When determining the authorship list for your next paper, be generous yet disciplined.

The American Physical Society (APS) is pleased to announce that it will begin sponsoring Astrobites, a daily astrophysical literature journal written by graduate students in astronomy. This mutually beneficial collaboration aims to enhance the dissemination of research, educational resources, and career insights in the field of astronomy and astrophysics.

A new Collection by the Physical Review journals celebrates the 50th anniversary of the discovery of asymptotic freedom in quantum chromodynamics (QCD)—the theoretical basis for the strong force of nature that binds quarks and gluons into hadrons.

To mark the 243rd American Astronomical Society meeting, Physical Review Letters, Physical Review C, and Physical Review D highlighted several significant papers in astrophysics to illustrate the type of research these journals seek to publish.

With the goal of broadening its coverage of astrophysics, PRD hired astrophysicist Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz as an Associate Editor and appointed three experts in astrophysics to its Editorial Board.

A number of astrophysical mechanisms can cause observationally detectable late-time reheating in neutron stars. The paper estimates the sensitivities of the James Webb Space, Extremely Large, and Thirty Meter Telescopes for such observations, also highlighting candidate target systems.

Researchers at CERN have significantly increased the precision of the measured value of the top-quark mass, a key input for making standard-model calculations.

Synopsis on:
A. Hayrapetyan et al. (CMS Collaboration†, ATLAS Collaboration‡)
Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 261902 (2024)

A long-running experiment aboard the International Space Station has found an unexpected population of cosmic rays made of heavy hydrogen ions.

Synopsis on:
M. Aguilar et al. (AMS Collaboration)
Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 261001 (2024)

The authors combine new (“multipoint”) methods with established asymptotic and numerical tools to calculate the emission of gravitational radiation from cosmic string loops over the entire celestial sphere from the ultra-low to the ultra-high frequency spectrum. These emissions contribute to the stochastic gravitational wave background and will be detectable by a wide range of instruments, from pulsar timing arrays to space-based gravitational wave detectors. An accurate description of the spectrum will be decisive for its detection.

Theorists explain why cosmic inflation might appear to be driven by a single inflaton field, even if it had actually been driven by two or more such fields.

Synopsis on:
Koki Tokeshi and Vincent Vennin
Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 251001 (2024)

APS has selected 156 Outstanding Referees for 2024 who have demonstrated exceptional work in the assessment of manuscripts published in the Physical Review journals. A full list of the Outstanding Referees is available online.

From nature’s tiniest particles to waves that traverse the Universe—physicists remember resounding finds from the last half-century.

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