® Metrics
Eigenfactor® Score: 1.14463
Article Influence® Score: 3.511
2012 Publication Numbers
Number of articles: 3995
Number of pages: 19,343
2013 Publication Projections
Number of articles: 4050
Number of pages: 20,000
2013 Publication Frequency
Volumes 110, 111 (52 issues)
2013 Subscription Rates
APS Members
Institutional Subscriptions
2012 and 2013 CD-ROM Editions
CD-ROMs are available with a paid journal subscription.
ISSN
0031-9007 (print)
1079-7114 (online)
1092-0145 (CD-Rom)
Article Number
PRL is published electronically one article at a time. Articles are identified by volume number and a six-digit article number (instead of volume and page number), for example, Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 015702 (2001). This format allows articles to be fully citable as soon as they are published electronically, while maintaining the same identifier for both the electronic and print version. More information.
Abstracting/Indexing Includes
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, World Aluminum Abstracts.
Features for Authors
- Free Color Online - There is no charge for color figures in our online journals. (For print journals there is an additional per figure charge. More information.)
- Open Access - Authors of accepted manuscripts may choose to pay an article-processing charge whereby their work is made open access, i.e., available to all readers at no cost and without a subscription, upon publication. Such articles are published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (CC-BY), the most permissive of the CC licenses, which permits authors and others to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt the work, provided that proper credit is given.
- Online Manuscript Submission - Online submission of manuscripts via the web.
- Online Manuscript Status Check - The Author Status Inquiry System (ASIS) allows authors of manuscripts under consideration by our journals to obtain immediate information on the status of their papers electronically.
- For papers that have been accepted for publication, information about their status in the production process is available via a service maintained by the production vendor. A link to this service is provided as part of the information provided by ASIS for such papers.
- Native Language Author Name Display - Chinese, Japanese, and Korean authors can choose to have their names displayed in their own language.
- Forms and Memos - Direct access to journal-related forms and memos.
Features for Readers
- Editors' Suggestions - Marked papers that the editors hope will lead readers to explore other areas of physics. Please see our Announcement PRL 98, 010001 (2007).
- Email ToC Alerts - Receive table of contents email alerts as new journal issues are complete.
- RSS Feeds - Subscribe to a variety of Editor-selected cross-journal feeds as well as individual journal RSS feeds.
- Accepted Papers Lists - Access listings of recently accepted papers in advance of publication
- Single Article Purchases - Nonsubscribers can purchase journal articles in PDF format directly from links on the abstract page.
- Article Packs - For APS members, Article Packs allow flexible online access to key research articles spanning all of Physical Review.
- Free Access to Some Content:
- Browsing the Tables of Contents (PDF and HTML), viewing abstracts, or searching for articles does not require a subscription.
- Open Access - Authors of accepted manuscripts may choose to pay an article-processing charge whereby their work is made open access, i.e., available to all readers at no cost and without a subscription, upon publication. Such articles are published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (CC-BY), the most permissive of the CC licenses, which permits authors and others to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt the work, provided that proper credit is given.
