News for Physical Review Letters
ANNOUNCEMENT
APS Announces Outstanding Referees for 2024
March 1, 2024
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.
ANNOUNCEMENT
APS Partners with Research4Life
December 15, 2023
Offer includes Journal Access and waived article publication charges to Scientists in 100+ Lower and Middle Income Countries
ANNOUNCEMENT
APS and Astrobites Announce Partnership
October 25, 2023
The American Physical Society (APS) is pleased to announce that it will begin sponsoring Astrobites, a daily astrophysical literature journal written by graduate students in astronomy. This mutually beneficial collaboration aims to enhance the dissemination of research, educational resources, and career insights in the field of astronomy and astrophysics.
ANNOUNCEMENT
50 Years of QCD
October 11, 2023
A new Collection by the Physical Review journals celebrates the 50th anniversary of the discovery of asymptotic freedom in quantum chromodynamics (QCD)—the theoretical basis for the strong force of nature that binds quarks and gluons into hadrons.
ANNOUNCEMENT
2023 Nobel Prize in Physics
October 3, 2023
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.”
EDITORIAL
Editorial: To Review Is to Be
September 25, 2023
APS Editor in Chief, Randall D. Kamien, discusses the importance and impact of journal reviewers.
ANNOUNCEMENT
First Published Content from PRX Life is Now Online
July 20, 2023
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.
EDITORIAL
Editorial: Essaying Progress
March 30, 2023
PRL is launching a new series of concise Essays that envision the future in areas of interest to our broad readership.
ANNOUNCEMENT
APS Announces Outstanding Referees for 2023
March 6, 2023
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.
ANNOUNCEMENT
PRX Life Opens for Submissions March 20, 2023
February 3, 2023
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.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Dr. Stephen Nagler Named Lead Editor of Physical Review B
December 16, 2022
APS is pleased to announce that Dr. Stephen Nagler of Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been selected to succeed Dr. Laurens Molenkamp as Lead Editor of Physical Review B. The transition to Dr. Nagler will be effective as of February 1st, 2023.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Randall Kamien Named APS Editor in Chief
December 7, 2022
The American Physical Society’s Board of Directors has appointed Randall Kamien as Editor in Chief effective January 1, 2023.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Introducing PRX Life
December 1, 2022
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.
EDITORIAL
A Welcoming Home for Applied Science
October 11, 2022
With new journals, special content, and a broad outreach effort, the Physical Review journals aim to be a leader in publishing applied research.
ANNOUNCEMENT
2022 Nobel Prize in Physics
October 4, 2022
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.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Open Access Report Shares Perspectives from Physics Researchers
August 22, 2022
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.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Nominations Are Open for APS Editor in Chief (EIC)
August 19, 2022
APS is now accepting nominations of members, including self-nominations, for the newly restructured role of APS Editor in Chief (EIC).
JOURNAL CLUB
On April 25, Researchers Discuss a Method to Detect Dark Matter with Levitated Spheres
April 1, 2022
Dark matter accounts for roughly 85% of the matter in the Universe, yet its constituents remain unknown. Solving this mystery calls for a wide range of experiments that can detect dark matter constituents with different masses and interactions. Now, Gadi Afek at Yale University and colleagues have proposed a laboratory-based detector that is drastically different from existing experiments.
ANNOUNCEMENT
APS Announces Outstanding Referees for 2022
March 1, 2022
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.
JOURNAL CLUB
Nobel laureate Giorgio Parisi and colleagues discuss the structure of the interactions occurring in 3-D systems of hard spheres at jamming live
February 28, 2022
On March 24, join the Physical Review Journal Club for an exclusive panel discussion with Nobel Laureate Giorgio Parisi, Sapienza Università di Roma, along with co-authors Paolo Rissone, Universitat de Barcelona, and Eric I. Corwin, University of Oregon on their PRL paper, Long-Range Anomalous Decay of the Correlation in Jammed Packings, a work cited by the Nobel committee in their prize announcement.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Physical Review C Appoints Joseph Kapusta as Lead Editor
January 19, 2022
APS has appointed Professor Joseph Kapusta, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota as the Lead Editor of Physical Review C. Professor Kapusta takes the helm following the journal’s previous Lead Editor Benjamin F. Gibson.
