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The Editorial Board of the Open Journal of Astrophysics

Posted in Open Access, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on September 6, 2024 by telescoper

A couple of months ago, I issued a call for new Editors of the Open Journal of Astrophysics. That was very successful and we added a number of new Editors. The complete list (of 20 members) follows:

Peter Coles* (Department of Theoretical Physics, Maynooth University, Ireland). Cosmology, astrophysics, statistics and methodology.

Thierry Appourchaux (CNRS, Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale, Orsay, France). Space instrumentation, astroseismology, helioseismology, statistics and methodology.

Emory (Ted) Bunn (Department of Physics, University of Richmond, USA). Relativity, cosmology.

Walter Dehnen (Astronomisches Rechen-Institut, University of Heidelberg, Germany). Stellar dynamics, galaxy dynamics, galaxies, bars, Milky-Way dynamics, Gaia, numerical methods, N-body techniques, smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH).

Philipp Edelmann (Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, USA). Stellar astrophysics, hydrodynamics, high-performance computing, supernovae, internal waves, stellar evolution, numerical methods.

Pedro Ferreira (Department of Physics, University of Oxford, UK). Large-scale structure, general relativity, cosmic microwave background, early universe, cosmology.

Andrew Jaffe (Department of Physics, Imperial College, London, UK). Astrophysics, statistics and methodology, cosmology.

Harley Katz (Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, USA). Galaxy formation and evolution, numerical simulations

Lucyna Kedziora-Chudczer (School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia). Active galactic nuclei, polarimetry, atmospheres of planets, exoplanets, solar system planets.

Julien Larena (Laboratoire Univers et Particules de Montpellier, Université de Montpellier, France). Cosmology, gravitation, lensing, large-scale structure, general relativity.

Manuela Magliocchetti (National Institute of Astrophysics, Rome, Italy). Cosmology, galaxies, active galactic nuclei (AGN).

Sean McGee (Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Birmingham, UK). Galaxy formation, galaxy clusters, galaxy surveys.

Manolis Plionis (Department of Physics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece). Observational cosmology, extragalactic astrophysics, large-scale structure, active galactic nuclei.

Alkistis Pourtsidou (Higgs Centre & Institute for Astronomy, Edinburgh, UK). Cosmology, large-scale structure of the Universe, radio astronomy, galaxy surveys.

Justin Read (School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Surrey, UK). Dark matter, cosmology, galaxy formation and evolution, dwarf galaxies, milky way, galactic dynamics, galactic archaeology, computational modeling.

Hanno Rein (Department of Physics and Environmental Sciences, University of Toronto at Scarborough, Canada). Numerical methods, in particular N-body codes and integration methods for planetary systems, planet formation, stochastic processes, planet migration, celestial mechanics, and Saturn’s rings.

Aleks Scholz (School of Physics & Astronomy, University of St Andrews, UK). Exoplanets, brown dwarfs, protoplanetary disks, stellar evolution, star formation.

Elena Sellentin (Sterrewacht Leiden, Leiden University, The Netherlands). Applied Mathematics, Cosmology, Statistics, Statistical Inference.

Elena Terlevich (Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica, Puebla, Mexico). Stellar populations in galaxies, observational cosmology, violent star formation, element abundances, dynamics of stellar systems.

Bingbing Wang (Center for Space Plasma and Aeronomic Research, University of Alabama in Huntsville, USA.) Particle astrophysics, MHD turbulence, cosmic rays acceleration, cosmic ray propagation in the Galaxy and heliosphere.

Apologies to anyone who volunteered but has not yet received a reply from me. I’ve been a bit preoccupied these last weeks! The call is still open, though. Here are the areas of arXiv covered by the journal:

