Physical Review Letters (PRL) is the world”s foremost physics
letters journal, providing rapid publication of short reports of
significant fundamental research in all fields of physics.
International in scope, the journal provides its diverse readership
with weekly coverage of major advances in physics and cross
disciplinary developments. PRL’s topical sections are devoted to
general physics (including statistical and quantum mechanics, quantum
information, etc.), gravitation and astrophysics; elementary particles
and fields; nuclear physics; atomic, molecular, and optical physics;
nonlinear dynamics, fluid dynamics, classical optics; plasma and beam
physics; condensed matter; and soft-matter, biological, and
interdisciplinary physics.
This document contains information about this online service. It introduces
recently added new features, describes the available services, and provides
information users may find helpful in getting started. As part of an Online
Help compendium the present document emphasizes aspects of Scitation which covers the current year of
journal contents plus the previous three years. Earlier volumes are contained
in the Physical Review Online Archive (PROLA),
for which a separate document is available (see
About PROLA).
While many features of this online service are freely available, some require a
personal or institutional subscription. If you are able to access full-text articles and view linked references without being prompted for a password and username, you are doing so via a subscription paid for by your library or institution.
icon will appear in the online Table of Contents and abstract, the printers mark will appear on the
full text. For further information please see the Announcement.
icon will be displayed on all FREE TO READ articles. The full text (pdf) will be available without a subscription. See
http://publish.aps.org/FREETOREAD_FAQ.html for more information.
Physical Review Letters is published electronically one article at a time weekly. A new issue is "opened" at the beginning of a week and as articles complete the production process are published in that issue. The issue is "closed" at the end of the week. PRL is published weekly (approximately 25 issues per volume, two volumes per year).
Users can select from a list of all available volumes and browse any HTML TOC, read abstracts, and view PDF (and PostScript) articles (or place a document delivery order). Physical Review Letters offers the following features:
Available Volumes
- Direct access to the Tables of Contents of recent issues including the latest, open issue.
- Browse the list of articles accepted for publication (ordered by month of acceptance). The abstracts of electronically submitted articles are also available. These can be found on the homepage in the drop down menu of Recent and Future Issues below the current issue(s).
- Access to the issue index of any volume in the current year plus the previous three years.
- Access to earlier volumes via the Physical Review Online Archive (PROLA).
Tables of Contents
- Browse an HTML version of the Table of Contents (TOC) of any issue, including the latest open issue. The HTML TOCs contain hyperlinks from individual titles to the abstract of each title as well as options to view full-text PDF or PostScript articles and place both online and offline document delivery orders. For more information on viewing and printing PostScript files, consult the Online Help specific to working with compressed PostScript.
- Browse PDF versions of the TOCs for the last few years, which contain weblinks to the HTML abstracts.
Abstracts
- The abstract "view" shows bibliographic information including the citation, title, author name(s), and abstract. In addition, author affiliation(s), PACS categories, and hyperlinked references are available as well as links to the full-text PDF or PostScript version of the article (see below).
- Reference sections are available in the abstracts for subscribers. They include links to those citations available in PROLA, AIP’s SPIN database, IEE's INSPEC database, and the arXiv.org E-print archive. Read Reference Sections and Reference Linking in Abstracts for more information.
- From the abstract "view," users can view the full-text PDF or PostScript version of the article, including all figures, tables, and references. Or, an "Order Document" link will allow users to place an order for offline document delivery.
- Links to related papers are available in the abstracts; that is, crosslinks within a series of papers (Papers I, II, etc.), from a Comment to the Article commented on and its Reply, and from an Article to its Erratum (and in most cases, the link are bidirectional; that is, the Comment features a link to the Reply and vice versa). For more information, read Related-Paper ("See Also") Citations and Links in Abstracts in Online Help.
- "Citing Articles" links (i.e., "forward" reference links to other articles on Scitation citing the article currently being viewed) are available for the last few years. These links appear after the Reference Section, and are available for subscribers. Read Reference Sections and Reference Linking in Abstracts for more information.
- A tabular array containing additional bibliographic information can be accessed by following the "Additional Information" link appearing after the PACS numbers.
Searching
- Search a database covering recent volumes (i.e., the current year plus the previous three years of contents).
- Search a database of earlier volumes in the Physical Review Online Archive (PROLA).
- An Author Search Interface is available for effective searching on names with initials.
Free Access to Some Areas
- The Tables of Contents (PDF and HTML), the abstract view and searching of articles are not password protected. Password/username will only be requested for viewing full text and references, and entrance to AIP's SPIN database via the Search SPIN database link appearing on the search pages. When a password/username does apply, it is requested only once per "session." A "session" is the period between successful login (authentication) and logout (exiting), or 15 minutes of "idle" time (after which the user is automatically logged out). Password/username is NOT requested, at any point, for access via an institutional subscription.
Important Links
- The “Accepted Papers” tab on the home page provides access to listings of papers to appear in future issues of Physical Review Letters.
- The home page provides links to other APS journals and to the Physical Review Online Archive (PROLA).
Other Features
- A password-changing mechanism is available for individual users. For access, click here and, for more information, consult the Online Help.
- An "Exit" button (or textual equivalent) appears at the bottom of all PRL pages. The login system tracks the number of concurrent users on the system (i.e., the number of logins per login name). There are limits that are set per user and per institutional login. In order to free up a "slot" for the next user, it is recommended that you use the "Exit" button. If you do not, the next person logging in from your institution may not be able to access the service for up to 15 minutes.
- Make sure you have a current
browser
that supports (a) authentication (login and password),
(b) HTML
forms (for database queries), (c) HTML tables,
(d) JavaScript
(JavaScript support must be enabled to take full advantage of all
Article
Collection functions, as well as some functions of the
reference-linking,
related-article-linking,
and user-interface enhancing functions), and
(e) cookies.
IMPORTANT: Authentication requires that cookies be enabled in a cookie-capable browser; more information is available in the Online Help. While several other browsers are "Netscape-compliant," and their use should allow you to take full advantage of all of the journal's features, we recommend Netscape Navigator (more details are available from the Online Help page). As stated, authentication is required in order to enforce the publisher's subscription controls over its journals. This control is based on Netscape software products, and depends on the Netscape "cookie" mechanism (please refer to the PRL FAQ for more information on cookies) to authenticate and track both individual and institutional users throughout the system. While browsers that do not support this mechanism may function adequately, technical support in regard to authentication problems will NOT be extended to users who are not running either Netscape Navigator (version 2.0 or higher) or Microsoft Internet Explorer (version 2.0 or higher).
- To view full-text PDF versions of PRL articles, as well as PDF versions of issue tables of contents, you must have (a) Adobe Acrobat Exchange, (b) the Adobe Acrobat Reader, (c) the Adobe Acrobat Reader browser plug-in, or (d) another "viewer" that can display or otherwise manipulate PDF files (more details are available from the Online Help page). An Acrobat Tutorial is also available.
- To view full-text PostScript versions of articles, you must have a PostScript viewer or any other application that enables you to otherwise manipulate PostScript files [all PostScript delivered via Scitation is in compressed ("gzipped") format]. More information is available from the Online Help regarding working with compressed PostScript.
- PRL has been designed for the following minimum Internet access configuration: 14,400 bps modem. Tips on configuring your browser for slower connections (and to optimize any connection) are available from the Online Help page.
- Consult the PRL FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) for a compendium of capsulized information about PRL.
- Read the Online Help thoroughly, especially with regard to using the Acrobat products in conjunction with your browser, and for detailed tutorials on how to search the PRL databases.