Physical Review A is published by The American Physical Society (APS), the Council of which has the final responsibility for the Journal. The Publications Oversight Committee of the APS and the Editor-in-Chief possess delegated responsibility for overall policy matters concerning all APS journals. The Editor of Physical Review A is responsible for the scientific content and editorial matters relating to the Journal. In this the Editor is assisted by the Journal's associate and assistant editors.
Editorial policy is guided by the following statement adopted
in April, 1995 by the Council of the APS:
The subtitle of Physical Review A is Atomic, Molecular, and
Optical Physics. Papers are categorized into the following
subsections:
Papers must contain new results in physics. Confirmation of
previously published results of unusual importance can be
considered as new, as can significant null results. Papers
advancing new theoretical views on fundamental principles or
theories must contain convincing arguments that the new
predictions and interpretations are distinguishable from
existing knowledge, at least in principle, and do not contradict
established experimental results. Mathematical and computational
papers that do not have application to physics are generally not
suitable for Physical Review A. In general, authors should
keep review material to a minimum. Even so, some review
and reprise of past work is appropriate if the paper is made
more understandable and self-contained thereby.
Papers should be clearly written in good scientific English,
in a style consistent with that of the journal.
Special attention should be paid to readability, so as to
render papers understandable to readers outside a narrow specialty.
(See
Information for Contributors, following.)
New terminology should be
introduced only when clearly
needed. It should be appropriate and, if possible, convey to
the reader an accurate impression of its meaning. New
terminology should not be frivolous, nor should it be
introduced in titles. Excessive use of acronyms is discouraged.
Publication of ongoing work in a
series of papers should be
avoided. Instead, a single comprehensive article (perhaps
preceded by a Letter or Rapid Communication) should be
published. This policy against serial publication applies to
Rapid Communications and Brief Reports as well as to
regular articles.
Although there is no limit to the length of regular articles,
the appropriate length depends on the
information presented in the paper.
Authors may refer in their paper
to their own internal reports or theses that contain more
detail than the published article, or they may deposit some of
the material, especially long tables, in the Electronic Physics Auxiliary
Publication Service (EPAPS) of the American Institute of
Physics.
Files deposited in EPAPS are made freely available via ftp and the
World Wide Web. As an electronic service, EPAPS can accommodate color-figure,
multimedia, and program files. Information about EPAPS is available
via the APS Research Journals home page at http://publish.aps.org/.
Authors should place their work in context with the current
state of research, but they are not held responsible for
publications that had not yet appeared when their paper was
submitted. Authors are not held responsible for references to
preprints, internal reports, results that have been reported
only orally at meetings (even though an abstract may have
been printed), or for papers that have appeared in
publications not abstracted in standard abstracting journals. If such
work is called to the attention of the authors by a referee,
however, they are encouraged (but not required) to refer to it.
If revision of a manuscript takes a substantial time (several
months), the references should be updated to include recently
published relevant work. Authors are expected to include
references to relevant books and to published conference
proceedings that contain more than abstracts.
Papers that describe proposed experiments
fall into a special category. For such papers to be acceptable, the
experiments must be demonstrated to be novel and feasible. It is
the authors' responsibility to show that their proposal is likely
to stimulate research that might not otherwise be undertaken.
Material previously published
in a Letters journal, as a Rapid Communication, or in conference
proceedings can be
the basis of an article in Physical Review A, provided the
submitted manuscript presents considerably more
information, enabling the reader to obtain a substantially improved
understanding of the subject. Figures, tables, and text
material that have been published previously should be
referenced, not repeated. Exceptions can be warranted by unusual
circumstances.
Physical Review A publishes Articles, Rapid
Communications, Brief Reports, and Comments. The scientific content
of all sections of the Journal is judged by the same criteria.
The sections are distinguished by the different purposes for
which the papers are intended.
Each paper must have an abstract. Short papers are limited to
four printed pages; exceptions will be considered for
Comments.
