Journal rankings · indicator year 2023
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Field ranking · 2023
Physics and Astronomy journal rankings 2023
368 ranked journals · Field in Physical Sciences
Physics and Astronomy has 368 ranked journals in 2023. The median OJR rose 0.06 on 2022 to 0.65, below the world average of 1.00; Q1 starts at OJR 1.15. The top three are Reviews of Modern Physics, Physics Reports, and Advances in Optics and Photonics.
Ranks and citation indicators: 2023. 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 2020–2022, the window the 2023 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 Sciences368 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 2022. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2020–2022, the window the 2023 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2020–2022 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 2014 to 2023. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1Reviews of Modern PhysicsAmerican Physical Society · United States | 16.37Q1 | 51.72 1.19 up from 2022 | 100 | 56% | — | ||
2Physics ReportsElsevier BV · Netherlands | 10.38Q1 | 25.28 4.59 down from 2022 | 164 | 43% | $6,240 | ||
3Advances in Optics and PhotonicsOptica Publishing Group · United States | 8.95Q1 | 32.54 5.24 up from 2022 | 43 | 46% | — | ||
4eLightOASpringer Nature · Singapore | 7.84Q1 | 28.03 15.83 down from 2022 | 32 | 100% | $0 listed | ||
5Nature PhotonicsNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 6.64Q1 | 22.06 0.89 down from 2022 | 516 | 41% | $12,690 | ||
6Reports on Progress in PhysicsIOP Publishing · United Kingdom | 5.15Q1 | 16.69 1.57 up from 2022 | 120 | 88% | $4,680 | ||
7PhotoniXOASpringer Nature · Singapore | 5.07Q1 | 17.94 1.04 down from 2022 | 73 | 100% | $2,239 | ||
8Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Computational Molecular ScienceWiley · United States | 4.93Q1 | 17.05 5.95 up from 2022 | 160 | 63% | $5,230 | ||
9Light Science & ApplicationsOASpringer Nature · United Kingdom | 4.92Q1 | 17.44 0.51 down from 2022 | 757 | 100% | $4,190 | ||
10Progress in Particle and Nuclear PhysicsElsevier BV · Netherlands | 4.87Q1 | 11.14 0.79 up from 2022 | 116 | 58% | $4,780 | ||
11Ultrafast ScienceOAAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science · China | 4.61Q1 | 14.10 0.60 up from 2022 | 30 | 100% | — | ||
12New Astronomy ReviewsElsevier BV · Netherlands | 4.60Q1 | 14.17 7.51 up from 2022 | 33 | 33% | $4,350 | ||
13Nature PhysicsNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 3.83Q1 | 9.59 1.48 down from 2022 | 1,026 | 40% | $12,690 | ||
14Space Science ReviewsSpringer Science+Business Media · Netherlands | 3.65Q1 | 9.26 1.62 down from 2022 | 282 | 93% | $5,290 | ||
15Physical Review XOAAmerican Physical Society · United States | 3.11Q1 | 9.59 0.63 down from 2022 | 772 | 100% | $4,200 | ||
16The Astrophysical Journal Supplement SeriesOAInstitute of Physics · United Kingdom | 3.03Q1 | 6.99 1.55 down from 2022 | 863 | 100% | $4,499 | ||
17Progress in Quantum ElectronicsElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 2.94Q1 | 8.91 1.94 down from 2022 | 55 | 57% | $4,090 | ||
18The Astrophysical Journal LettersOAIOP Publishing · United Kingdom | 2.79Q1 | 8.12 0.33 up from 2022 | 1,978 | 100% | $2,400 | ||
19OpticaOAOptica Publishing Group · United States | 2.77Q1 | 9.36 0.52 down from 2022 | 697 | 100% | $3,208 | ||
20Nature AstronomyNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 2.69Q1 | 6.59 0.04 down from 2022 | 804 | 44% | $12,690 | ||
21Progress of Theoretical and Experimental PhysicsOAUniversity of Oxford · Japan | 2.68Q1 | 5.45 1.93 down from 2022 | 528 | 100% | $979 | ||
22Physical Review LettersAmerican Physical Society · United States | 2.67Q1 | 7.90 1.11 down from 2022 | 7,305 | 57% | $3,750 | ||
23Computer Physics CommunicationsElsevier BV · Netherlands | 2.58Q1 | 8.27 2.07 up from 2022 | 868 | 61% | $4,160 | ||
24Reviews in Mineralogy and GeochemistryMineralogical Society of America · United States | 2.30Q1 | 6.22 0.49 up from 2022 | 54 | 24% | — | ||
