Physical Review D
Physical Review D is a trusted journal for significant developments in elementary particle physics, field theory, gravitation, cosmology, astrophysics, and physics and cosmology-related astronomy.
Serving the Community
Launched in 1970, PRD is one of the longest-established journals dedicated to serving the high-energy physics community. As of January 1, 2018, PRD is part of the SCOAP3 consortium. All high-energy physics articles meeting the SCOAP3 criteria published since that date in PRD will be made available in open access format. PRD coordinates with other members of the Physical Review family of journals to serve new subspecialties as they develop.
PRD publishes detailed research articles as well as Letters, which are short accessible papers of particular importance. The journal has a flexible approach to article lengths and welcomes submission of longer papers that provide depth and authority in their subject areas.
By Scientists, For Scientists
Like all of the journals in the Physical Review family, PRD is shaped by researchers to serve the research community. This ensures that its mission, standards, and policies prioritize the needs of researchers and the broader scientific community; this commitment is reinforced by APS’s promise as a founding member of the Purpose-Led Publishing coalition.
PRD covers experimental and theoretical results in particle physics, field theory, gravitation, cosmology, astrophysics, and physics or cosmology-related astronomy, including:
- Particle physics experiments
- Electroweak interactions
- Strong interactions
- Lattice field theories, lattice QCD
- Beyond the standard model physics
- Phenomenological aspects of field theory, general methods
- Gravity, cosmology, cosmic rays
- Astrophysics, astronomy, and astroparticle physics
- General relativity
- Formal aspects of field theory, field theory in curved space
- String theory, quantum gravity, gauge/gravity duality
Submitted manuscripts should meet the following criteria:
- Add to the existing knowledge related to elementary particle physics, field theory gravitation, cosmology, and astrophysics.
- Make a significant contribution in a specific research area and generate interest for PRD's readers.
- Represent an authoritative and substantive addition to the body of literature.
At the core of APS's mission is a commitment to meeting the needs of physicists, a community that has been at the leading edge of open access. As a result, APS supports a variety of sustainable access options:
- Authors can pay an article publication charge (APC) to make accepted manuscripts immediately accessible on publication under a CC-BY (4.0 International) license. In keeping with APS's community orientation, this is the most permissive license available at this time and permits anyone to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt the work with proper attribution. APCs cover publishing costs and decrease the need for subscription revenue, helping to keep subscription prices low (current APS APCs).
- APS authors are free to post the final published version of their articles on their laboratory, departmental, or institutional web sites.
- APS makes its journals free to read at U.S. public libraries and high schools by application. Contact publisher@aps.org for more information.
- APS is a founding member of CHORUS, which enables distributed public access to published research articles reporting on U.S. federal government funded research.
- SCOAP3: As of 2018, PRD is part of the Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics. All high-energy physics articles published in PRD since January 1, 2018, and that are posted on arXiv under one of the four "hep" primary designations, are made open access under a Creative Commons Attribution license under the auspices of SCOAP3.
- APS offers authors from lower income countries the opportunity to publish Open Access at no cost by automatically offering APC waivers for articles accepted into all Hybrid and Gold Open Access titles. Learn more here.
- APS provides free access to its subscription-based journals content for readers in lower income countries through partnerships with Research4Life and other programs. Learn more here.
Editorial Board
The PRD Editorial Board is a diverse, global group of active, distinguished scientists, selected by editors in consultation with APS units and appointed by the Executive Editor. Board members serve three-year terms. They may be requested by the editors to advise at any stage of the review process and they serve as adjudicators in formal appeals.
Editorial Team
PRD is managed by a professional editorial team of Ph.D. scientists with extensive research experience at major academic institutions and research laboratories around the world. All editorial decisions are based on PRD acceptance criteria.
High Visibility and Impact
PRD authors gain high visibility and achieve broad dissemination for their work in this leading journal for particle physics, field theory, gravitation, cosmology, and astrophysics. PRD editors bring attention to outstanding research and elucidate its importance through a number of features:
- Editors’ Suggestions: Selected papers are chosen as Editors’ Suggestions to direct readers to interesting, important, and well-written articles in areas of research beyond their usual interests. They garner, on average, more downloads and citations than other papers published in the journal and are more frequently covered by news outlets.
- Featured in Physics: Editors regularly notify Physics, APS’s daily online news and commentary publication, about important papers, resulting in coverage in the forms of Synopsis, Focus, or Viewpoint.
- Publicity: APS promotes press-worthy papers from its journals to journalists through a weekly Tip Sheet, resulting in frequent coverage in industry publications and the popular press, such as Physics World and Business Insider.
- Indexing: ISI (Science Citation Index®), Scopus, Inspec, Google Scholar
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- X: @PhysRevD
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Editorial and Publishing Policies
All journals published by APS follow a common set of Editorial Policies and Practices, which cover Editorial Oversight and Decision Making, Authorship, Submissions, Resubmissions, and Transfers, Peer Review, Ethics and Research Integrity, Post Publication, and Open Access and Publications Rights.
PRD is published electronically one article at a time. Articles are identified by volume number and a six-digit article number, for example, Journal 1, XXXXXX (2020).
PRD editors can decide to accelerate the review process for a small number of manuscripts that report particularly important or groundbreaking research.