  1. astro-ph.GA – Astrophysics of Galaxies. Phenomena pertaining to galaxies or the Milky Way. Star clusters, HII regions and planetary nebulae, the interstellar medium, atomic and molecular clouds, dust. Stellar populations. Galactic structure, formation, dynamics. Galactic nuclei, bulges, disks, halo. Active Galactic Nuclei, supermassive black holes, quasars. Gravitational lens systems. The Milky Way and its contents
  2. astro-ph.CO – Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics. Phenomenology of early universe, cosmic microwave background, cosmological parameters, primordial element abundances, extragalactic distance scale, large-scale structure of the universe. Groups, superclusters, voids, intergalactic medium. Particle astrophysics: dark energy, dark matter, baryogenesis, leptogenesis, inflationary models, reheating, monopoles, WIMPs, cosmic strings, primordial black holes, cosmological gravitational radiation
  3. astro-ph.EP – Earth and Planetary Astrophysics. Interplanetary medium, planetary physics, planetary astrobiology, extrasolar planets, comets, asteroids, meteorites. Structure and formation of the solar system
  4. astro-ph.HE – High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena. Cosmic ray production, acceleration, propagation, detection. Gamma ray astronomy and bursts, X-rays, charged particles, supernovae and other explosive phenomena, stellar remnants and accretion systems, jets, microquasars, neutron stars, pulsars, black holes
  5. astro-ph.IM – Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics. Detector and telescope design, experiment proposals. Laboratory Astrophysics. Methods for data analysis, statistical methods. Software, database design
  6. astro-ph.SR – Solar and Stellar Astrophysics. White dwarfs, brown dwarfs, cataclysmic variables. Star formation and protostellar systems, stellar astrobiology, binary and multiple systems of stars, stellar evolution and structure, coronas. Central stars of planetary nebulae. Helioseismology, solar neutrinos, production and detection of gravitational radiation from stellar systems.

We are looking for experienced scientists in any of these areas, and it would indeed be useful to have people who can cover a range of subjects (as some of our existing editors do), but there I think we’re still a bit short on High-Energy Astrophysics, Solar and Stellar Physics, and Galactic Astrophysics. I’d also like to see a better gender balance so applications from female scientists are particularly welcomed, as are astrophysicists from geographical areas not currently covered. The Open Journal of Astrophysics is intended to be a global enterprise!

Please follow the instructions here if you would like to volunteer!

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Scopus should be banned

Posted in Maynooth, Open Access with tags , , , on September 5, 2024 by telescoper

I think it’s time to provide an update on the (lack of) progress getting The Open Journal of Astrophysics properly indexed in Scopus (which markets itself as a purveyor of “metrics you can trust”).

You might recall back in June that I reported that OJAp had been included in the index, but unfortunately the Scopus team messed up very badly by omitting about one-third of our papers and most of our citations. Here’s what they did:

In the column marked Documents 2020-23  you will see the number 67. In fact we published 99 articles between 2020 and 2023, not 67. This is easily established here. The number 67 relates to the period 2022-23 only. Accidentally or deliberately, Scopus has omitted a third of our papers from its database. But the error doesn’t end there. Papers published in OJAp between 2020 and 2023 have actually been cited 959 times, not 137. If you restrict the count to papers published in 2022-23 there are 526 citations. It’s no wonder that OJAp has such a low CiteScore, and consequently appears so far down the rankings, when the citation information is so woefully inaccurate. “Metrics you can trust?” My arse!

If you want accurate bibliometric information about the papers published in the two years that Scopus has chosen to ignore you can look here.

I sent this information to Scopus on 15th June, soon after noticing the error, but I then got shunted around. I eventually got a reply on 23rd August, acknowledging the mistake and including this:

I want to assure you that your request has been promptly forwarded to our technical team for the addition of the paper to our database. While we strive to resolve this as swiftly as possible, please be aware that this correction process may take up to four weeks to be completed. 

I think they’re using some definition of “promptly” with which I am unfamiliar. I’m not optimistic that they will actually correct it in four weeks, either, since it took 5 months to get the initial 67 papers indexed.

This all merely demonstrates the folly that so many institutions place so much trust in Scopus. Based on my interactions with them, I wouldn’t trust them with anything at all. Unfortunately the powers that be have decided that Scopus listing is such a reliable indicator of quality that any article not published in a Scopus journal is worthless. Knowing that it has a monopoly, Scopus has no incentive to put any effort into its own quality assurance. It can peddle any error-ridden tripe to its subscribers, most of them paying for the product with taxpayers’ money.

(I might add that if OJAp were a commercial journal, then the willful publication of demonstrably false information about it would be actionable as it is potentially damaging to business. )

Presumably at the instigation of senior management, IT services at Maynooth University are still banning access to this blog from campus. It would make far more sense for them to ban Scopus.

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Two New Publications at the Open Journal of Astrophysics

Posted in OJAp Papers, Open Access, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 31, 2024 by telescoper

I am back in circulation after my little break and, since it’s Saturday, I will resume blogging with another report on activity at the  Open Journal of Astrophysics.  Since the last update we have published two more papers, taking  the count in Volume 7 (2024) up to 71 and the total published by OJAp up to 186.  We’ve still got a few in the pipeline waiting for the final versions to appear on arXiv so I expect we’ll reach the 200 mark fairly soon.

