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On the Publications and Citation Statistics of the IRAM telescopes

I have used the publication lists of the IRAM Annual Reports and identified the refereed publications based on observations with the IRAM 30-m and PdB Plateau de Bure (PdB) antennas. Fig. 8 shows the annual number of PdB and 30m based refereed publications. During the last 10 years, the outcome of the PdB has been oscillating between 13 and 56 publications per year (average: 25.8). In the same time span, the 30m telescope has been producing 35-78 publications per year (average: 55.3). In the case of the interferometer, one can see the effects of the cable car accident, which resulted in a drop in the scientific output, which could be noticed in 2001 and 2002. On the other hand the availability of new receivers in 2006 resulted in an increase of publications in 2007 and 2008. The pronounced peak in 2007 may be in part due to a special edition on PdB results of Astronomy and Astrophysics. In the case of the 30m telescope the productivity has been increasing since the introduction new single pixel receivers in 1999/2000 with better tuning ranges, sensitivities and bandwidths and the introduction of VESPA, HERA and MAMBO2. Also the introduction of the MAMBO and HERA pool has certainly played an important role in the increase of productivity witnessed after 2000.

Figure 8: Time series of IRAM PdB and 30m publications.

When looking at the refereed publications published in 2008, 28 of the 72 papers obtained with the 30-m telescope had IRAM staff members as coauthors; this corresponds to 39% of the 30-m papers. For the IRAM PdB interferometer, 19 of the 34 papers have IRAM staff members as coauthors, corresponding to 56% of the PdB data (Fig. 9). It is not clear whether this reflects a major scientific interest of IRAM staff in science with the interferometer, whether observation and data reduction with the 30m telescope can be done without substantial help from the staff for most observers, or whether it is just statistical noise.

Figure 9: Staff member participation in IRAM PdB and 30m publications, year 2007.

Since its beginnings (i.e. since 1992) until 2009, the PdB interferometer has produced 346 publications, which were cited 10690 times. The average citation rate per paper was 30.9 and the h- and m-indices3 are 51 and 3.0. The 30m telescope has produced since its first publications (in 1986) 1131 refereed publications with 37460 citations. The average citation rate per paper is 33.1, and the h and m-indices are 84 and 3.7. Links ADS of the to the PdB and 30m publications can be found at http://www.iram.es/IRAMES/dataarchive/init.html.



Rainer MAUERSBERGER


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Next: Staff changes Up: IRAM Newsletter 72 (February 2009) Previous: Winter 2008/2009 proposal ratings