ANNOUNCEMENT
PRL Welcomes Robert Garisto as Its New Managing Editor
January 12, 2022
Robert Garisto (right) has been named the Managing Editor of Physical Review Letters, the world’s premier physics journal. As Managing Editor, Garisto will lead PRL’s editorial team and provide scientific direction for the journal in partnership with PRL’s Lead Editor, Hugues Chaté.
ANNOUNCEMENT
PRX Energy Appoints Inaugural Lead Editor: David Scanlon
December 7, 2021
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.
ANNOUNCEMENT
2021 Nobel Prize in Physics
October 5, 2021
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).
ANNOUNCEMENT
Physical Review Journals Announce Inclusive Name Change Policy
September 17, 2021
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.
ANNOUNCEMENT
APS Announces Outstanding Referees for 2021
February 24, 2021
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.
ANNOUNCEMENT
In memoriam: Jack Sandweiss, 1930-2020
January 6, 2021
It is with great sadness that we mourn the passing in November 2020 of our former colleague, Jack Sandweiss, who was Editor of PRL for a quarter of a century (1987-2013).
ANNOUNCEMENT
Rapid Communications papers will now be Letters
November 23, 2020
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. Learn more
EDITORIAL
Promoting Inclusive and Respectful Communications
November 18, 2020
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.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Lead Editor Physical Review Fluids
October 13, 2020
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.
ANNOUNCEMENT
2020 Nobel Prize in Physics
October 6, 2020
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).
ANNOUNCEMENT
American Physical Society, Max Planck Gesellschaft Pilot Transformative Agreement
July 7, 2020
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).
ANNOUNCEMENT
APS Announces Outstanding Referees for 2020
March 2, 2020
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.
ANNOUNCEMENT
We Celebrate the Life of Kelvin Lynn (1948–2020)
January 14, 2020
We celebrate the life of Kelvin Lynn (1948–2020). He was an Associate Editor for PRL and PRB from 1984 until 2012, while working at Brookhaven National Laboratory and Washington State University. He was part of the “gang of four” editors who helped run PRL for a year while Gene Wells was on sabbatical, during the rush of papers on high-temperature superconductivity. He was a dedicated and spirited editor, who handled countless papers over the years. Our condolences go to his family.
ANNOUNCEMENT
2019 Nobel Prize in Physics
October 8, 2019
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.
EDITORIAL
Editorial: Physics and Life
September 26, 2019
PRL welcomes two editors for the physics of life.
EDITORIAL
Avoid the Tragedy of the Commons
June 13, 2019
PRL aims to avoid the tragedy of the commons.
Reinhardt B. Schuhmann
Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 230001 (2019)
ANNOUNCEMENT
APS Announces Outstanding Referees for 2019
February 26, 2019
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.
ANNOUNCEMENT
REVTeX 4.2 Released
January 11, 2019
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.
ANNOUNCEMENT
2018 Nobel Prize in Physics
October 2, 2018
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.” Read more in this update from APS News.
ANNOUNCEMENT
PhySH Now Publicly Available
September 11, 2018
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.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Program Announced for Physical Review Journals Symposium at Metamaterials 2018
May 15, 2018
The conference organizers and the editors of Physical Review are pleased to announce the program for the Physical Review Journals Symposium at Metamaterials 2018. This special session will feature four talks based on select works published in the Physical Review journals. In addition to this session, there will be a meet-and-greet event with the Physical Review editors.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Physics Physique физика Freely Available Online
March 22, 2018
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.”