The first paper of the most recent pair, published on August 26th 2024,  is “Impact of lensing of gravitational waves on the observed distribution of neutron star masses”  by Sofia Canevarolo, Loek van Vonderen and Nora Elisa Chisari, all of Utrecht University in the Netherlands. This article presents a discussion of the bias in neutron star mass determinations caused by gravitational lensing of the gravitational waves they produceThe paper is in the folder marked Cosmology and NonGalactic Astrophysics.

Here is a screen grab of the overlay which includes the abstract:

 

You can click on the image of the overlay to make it larger should you wish to do so. You can find the officially accepted version of the paper on the arXiv here.

The second paper has the title “FORGE’d in FIRE III: The IMF in Quasar Accretion Disks from STARFORGE” and was published (in the early hours of the morning) on 29th August 2024. The authors, all based in the USA, are Philip F. Hopkins (Caltech), Michael Y. Grudic (Carnegie Observatories), Kyle Kremer (Caltech), Stella S. R. Offner (UT Austin), David Guszejnov (UT Austin) and Anna L. Rosen (UCSD). This paper, which is in the folder marked Astrophysics of Galaxies, presents a numerical study of star formation and the initial mass function in quasar accretion disks. The previous two papers in this series have also been published in the OJAp: you can find them here and here; images and movies related to this project can be found here.

Here is a screen grab of the overlay which includes the abstract:

 

You can click on the image of the overlay to make it larger should you wish to do so. You can find the officially accepted version of the paper on the arXiv here.

That concludes this week’s update. We still have quite a few papers in the pipeline after the summer lull so I expect I’ll have a larger update for you next week!

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Coming of Age in a Low-Density Universe

Posted in Biographical, Open Access, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , on August 25, 2024 by telescoper

I was reminded just now that 30 years ago today, on 25th August 1994, this review article by myself and George Ellis was published in Nature (volume 370, pp. 609–615).

Sorry for the somewhat scrappy scanned copy. The article is still behind a paywall. No open access for the open Universe!

Can this really have been 30 years ago?

Anyway, that was the day I officially became labelled a “crank”, by some, although others thought we were pushing at an open door. We were arguing against the then-standard cosmological model (based on the Einstein – de Sitter model), but the weight of evidence was already starting to shift. Although we didn’t predict the arrival of dark energy, the arguments we presented about the density of matter did turn out to be correct. A lot has changed since 1994, but we continue to live in a Universe with a density of matter much lower than the critical density and our best estimate of what that density is was spot on.

Looking back on this, I think valuable lessons would be learned if someone had the time and energy to go through precisely why so many papers at that time were consistent with a higher-density Universe that we have now settled on. Confirmation bias undoubtedly played a role, and who is to say that it isn’t relevant to this day?

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New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics

Posted in OJAp Papers, Open Access, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , on August 24, 2024 by telescoper

It’s Saturday morning so it’s time for the usual weekly update of publications at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Once again this week’s report will be short because there is only one paper to report this week, being  the 69th paper in Volume 7 (2024)  and the 184th  altogether. It was published on Wednesday 21st August 2024.

This week has been a bit strange, actually. We have actually accepted four papers that I was expecting to publish this week but only one has been published because the authors of the others have not yet put the final versions on arXiv. I suppose this is due to ongoing holidays and they’ll appear in due course. The other thing that happened was that when I published the paper below I discovered that the Crossref system was down for a scheduled upgrade that took a whole day to complete. Although I published the paper on 21st August I couldn’t register the metadata, etc, until 22nd August. Just as well I didn’t have more to do really!

Anyway, the title of the latest paper is is The compact circumstellar material of SN 2024ggi: another supernova with a pre-explosion effervescent zone and jet-driven explosion and it  is in the folder marked High-Energy Astrophysical Phenomena. The author is Noam Soker of Technion, Haifa, in Israel; the paper presents a possible explanation of then properties of recently-observed supernova SN 2024ggi.

Here is the overlay of the paper containing the abstract:

 

 

You can click on the image of the overlay to make it larger should you wish to do so. You can also find the officially accepted version of the paper on the arXiv here.

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New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics

Posted in OJAp Papers, Open Access, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , on August 17, 2024 by telescoper

It’s Saturday morning and time for the usual weekly update of publications at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. This will be a short post because there is only one paper to report this week, being  the 68th paper in Volume 7 (2024)  and the 183rd  altogether. It was published on Thursday August 15th 2024.

The title of the latest paper is is “Spatial segregation of massive clusters in a simulation of colliding dwarf galaxies” and it  is in the folder marked Astrophysics of Galaxies. The authors are Bruce Elmegreen (IBM, NY, USA) and Natalia Lahen (MPA Garching, Germany);  the paper presents a numerical study of the properties and spatial distribution of star clusters resulting from a collision between dwarf galaxies.

