nuclear physics in poland 1996 – 2006

7%6%5%4%3%2%1%0%8%7%6%5%4%3%2%1%0%Eur. Phys. Jour. . A Nucl. Phys. . A Phys. Rev. Lett.3.4%2001 2002 2003 2004 20057%6%6. 9% 6.05%2001 2002 2003 2004 20056%5%4%3%2%1%0%4%3%2%1%0%2001 2002 2003 2004 20052001 2002 2003 2004 200514%12%4.7% 10%11.0%8%6%4%2%0%7%6%5%4%3%2%1%0%2001 2002 2003 2004 2005Phys. Rev. . C Phys. Lett. . B Total6.0%5.7%2001 2002 2003 2004 2005Fig. 2. Percent fractions of papers published with Polish coaffiliationsin theoretical and experi-mental nuclear* physics in fivemajor journals.In order to put the above numbers inperspective, the analogous analysis, within thesame methodology, was repeated for papersoriginating from France, the country, which by allmeans can be considered a scientific superpowerin the research worldwide. Fig. 3 presents thedistributions of papers with Polish (535) andFrench (1016) co-affiliations, published in the fivemajor journals.POLAND 535 FRANCE 1016Physical Review CNuclear PhysicsEuropean Physical Journal APhysical Review LettersPhysics Letters Bcollaborations between theorists and experimentalists.With all the reservations such aqualification may carry, 158 theoretical paperswere selected for further analysis.93765Staff 63 Junior 3492 11615Publications 158 Output 2754 8 4 13 12 4 449511440103Sołtan Institute for Nuclear StudiesMa ria Curie -S kłodowska UniversityJagellonian UniversityWarsaw UniversitySilesian UniversityNiewodniczański Institute of Nuclear PhysicsNicolaus Copernicus Astronomical CenterWarsaw University of TechnologyFig. 4. Distributions of authors (upper left), junior authors(upper right), papers (lower left), and output (lower right) amongeight Polish scientific institutions in nuclear* theory.53361762926Fig. 3. Numbers of papers published with Polish and French coaffiliationsin theoretical and experi-mental nuclear* physics in fivemajor journals.Although due to restrictions of the adoptedmethodology both total numbers of papers areprobably strongly underestimated, nonethelesstheir relative values illustrate important strengthof the Polish community in the domain ofnuclear* physics. It is important to add at thispoint that the scientific collaboration betweenPoland and France is particularly strong, andhence a great deal of scientific papers arecoauthored by Polish and French scientists, thuscounting towards figures of merit of bothcountries.The next step of the analysis requiresidentifying papers that can be qualified astheoretical. This could not have been doneotherwise but by scanning all the 535 papers oneby one, and taking decisions in each of theindividual cases. The task was not easy, becausevery many papers result from close and fruitful30As shown in Fig, 4, among authors of theabove set of papers, I could identify 63 Polishtheorists affiliated with 8 scientific institutions. Itis very important to see that 34 of them, i.e. morethan a half, are young scientists (prior to theirD.Sc. degree). At this point, the largestuncertainty comes from the fact that it is oftendifficult to label a given author as a ‘theorist’ or‘experimentalist’. And again, the numbers shownin the Figure certainly do not exhaust the entirelist of Polish nuclear* theorists. However, thosewho have published during five years at least onepaper in one of the five journals considered,probably belong to the class of the most activeones.Distribution of papers among the 8institutions shows that 4 of them provide themajority of publications. It is interesting to seethat the sum of numbers of publications in thisdistribution is equal to 160. This means thatpapers are coauthored by researchers working atdifferent institutions. This seems to be a typicalsituation in Polish science, where very intensecollaborations exist between Polish and foreignphysicists, but very few inside Poland.