ANNOUNCEMENT
The Work of Stephen Hawking in Physical Review
March 14, 2018
To mark the passing of Stephen Hawking, we gathered together and made free to read his 55 papers in Physical Review D and Physical Review Letters. They probe the edges of space and time, from “Black holes and thermodynamics” to “Wave function of the Universe.” APS News Article
ANNOUNCEMENT
APS Announces Outstanding Referees for 2018
February 26, 2018
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.
EDITORIAL
The Making of PRL: Mission, Material, Method
February 8, 2018
Physical Review Letters’ Lead Editor, Hugues Chaté, and Managing Editor, Reinhardt Schuhmann, look back at how PRL has evolved and share their vision for the future.
EDITORIAL
A Tale of Two Anniversaries: 125 Years of the Physical Review and 25 Years of Physical Review E
January 3, 2018
Publisher Matthew Salter and Editor in Chief, Michael Thoennessen, kick off the 125th anniversary of The Physical Review and 25th anniversary of Physical Review E.
ANNOUNCEMENT
2017 Nobel Prize in Physics
October 3, 2017
APS congratulates Rainer Weiss, Barry C. Barish, and Kip S. Thorne for winning the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics “for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves.”
APS News Article
ANNOUNCEMENT
Physical Review Symposium at Metamaterials’2017 in Marseille
August 14, 2017
Together with the conference organizers, the editors of Physical Review Letters, Physical Review X, Physical Review B, Physical Review Applied, and Physical Review Materials are pleased to announce a special symposium on August 28, dedicated to a few select works published recently in the Physical Review journals, within and beyond the traditional domain of metamaterials research.
The symposium will be followed by a meet-and-greet event with the Physical Review editors.
ANNOUNCEMENT
APS Cultivates ORCID Links
July 18, 2017
On July 18, 2017, APS, along with the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOPP), has taken an important step towards working more closely with the Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) system of unique identifiers by signing the ORCID open letter requiring the collection of ORCID iDs in their publishing processes.
ANNOUNCEMENT
APS Joins the Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC)
July 11, 2017
Starting on July 11, APS will begin participating in the Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC), a collaboration among scholarly publishers to make information freely available about what papers are cited by a given journal article. This information had always been available to those subscribing to the Physical Review journals, but now the citation data will be open to all.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Michael Thoennessen Appointed New APS Editor in Chief
June 22, 2017
Nuclear physicist Michael Thoennessen has been selected to become APS Editor in Chief at the end of August 2017. Currently an Associate Director of the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University (MSU) in Lansing, Michigan, and University Distinguished Professor of Physics at MSU, he was appointed following a vote of the APS Board of Directors on June 16.
EDITORIAL
Supplemental Material or Joint Submission?
June 14, 2017
A reminder from the Editor in Chief about simultaneous submission of a Letter and an article.
ANNOUNCEMENT
LIGO Continues To Make Waves in Gravitational Wave Detection Physics
June 1, 2017
LIGO has published their third gravitational wave detection from an observation in early January 2017. This new detection, published in Physical Review Letters, may help vet previously established theories of how these massive mergers behave, and has already provided a new round of observational data to push forward this new kind of astronomy.
ANNOUNCEMENT
APS and CERN Sign Open Access Agreement for SCOAP3
April 27, 2017
APS and CERN, the host organization of SCOAP3 (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics), have signed an agreement to make the high-energy physics (HEP) articles published in three leading APS journals open access beginning January 1, 2018. This agreement acts to support the publishing of open access content for wider benefit of the HEP community. Read More
ANNOUNCEMENT
Physical Review Materials Open for Submissions
April 4, 2017
APS is now accepting submissions for Physical Review Materials, the newest member of the Physical Review family of journals. PRMaterials expands the scope of the existing APS journals beyond their current emphasis on the physics of materials and will begin publishing mid-2017.
EDITORIAL
Looking Ahead
April 4, 2017
PRL Lead Editor Hugues Chaté looks ahead to the initiatives he has in mind for the journal in the coming months.
