Home
For authors
Submission status

Current
Archive
Archive (English)
Search
English Russian

Guidelines for Authors of "Pis'ma v ZhETF"/"JETP Letters"

The journal Pis'ma v Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. (Pis'ma v ZhETF) and its English edition JETP Letters publishes
  • Short papers that require rapid publication and are of broad physical interest. These papers should report first observations of new physical phenomena or new fundamental theoretical results.
  • Mini-reviews on the most hot and topical issues based on the results of a recent research performed by the authors.
  • Brief Comments on articles published earlier in our journal. (See below for the rules)

The journal publishes papers in following fields:

  1. Fields, particles, nuclei.
  2. Astrophysics and cosmology.
  3. Optics, laser physics
    (Nonlinear optics, Spectra, Radiation, Interaction of radiation with matter).
  4. Plasma, hydro- and gas dynamics.
  5. Condensed matter physics
    (Quantum liquids; Ultracold gases; Liquids and liquid crystals; Structure, phase transitions, mechanical properties, and defects; Lattice dynamics, thermal effects; Electronic properties of bulk solids; Magnetic properties and spintronics; Superconductivity; Heterogeneous, disordered and partially ordered systems; Low-dimensional systems, surfaces, interfaces).
  6. Methods of theoretical physics.
  7. Nonlinear phenomena.
  8. Quantum informatics.
  9. Biophysics.

Pis'ma v ZhETF is bilingual and considers manuscripts submitted in Russian or English*. All manuscripts submitted in English are subject to a linguistic test. In case the English text appears unacceptable, the Editorial Board may request that the authors improve the language or submit the manuscript in Russian.

JETP Letters publishes all papers in English. Translation of manuscripts submitted in Russian and editing of manuscripts submitted in English is performed by the International Academic Publishing Company (IAPC) "Nauka/Interperiodica". Russian and English versions should be identical as they are considered as a single publication. Although the final proof of the English version appears a month later than that of the Russian version, the English version cannot contain additional references, figures, formulas etc.

The total length of a paper should not exceed 7 journal pages, including 5-6 figures. The length of a mini review should not exceed 12 pages, including 8-10 figures. The length of a Comment and a Reply to the Comment should not exceed 1 page. The abstract should briefly outline the topics, conclusions and results of the work. The new physical result obtained in the article should be briefly formulated. In the annotations of experimental works, specify the measured values, the studied objects, and briefly describe the experimental conditions. Avoid new abbreviations introduced by the authors. The text of the abstract should be independent, and should not contain footnotes or references to sources, since the abstract is reprinted in abstract journals and databases where such information is useless. Please note that comments and responses submitted to the JETP Letters do not require annotations.
The recommended abstract size is up to 600 characters or up to 5% of the article size.

For an accurate estimate of the manuscript length we suggest that the authors use the JETP Letters LaTeX class file (jetpl.cls - UTF-8 encoding, KOI8-R encoding) and the sample LaTeX file (example.tex) downloadable from the journal server.

Submission

Manuscripts can be submitted to the Editorial Office in the following ways:
  • Electronic mail to the address letters@kapitza.ras.ru. The submission should include the original source, including all figures as separate files, and the pdf file of the whole manuscript with figures embedded. To ensure the best quality, prepare your figures as vector graphics and save/export them as vector .pdf or .svg. See the section "Manuscript preparation" below (http://www.jetpletters.ru/en/info.shtml) for more details on the preparation of the figures and the manuscript.
  • Conventional mail to the following address: Pis'ma v Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz., 117334, ul. Kosygina, 2, Moscow, Russia.
  • submit via Publisher Portal

If submitted in a hard copy, the manuscript should contain figures printed on separate paper sheets (for half-tone figures, an additional, second copy should be supplied), the e-mail and postal addresses (including the postal code), the phone numbers, and a complete name of the corresponding author. The authors of English manuscript should also submit a CD/DVD or a USB flash stick containing the manuscript as a LaTeX file and the figure files.

