INFORMATION FOR CONTRIBUTORS
(Revised July 1998)
Information for Contributors contains instructions for manuscript preparation and is published in the first two issues of each volume and includes information about:
Information about this journal and other APS journals is available on the APS research-journals World Wide Web server at the URL http://publish.aps.org/. Much information is also available via ftp to aps.org in the subdirectories /jrnls, /pacs, /revtex, etc., of the /pub directory. Most filenames include as an extension a suffix (beginning with a period), which indicates the nature of the file: .asc (plain ASCII), .pdf (portable document file, usable with Acrobat), .ps (PostScript), or .tex (TeX). Most files exist in two or three versions, distinguished by the suffix. Some specific files are cited where pertinent below.
Manuscripts may be submitted by a variety of electronic modes (including via e-print servers, direct Web upload, and email), or by conventional mail, but not by fax. Interactive submission forms, available on our Web server, are an integral part of the submission process for the e-print and Web modes, and are strongly recommended for email and conventional-mail submission. These forms aid authors in supplying all the information needed in a structured format which furthers efficient processing; they also provide a location for additional ``free form'' information. [For authors without Web browsers which support forms, noninteractive versions of the submission forms are available via ftp to aps.org in the /pub/jrnls directory as the sub_prd files (include filename suffix.asc, .tex, or .ps), or by request to the Editorial Office.]
Please specify the author to whom correspondence should be addressed, and give all available communications information for this individual (postal and email addresses, phone and fax numbers), since in various circumstances they may all be useful. Please specify journal and section to which the paper is submitted, and give PACS (Physics and Astronomy Classification Scheme) index categories if possible. (The scheme is available on our Web server, and also via ftp to aps.org as the file pacs_98.asc in the /pub/pacs directory.) If an important subject of your paper cannot be appropriately classified in the PACS scheme, please give an appropriate keyword or phrase, and indicate approximately where in the scheme this topic would be best placed.
A signed APS copyright-transfer form (available in plain text, PostScript, or TeX format here) should be included with the submission, and will be required before publication. While the transfer of copyright takes effect only upon acceptance of the paper for publication in an APS journal, supplying the form initially can prevent unnecessary delays. The form appears at the end of the 9 March 1998 issue of Physical Review Letters and is available from the Editorial Office, on the World Wide Web via the URL http://publish.aps.org/ or via ftp to aps.org in the /pub/jrnls directory as the copy_trnsfr files (include filename suffix .asc, .ps, or .tex). Be sure to use the latest (1/96 or later) version of the form.
Manuscripts and figures are not routinely returned to authors. Authors should indicate (preferably on initial sumittal) if they want the manuscript and/or figures returned when correspondence is sent during the editorial process, and/or after a final decision has been made.
Electronic submissions
may be formatted in REVTeX (preferred), LaTeX, Harvmac, or Plain TeX.
The file must be in ASCII containing no control codes, with line lengths
of 80 characters or less. All textual material of the paper (including
tables, captions, etc.) should be in electronic form, as a single file.
The file should produce double-spaced output.
Properly prepared electronic submissions are
exempt from publication
charges, whether or not they also qualify for the
compuscript-conversion production program. See paragraph beginning
with ``compuscripts'' (below).
For information about submission via e-print servers or direct
Web upload, see our Web server at http://publish.aps.org/ESUB/.
Electronic-mail submissions (and inquiries about them) should be
sent to the Internet address prdtex@aps.org. For the initial submission,
use as the subject ``submit'' followed by the three-letter abbreviation for the
name of the journal (prd), and the last name of the first author; for example,
``submit prd jones'' or ``submit PRD Jones.'' Include the filled-out
submission form (or the equivalent information, including journal, section,
postal address, etc.) in the first part of the electronic-mail message.
Receipt of an electronic-mail submission will be acknowledged within
24 hours. Copies of the manuscript should not be sent by regular mail
(only original figures) unelss the electronic transmission has not been
successful.
Figures for an electronic submission
must be received in at
least review-quality form before editorial processing can begin. Web
upload or electronic-mail transmission (one figure per file) of
PostScript-formatted figures will normallly meet this need.
For color or continuous-tone PostScript figures, hard-copy
originals are also required. The originals are needed to
ensure that the reproductions created from the electronic
figure files are satisfactory.
(For email
transmission, use a subject line similar to that for the text file with
the addition of the figure number, e.g., ``submit prd jones fig1''.)
Alternatively, you could send scanner-reproducible journal-quality
figures by fax (516-591-4141), while the ``originals'' are sent by
conventional or overnight mail as soon as possible; please mark
the fax transmission as being part of an electronic-mail submission.
On resubmission, it is only necessary to resend your figures if the
originals in our file are no longer valid.