Rapid Communications in
Physical Review are intended for
the accelerated publication of important new results, as are
Physical Review Letters. Authors may follow a Rapid
Communication (or a Letter) with a more complete account as a
regular article in Physical Review. The principal difference
between Physical Review Letters and Rapid
Communications is that Letters are aimed at a general audience of
physicists and allied scientists, while Rapid Communications are
primarily for a more specialized audience, i.e., the usual
readers of a particular Physical Review journal (A, B, C, D,
or E). Rapid Communications are given priority in editorial
processing and production to minimize the time between
receipt and publication. Therefore authors should justify the
need for priority handling in their letter of submittal. A series
of Rapid Communications by one group of authors on a
particular subject is discouraged.
A Brief Report is an account of
completed research that meets the usual
Physical Review standards of scientific quality but is not
appropriate for a regular article (or for the priority handling
given to Rapid Communications). Announcements of
planned research, progress reports, and preliminary results are
generally not suitable for publication as Brief Reports. The normal
publication schedule is followed.
Comments are publications that
criticize or correct papers of
other authors previously published in Physical Review A.
Each Comment should contain an abstract and should state
clearly the paper to which it refers. To be considered for
publication, a Comment must be written in a collegial tone
(free from polemics) and must be pertinent and without
egregious errors. A Reply to a Comment must also conform to
these requirements. Editorial procedures for processing
Comments are described in the following section.
Errata are notices of errors
or omissions in papers previously
published in Physical Review A. Errata should be as brief
as possible. An Erratum should contain a short statement of the
correction(s) and, where appropriate, a description of any effects
on the conclusions of the paper.
Usually one referee is selected initially by the Editor for
each manuscript there are exceptions, as with almost all
procedural matters discussed below. Referee reports are
advisory to the Editor(s),
but are generally transmitted by the Editor(s) to the
authors, and so should be written in a collegial manner.
The Editor(s) may withhold or edit these reports
for cause. If in the judgment of the Editor(s) a paper is
clearly unsuitable for Physical Review A, it will be rejected
without review; authors of such papers have the same right
to appeal as do other authors.
Any resubmittal should be accompanied by a summary of the
changes made, and a brief response to all recommendations
and criticisms. This material will normally
be forwarded to reviewers, and so should be
written in a collegial manner. Remarks that authors wish to address
solely to the Editor(s) should be clearly
identified and separated from the summary and response.
A manuscript may be sent to additional referees if warranted,
either by request of the authors or by editorial decision. In
most cases the new referee will be provided with previous
correspondence on the manuscript, but not with the identity
of the previous referee(s). Editorial Board members,
however, may receive this information.
Since the referee is usually best qualified to judge a paper,
the author should direct his or her responses to the items
raised in the referee report. In general, very long rebuttal
letters explaining contentious points in a manuscript should
be avoided in favor of clarifying alterations in the manuscript
itself.
Papers are accepted for publication based on favorable
recommendations by the referee(s). On the other hand, the
Editors can and will seek additional opinions when in their
judgment such action seems called for. It is the policy of this
Journal that every effort be made to arrive at a decision on
disposition within a reasonable time.
After acceptance of a manuscript, if further information that
seems to warrant investigation is received, the Editors will
regard it as an obligation to reconsider their decision.
Authors should state whether the paper they submit has been
previously considered for publication in another APS
journal (Physical Review Letters, other Physical Review journals,
or Reviews of Modern Physics).
When a manuscript has several authors, one of them, the corresponding
author, should be designated to receive and respond to correspondence
from the Editors. This designation can be changed upon notification
of the Editors. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author
to represent all those involved with the work reported and to ensure
that the content of the manuscript and the list of authors meet with
their approval, both initially and through any subsequent changes.
Authors may not present data and other results obtained by others as if
they were their own. Nor may authors incorporate without attribution
texts from the works of another author, even when summarizing past
results or background material. If a direct quotation is appropriate,
the quotation should be clearly indicated as such and the original
source should be properly cited. Papers that have been found to be in
violation of this rule will be rejected. In such cases, resubmission
of the manuscript, even with the plagiarized text removed, is not
ordinarily allowed. However, the Editors may allow exceptions to this
policy if warranted by special circumstances.