EDITORIAL
Welcoming Hugues Chaté to Physical Review Letters
April 4, 2017
Editor-in-Chief Pierre Meystre welcomes Hugues Chaté as the new Lead Editor of PRL.
ANNOUNCEMENT
APS Endorses March for Science
March 10, 2017
After a thoughtful, deliberative process involving an examination of the alignment of the values of APS with the goals of the March for Science on April 22 in Washington, D.C., the APS Council Steering Committee, on behalf of the Council of Representatives, unanimously voted to endorse the march.
EDITORIAL
From the APS Editor in Chief
February 3, 2017
The journals of the American Physical Society welcome and will continue to welcome manuscripts from all countries, with publication based on scientific merit alone.
ANNOUNCEMENT
APS Launches Physical Review Materials
February 1, 2017
APS is excited to announce the launch of Physical Review Materials, the latest addition to the Physical Review family of journals. Targeted to start publishing in mid 2017, PRMaterials will provide a common publication and reference source to the expanding community of physicists, materials scientists, chemists, engineers, and researchers in related disciplines that carry out high-quality original research in materials.
ANNOUNCEMENT
APS Announces Outstanding Referees for 2017
January 17, 2017
APS has selected 150 Outstanding Referees for 2017 that 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.
EDITORIAL
A Decade of Editors’ Suggestions
January 17, 2017
Lead Editor Hugues Chaté discusses why PRL highlights papers as Editors’ Suggestions and how Suggestions are picked.
10 YEARS OF EDITORS’ SUGGESTIONS
January 2007—The Highlighting Experiment Begins
January 3, 2017
To mark this anniversary, past Editors’ Suggestions will feature on our homepage throughout 2017, starting with the first one. Suggestions began as an experiment, and now provide a good representation of the quality work that we aim to publish. We hope you enjoy this look back.
ANNOUNCEMENT
2017 Breakthrough Prizes Awarded
December 13, 2016
The Breakthrough Prize organization announced its 2017 winners and celebrated its 5th anniversary.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Hugues Chaté Named Interim PRL Editor
September 8, 2016
APS has selected Dr. Hugues Chaté, a senior scientist at the CEA-Saclay, France, to serve as interim Editor of Physical Review Letters. Hugues will take over this role from Pierre Meystre, who is now the Editor in Chief for the Physical Review family of journals.
GUEST EDITORIAL
Hybridizing Quantum Physics and Engineering
August 29, 2016
Monika Schleier-Smith discusses the importance of hybrid quantum systems for realizing new quantum technologies and probing the frontiers of fundamental physics.
ANNOUNCEMENT
APS Selects Editor in Chief
June 23, 2016
Pierre Meystre of the University of Arizona has been appointed Editor in Chief of the Physical Review research journals.
ANNOUNCEMENT
2016 Kavli Prizes Awarded for Gravitational Wave Detection and Nanoscale Microscopy
June 3, 2016
The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters announced the winners of its 2016 Kavli prizes in astrophysics, nanoscience, and neuroscience.
ANNOUNCEMENT
In Memory of Peter D. Adams
April 20, 2016
We are saddened by the passing on April 16 of our dear colleague Peter Adams, one of the founders of the Physical Review family of journals. We offer our heartfelt condolences to his family.
GUEST EDITORIAL
Climate Science: An Invitation for Physicists
April 14, 2016
John Wettlaufer discusses the opportunities open to physicists in climate science research.
EDITORIAL
Theorists React to the CERN 750 GeV Diphoton Data
April 12, 2016
We are publishing a small representative sample of the many theory papers that attempt to explain recent intriguing LHC data, which might be due to new elementary particles.