The submitted manuscripts are subject to preliminary screening by the Editors. Not all manuscripts are sent for review. Editors may reject manuscripts that they judge to be clearly unsuitable for the journal. However, no manuscript is accepted for publication without review by referees. Manuscripts are accepted for publication or rejected by the Editorial Board upon recommendation of a dedicated Editor, based on the referee reports. A manuscript can be rejected if it is not topical enough, reports incremental progress compared to other publications in the field, has a very specific subject, etc. The referee reports on rejected papers are not necessarily sent to the authors.

The authors may resubmit a rejected manuscript appended with an explanatory letter. In this case, the manuscript is subject to an additional review.

Electronic proofs and the final version of the manuscript are sent to the authors by the publisher.

*In accordance with the requirements of the journal publisher and distributor of "JETP Letters", since July 2016 the Russian journal version - "Pis'ma v ZhETF" - is deprived of the right to publish the full text of the articles submitted in English. To meet this requirement and not to deprive Russian readers of the information, the Editorial Board of the journal adopted a special practice for accepted manuscripts submitted in English: The full text of the paper is published in the "JETP Letters" journal, whereas the "Pis'ma v ZhETF" journal publishes its extended abstract limited to 2 pages in the journal style, or 5600-11200 text characters, including one figure and the list of references. A note stating that the full-text article will be published in the JETP Letters journal is added at the end of the extended abstract.

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

The first page of a manuscript should have the following form:

Title 
List of Authors 
Affiliations and Addresses (including the city and postal code; the e-mail address of one of the authors must be indicated)

Abstract 
Then, after one blank line, follows the main text body.

Since abstracts may be distributed separately from the papers (databases, online systems, etc.), the abstract text should be self-contained with no references or abbreviations and in an understandable notation.

Names and Surnames in the Russian text. Surnames of the foreign Authors should be given in the Russian transcription (with an indication of the original transcriptions in a footnote). Affiliations of the Authors working abroad have to be spelled in English.

The Authors of the papers submitted in Russian should be warned that the standard strict rules of the names transcription, as specified in Pis'ma v Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. 58(8) 699, will be applied. Should the Authors prefer an alternative name transcription, they need to notify the Editors (for a hard copy submission use a separate sheet).

Abbreviations must be given in capital letters without periods and should be explained as they are first introduced.

Footnotes in the main text must be numbered in the order of their appearance.

Cited references must be given in a general list at the end of the manuscript and numbered with arabic numerals (e.g., [1]) in the order they are mentioned in the main text. References to journal articles should be cited as the initials and surnames of the authors followed by the journal name in the CASSI-abbreviated style, volume number (in boldface), the first page number, and the year (parentheses). If the authors list contains more than four authors, only the first three of them should be mentioned explicitly, e.g.,

1. A. B. Ivanov, V. G. Petrov, I. M. Sergeev, et al., J. Exp. Theor. Phys. 71, 161 (1990).
References to books should be cited as the initials and surnames of the authors, a complete book title, then the year and place of publication (in case of translated books, the latter should be given in parentheses), e.g.,
2. L. M. Blinov, Structure and Properties of Liquid Crystals (Springer, Heidelberg, 2011).

Decimals. Decimal points should be used instead of commas.

Vectors. Vectors without overhead arrows should be typed in boldface.

Figures. All letters, axes titles, comments, labels, etc. on the figures should be given strictly in English. The recommended style for the figures is to use frames; place dashes on the axes inside the figure; whenever possible, use Times font and numerals (including those on the axes in insets) and lowercase letters with a height of 3-4% of the maximal figure size (height or width); put units on the axes in parentheses. It should be kept in mind that the width of a printed figure can not exceed the column width (82 mm) or, in exceptional cases, the page width (160 mm). Color Figures will be published in color online. Meanwhile, the authors must make sure that the figures are contrast enough and remain readable when printed in black and white. Template files, examples and the recommended LaTeX class file are available on the journal Web server (in Russian at http://www.jetpletters.ru/en/instr-ru.shtml, in English at http://www.jetpletters.ru/en/instr-en.shtml).

Supplemental Material

Please read here for information: http://www.jetpletters.ru/en/supp.shtml

The Edititorial Board of JETP Letters provides a platform for Supplemental Materials. Access to Supplemental Materials is free of charge and open after publication of the original paper. Supplemental Materials contain additional information (e.g., details of complicated calculations or experimental techniques) useful for specialists and not crucial for understanding the articles. main results. Supplemental Material cannot be used to avoid the length restrictions, because any article must be complete without Supplemental Material.

