Mega-authorship implications: How many scientists can fit into one cell?

Figures & data

Table 1. Author listing policy summaries.

Journal	Authorship Policy Summary
Journal of High Energy Physics	The guidelines indicate to not submit the entire author list if the manuscript is from a collaborative, but to use the collaborative name as the author. Otherwise, who can be listed as authors is not addressed (Journal of High Energy Physics n.d.).
Physical Review D	Author lists of 50 or more are given options to submit author lists in provided XML or TeX formats. Collaboration groups names may be listed. Suggestions on describing contribution details and who may be in acknowledgements are provided. No specific details are provided about qualifications for being in the author list are provided (Physical Review D n.d.).
Physical Review Letters	Author lists of 50 or more are given options to submit author lists in provided XML or TeX formats. Collaboration groups names may be listed. Suggestions on describing contribution details and who may be in acknowledgements are provided. No specific details are provided about qualifications for being in the author list are provided (Physical Review Letters n.d.).
Physics Letters B	The guidelines state that the names and order on the author list should be considered carefully before submission and has requirements for information to be submitted with the list. But who and how many should be on the list is not addressed (Physics Letters B n.d.).
European Physical Journal C	The guidelines indicate to use guidelines from the applicable field, but then provides additional guidelines adapted from ICMJE (The European Physical Journal C n.d.).

Figure 1. Average authors per year for items with 500+ authors.

Figure 2. Number of items with 500+ authors.

Figure 3. Subject distribution for items with 500+ authors Items.

Table 2. Source titles with impact factor and item count.

Source Title	Impact Factor^1	Item Count	Source Title	Impact Factor^1	Item Count
Journal of High Energy Physics	6.376	990	Fusion Engineering and Design	1.905	52
Physical Review D	5.407	928	Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion	2.532	47
Physical Review Letters	9.185	918	Nuclear Materials and Energy	2.532	43
Physics Letters B	4.950	800	Astrophysical Journal	5.521	41
European Physical Journal C	4.994	603	Physica Scripta	3.081	34
Nuclear Fusion	4.215	151	Review of Scientific Instruments	1.843	31
Journal of Instrumentation	1.121	135	New England Journal of Medicine	176.082	24
Physical Review C	3.199	94	Nuclear Instruments & Methods in Physics Research Section A	1.335	24
Nuclear Physics A	1.558	65	Astrophysical Journal Letters	8.811	24
Zeitschrift fur Physik C-Particles and Fields	3.833	58	Nuclear Physics B	3.045	23
Lancet	202.731	53	Nature	69.504	21
			<20 items each (149 titles)		374

¹2021, Retrieved from Journal Citation Reports (https://jcr.clarivate.com/).

Figure 4. Timeline of 500+ authors content events vs. LHC events.

Source: Cid Vidal and Cid Manzano (2023)

Figure 5. Problems with mega-authorship content.

Figure 6. 500+ names and how they are handled.

Figure 7. Possible process to determine author vs. Collaborator status.

Journal of High Energy Physics. n.d. “For Authors.” https://jhep.sissa.it/jhep/help/helpLoader.jsp?pgType=author.

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Physical Review D. n.d. “Information for Authors.” https://journals.aps.org/prd/authors.

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Physical Review Letters. n.d. “Information for Authors.” https://journals.aps.org/prl/authors.

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Physics Letters B. n.d. “Guide for Authors.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/physics-letters-b/publish/guide-for-authors.

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The European Physical Journal C. n.d. “Submission Guidelines.” https://link.springer.com/journal/10052/submission-guidelines.

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Cid Vidal, X., and R. Cid Manzano 2023. “CERN Timeline: Taking a closer look at LHC.” https://www.lhc-closer.es/taking_a_closer_look_at_lhc/0.cern_timeline.

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