April 2013

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Initial submission

Physical Review X is an open-access journal that is financed by article-processing charges to the authors of published papers or to their institutions. The articles are published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Before making submissions authors must take steps to ensure that they or their institutions accept the responsibility for the payment of an Article Processing Charge ($1500 for up to roughly twenty formatted pages) should their manuscripts be accepted for publication.

When a manuscript has several authors, one of them, the corresponding author, should be designated to receive and respond to correspondence from the editors. This designation can be changed upon notification to the editors. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to represent all those involved with the work reported. By submitting the manuscript, the corresponding author certifies:

• The paper represents original work of the listed authors.
• The manuscript as presented accurately reflects the scientific results.
• All of the authors made significant contributions to the concept, design, execution, or interpretation of the research study.
• All those who made significant contributions were offered the opportunity to be listed as authors.
• All of the listed authors are aware of and agree to the submission of this manuscript.
• The manuscript has not been published, and is not now and will not be under consideration by another journal while it is considered here.
• As part of the submission, the authors have provided any relevant information to the editors (e.g., information about recent relevant unpublished manuscripts by the authors).
• The authors accept the journal's established procedures for selecting manuscripts for publication.

Authors may request that particular individuals not be chosen as referees. The editors will consider such requests and honor them when warranted. It is, however, customary to give authors whose work is criticized in a manuscript an opportunity to respond to the criticism. Authors are welcome to submit a list of experts whom they consider especially suited to review their paper. Such a list is particularly useful when a manuscript treats a highly specialized subject on which papers are infrequently published or is strongly interdisciplinary. The editors, however, are not obliged to select referee(s) from that list.

Prepare for initial submission:

• 1) Prepare your manuscript, including the required Popular Summary, for electronic modes of submission (via e-print servers or direct Web upload; please see Advice to Authors for preparation of your manuscript. In particular, prepare figures as separate files.
• 2) Designate a corresponding author or ``spokesperson'', to whom all correspondence should be addressed and gather all available communications information for this individual (postal and email addresses, phone and fax numbers).
• If submitting from a large collaboration, please follow the Guidelines for Collaboration Submissions to ensure proper coding of the author list in your REVTeX file.
• 3) Select an appropriate set (no more than three, however) from the journal's list of subject areas. If an important subject of your paper cannot be appropriately classified by the list, please provide appropriate keywords or phrases indicating the subject area(s) in the cover letter to the editors.
• 4) Prepare both a list of possible referees who are experts on the subject matter and who are not your close colleagues or collaborators and a letter of submission (i.e. cover letter), including any confidential remarks to the editors. Please consider including younger individuals who are sufficiently knowledgeable to be effective referees. You may also request that particular individuals not be chosen as referees with the cause(s) provided.
• 5) If the paper to be submitted has been previously considered for publication in any of the APS journals (Physical Review Letters or other Physical Review journals), collect the code number assigned by that journal and if applicable, prepare a brief response to any relevant referee and editorial comments provided by the other journal.

If you have other recent relevant unpublished work, gather the pertinent information or material as follows: for a paper under consideration by an APS journal, collect the code number; for one already submitted, or to be submitted, to another non-APS journal, prepare a copy to be submitted as reference material; and for a paper deposited on an e-print server, have the e-print number or an electronic copy ready.

Submit a manuscript:

To submit your manuscript or for detailed information about electronic submissions, see https://authors.aps.org/Submissions.

Resubmission:

Any resubmittal should be accompanied by a summary of the changes made, and a concise, to-the-point response to all recommendations and criticisms. While the editors do not assume that the referees' views take precedence over your well considered arguments and do not require you to make every change suggested by the referees, they do consider objections of referees as criticism by recognized scholars who belong to the special set of experts addressed by the paper, and they do demand that you consider those criticisms seriously.

Your response will normally be forwarded to reviewers, and so should be written in a collegial manner. It should directly address the items raised in the referee report(s). In general, very long rebuttal letters explaining contentious points in a manuscript should be avoided in favor of clarifying alterations in the manuscript itself. Remarks that you wish to address solely to the editors should be clearly identified and separated from the summary and response. You may send a version of the manuscript marked to show the changes clearly labeled as such, in addition to the required unmarked version.

The interactive resubmission forms available on our Web server may be used to upload modified manuscripts and figures. These forms should also be used when a manuscript previously submitted to one APS journal is transferred to Physical Review X. When resubmitting electronically, send the complete file for the text if there have been any changes. If the figures have been modified, state as such and supply new electronic figures. Please update any other information (e.g., address and communication information) that has changed or will change since initial submission.