Physical Review Fluids

Our reviewers play a pivotal role in ensuring integrity and quality in our publications, and we deeply value the commitments and efforts of every reviewer.

“How elasticity affects bubble pinch-off” Coen Verschuur (University of Twente) Phys. Rev. Fluids 11, 073302 Free Registration

The six new studies present high-quality findings at the intersection of AI, machine learning, and the physical sciences.

“From Oblique-Wave Forcing to Streak Reinforcement: A Perturbation-Based Frequency-Response Framework.”
Mihailo Jovanović (University of Southern California).
Phys. Rev. Fluids 11, 063901

“Electrostatics Slows Down the Breakup of Liquid Bridges on Solid Surfaces.” Salar Farrokhi (Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany).
 Phys. Rev. Fluids 11, 054002

The policy allows authors and reviewers to use AI tools and establishes boundaries to preserve human oversight and accountability.

“Ray-tracing Image Simulations of Transparent Objects with Complex Shape and Inhomogeneous Refractive Index.” Claudiu Stan (Rutgers University). Phys. Rev. Fluids 11, 044908

For the first time, we’re offering perpetual rights as an optional enhancement to your APS All subscription. Own the most influential physics research for years to come with Frontlist Perpetual Rights.

Ten high-quality studies by authors from around the world have found a home in the American Physical Society’s new community-driven, open access journal.

“Stability of Propagating Plane Inertial Waves in Rotating Fluids.”
Valentin Skoutnev (Columbia University).
Phys. Rev. Fluids 11, 024802

PRFluids is celebrating its tenth year of publication by looking back on the many exceptional research papers published by the journal. Co-Lead Editors Beverley McKeon (Stanford University) and Eric Lauga (Cambridge University) will sit down with authors whose breakthrough results published in the journal shifted the paradigm of fluid dynamics. Their discussions will touch on many aspects of the research, including what made PRFluids the ideal venue for their critical findings.

”Extreme vertical drafts as drivers of Lagrangian dispersion in stably stratified turbulent flows.” Christian Reartes (University of Buenos Aires) et al. Moderator: Eckart Meiburg (UCSB). Phys. Rev. Fluids 11, 014501

APS has selected 156 Outstanding Referees for 2026 who have demonstrated exceptional work in the assessment of manuscripts published in the Physical Review journals. A full list of the Outstanding Referees is available online.

“Grooves spacing govern water retention during condensation.” Presenter: Matteo Leonard (University of Liège) et al. Moderator: François Gallaire (EPFL, Switzerland). Phys. Rev. Fluids 10, 114001

“Tracking the Rotation of Light Magnetic Particles in Turbulence.” Presenter: Chunlai Wu (Eindhoven University of Technology) et al. Moderator: Guido Boffetta (University of Turin). Phys. Rev. Fluids 10, 114903

APS Open Science will provide a community-driven platform that broadens recognition for high-quality physics research across all stages of discovery.

“Modeling Complex Particle Suspensions: Perspectives on the Rigid Multiblob Method.”
Presenter: Blaise Delmotte (LadHyX, France), et al. Moderator: Ehud Yariv (Technion).
Phys. Rev. Fluids 10, 100701

PRX Intelligence will publish high-impact research on artificial intelligence and machine learning that advances the physical sciences.

“Machine Learning in Fluid Dynamics: A Critical Assessment.” Presenter: Kunihiko “Sam” Taira (UCLA). Moderator: Steven Brunton (University of Washington). Phys. Rev. Fluids 10, 090701

We recognize that the ongoing U.S. government shutdown is affecting many in the scientific community, including authors and reviewers of the Physical Review journals, by delaying projects, disrupting funding, and creating uncertainty.

Three APS members have received the prize for experiments with a handheld system that revealed quantum physics in action.

After announcing their new result at the Global Physics Summit in Anaheim, CA, the DESI collaboration submitted their Data Release 2 papers to Physical Review D, which are now published.

See the Special Issue here.

