Journal rankings · indicator year 2021
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Field ranking · 2021
Physics and Astronomy journal rankings 2021
379 ranked journals · Field in Physical Sciences
Physics and Astronomy has 379 ranked journals in 2021. The median journal has an OJR of 0.61, below the world average of 1.00, down 0.03 on 2020; Q1 starts at OJR 1.13. The top three are Reviews of Modern Physics, Physics Reports, and Nature Photonics.
Ranks and citation indicators: 2021. Journal access status and listed APC: source snapshot September 23, 2026.
Journals whose main subfield sits in this category and that published at least 30 citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) in 2018–2020, the window the 2021 score is computed on.
The OpenJournalRank Indicator (OJR) is a free, publicly available metric of a journal’s field-normalized citation impact, computed from open OpenAlex citation data. It compares citations to a journal’s papers from the previous three years with the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and values can be compared across fields. It is computed with the NCI3 method.
The middle OJR among ranked journals in this category: half score higher, half lower. 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type.
The dot is this category, the solid tick is the median of all ranked journals and the dashed line is the world average.
Share of ranked journals in this category that are fully open access, so every paper is free to read. Hybrid journals, which sell subscriptions and open single papers for a fee, are not counted.
Median list price of the article processing charge, in US dollars, among ranked journals in this category that list a price above zero. Journals with a listed APC of $0 and journals with no known price are left out of this median. The At a glance table below gives a second median that includes the $0 prices.
Subfields in Physics and Astronomy (8)
Up to Physical Sciences379 ranked journals
Filters
Rank is the position by OJR within the list on screen; 1 is the highest. | OJR is field-normalized 3-year citation impact: 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so values compare across fields. The badge is the journal’s quartile in this list. | Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is not field-normalized, so compare it only between journals of the same field. ▲ or ▼ is the change from 2020. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2018–2020, the window the 2021 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2018–2020 papers that are free to read in any open-access form. The green OA tag next to a title marks a fully open-access journal. | List price of the article processing charge in US dollars. “$0 listed” means the listed price is zero; a dash means no price is listed. | The line is the journal’s OJR from 2012 to 2021. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1Reviews of Modern PhysicsAmerican Physical Society · United States | 21.03Q1 | 54.80 5.28 down from 2020 | 114 | 85% | — | ||
2Physics ReportsElsevier BV · Netherlands | 9.57Q1 | 26.74 1.51 up from 2020 | 162 | 39% | $6,240 | ||
3Nature PhotonicsNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 6.96Q1 | 25.53 4.95 up from 2020 | 618 | 51% | $12,690 | ||
4Advances in Optics and PhotonicsOptica Publishing Group · United States | 6.54Q1 | 19.79 3.39 up from 2020 | 54 | 46% | — | ||
5Reports on Progress in PhysicsIOP Publishing · United Kingdom | 6.10Q1 | 15.75 2.24 down from 2020 | 150 | 60% | $4,680 | ||
6Progress in Particle and Nuclear PhysicsElsevier BV · Netherlands | 5.30Q1 | 10.85 5.14 down from 2020 | 116 | 68% | $4,780 | ||
7Light Science & ApplicationsOASpringer Nature · United Kingdom | 5.08Q1 | 19.62 3.28 up from 2020 | 441 | 100% | $4,190 | ||
8Nature PhysicsNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 4.34Q1 | 11.91 0.60 up from 2020 | 1,006 | 53% | $12,690 | ||
9Nuclear Data SheetsElsevier BV · United States | 4.07Q1 | 4.88 4.10 down from 2020 | 82 | 59% | $3,240 | ||
10Physical Review XOAAmerican Physical Society · United States | 4.02Q1 | 12.03 1.69 down from 2020 | 812 | 100% | $4,200 | ||
11Space Science ReviewsSpringer Science+Business Media · Netherlands | 3.65Q1 | 9.70 0.18 up from 2020 | 306 | 79% | $5,290 | ||
12The Astrophysical Journal Supplement SeriesOAInstitute of Physics · United Kingdom | 3.53Q1 | 9.19 0.38 up from 2020 | 753 | 99% | $4,499 | ||
13Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Computational Molecular ScienceWiley · United States | 3.40Q1 | 11.43 0.71 down from 2020 | 125 | 53% | $5,230 | ||
14OpticaOAOptica Publishing Group · United States | 3.19Q1 | 10.49 0.68 down from 2020 | 764 | 100% | $3,208 | ||
15Physical Review LettersAmerican Physical Society · United States | 3.09Q1 | 9.63 0.22 down from 2020 | 8,304 | 88% | $3,750 | ||