The length of Supplemental Material is restricted to 4 pages including not more than 4 figures.

Supplemental Material cannot contain:

  • Addtional citation list
  • Information on the individual authors. contributions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Comments, replies or corrections

How to submit Supplemental Material

Supplemental Material should be submitted in English simultaneously with the manuscript to the email letters@kapitza.ras.ru in the form of LaTeX or doc and eps files. The subject line should read .Supplemental Material Submission. while the title, the first author name and a complete list of all filenames should be provided in the message body.

File preparation and consideration

File preparation rules are the same as the JETP Letters manuscript preparation rules. The title should read .Supplemental Material to {title of the paper}.. Color figures are preferable. The Editorial Board and referees consider the Supplemental Material as a part of the manuscript, no separate referee report is provided for Supplemental Material. Authors are responsible for the quality of the figures and language of the Supplemental Material.

Citation in Article

The Authors should ensure that the reference .See Supplemental Material at [URL to be inserted by publisher].. is contained in the journal article as the last line of the reference list.

Copyright

Supplemental Material is not a separate subject of copyright. It is included in the copyright agreement signed by the author of the article. Each use of the Supplemental Material is protected by the same rules as that of the article.

Comments in JETP Letters

Please read here for information. http://www.jetpletters.ru/en/comments.shtml

Comments in JETP Letters

JETP Letters journal publishes brief Comments on papers that appeared earlier in our journal. The authors of the subject paper can write a reply to the Comment. If a Comment and Reply are justified and interesting, they will be published simultaneously. The editors will not excessively delay the publication of a suitable Comment because of the lack of an adequate Reply. If a Comment meets our criteria, it will be published regardless of whether the authors' Reply is received or not. The editors will not accept a Comment on a paper, written by any of the authors of the paper. Comments and Replies are limited in size by one journal page (including figures), an abstract is not required. If necessary, the authors may place the supplementary material on the journal site according to the general rules (see the relevant section).

A Comment should correct or criticize a specific paper. The opening paragraph of the Comment should clearly indicate the paper to which it is directed, and the central point of the Comment. The Comment must address predominantly the substance of the paper being commented, not its form or style of presentation, and can not contain a discussion of the topic in general. The Comment format is not meant as a vehicle for addenda. Neither are Comments intended as a means to establish priorities or rectify bibliographic oversights. Critical Comments must be written in a collegial tone; polemical Comments will be rejected forthwith. Authors' Reply, to be suitable for publication, also must be written in a collegial style and free of polemic.

Each Comment is sent to the author of the criticized paper and the following responses are requested:

  1. Is the Comment appropriate for publication without a Reply?
  2. Should a Reply to the Comment be submitted for possible simultaneous publication?
  3. Does the Comment seem sufficiently relevant to the paper? (If not, a detailed reasoning is necessary.)

The authors of the object paper are not asked to review the Comment as anonymous referees. The editors will consult an independent, anonymous referee if they deem it useful in determining the suitability for publication of the Comment and/or Reply.

Authors of a Comment are encouraged to send their Comment first to the authors of the object paper for a direct response, although the editors do not require such a step. The Reply is communicated to the authors of the Comment prior to publication. Substantial revision of a Comment in response to the Reply will usually be interpreted by the editors as a sign that the Comment was misconceived, and might be cause for a rejection of the Comment. The editors do not consider Comments in response to the authors. Reply.

Mini-reviews

Please read here. http://www.jetpletters.ru/cgi-bin/front/news/182

During the last decade, as an experiment, JETP Letters were publishing invited mini reviews based on the results of the selected ended projects funded by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the Russian Science Foundation. Such mini reviews have proven to be popular and attract considerable readership. As a result, starting from July 2020, the Editorial Board extends this practice and beyond the invited mini reviews also encourages authors to submit mini reviews by themselves.

Mini reviews, like regular articles, are subject to the refereeing process which implies a peer review and a discussion amongst the members of the Editorial Board. In order to be accepted, the mini review should comply with all standard rules established by the journal for accepted manuscripts.

Further details of the rules and practices applied to submitted regular letters and mini reviews can be found at http://www.jetpletters.ru/en/info.shtml