“Mechanism of Stochastic Resonance in Viscoelastic Channel Flow.” Presenters: Yuke Li (Harbin Engineering University) and Victor Steinberg (Weizmann Institute of Science). Moderator: Georgios Rigas (Imperial College at London). Phys. Rev. Fluids 10, L081901

“Laboratory Modeling of Moist Convection Using a Reactive Fluid.” Presenter: Valentin Dorel, CNRS and Aix-Marseille Université. Moderator: Daphné Lemasquerier, University of St Andrews. Phys. Rev. Fluids 10, 053505

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

The ‘About’ pages for each APS journal have recently been updated with new data from the 2024 Journal Citation Reports (2025, Clarivate), CiteScore (Scopus Elsevier) and SCImago Journal Rank (SCImago). View the metrics of the entire library on the Journal Metrics page.

“Fish Schools in a Vertical Diamond Formation: Effect of Vertical Spacing on Hydrodynamic Interactions.” Presenter: Alec Menzer, University of Virginia. Moderator: Sunghwan “Sunny” Jung, Cornell University. Phys. Rev. Fluids 10, 043104

The American Physical Society proudly announces the launch of The Physics Archive, a comprehensive digital library that covers 120 years of groundbreaking research from the world-renowned Physical Review journals.

“Optimal trajectories for Bayesian olfactory search in turbulent flows: The low information limit and beyond.” Presenter: Robin Heinonen, University of Genova. Moderator: Emmanuel Villermaux, Aix-Marseille Université. Phys. Rev. Fluids 10, 044601

The American Physical Society has received the leading score among publishers participating in the Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics (SCOAP³) in the first evaluation of open science practices in scholarly publishing. With high marks in elements like accessibility, data availability, and article metadata, the Society earned a total score of 20.18 out of 25 — almost double that of the next highest scorer.

“Structural uncertainty assessment for fire-engulfed objects in crosswind: Establishing credibility for a multiphysics wall-modeled large-eddy simulation paradigm.” Stefan P. Domino, Sarah Scott, and Josh Hubbard. Phys. Rev. Fluids 9, 104401

APS has selected 160 Outstanding Referees for 2025 who have demonstrated exceptional work in the assessment of manuscripts published in the Physical Review journals. A full list of the Outstanding Referees is available online.

Andreas (Andy) Acrivos passed away on February 17, 2025.  A giant in the field of fluid mechanics, Acrivos leaves a singular technical legacy, an extensive academic lineage, and a distinguished impact in the fluid mechanics community.

The recipients of the 41st François Naftali Frenkiel Award for Fluid Mechanics are Callum Cuttle, Liam C. Morrow, and Christopher W. MacMinn for their paper “Compression-driven viscous fingering in a radial Hele-Shaw cell” which was published in Physical Review Fluids 8, 113904 (2023).

We are excited to announce updates to our journals platform, offering enhanced accessibility features designed to provide a more inclusive experience.

Physical Review Fluids is recruiting the next Early Career Board Member to help engage readership through social media.

Zixuan Yang (Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences) “Numerical investigation on the heat transfer in wind turbulence over breaking waves.”
Phys. Rev. Fluids 9, 084606 (2024)
Moderated by Nicholas T. Ouellette (Stanford University)
Video Recording

The Physical Review journals would like to congratulate John J. Hopfield of Princeton University and Geoffrey E. Hinton of the University of Toronto for sharing the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics. The prize was awarded for “foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.”

The policy requires authors to explain where research data can be found starting Sept. 4.

Clarivate Analytics has released the 2023 Journal Citation Reports, which provides journal impact factors and rankings for over 11,000 scholarly journals.

We are greatly saddened by the sudden passing on April 14 of Keith Julien, Chair and Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Fellow of the American Physical Society, and a member of the Editorial Board of Physical Review Fluids.

APS has selected 156 Outstanding Referees for 2024 who have demonstrated exceptional work in the assessment of manuscripts published in the Physical Review journals. A full list of the Outstanding Referees is available online.

The recipients of the 40th François Naftali Frenkiel Award for Fluid Mechanics are Aliénor Rivière, Daniel J. Ruth, Wouter Mostert, Luc Deike, and Stéphane Perrard for their paper “Capillary driven fragmentation of large gas bubbles in turbulence” which was published in Physical Review Fluids 7, 083602 (2022).