ANNOUNCEMENT
APS Announces Outstanding Referees for 2016
March 2, 2016
APS has selected 146 Outstanding Referees for 2016 that have been exceptionally helpful in assessing manuscripts for publication in the Physical Review journals. A full list of the Outstanding Referees for 2016 is available online.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Gravitational Waves Caught in the Act
February 11, 2016
LIGO observation of black hole merger heralds a new era in astronomy.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Bell Mosaic
December 18, 2015
This week's issue of PRL features a mosaic image of John Stewart Bell and contains a pair of Letters that report statistically significant loophole-free Bell tests, which rule out local realism.
ANNOUNCEMENT
APS Appoints New Publisher
December 1, 2015
Asia-Pacific region publishing manager for UK Institute of Physics to join top management staff of the American Physical Society.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Stephan Grill Wins Raymond and Beverly Sackler Prize
October 9, 2015
Stephan Grill, PRL Adjunct Associate Editor, has been awarded the Raymond and Beverly Sackler International Prize in Biophysics for his contributions to understanding the physics of intracellular acto-myosin networks.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Neutrino Oscillations Nab Nobel Prize
October 6, 2015
APS congratulates Takaaki Kajita and Arthur McDonald for winning the 2015 Nobel Prize in physics for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass. Their prize-winning research is free to read in Physical Review Letters.
GUEST EDITORIAL
General Relativity Still Making Waves
September 24, 2015
Clifford Will discusses the importance of Einstein’s general theory of relativity and its relevance for physics research today.
EDITORIAL
Refereeing Revisited
September 8, 2015
Pierre Meystre discusses how authors, referees, and editors need to work together for peer review to function well.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Expanding the Liquid Helium Purchasing Program
August 28, 2015
The APS Office of Public Affairs (OPA), in partnership with the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), have established the Liquid Helium Purchasing Program (LHeP2) to improve liquid helium purchasing for researchers who receive federal funding. OPA pilot tested LHeP2 with a small group and is now expanding the program to additional participants, with priority given to APS and ACS Members. Interested parties should contact OPA by September 25. Additional details and contact information is available on the LHeP2 website.
GUEST EDITORIAL
Can There Be a Physics of the Brain?
June 1, 2015
John Beggs discusses the role of physicists in understanding how the brain works.
EDITORIAL
Amplifying the Signal
May 2, 2015
Pierre Meystre discusses PRL’s mission and how we aim to stay strong in today’s publishing landscape.
APS NEWS
Editor in Chief of APS Journals Steps Down
May 1, 2015
Gene Sprouse, Editor in Chief of the APS research journals since March 2007, has stepped down from the position as of April 28, 2015. Read more in APS News.
GUEST EDITORIAL
Lighting Up Research
March 26, 2015
John Dudley discusses the International Year of Light and the importance of long-term support in basic science research in our latest Guest Editorial.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Soft Matters
February 2, 2015
Sharon Glotzer discusses the growth of soft condensed matter research, and the formation of the new APS Topical Group GSOFT in a Guest Editorial in Physical Review Letters.
GUEST EDITORIAL
Soft Matters
February 2, 2015
In the first of our new Guest Editorial series (see Announcement) Sharon Glotzer discusses the growth of soft condensed matter research, and the formation of the new APS Topical Group GSOFT.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Article titles in the reference list
December 29, 2014
Starting January 1, 2015, all Physical Review journals will allow article titles in the reference list.
EDITORIAL
A Marketplace for Physics
October 20, 2014
As the flagship APS journal, PRL aims to move science forward across the full arc of physics. Careful selection of venue and a commitment to effective communication are crucial, as discussed by C. Caves on the back page of the November APS News.
EDITORIAL
PRX Takes on a New Role
October 9, 2014
APS Editor in Chief Gene Sprouse discusses the new role of Physical Review X as APS's highly selective and broadly accessible journal, that publishes a small number of key papers from all areas of physics in APS's nonprofit, science-first publishing tradition.
ANNOUNCEMENT
APS Congratulates the 2014 Nobel Prize Winners
October 8, 2014
The American Physical Society congratulates the 2014 Nobel Prize Winners in Physics and Chemistry.