Here is the overlay of the paper containing the abstract:

 

 

You can click on the image of the overlay to make it larger should you wish to do so. You can also find the officially accepted version of the paper on the arXiv here.

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Three New Publications at the Open Journal of Astrophysics

Posted in OJAp Papers, Open Access, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 10, 2024 by telescoper

It’s Saturday so it’s time once again for another roundup of business at the  Open Journal of Astrophysics. After last week’s summer lull, this week I have three papers to announce, which brings the total we have published so far this year (Vol. 7) to 67 and the total published by OJAp to 182.

First one up, published on 7th August 2024, is “Brightest Cluster Galaxy Offsets in Cold Dark Matter” by Jonathan Katz of Washington University (St Louis, Missouri, USA),  a simulation-based study of the distribution of the position of brightest cluster galaxies relative to the dark matter distribution and its possible use as a cosmological probe.  The authors are Cian Roche (MIT), Michael McDonald (MIT), Josh Borrow (MIT), Mark Vogelsberger (MIT), Xuejian Shen (MIT), Volker Springel (MPA Garching), Lars Hernquist (Harvard), Ruediger Pakmor (Harvard), Sownak Bose (Durham, UK) and Rahul Kannan (York U., Canada). This paper is in the folder marked Astrophysics of Galaxies.

Here is a screen grab of the overlay, which includes the abstract:

 

 

You can read the paper directly on arXiv here.

The second paper to present is “LAMOST J1010+2358 is not a Pair-Instability Supernova Relic” by five authors based in the USA: Pierre Thibodeaux (Chicago), Alexander P. Ji (Chicago), William Cerny (Yale), Evan N. Kirby (Notre Dame) and Joshua D. Simon (Carnegie Observatories) .  As the title makes clear, the paper presents arguments against previous claims that a particular star is not a pair-instability supernova relic. This paper is in the folder marked Solar and Stellar Astrophysics. It was published on Friday August 9th 2024.

The overlay looks like this:

 

 

 

You can read this paper directly on the arXiv here.

Last, but by no means least, comes  “A Pilot Search for Gravitational Self-Lensing Binaries with the Zwicky Transient Facility“, results of a trial search for signals of gravitational lensing of one component in a binary system by a compact companion, with a discussion of future prospects for larger surveys. This one, which was also published on 9th August, is in the folder marked High-Energy Astrophysical Phenomena. The authors are Allison Crossland & Eric C Bellm (U. Washington), Courtney Klein (UC Irvine), James R. A. Davenport (U. Washington), Thomas Kupfer (Hamburg Observatory) and Steven L. Groom, Russ R. Laher & Reed Riddle (Caltech).

Here is a screengrab of the overlay:

To read the accepted version of this on the arXiv please go here.

That’s it for this week. I hope to post another update next weekend.

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Open Access Encounters: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

Posted in Open Access with tags , , , on August 7, 2024 by telescoper

As it was foretold on Saturday, this afternoon I gave a talk at the 32nd General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union currently taking place in Cape Town, or rather at a side event thereof called Open Access Encounters: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. I actually gave the last talk in the session, which may or may not mean that I was representing The Ugly…

About 50 people attended online plus an unknown number in person, so it was quite a decent size of audiance.

I’m not sure if Slideshare is still working on WordPress, but if not here is a PDF of the slides.

https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/key/2KaeVtUSNTngpq?hostedIn=slideshare&page=upload

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Open Access Updates & Announcements

Posted in Open Access with tags , , , on August 3, 2024 by telescoper

When I wrote last week’s update on papers published at the Open Journal of Astrophysics, I was a little surprised that our publishing activity had not tailed off because of the summer vacations. Well, it has now because we haven’t publish any papers this week! Rather than not post an update at all, however, I thought I’d point out a few interesting things that have happened in the world of open access.

First. I draw your attention to an article in C&EN (Chemical & Engineering News) reflecting on the fact that the Gates Foundation (one of the largest research charities in the world) announced in March 2024 that, starting from Jan. 1, 2025, it would no longer cover publishing costs. I actually wrote about this decision here. The article is largely about the threat this poses to the Gold Open Access model, which in my opinion thoroughly deserves to be threatened. It does, however, talk briefly about Diamond Open Access which commercial publishers don’t like as it removes – or should do – their source of profits:

Another alternative model is diamond OA, in which all research papers and their associated peer-reviewed reports are published without fees for the author or the reader and are also freely available to read and reuse. 