Manuscripts sent by conventional mail should be submit
ted in
triplicate to the Editors, Physical Review, 1 Research Road,
Box 9000, Ridge, NY 11961-9000. The manuscript, including the
abstract, references, and captions, should be neatly printed in
English, on good letter-size (e.g., in. or A4) white paper
with ample margins. (The first copy, used for production purposes
if the paper is accepted for publication, must be printed on
one side of the paper only; additional copies, used for review
purposes, may be printed on both sides of the paper.) The type
size and line spacing should be sufficient to accommodate
editorial markings and should be legible to our keyboarders (no
more than three lines per inch and no more than 88 characters
per 6 inches). It should be carefully proofread by the author.
Poor reproductions are unacceptable, as are unclear or excessive
handwritten insertions.
Compuscripts are author-supplied files that can be used for
production essentially as supplied. (Some minor style modifications
may be made if needed.)
If the paper is accepted for publication, the file is converted to production
format and coding (eventually SGML), from which base the journal pages are
composed.
Appropriate REVTeX files are
eligible (the other electronic-submission formats are only useful
for the editorial-review process). Questions about file eligibility should
be directed to
prdtex@aps.org. Papers intended for the
compuscript production
program should be submitted and resubmitted
only electronically. PostScript figures may be used directly
(electronically) in the production composition process.
REVTeX is APS's LaTeX macro package used to produce
compuscript files with the standard structure and coding needed
for our journals.
The REVTeX software
(macros, examples, and documentation) is available via
ftp to
aps.org in the /pub/revtex directory. For further information on
REVTeX, inquire by electronic mail to mis@aps.org.
An information and instruction booklet regarding electronic submissions
and compuscripts is available via ftp to aps.org in the /pub/jrnls/
directory as the compu_inform_pr files (include filename suffix .asc,
.ps, or .tex).
For resubmissions, the interactive resubmission forms
available on our Web server may be used for email, web-based-upload,
and hard-copy transmission of modified manuscripts. These forms
should also be used when a manuscript previously submitted to one
APS journal is being submitted in modified form to another one (typically
a former Physical Review Letters submission being submitted
to Physical Reveiw). Resubmissions from e-print archives are not
yet supported. If you do not use the forms, please include a summary
of changes made and brief response to all recommendations and
criticisms; state whether or not the figures have been modified,
and supply new PostScript or scanner-reproducible figures if there
have been such changes; and update any other information (e.g., address
and communication information) that has changed since initial submission.
If the manuscript was originally submitted electronically, please avoid
resubmission by conventional means (paper, postal mail); continue to use one
of the electronic modes. when resubmitting electronically,
please send the complete file for the text if there have been any
changes. Send email resubmissions to prdtex@aps.org, and use as
the subject of the message ``resub'' followed by the manuscript code
number and the last name of the first author; for example,
``resub DE1234 Smith'' or ``resub de1234 smith.'' Include the
filled-out resubmission form (or equivalent information as described
above) as the first part of the message. For resubmission by
conventional mail, please send three copies of a complete
modified manuscript, and include the form or equivalent information.
For general format and style consult
recent issues of this journal and the Physical Review Style
and Notation Guide, available via ftp
to aps.org in the /pub/jrnls
directory as the style_guidefiles (include filename suffix.pdf,
.ps, or .tex). Additional style guidelines can be found in the
Fourth Edition of the AIP Style Manual, which may be obtained
for $10.00 (prepaid) from Springer-Verlag, P.O. Box 2485,
Secaucus, NJ 07096-2485.
The title should be concise but informative enough to facilitate
information retrieval. The abstract should be self-contained
(contain no footnotes). It should be adequate as an index
(giving all subjects, major and minor, about which new information
is given) and as a summary (giving the conclusions and
all results of general interest in the article). It should be about
5% of the length of the article, but less than 500 words.
Notation should be clear, compact, and consistent with standard
usage. Equations
should be neatly formatted, punctuated, and
aligned to bring out their structure, and numbered on the right.
(a) Diacritical marks (tildes, etc.) can be put over any symbol,
including indices. (b) Three-vectors are generally set
in roman boldface type.
More general vectors, matrices, etc., are
usually set in lightface italic type, although boldface may alternatively be
used.
(c) Any numerical fraction can be put on one line,
e.g., ½a. Use that form rather than
a/2; 1/2a,
means 1/(2a). The solidus should be used instead of
built-up fractions in running text.
References and footnotes to text material are usually combined
in a single list, numbered consecutively in their order of first
appearance in the paper, and placed in a double-spaced list at
the end of the text material. They should be designated and
cited in text by on-line Arabic numerals in square brackets. As
an option, footnotes may appear separately from references and
be placed at the bottom of the page on which they are cited.