Physics
The physics laureates Isamu Akasaki (Meijo University and Nagoya University), Hiroshi Amano (Nagoya University), and Shuji Nakamura (University of California, Santa Barbara) have been recognized for their work that led to the invention of the blue light-emitting diode, a fundamental stepping stone towards the realization of new environmentally friendly and energy efficient light sources.
Chemistry
The chemistry laureates Eric Bertzig (Howard Hughes Medical Institute), Stefan W. Hell (Max Planck Institute and German Cancer Research Center), and William E. Moerner (Stanford Univerisity) have been recognized for their work in improving the resolution of optical microscopy, in particular the development of a super-resolved fluorescence microscope.
“It’s a great year for optics,” said Pierre Meystre (University of Arizona Regents’ Professor of Physics and Optical Sciences, Physical Review Letters Lead Editor), “with blue LEDs winning the Physics Nobel yesterday and fluorescence microscopy winning the Chemistry prize today. It shows that wonderful things are happening in optics from saving enormous amounts of energy with efficient lighting to helping with life-saving medical advances that rely on super-resolution imaging. They are completely different technologies, but both light-based, and next year is the International Year of Light, so the timing couldn’t be better.”
Many remarkable papers from these scientists contributed to this development. These include Moerner’s seminal 1989 work on optical detection and spectroscopy of single molecules in a solid, which was published in Physical Review Letters. This paper is now freely available on our website.
Read More from APS:
- Physics APS News Update
- Chemistry APS News Update
- APS Press Release for Chemistry Prize
- W. E. Moerner and L. Kador, Phys. Rev. Lett. 62, 2535 (1989)
Nobel Press Releases:
ANNOUNCEMENT
CERN and APS announce partnership for Open Access
September 18, 2014
The American Physical Society (APS) and The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) jointly announce a partnership to make all CERN-authored articles published in the APS journal collection to be Open Access. Articles in APS' Physical Review Letters, Physical Review D, and Physical Review C in 2015 and 2016 will be covered by this agreement. All physics results from CERN will benefit from this partnership, in theoretical physics and experimental physics, at the LHC accelerator as well as other experimental programs.
ANNOUNCEMENT
APS Launches Full-Text HTML
September 10, 2014
The American Physical Society has launched full-text HTML versions of more than 200,000 articles throughout the APS journal collection from as early as 2003. Users can now access APS content using high-quality navigation features and mobile-friendly math displays across a range of devices.
ANNOUNCEMENT
In Memory of George L. Trigg
August 12, 2014
We were saddened to learn of the recent passing of one of the founders of Physical Review Letters, George L. Trigg. We offer our heartfelt condolences to his family.
EDITORIAL
Editorial: Signals from the Dawn of Time?
June 19, 2014
We are publishing an extraordinary Letter, whose results, if confirmed, may be due to primordial gravitational waves. Because of this, we decided to allow the length and style of the paper to differ significantly from the PRL norm.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Physical Review Letters publishes its 2000th Editors' Suggestion
May 7, 2014
We use a two-stage process to select Editors’ Suggestions—articles we deem to be especially important, interesting and clear. Suggestions are downloaded and cited about twice as often as other Letters. More than a third of Suggestions are covered in the press. We have been highlighting PRLs with Editors' Suggestions since January 2007 and we have now published two thousand of them.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Wang Mu Appointed as PRL Associate Editor and Outreach Coordinator in China
March 27, 2014
Wang Mu, Cheung-Kong professor in condensed matter physics at NJU, begins appointment with dual responsibilities as an Associate Editor of Physical Review Letters (PRL) and as an outreach Coordinator for the APS journals in China.
ANNOUNCEMENT
APS Announces 143 New Outstanding Referees for 2014
February 26, 2014
The editors of the APS journals have selected 143 new Outstanding Referees for 2014, out of more than 50,000 currently active referees.