Offer includes Journal Access and waived article publication charges to Scientists in 100+ Lower and Middle Income Countries

The 75th Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society (APS) − Division of Fluid Mechanics was held in Indianapolis, IN from November 20–22, 2022.

APS congratulates the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics recipients Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, and Anne L’Huillier “for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter.”

APS Editor in Chief, Randall D. Kamien, discusses the importance and impact of journal reviewers.

It is our pleasure to introduce the first published articles from PRX Life, the American Physical Society’s new interdisciplinary, open-access journal exclusively for quantitative biological research.

The Perspective was invited based on talks given at an online workshop hosted by the Banff International Research Station in February 2022.

The American Physical Society (APS), publisher of the Physical Review journals, is joining more than 20,000 individuals and organizations across 160 countries in a commitment to improve how researchers and their contributions to the scientific record are evaluated. APS is proud to mark the 10th anniversary of the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) by officially signing on to the international initiative.

View an interview with PRX Life Lead Editor Margaret Gardel and Managing Editor Serena Bradde from the 2023 APS March Meeting for more information on the journal.

APS has selected 153 Outstanding Referees for 2023 who have demonstrated exceptional work in the assessment of manuscripts published in the Physical Review journals. A full list of the Outstanding Referees is available online.

Mark your calendars: PRX Life, the first interdisciplinary journal focused exclusively on biological physics and quantitative life science research, will officially begin accepting submissions March 20, 2023.

The recipients of the 39th François Naftali Frenkiel Award for Fluid Mechanics are Nikhil Desai and Sébastien Michelin for their paper “Instability and self-propulsion of active droplets along a wall,” which was published in Physical Review Fluids 6, 114103 (2021).

APS is pleased to announce the launch of the newest Physical Review title, PRX Life. PRX Life will offer scientists from a broad range of disciplines—including physics, biology, chemistry, engineering, and medicine—a high impact, fully open access journal dedicated to publishing outstanding research at all scales of biological organization.

Join editors from Physical Review Fluids on November 10th, for an informative tutorial for current and prospective manuscript authors and referees. Registration is free.

After a break to in-person meetings in 2020 due to COVID-19, the 74th Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society (APS)–Division of Fluid Mechanics successfully resumed the in-person format to convene in Phoenix, AZ from November 21-23, 2021.

APS congratulates the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics recipients Alain Aspect, John Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger for their groundbreaking experiments using entangled quantum states, where two particles behave like a single unit even when separated. Their results clear the way for new technology based on quantum information.

The Perspective was invited from the organizers of a virtual workshop of the Princeton Center for Theoretical Sciences held in January 2021.

The American Physical Society (APS), along with AIP Publishing, IOP Publishing (IOPP), and Optica Publishing Group (formerly OSA), surveyed over 3,000 physical science researchers between December 2021 and January 2022 in an effort to understand their perspective on Open Access (OA) publishing. Their responses have been compiled into a report, which will help APS and other publishers better meet the publishing needs of the research community.

APS is now accepting nominations of members, including self-nominations, for the newly restructured role of APS Editor in Chief (EIC).

The wake behind a bluff body in the presence of a density gradient is characterized by competing effects of buoyancy, momentum, and ultimately viscosity as the flow decays. Consequently, there are a number of distinct flow regimes into which the wakes can be placed, and there is some interest in whether any given wake can be traced back to its source through interrogation of selected fluid mechanical properties in the wake.

APS has selected 146 Outstanding Referees for 2022 who have demonstrated exceptional work in the assessment of manuscripts published in the Physical Review journals. A full list of the Outstanding Referees is available online.

The recipients of the 38th François Naftali Frenkiel Award for Fluid Mechanics are Rodolfo Brandão and Ory Schnitzer for their paper “Spontaneous dynamics of two-dimensional Leidenfrost wheels,” which was published in Physical Review Fluids 5, 091601(R) (2020).

The American Physical Society (APS) is delighted to announce the appointment of David Scanlon, Professor of Computational Materials Design, University College London, United Kingdom, to the role of Lead Editor of PRX Energy, APS’s new, highly selective, open access journal covering energy science and technology. Professor Scanlon will serve as the inaugural Lead Editor of the journal, which will open for submissions December 7, 2021 and offer an introductory promotion in which all article publication charges (APCs) will be paid by APS through the end of 2022.

