Abstract
The citation network constituted by the SPIRES database is investigated empirically. The probability that a given paper in the SPIRES database has k citations is well described by simple power laws, with for k less than 50 citations and for 50 or more citations. A consideration of citation distribution by subfield shows that the citation patterns of high energy physics form a remarkably homogeneous network. Further, we utilize the knowledge of the citation distributions to demonstrate the extreme improbability that the citation records of selected individuals and institutions have been obtained by a random draw on the resulting distribution.
- Received 16 December 2002
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.68.026113
©2003 American Physical Society