Reviews of Modern Physics Submission Guide

Source: Clarivate JCR 2024, APS editorial disclosures (accessed April 2026).

Source: Reviews of Modern Physics author guidelines, APS.

This page covers the pre-proposal decision: whether the topic, timing, and author team support a viable RMP proposal. It does not cover full-submission revision dynamics or post-publication metrics, which belong on separate pages.

Use it when you are still deciding:

• whether your standing in the proposed topic supports a Review-level commission
• whether the topic has timing headroom relative to recent comprehensive reviews
• whether the proposed scope justifies a 50-200 page treatment

Before submitting a proposal, the package should already make four things easy to see in 1-2 pages:

• the proposed topic and its specific framing or argument
• why the synthesis is needed now (a recent paradigm shift, a 5-year accumulation of new evidence, a methodological consolidation)
• what differentiates the proposal from existing reviews in adjacent venues
• why the proposing authors are the right team for this synthesis

At minimum, the proposal usually includes:

• a working title and 250-500 word scope outline
• a "why now" paragraph naming the specific physics inflection
• a paragraph distinguishing the proposal from recent RMP, Annual Review, or Physics Reports pieces
• author CVs (or links) demonstrating primary-research depth in the topic
• proposed length and approximate structure

Common failures here are timing and authority failures, not formatting:

• Recent RMP, Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics, or Physics Reports coverage of the same topic. The Editor-in-Chief checks. A proposal that overlaps a recent comprehensive review is the most common rejection.

• Author standing is in adjacent rather than central physics. RMP commissions reviews from physicists who have built the topic's primary-research foundation. Proposals from authors known for adjacent work are routinely returned.

• The synthesis argument is missing. "A review of recent advances in [topic]" is not a synthesis argument. Editors look for a specific organization, framework, or framing that the field needs.

• Scope is wrong for the venue. Topics narrow enough to fit in a Physical Review B Reviews piece (~30 pages) often don't justify an RMP Review's length and depth.

RMP is a venue for definitive syntheses, not surveys. The journal's reputation rests on Reviews that establish or reorganize a field's understanding for a 5-15 year window.

The invited-only model: the great majority of RMP pieces are commissioned. Proposals are the path for author-initiated work, but they compete against pieces the Editor-in-Chief is already developing.

The 5-year timing window: unlike Nature Reviews journals' 18-24 month window, RMP's effective timing window is longer because RMP Reviews are deeper. A new RMP review of a topic covered by an existing RMP Review is rare unless 5+ years have passed and a paradigm has clearly shifted.

The authority standard: the proposing author or team must have sustained primary-research publications in the topic. RMP reviews are read as authoritative because the authors built the field they're synthesizing.

The proposal usually needs:

• a synthesis-level argument or framework, not a comprehensive survey
• one defensible "why now" inflection point
• author CVs that establish primary-research authority on the specific topic
• a clear point of view

Ask before you propose:

• could a physicist outside the immediate sub-discipline grasp the takeaway from the abstract?
• has a comparable comprehensive review appeared in RMP, Annual Reviews, or Physics Reports in the last 5 years?
• does the corresponding author have sustained primary-research publications in the exact topic?
• does the proposal articulate a specific synthesis argument, or is it a survey?

If the answers are uncertain, the timing or authority problem is usually more important than the formatting.

The strongest RMP proposals sound like a senior physicist briefing the Editor-in-Chief on a synthesis the field needs, not pitching a topic for promotion.

They usually:

• state the synthesis argument in one sentence
• explain the timing inflection in two sentences
• distinguish from existing reviews briefly
• establish author credentials with primary-research evidence
• propose a working title and approximate structure

If the proposal sounds like the authors are seeking validation rather than offering a synthesis, the response is usually slow.

• Is Reviews of Modern Physics a good journal?
• Physical Review Letters submission guide

Before drafting the proposal, run it through a Reviews of Modern Physics proposal-readiness check to confirm the timing, angle, and author authority case is strong.

In our pre-submission review work with proposals and manuscripts targeting Reviews of Modern Physics, three patterns generate the most consistent rejections.

In our experience, roughly 35% of proposal rejections trace to author-authority mismatch with the proposed topic. In our experience, roughly 30% involve timing collisions with recent RMP, Annual Reviews, or Physics Reports pieces. In our experience, roughly 20% arise from proposals that read as comprehensive surveys without a specific synthesis argument.

• Author standing is in adjacent rather than central subfield. Editors at RMP weigh authority heavily because RMP Reviews are read as authoritative for 5-15 years. We observe that proposals where the corresponding author has built a primary-research career in an adjacent topic, but not the exact one being proposed, are routinely declined. SciRev community data on APS journals consistently shows that successful RMP proposals come from physicists who have published 10+ primary-research papers in the exact subfield over the last decade.

• A comprehensive review of the topic appeared in adjacent venues recently. RMP editors check Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics, Physics Reports, and Nature Reviews Physics. We see that proposals overlapping a recent comprehensive review, even one in a different venue, are declined unless the new piece offers a clearly distinct synthesis (a contrarian framework, a methodological consolidation, a new theoretical organization). The 5-year window is the operational standard.

• The proposal is a survey, not a synthesis. Editors at RMP look for a specific framework or argument the field needs. We find that proposals framed as "a comprehensive review of recent progress in topic]" are routinely returned with the suggestion that the authors articulate what specifically the synthesis will reorganize, argue, or establish. Successful proposals name the synthesis: "a unified framework for...", "the consensus view of...", "the open questions in...". A [Reviews of Modern Physics proposal-readiness check can identify whether the proposed argument and authority case are strong enough before submission.

Clarivate JCR 2024 bibliometric data places RMP among the highest-impact physics journals globally. SciRev author-reported data confirms typical 1-2 month proposal evaluation windows.