Rising Physics and Astronomy journals compared with their field
These are the Physics and Astronomy journals whose OJR rose faster than the median journal of their field between 2022 and 2025, by +10% or more relative to that median and by at least 2 standard errors. 36 journals qualify.
Between indicator years 2022 and 2025, the median OJR change among 229 eligible Physics and Astronomy journals was about -13%, taking the median on a log scale (the group ratio below).
Ordered by the lower bound of the relative-change range at two standard errors, highest first, then higher z (the signed difference in standard errors), then title. How trajectory is calculated (traj-v1)
| Journal | OJR 2022 → 2025 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. | Change relative to Physics and Astronomy median (2 SE range) | z (standard errors) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nuclear Science and Techniques | 0.67 → 1.27 | +117.9% (+74.4% to +172.4%) | 7.0 |
| Galaxies | 0.82 → 1.39 | +94.6% (+49.1% to +154.0%) | 5.0 |
| Journal of Nonlinear Mathematical Physics | 0.44 → 0.84 | +116.5% (+35.3% to +246.5%) | 3.3 |
| Gravitation and Cosmology | 0.27 → 0.54 | +125.2% (+33.2% to +280.9%) | 3.1 |
| Radiation Detection Technology and Methods | 0.24 → 0.49 | +139.8% (+27.1% to +352.2%) | 2.8 |
| Particles | 0.51 → 0.88 | +99.4% (+25.6% to +216.6%) | 3.0 |
| Color Research & Application | 0.59 → 0.82 | +58.3% (+23.8% to +102.4%) | 3.7 |
| The European Physical Journal E | 0.44 → 0.59 | +55.4% (+19.3% to +102.3%) | 3.3 |
| Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society | 1.19 → 1.29 | +24.1% (+19.1% to +29.4%) | 10.4 |
| Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion | 0.71 → 0.84 | +34.8% (+18.6% to +53.3%) | 4.7 |
| Physical Review C | 0.88 → 0.98 | +27.0% (+18.1% to +36.6%) | 6.6 |
| European Journal of Physics | 0.24 → 0.34 | +60.8% (+16.4% to +122.1%) | 2.9 |
| Chinese Physics Letters | 0.76 → 0.98 | +47.0% (+15.8% to +86.8%) | 3.2 |
| Journal of Medical Physics | 0.32 → 0.44 | +57.5% (+12.4% to +120.6%) | 2.7 |
| Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics | 0.91 → 1.02 | +28.2% (+11.7% to +47.2%) | 3.6 |
| Nuclear Fusion | 0.88 → 0.94 | +21.9% (+9.9% to +35.3%) | 3.8 |
| Chinese Journal of Physics | 1.16 → 1.27 | +25.7% (+9.6% to +44.2%) | 3.3 |
| npj Quantum Materials | 1.41 → 1.67 | +35.7% (+9.4% to +68.3%) | 2.8 |
| International Journal of Geometric Methods in Modern Physics | 0.60 → 0.68 | +28.6% (+9.2% to +51.3%) | 3.1 |
| Acta Physica Sinica | 0.16 → 0.17 | +20.9% (+8.8% to +34.3%) | 3.6 |
| Radiation Measurements | 0.58 → 0.67 | +31.4% (+8.7% to +58.8%) | 2.9 |
| EPJ Web of Conferences | 0.79 → 0.85 | +22.9% (+8.4% to +39.4%) | 3.3 |
| Physics of Plasmas | 0.59 → 0.61 | +17.8% (+7.8% to +28.7%) | 3.7 |
| Nature Reviews Physics | 1.68 → 2.10 | +42.5% (+7.7% to +88.6%) | 2.5 |
| SIAM Journal on Applied Dynamical Systems | 0.57 → 0.73 | +47.1% (+7.6% to +101.1%) | 2.5 |
| Journal of Plasma Physics | 0.74 → 0.88 | +36.3% (+5.8% to +75.4%) | 2.4 |
| Physics of the Dark Universe | 1.70 → 1.83 | +22.7% (+5.3% to +43.1%) | 2.7 |
| Science China Physics Mechanics and Astronomy | 1.32 → 1.47 | +26.9% (+4.3% to +54.4%) | 2.4 |
| The European Physical Journal C | 1.46 → 1.44 | +13.0% (+4.3% to +22.5%) | 3.0 |
| Plasma and Fusion Research | 0.17 → 0.21 | +42.8% (+4.2% to +95.6%) | 2.3 |
| The Astrophysical Journal Letters | 3.04 → 3.29 | +23.7% (+4.0% to +47.2%) | 2.4 |
| Fusion Engineering and Design | 0.44 → 0.44 | +16.2% (+2.6% to +31.7%) | 2.4 |
| The European Physical Journal A | 1.05 → 1.17 | +27.8% (+2.5% to +59.4%) | 2.2 |
| Physics Education | 0.21 → 0.27 | +49.8% (+1.1% to +121.9%) | 2.1 |
| International Journal of Modern Physics E | 0.38 → 0.48 | +45.3% (+0.6% to +109.9%) | 2.0 |
| Journal of Synchrotron Radiation | 0.73 → 0.77 | +21.6% (+0.6% to +46.9%) | 2.1 |
How to read this list
Relative change = journal OJR ratio ÷ median group ratio − 1. The journal ratio is its OJR in 2025 divided by its OJR in 2022. The group ratio is the median of those ratios among eligible journals of the field, taken on a log scale: with an even number of journals, it is the geometric mean of the two middle ratios rather than their average.
Indicator year 2022 counts citations to papers published 2019–2021; indicator year 2025 counts citations to papers published 2022–2024. The two publication cohorts do not overlap.
A journal is listed when it is ranked, its relative change is +10% or more, and the change is at least 2 standard errors above zero (z ≥ 2), so the low end of its two-standard-error range is zero or above.
Large relative changes often start from low scores: the top journal’s OJR rose from 0.67 to 1.27, now above the world average of 1.00. Relative to the median journal of its field, its change was +117.9%.