The Editors of Physical Review Fluids highlight the journal’s achievements, its editorial standards, and its special relationship with the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics (DFD).

APS congratulates the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics recipients Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann “for the physical modelling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming” and the other half to Giorgio Parisi “for the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales.”

Professor Parisi has authored several papers with Physical Review journals. A selection of relevant papers from Physical Review Letters and Reviews in Modern Physics have been made free-to-read.

Patrick Charbonneau, Eric I. Corwin, Giorgio Parisi, and Francesco Zamponi, Universal Microstructure and Mechanical Stability of Jammed Packings, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 205501 (2012).

M. Mézard, G. Parisi, N. Sourlas, G. Toulouse, and M. Virasoro, Nature of the Spin-Glass Phase, Phys. Rev. Lett. 52, 1156 (1984).

G. Parisi, Infinite Number of Order Parameters for Spin-Glasses, Phys. Rev. Lett. 43, 1754 (1979).

Paolo Rissone, Eric I. Corwin, and Giorgio Parisi, Long-Range Anomalous Decay of the Correlation in Jammed Packings, Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 038001 (2021).

Giorgio Parisi and Francesco Zamponi, Mean-field theory of hard sphere glasses and jamming, Rev. Mod. Phys. 82, 789 (2010).

Giorgio Parisi, Order Parameter for Spin-Glasses, Phys. Rev. Lett. 50, 1946 (1983).

The American Physical Society (APS) today released the details of its name change policy for the Physical Review journals. The policy is intended to make the world’s leading physics journals more inclusive and ensure authors retain ownership of prior work published under a different name.

As researchers increasingly apply machine learning tools to fluid mechanics problems, Associate Editors Michael Brenner and Petros Koumoutsakos offer guidance for papers submitted to Physical Review Fluids.

Beverley McKeon and Eric Lauga describe their vision as new Co-Lead Editors for Physical Review Fluids, which celebrates its fifth anniversary this year.

At the beginning of 2021, eight Physical Review journals began publishing Letters which are intended for the accelerated publication of important new results targeted to the specific readership of each journal.

APS has selected 151 Outstanding Referees for 2021 who have demonstrated exceptional work in the assessment of manuscripts published in the Physical Review journals. A full list of the Outstanding Referees is available online.

The Perspective was invited from the organizers of a Les Houches School of Physics meeting held in January 2019 with the intention of producing a road map of the outstanding challenges in environmental fluid mechanics.

APS has appointed Beverley McKeon (California Institute of Technology) and Eric Lauga (University of Cambridge) as Lead Editors for the Physical Review Fluids as of February 1, 2021. They take the helm following the journal’s founding Editors John Kim and Gary Leal.

The recipients of the 37th François Naftali Frenkiel Award for Fluid Mechanics are Matthew Butler, Finn Box, Thomas Robert, and Dominic Vella for their paper “Elasto-capillary adhesion: Effect of deformability on adhesion strength and detachment”.

Starting January 1, 2021, the Rapid Communications article type will be renamed to Letters. With this change, all eight Physical Review journals that had previously classified articles of the type “Rapid Communications” will adopt the practice of Physical Review Applied and now publish such articles as Letters.

APS Editor in Chief, Michael Thoennessen, discusses a new opportunity for communicating authors to include their pronouns together with their contact email in order to promote a more respectful, inclusive, and equitable environment.

The 37th Annual Gallery of Fluid Motion (GFM) was held at the American Physical Society (APS) Division of Fluid Dynamics Annual Meeting in Seattle, Washington November 23–26, 2019.

The American Physical Society is conducting an international search for a new Lead Editor of Physical Review Fluids. The Lead Editor will provide intellectual leadership and vision for editorial standards and policies, direct the journal, and lead its editorial board and staff of editors. Physical Review Fluids (PRFluids) is dedicated to publishing innovative research that will significantly advance the fundamental understanding of fluid dynamics. PRFluids is strongly supported by APS’s Division of Fluid Dynamics (DFD), and closely interacts with the DFD Executive Committee to expand its scope into emerging research areas of fluid dynamics.