Authors may request that their identities not be revealed to
the referees ("double-blind" reviewing). If such a request is
made, it is the authors' responsibility to furnish a copy of the
manuscript without the authors' names, addresses, and the
acknowledgment section.
In some circumstances information about a manuscript considered by
Physical Review A and subsequently submitted to another journal may
be provided to the editor of that journal. Such information might
include the comments and identities of referees.
Comments, papers which
criticize or correct the work of
other authors previously published in Physical Review A,
are processed according to the following procedure:
(1) The paper is first sent to the author(s) whose work is
being criticized. These authors act as reviewers (usually not
anonymously) and should provide a report (not a Reply)
suitable for transmittal to the author(s) of the Comment.
(2) After suitable exchanges between the involved parties,
the Comment, along with relevant correspondence, is sent to
an uninvolved referee for anonymous review. If on the basis
of this referee's (and possibly other reviewers')
recommendation the Editor decides to accept the Comment for
publication, then the authors whose work is being commented
on are given the opportunity to write a Reply for possible
simultaneous publication. This Reply will also be reviewed,
usually by the same uninvolved referee.
(3) After the Comment and Reply have been accepted for
publication, the author of the Comment is sent a copy of the
Reply for his or her information, but should not alter the
Comment unless requested to do so by the Editor. The Comment
and Reply usually are published in the same
issue of the journal, with the Reply immediately following
the Comment. If there is undue delay in the preparation and
review of the Reply, the Comment may be published before the
Reply. The normal publication schedule is followed.
Authors may appeal a rejection of their paper by the
Editor(s). In the case of a formal appeal, the paper and all
relevant information, including the identities of the referees,
will be sent to a member of the Editorial Board. The Board
member may review the case on the existing record or may
seek additional expert opinion. The Board member will
present a signed advisory opinion to the Editor(s).
If a Board member has provided a referee report on a paper
prior to appeal, another Board member must review the
paper on appeal. Authors may suggest those Board members
they feel are appropriate (or not appropriate) to conduct the
review, but the Editor(s) is (are) not bound by such
suggestions. If there is no suitable Board member available, the
Editor(s) may appoint an appropriate scientist to consider a
paper under appeal as an ad hoc Board member.
The author of a paper that has been rejected subsequent to an
Editorial Board review may request that the case be reviewed
by the Editor-in-Chief of the APS. This request should be
addressed to the Editor, who will forward the entire file to
the Editor-in-Chief. Such an appeal must be based on the
fairness of the procedures followed, and must not be a
request for another scientific review. The question to be
answered in this review is: Did the paper receive a fair
hearing? The decision of the Editor-in-Chief concludes
the consideration of the manuscript by the American
Physical Society.
Each paper, when published, carries a receipt date indicating
when the manuscript was first received by the Editors of
Physical Review A.
If authors make substantive changes in a manuscript or if
they hold it for an unusually long time after it has been
returned to them with a referee's report, the paper will be
given a "revised manuscript receipt date." In such cases, the
authors may be required to revise references to include
material published since the original submission of the
manuscript. In cases of especially lengthy delays the original paper
is considered withdrawn, and the resubmitted version is
considered to be a new paper and is given a new receipt date.
Physical Review A has an Editorial Board whose members
are listed on the inside cover of the Journal. Board members
are appointed for three-year terms by the Editor-in-Chief
upon recommendation of the Editor, after consultation with
APS divisions where appropriate. Board members play an
important role in the editorial management of the Journal. They
lend advice on editorial policy and on specific papers for
which special assistance is needed, participate in the formal
appeals process (see section on Author Appeals), and give
input on the selection of referees and the identification of
new referees.
If a manuscript submitted to Physical Review A is on a topic
not within its purview, but may be suitable
for another Physical Review journal, the Editors will transfer the
paper to the appropriate journal and inform the author(s) of
that transfer.