APS journals achieve record-high performance across multiple metrics in new Journal Citation Reports
The independent rankings demonstrate the journals’ impact, influence, and reach
The American Physical Society’s leadership in scientific publishing is reflected in its journals’ performance across a variety of metrics published in the annual Journal Citation Reports 2026 (JCR) released by Clarivate on June 17.
According to the report, which provides unbiased, independent information, the American Physical Society’s portfolio of peer-reviewed journals performed exceptionally well in 2025 — both in core physics categories and the full report, which included more than 22,600 indexed journals across 254 fields of research.
As measured by total citations globally, five APS journals ranked in the top 1% of all indexed titles and 10 landed in the top 5% overall. With its all-time high of 541,055 citations captured, the Society’s flagship Physical Review Letters leads this group as the world’s 11th most-cited journal overall, followed by Physical Review B and Physical Review D as the 13th and 25th most-cited journals, respectively.
Ranked by normalized eigenfactor, a measure of overall influence, four APS journals sit in the top 1% of the JCR and twelve sit within the top 5%. This metric once again indicates that Physical Review Letters is the most influential multidisciplinary physics journal — ranking 24th out of all titles indexed, with a score reflecting that it is 54 times more influential than the average scholarly journal. By this same metric, APS journals accounted for half of the top 10 ranked publications in the multidisciplinary physics category, including Physical Review Letters in first place, Physical Review Research in second, and Physical Review X in fourth. Fourteen of the Society’s 15 indexed journals ranked in the top 15% of their respective fields.
APS journals also topped the multidisciplinary physics category as measured by other metrics. Reviews of Modern Physics remains the highest-impact multidisciplinary physics journal with a 2025 journal impact factor of 48.9 and an immediacy index of 13.2. Physical Review Letters continues to retain a decisive edge in both total citations and eigenfactor. Physical Review X again leads all open access titles as ranked by total citations (40,187), impact factor (16.8), journal citation indicator (4.01), immediacy index (4.1), and article influence score (5.968), while Physical Review Research leads open access titles in normalized eigenfactor (15.65949).
Five APS journals achieved their highest-ever journal impact factors in 2025: Physical Review X (16.8), PRX Quantum (12.3), Physical Review Letters (9.4), Physical Review Fluids (3.0), and Physical Review Accelerators and Beams (2.0). With its impact factor increasing from 11.0 to 12.3, PRX Quantum ranked first in the category of quantum science and technology, as well as in the top 10% of both applied physics and multidisciplinary physics. Overall, eight journals placed in the top quartile for impact factor in at least one category: Reviews of Modern Physics, Physical Review X, PRX Quantum, Physical Review Letters, Physical Review D, Physical Review Research, Physical Review Physics Education Research, and Physical Review E.
As a signatory of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, the American Physical Society recognizes that a journal’s impact factor is only one metric among many that jointly offer a more comprehensive view of journal quality. Accordingly, the Society shares other measurements — including the h-5 index, SJR, and CiteScore — on its Journal Metrics page and advises that none of these journal-level metrics be used to judge the impact of an individual author, their articles, or their other research outputs.