16The Astrophysical Journal LettersOAIOP Publishing · United Kingdom | 3.08Q1 | 9.14 0.05 up from 2020 | 1,932 | 100% | $2,400 | ||
17Nature AstronomyNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 2.78Q1 | 7.75 1.04 up from 2020 | 825 | 51% | $12,690 | ||
18Progress in Quantum ElectronicsElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 2.70Q1 | 8.84 4.04 down from 2020 | 38 | 37% | $4,090 | ||
19New Astronomy ReviewsElsevier BV · Netherlands | 2.68Q1 | 8.60 4.41 up from 2020 | 36 | 77% | $4,350 | ||
20The Open Journal of AstrophysicsOAIreland | 2.38Q1 | 6.38 3.44 down from 2020 | 33 | 100% | — | ||
21SciPost PhysicsOASciPost.org · Netherlands | 2.34Q1 | 7.09 0.08 up from 2020 | 463 | 100% | — | ||
22Publications of the Astronomical Society of AustraliaCambridge University Press · Australia | 2.32Q1 | 6.01 0.93 up from 2020 | 153 | 89% | $3,550 | ||
23Chaos Solitons & FractalsElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 2.30Q1 | 11.04 4.81 up from 2020 | 1,852 | 24% | $3,970 | ||
24Computational Social NetworksSpringer Science+Business Media · Germany | 2.28Q1 | 7.85 4.89 up from 2020 | 32 | 100% | $1,190 | ||
25Advances in Physics XOATaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 2.21Q1 | 6.64 0.33 down from 2020 | 104 | 100% | $1,895 | ||
26Publications of the Astronomical Society of the PacificInstitute of Physics · United Kingdom | 2.11Q1 | 4.64 0.99 down from 2020 | 404 | 96% | $3,325 | ||
27SIAM ReviewSociety for Industrial and Applied Mathematics · United States | 2.09Q1 | 4.17 0.73 down from 2020 | 123 | 53% | — | ||
28Fortschritte der PhysikWiley · Germany | 2.07Q1 | 4.34 0.78 down from 2020 | 189 | 73% | $3,460 | ||
29Communications PhysicsOANature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 2.03Q1 | 6.34 0.07 up from 2020 | 486 | 100% | $3,990 | ||
30Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2018: Ultraviolet to Gamma RayPublisher not listed | 2.03Q1 | —no 2020 value | 186 | — | — | ||
31Journal of Artificial Societies and Social SimulationOAUniversity of Surrey · United Kingdom | 2.01Q1 | 4.80 1.87 up from 2020 | 134 | 100% | $1,300 | ||
32Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle PhysicsInstitute of Physics · United Kingdom | 2.00Q1 | 7.03 1.29 up from 2020 | 2,072 | 98% | $3,290 | ||
33Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2018: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter WavePublisher not listed | 1.99Q1 | —no 2020 value | 195 | — | — | ||
34npj Quantum MaterialsOANature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 1.96Q1 | 6.24 0.19 down from 2020 | 221 | 100% | $2,890 | ||
35Proceedings of 37th International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory — PoS(LATTICE2019)Publisher not listed | 1.95Q1 | 0.79 0.10 up from 2020 | 203 | — | — | ||
36Reviews of Modern Plasma PhysicsSpringer Science+Business Media · Switzerland | 1.95Q1 | 6.11 0.61 up from 2020 | 36 | 62% | $3,590 | ||
37The Astronomical JournalOAInstitute of Physics · United States | 1.93Q1 | 5.57 1.28 down from 2020 | 1,671 | 99% | $4,499 | ||
38International Reviews in Physical ChemistryTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 1.92Q1 | 6.86 0.78 up from 2020 | 40 | 38% | — | ||
39Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society LettersOxford University Press · United Kingdom | 1.92Q1 | 5.24 0.08 down from 2020 | 626 | 94% | $1,451 | ||
40Photonics ResearchOptica Publishing Group · United States | 1.91Q1 | 7.07 0.06 down from 2020 | 717 | 20% | — | ||
41Progress of Theoretical and Experimental PhysicsOAUniversity of Oxford · Japan | 1.91Q1 | 6.33 4.19 up from 2020 | 504 | 100% | $979 | ||
42Annual Review of Astronomy and AstrophysicsAnnual Reviews · United States | 1.90Q1 | 37.21 6.36 up from 2020 | 50 | 85% | — | ||
43Computing and Software for Big ScienceSpringer Science+Business Media · Switzerland | 1.88Q1 | 5.30 1.65 down from 2020 | 34 | 100% | $3,790 | ||
44Adaptive Optics Systems VIPublisher not listed | 1.88Q1 | —no 2020 value | 217 | — | — | ||
45Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy VIIPublisher not listed | 1.87Q1 | —no 2020 value | 293 | — | — | ||
46APL PhotonicsOAAIP Publishing · United States | 1.86Q1 | 6.71 0.37 up from 2020 | 391 | 100% | $2,750 | ||
47Physics Letters BOAElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.82Q1 | 5.08 0.11 down from 2020 | 2,508 | 100% | $0 listed | ||
48Reviews in Mineralogy and GeochemistryMineralogical Society of America · United States | 1.80Q1 | 7.94 2.84 up from 2020 | 30 | 7% | — | ||
49Computer Physics CommunicationsElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.76Q1 | 4.66 0.02 down from 2020 | 855 | 70% | $4,160 | ||
50Astronomy and AstrophysicsOAEDP Sciences · France | 1.73Q1 | 6.40 0.23 up from 2020 | 6,057 | 100% | $1,865 |
Citations made in 2021. Corpus-wide, 87.7% of core-journal articles and reviews published that year have at least one matched reference; the share varies by journal and field.