25SciPost Physics Lecture NotesOASciPost.org · Netherlands | 2.28Q1 | 4.73 3.01 down from 2022 | 53 | 100% | — | ||
26Ukrainian Journal of Physical OpticsOAUkraine | 2.23Q1 | 10.82 6.45 up from 2022 | 77 | 100% | — | ||
27Chaos Solitons & FractalsElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 2.14Q1 | 5.70 3.02 down from 2022 | 3,080 | 18% | $3,970 | ||
28Light Advanced ManufacturingOAChina | 2.13Q1 | 8.15 1.03 up from 2022 | 94 | 100% | — | ||
29Astroparticle PhysicsElsevier BV · Netherlands | 2.10Q1 | 5.38 0.83 up from 2022 | 140 | 52% | $2,920 | ||
30Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2020: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter WavePublisher not listed | 1.98Q1 | 1.33 0.32 up from 2022 | 127 | — | — | ||
31AAPPS bulletinOASpringer Nature · South Korea | 1.95Q1 | 5.05 0.95 down from 2022 | 66 | 100% | $2,190 | ||
32Photonics ResearchOptica Publishing Group · United States | 1.94Q1 | 7.25 0.08 down from 2022 | 940 | 15% | — | ||
33Journal of Ocean Engineering and ScienceOAElsevier BV · China | 1.93Q1 | 5.23 1.47 down from 2022 | 308 | 100% | $0 listed | ||
34AVS Quantum ScienceUnited States | 1.91Q1 | 4.67 2.85 down from 2022 | 121 | 73% | — | ||
35Nature Reviews PhysicsNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 1.86Q1 | 18.33 3.73 up from 2022 | 378 | 30% | — | ||
36Advances in Physics XOATaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 1.86Q1 | 5.67 0.03 up from 2022 | 117 | 100% | $1,895 | ||
37SciPost PhysicsOASciPost.org · Netherlands | 1.79Q1 | 4.71 0.73 down from 2022 | 788 | 100% | — | ||
38Annual Review of Astronomy and AstrophysicsAnnual Reviews · United States | 1.77Q1 | 19.16 9.87 down from 2022 | 42 | 87% | — | ||
39Fortschritte der PhysikWiley · Germany | 1.77Q1 | 5.18 2.36 up from 2022 | 164 | 67% | $3,460 | ||
40Communications PhysicsOANature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 1.77Q1 | 5.60 0.26 up from 2022 | 826 | 100% | $3,990 | ||
41Matter and Radiation at ExtremesOAAmerican Institute of Physics · China | 1.76Q1 | 4.61 0.23 up from 2022 | 152 | 100% | — | ||
42Physics of the Dark UniverseElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.75Q1 | 4.71 0.08 down from 2022 | 480 | 32% | $3,660 | ||
42Journal of Space Weather and Space ClimateOAEDP Open · France | 1.75Q1 | 4.37 0.35 up from 2022 | 163 | 100% | $1,413 | ||
44Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle PhysicsInstitute of Physics · United Kingdom | 1.73Q1 | 4.71 1.21 down from 2022 | 2,238 | 71% | $3,290 | ||
45SuperconductivityOAElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.71Q1 | 6.16no 2022 value | 32 | 100% | $2,100 | — | |
46Publications of the Astronomical Society of AustraliaCambridge University Press · Australia | 1.71Q1 | 3.07 2.34 down from 2022 | 181 | 91% | $3,550 | ||
47Journal of High Energy AstrophysicsElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.69Q1 | 4.08 0.94 up from 2022 | 88 | 100% | $2,520 | ||
48Earth and Space 2021Publisher not listed | 1.69Q1 | 0.68 0.39 up from 2022 | 184 | — | — | ||
49APL PhotonicsOAAIP Publishing · United States | 1.67Q1 | 5.96 0.11 down from 2022 | 425 | 100% | $2,750 | ||
50SIAM ReviewSociety for Industrial and Applied Mathematics · United States | 1.66Q1 | 3.93 0.50 up from 2022 | 129 | 27% | — |
Citations made in 2023. Corpus-wide, 88.9% of core-journal articles and reviews published that year have at least one matched reference; the share varies by journal and field.
73 additional Physics and Astronomy journals with metrics are unranked under this release’s eligibility rules: a journal needs at least 30 citable documents in 2020–2022, 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: 2023. Publication window: 2020–2022. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 368
- Window papers (baseline)
- 360,929 -3.9% from indicator year 2020
- Median OJR
- 0.652 +1.8% from indicator year 2020
- Rising journals (2025)
- 36Comparison-group list (36)
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2020–2022 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.