The American Physical Society is conducting an international search for a new Lead Editor of Physical Review Fluids. The Lead Editor will provide intellectual leadership and vision for editorial standards and policies, direct the journal, and lead its editorial board and staff of editors.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has announced the recipients of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics, which has been awarded for discoveries about black holes, one of the most exotic phenomena in the universe. This year’s prize is awarded to Roger Penrose (University of Oxford), Reinhard Genzel (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, and University of California, Berkeley), and Andrea Ghez (University of California, Los Angeles).

APS and the Max Planck Gesellschaft (MPG) have finalized the terms of a strategic partnership that allows MPG authors to easily publish open access in all hybrid and gold Physical Review journals at no direct cost to authors. At the center of the collaboration is APS’s first “read and publish” pilot, covering the calendar year 2020, and building upon the long-standing relationship between APS and the Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL).

APS has selected 147 Outstanding Referees for 2020 that have demonstrated exceptional work in the assessment of manuscripts submitted to the Physical Review journals. A full list of the Outstanding Referees is available online.

The recipients of the 36th François Naftali Frenkiel Award for Fluid Mechanics are Thomasina Ball and Jerome Neufeld for their paper “Static and dynamic fluid-driven fracturing of adhered elastica”.

David Hu and Alexander Lee of the Georgia Institute of Technology, Brian Thurow of Auburn University and Ken Kiger of the University of Maryland introduce the 36th Annual Gallery of Fluid Motion and Summary of 19 Years of Winners (Atlanta, Georgia, USA 2018).

The Perspective was invited by the lead editors of Physical Review Fluids in anticipation of the Machine Learning Symposium to be held at the 2019 APS Division of Fluid Dynamics conference in Seattle, Washington.

APS congratulates the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics recipients James Peebles “for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology”, and Michael Mayor and Didier Queloz “for the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star.” Read more in this update from APS News.

APS has selected 143 Outstanding Referees for 2019 that have demonstrated exceptional work in the assessment of manuscripts submitted to the Physical Review journals. A full list of the Outstanding Referees is available online.

The recipients of the 35th François Naftali Frenkiel Award for Fluid Mechanics are Alberto Villois, Davide Proment, and Giorgio Krstulovic for their paper “Universal and nonuniversal aspects of vortex reconnections in superfluids”.

The first update to REVTeX since 2010 is now available. REVTeX 4.2 includes bug fixes, improved functionality, and support for more societies and journals. For more information, please visit the REVTeX home page.

The Perspective was invited from the organizers of an interdisciplinary workshop held at the Banff International Research Station in February 2018.

Nicole S. Sharp of FYFD in Denver, CO and Patrick D. Weidman of the University of Colorado Boulder introduce the 35th Annual Gallery of Fluid Motion (Denver, Colorado, USA, 2017).

APS congratulates the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics recipients Arthur Ashkin “for the optical tweezers and their application to biological systems,” and Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland “for their method of generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses.”

PhySH, APS’s physics classification scheme, is now publicly available under a Creative Commons CC0 license. Created to provide a fully open, high-quality classification scheme for the entire physics community, PhySH groups concepts into a flexible hierarchy that organizes content by topics.

As a service to our readers, we are formally marking a small number of papers published in Physical Review Fluids that the editors and referees find of particular interest, importance, or clarity.

As a service to the community, APS has made “Physics Physique физика” freely available online. This small journal published fewer than 100 articles between 1964-1968 and includes papers by many notable physicists, including J. S. Bell’s paper “On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen paradox.”

APS has selected 147 Outstanding Referees for 2018 that have demonstrated exceptional work in the assessment of manuscripts submitted to the Physical Review journals. A full list of the Outstanding Referees is available online.

The recipients of the 34th François Naftali Frenkiel Award for Fluid Mechanics are Charles Loussert, Anne Bouchaudy, and Jean-Baptiste Salmon for their paper “Drying dynamics of a charged colloidal dispersion in a confined drop”.

The Physical Review journals and Reviews of Modern Physics now make Corrections of minor errors in published papers.