They should be designated by superscript numbers and numbered
consecutively throughout the paper. Footnotes within
tables should be designated by lower-case letter superscripts
and given at the end of the table.
For the proper form for
references, see the Physical Review Style and Notation Guide and
recent issues of this journal. The names of all authors of works
cited should be given in the references, unless the number of
authors is greater than three; in this case, the first author's name
followed by et al. is allowed. When reference is made to internal
reports or other items not available in the open literature, it is the
responsibility of the author to provide sufficient information to
enable the reader to obtain a copy of the referenced material.
References to classified reports or other documents with restricted
circulation should be avoided.
It is important to confirm the accuracy of bibliographic information
in references. This has become more important now that the journal is
online. Hyperlinks will be programmed to enable readers to ``click''
on references and jump directly to the material cited. If your
reference citations are incorrect or incomplete (e.g., missing author
name, or an incorrect volume number or page), the associated hyperlinks
may fail, and the usefulness of your paper in the online environment
may be diminished. Since at the present time such links work only from
the reference section, work cited anywhere in the paper, including in
figure and table captions and in ``Note(s) added,'' should be included
in the reference section.
Footnotes to an author's name or
address should be limited to those useful for location of,
or communication with, an author. Footnotes giving electronic
addresses (e.g., email, fax. or Web) of a corresponding author
are encouraged.
All information concerning research support should
appear in the acknowledgments.
Separate tables (numbered in the order of their first appearance)
should be used for all but the simplest tabular material; they must
have captions, which should make the tables intelligible without
reference to the text. The structure should be clear, with simple
column headings giving all units.
The decision on whether results should be published in long tables
depends on the precision of the data, i.e., whether they can be read
accurately enough from a figure, and on how many readers are
likely to use the numbers relative to the space needed in the
journal. If additional numerical data can be obtained from a data
center, from the author, or from another source either as tables or
on tape, indicate how and in what format they can be obtained.
Figures should be planned for the column width of the Physical
Review (approximately 8.6 cm, or in.). In some cases where the
figures contain a great deal of detail, or 2 columns may be used.
Wasted space at the top and bottom should be avoided. Carefully
prepared
figures, suitable for digital scanning, are required (original India-ink
drawings or glossy prints; computer-generated figures, if of sufficient
quality, are acceptable).
Figures must have a clear
background and unbroken lines with as much black-white
contrast as possible.
Final-journal-size originals or prints are
preferable to oversized originals. Avoid small open symbols
which tend to fill in upon reduction, small dots and decimal
points, and shading or cross-hatching that is not coarse enough
to withstand reproduction. The lettering and plotted
points on the figures should be large and clear enough that
they will be legible on the journal pages (final journal size of
lettering should be at least 2 mm).
Inconsistently large or too heavy lettering should
be avoided.
Line weights should be consistent throughout a figure, with a final
line weight of at least 0.18 mm (0.5 point). Figures reproduced
directly from an automatic plotter or computer printer must have lettering
of the correct size and style (e.g., MeV instead of MEV, unslashed
zeros) and curves that are smooth and of sufficient line weight
to allow suitable reproduction. The resolution of the drawing
software and the output device should be set as high as possible
(preferably 600 dpi or higher).
Very fine lines
in laser-generated illustrations will disappear under scanning.
Photographs of apparatus are unacceptable and should be
replaced by good schematic diagrams.
Photographic (continuous tone)
material is screened (``halftoned'')
within our production process. Avoid submitting prescreened prints
of photographic material; reproduction of such figures is then seldom
satisfactory. There is a risk of moiré patterns appearing in
the final product. Laser-printer renditions of continuous-tone data
are similarly problematic, since they are effectively prescreened.
Please submit such figures electronically as PostScript files (one
image per file). There are greater possibilities for successful
reproduction in the journal when these data are processed directly
rather than via scanning of hard-copy renditions. Alternatively,
supply glossy
or matte-finish photographs instead, if available.
Otherwise, choose the highest resolution possible and laser print the
figure at its final published size.
Figures should be numbered in the order in which they are cited
in the text. The original figures,
as well as the copies supplied for review purposes, should
be identified on the front (well outside the image
area)
by the number, the name of the first author, and the journal.
An indication, e.g., ``TOP,'' of the intended orientation of a
figure is helpful, especially in ambiguous cases. Be advised that
the scanner reproduces all flaws (e.g., correction fluid, tape,
smudges, writing on the back of the figure).
Each figure must have its own caption; list
captions on a separate sheet. Groups of figures that share a
common (single) caption must be labeled ``(a), (b), (c)'' etc.
It is preferable that all parts of a figure be
submitted as a single piece.
The figure should have properly labeled axes with correctly
Use the form
R (10³ Omega), not R × 10³ ohms. For
complete instructions see the Physical Review Style and
Notation Guide and the AIP Style Manual.