83 additional Physics and Astronomy journals with metrics are unranked under this release’s eligibility rules: a journal needs at least 30 citable documents in 2018–2020, at least 80% of them with a subfield, and a positive world-average expectation. Ranks are within the whole category; filters hide rows without re-ranking. OJR excludes self-citations.
At a glance
Indicator year: 2021. Publication window: 2018–2020. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 379
- Window papers (baseline)
- 371,519 -2.4% from indicator year 2018
- Median OJR
- 0.613 -2.7% from indicator year 2018
- Rising journals (2025)
- 36Comparison-group list (36)
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2018–2020 in all journals of the world-average baseline, including non-core journals, counted by each paper’s own subfield. They are not the papers of the ranked journals alone.
| Measure | Year series | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ranked journals | 220 | 234 | 232 | 241 | 243 | 250 | 252 | 261 | 269 | 273 | 276 | 291 | 303 | 310 | 321 | 324 | 334 | 343 | 348 | 367 | 380 | 379 | 368 | 368 | 361 | 358 | |
| Window papers (baseline) | 239,411 | 246,506 | 254,602 | 264,968 | 276,497 | 287,864 | 301,824 | 318,045 | 328,993 | 337,594 | 340,171 | 347,983 | 354,503 | 362,347 | 368,160 | 376,730 | 379,807 | 383,796 | 380,664 | 378,685 | 375,462 | 371,519 | 367,990 | 360,929 | 353,510 | 350,521 | |
| Median OJR | 0.58340 | 0.56 | 0.57 | 0.58338 | 0.602 | 0.627 | 0.67 | 0.683 | 0.643 | 0.681 | 0.69 | 0.648 | 0.653 | 0.634 | 0.675 | 0.71 | 0.662 | 0.660 | 0.631 | 0.614 | 0.640 | 0.613 | 0.59 | 0.652 | 0.600 | 0.62 |
| Measure | Category statistic | Eligible population |
|---|---|---|
| Journal self-citation share | Median: 6.4% | 293 journals |
| Retracted papers per 1,000 | Pooled rate: 0.285 per 1,000 | 278 journals |
| Output growth | Median: +0.6% | 326 journals |
| Open access share | Median: 73.4% | 358 journals |
| Listed APC (USD) | Median including $0 listed prices: $3,000 | 213 ranked journals with a known listed price, including $0 listed prices |
| International collaboration share | Median: 30.1% | 348 journals |
| Review share | Median: 0.0% | 358 journals |
| Articles-only OJR | Median: 0.61 | 352 journals |
| Uncited share | Median: 38.3% | 358 journals |
| Citation concentration | Median: 48.2% | 356 journals |
How to read these rankings
- OJR, the OpenJournalRank Indicator
- A field-normalized 3-year citation impact, computed from OpenAlex with the NCI3 method. It divides the citations a journal’s papers received by the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and 2.00 means twice as many citations as expected. Because it is normalized, it can be compared across fields. Read the methodology
- Quartiles
- Q1 to Q4 split the ranked journals of the list you are viewing into four equal groups by OJR. A journal’s quartile depends on the list: the same journal can be Q1 in its subfield and Q2 among all journals.
- Impact factor (2-year)
- Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is easy to compare with familiar impact factors but is not field-normalized, so compare it only within a field. It is not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. Why it differs from the Journal Impact Factor
- Rank ranges
- Each rank in the latest year carries a likely range from 1,000 resamples of the journal’s papers. Where two journals’ ranges overlap, the data cannot tell them apart, so treat neighbouring ranks as ties.