Citation metrics

All metrics are from 2025. Some metrics are not yet available for PRX Energy, PRX Life, PRX Intelligence, and APS Open Science, due to their recent launch and ongoing indexing in external databases.

Decision times

All metrics are from 2025. APS continually works to improve its editorial and publishing operations to provide authors with timely decisions and an overall seamless experience.

Metrics definitions

Published Papers

Number of research papers (regular articles, letters, reviews, perspectives, etc.) published in the previous calendar year. (Source: American Physical Society)

Total Citations

Total number of citations the journal received in the previous calendar year. (Source: Clarivate)

Journal Impact Factor™

The Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is approximately the average number of citations received in a given year by research papers published in the two preceding years. It is calculated by dividing the total number of citations in a year to all items published in the journal during the previous two years by the number of research papers published in that period. When interpreting the JIF, it is important to recognize its limitations. As an average metric, the JIF may be less meaningful in cases of highly skewed citation distributions. Furthermore, it can present challenges when comparing journals across different disciplines, article types (e.g., research articles vs. reviews), and journal sizes. (Source: Clarivate)

CiteScore™

A journal's CiteScore is the average number of citations received in the last four calendar years by all document types published in the journal during the same period. (Source: Scopus Elsevier)

h5-index

A journal's h5-index is the h-index for papers published in the journal in the last 5 calendar years. It is the largest number h5 such that h5 papers published in the journal in the last 5 calendar years have been cited at least h5 times each. A journal with a high h5-index publishes many exceptionally highly cited, outstanding papers. (Source: Google Scholar)

Normalized Eigenfactor®

The Normalized Eigenfactor score is a measure of the influence of academic journals. It is part of the Eigenfactor metrics, which look at how important a journal is in a network of all journals by considering not only the number of times it is cited but also the source journals of those citations. This is analogous to the Eigenvector Centrality in network theory. The Normalized Eigenfactor is adjusted so that the average journal in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) scores a normalized Eigenfactor score of 1. Hence, a Normalized Eigenfactor score of 10 means that a journal is 10 times more influential than the average journal in JCR. (Source: Clarivate)

SJR

The SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) is a network-based citation metric, analogous to the normalized Eigenfactor. It measures the influence of a journal by calculating a weighted average of the number of citations received in a given year by research papers published by the journal during the three preceding years. The weighting of citations is done iteratively so that citations from prestigious (well-connected) journals receive greater weight. The SJR is subject-independent and normalized so that the average journal has an SJR score of 1. The SJR differs from the Eigenfactor in the number of journals used in the network, the time window of the citation counts, and the extent of counting self-citations for each journal. (Source: SCImago)

Downloads

Number of downloads in the first year after publication for all papers published in the year before the previous calendar year. Counts include PDF and HTML downloads but exclude landing‑page views. Download totals are adjusted to remove duplicates and bot activity. (Source: American Physical Society)

1st decision before review (days)

Median number of days from submission to the initial editorial decision to either send the manuscript for peer review or decline it, in the previous calendar year (direct submissions only). (Source: American Physical Society)

1st decision after review (days)

Median number of days from submission to the first editorial decision after peer review, in the previous calendar year (direct submissions only). (Source: American Physical Society)

Submission to acceptance (days)

Median number of days from submission to acceptance in the previous calendar year (direct submissions only). (Source: American Physical Society)

Submission to publication (days)

Median number of days from submission to online publication in the previous calendar year (direct submissions only). (Source: American Physical Society)