The European Physical Journal C (EPJ C) presents new and original research results in theoretical physics and experimental physics, in a variety of different article categories, including Regular Articles, Reviews, Tools for Experiment and Theory, Scientific Notes and Letters. The range of topics is extensive. Please consult the full Aims & Scope for more details.
Letters must describe new and original work deserving rapid publication. Their aim is fast and concise communication of important topical results to a broader audience. Letters should not exceed 4 printed pages in the EPJ style format, and should contain no more than 4 figures and/or tables. A letter may well be followed by one or more regular articles containing additional details.
Regular Articles describe original work, or provide details of original work previously published in a Letter article. There is no general limitation of the overall size nor of the number of figures, nor of the level of details considered to be necessary.
Tools for Experiment and Theory are articles presenting original and new developments of particle detectors, readout electronics, computational methods or analysis tools. Direct relevance to physics topics within the "Aims and Scopes" must be demonstrated. An important subgroup are Scientific Notes, typically based on internal notes of experimental collaborations, detailing specific aspects of importance for understanding and assessing the physics results presented in large collaboration papers. Technical details down to the level of construction drawings, electronic circuit diagrams or computer codes should not be included but may be added as electronic-only supplementory material.
Reviews are by invitation only through the Editorial Board. There is no general limit to the overall length - they may contain, but should not be restricted to, original work. Reviews will fall into one of the following categories:
1) Comprehensive reviews of major topics within the "Aims and Scope" of EPJA and EPJC. Their primary assets will be pedagogical exposition, synthesis of key developments, and the inclusion of a definitive and representative bibliography.
2) Technical papers presenting an extensive review of a specialist topic within the "Aims and Scope".
3) Reviews of a newly emerging field, providing an up-to-date synthesis and an extended discussion of the open questions. The discussion is expected to lead to an assessment of the possible further developments within the field, potentially making a substantial contribution to guiding decisions concerning the planning or running of experimental and observational facilities.
4) Outstanding thesis or working reports, the richness and importance of whose details justify the exceptional publication of the full length work.
Submission of a manuscript implies: that the work described has not been published before; that it is not under consideration for publication anywhere else; that its publication has been approved by all co-authors, if any, as well as by the responsible authorities—tacitly or explicitly—at the institute where the work has been carried out. The publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.
Authors should submit their manuscripts online. Electronic submission substantially reduces the editorial processing and reviewing times and shortens overall publication times. Please click on Submit online and upload all of your manuscript files following the instructions given on the screen. In case of problems or queries during the submission process, please contact the Editorial Office. The Editorial Office will also assist you with other forms of electronic or hard-copy submission if online submission is not possible.
All manuscripts are refereed carefully by experts in the field from the Editorial Board and also by external referees. When submitting their article authors are invited to suggest an Associate Editor to handle their manuscript but this suggestion is not binding. The responsible Editor-in-Chief will make the final decision and inform the corresponding author. In case of acceptance, all portions of the final manuscript should be sent to the production department according to the instructions mentioned in the acceptance letter from the Editor-in-Chief. In case of revisions the author will be asked to resubmit a revised version to the system. In case of rejection there is a well-defined procedure in place for appeals that is described in the rejection letter.
Manuscripts should be submitted in LaTeX. Please use the LATEX2e macro package, designed especially for EPJ. It is available at springeronline.com/journal/10052. The submission should include the original source (all style files and figures) and a PDF version of the compiled output. For further technical details on how to prepare a manuscript see the Instructions for Authors.
In case of technical problems/questions please contact the Production Office.
Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors. If you request permission from EPJ, please see FAQ/Permission Requests for further information.
Authors will be asked to transfer copyright of the article to the Publisher (or grant the Publisher exclusive publication and dissemination rights) by filling out the Copyright Transfer Statement. This will ensure the widest possible protection and dissemination of information under copyright laws.
EPJ C offers the "Open Access" publication option for papers that have successfully passed the peer-review.
In order to promote the latest research results rapidly,
the "letter" articles in EPJ C will automatically be published open access without any fees being incurred by the authors. Open Access fees for all experimental papers (regular articles as well as scientific notes) submitted to and accepted for publication by EPJ C are presently also waived.
Please note further that some of the consortia agreements negotiated by Springer have a built-in open access component. Accepted papers, with at least one author from such an "Open Access affiliation", will automatically be published open access.
Authors not eligible for any default Open Access but nevertheless wishing to publish an accepted paper as "Open Access" should inform the editorial office, following receipt of the acceptance letter.
The current standard Open Access fee is at a special reduced rate of € 1,000 per article.
For "Open Access" papers, authors when receiving the proofs will be asked to fill out and return the following license agreement (based on the Creative Commons license) instead of the usual EPJ copyright transfer statement. If the copyright is not with the author, the desired copyright text should be communicated as quickly as possible after acceptance, at the latest with the proofs (detailed instructions are given in the acceptance letter).
The article will be tagged "Open Access" and will be published and disseminated as such once the payment has been received.
For more details see Open Access.
The article will be published online after receipt of the corrected proofs. This is the official first publication citable with the DOI. After release of the printed version, the paper can also be cited by issue and page numbers.
In the case of non-open access articles, for which the copyright must be transferred to the publishers, the EPJ copyright transfer statement explicitly states that an author-created version can be freely posted on institutional repositories. For articles to be published in EPJ this explicitly includes the relevant preprint servers, in particular ArXiv (arxiv.org).
EPJ is committed to safeguarding good scientific practice in publishing at all levels. For details please see FAQ/Good scientific practice in publishing.