It goes on to say:

Under diamond OA, publishers are no longer gatekeepers of research. Instead, they become service providers that handle manuscript submissions, typesetting, and copyediting. This is in contrast to the current publishing system, in which the publisher controls everything from the copyright to the production process.

I don’t really agree with even the limited role of “service providers” mentioned here, as much of what that role entails just involves a decent reviewing platform. Elsewhere the article says that moving to Diamond OA would entail a significant cost. That may be but, as I’ve said over and over again, the actual cost of online publishing is low compared to the level of profit extracted by commercial publishers. The cost to academia of moving to Diamond OA would be much less than not moving to Diamond OA.

The second item I’d like to draw your attention is called Choosing a publisher? It’s not all about the impact factor and is by Antigoni Messaritaki, a senior publisher at IOP Publishing,  When I saw the title I thought that it might be about the uselessness of Journal Impact Factors and a commitment by IOP Publishing to stop using them. Sadly it’s nothing of the sort. It tries to entice authors to look beyond journal impact factors when choosing a publisher, pushing Open Access as an important factor to consider. It admits that APCs are expensive, but never even mentions Diamond OA. It’s an entirely self-serving piece. I find the IOP’s stance on publishing, and the disingenuous way they try to excuse their own profiteering, unethical and unacceptable. That’s why I resigned my fellowship of the IOP.

Last, and by all means least, I should draw your attention that the 32nd General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union takes place next week in Cape Town. I’m not attending in person – I’ve done enough travelling this year! – but I have accepted an invitation to give a remote talk at a side event called Open Access Encounters on Wednesday 7th August:

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Taighde Éireann

Posted in Maynooth, Open Access, Science Politics with tags , , , , , , , , , , on July 31, 2024 by telescoper

On 1st August 2024, i.e. tomorrow, a new funding organization comes into existence in Ireland, formed by the merger of SFI with the Irish Research Council. The new outfit is called Taighde Éireann – Research Ireland and many of us working in Irish academia were optimistic that it might improve the funding environment in Ireland, especially with regard to basic research.

Taighde Éireann has not got off to a very promising start. In particular, the long-running saga of who would be Chief Executive Officer of the new organization does not inspire confidence. Professor Philip Nolan, former Director-General of Science Foundation Ireland was originally intended to take the helm, but then he was dismissed from his position at SFI which made the prospect of him taking over the new organization seem less likely. Indeed, more recently, it was announced that a new temporary CEO would be appointed “pending the recruitment of a new CEO on a permanent basis”.

Starting with a caretaker manager is far from ideal, although it probably just means that the interim CEO will just look after transferring activity from IRC and SFI to the new organization without actually changing much. I just hope that in the long run a person is appointed who actually understands research rather than a generic management type. Otherwise the only change that will actually happen will be purely administrative rather than the systemic overhaul of attitudes and culture that Ireland really needs. As an outsider, one way of reading the controversy of the CEO the current SFI establishment resisting any possibility of change.

From my own perspective, the fundamental problem is that research funding for fundamental science in Ireland is so limited as to be virtually non-existent by a matter of policy at Science Foundation Ireland, which basically only funds applied research. This is a short-sighted and damaging policy that is causing, among other things, a significant exodus of talented young researchers to opportunities elsewhere (especially in the EU).

I know there will be many competing calls for changes in practice for the new Council but I thought I would add a few suggestions that will probably be ignored but which I’ll make anyway.

  1. A funding stream should be set up to enable scientific exploitation of Ireland’s current memberships of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), European Space Agency (ESA) and future membership of CERN. Ireland’s membership of ESO provides a cautionary tale. The Irish astronomical community was very happy about the decision to join ESO, but that decision was not accompanied by significant funding to exploit the telescopes. Few astronomers have therefore been able to benefit from ESO membership. While there are other benefits of course, the return to science has been extremely limited. The phrase “to spoil a ship for a ha’porth of tar” springs to mind. Even a few PDRA and PhD positions would provide an enormous boost.
  2. There should be far less emphasis on top-down funding ventures, such as the research “Centres”. These lock up a huge amount of money which makes it much more difficult to provide support to exciting curiosity-driven research, which is often where real innovation occurs. Let’s have much more responsive-modem grants, including areas of basic research currently excluded by SFI policy. This could be done by simply expanding the remit of the SFI Frontiers programme.
  3. The current IRC Laureate programme is inadequate. This currently has one call every four years. It should be annual, even if fewer positions are funded in each round, to allow it to be more responsive.
  4. Ban the use of any funds from the new organization being wasted on Gold Open Access, but invest in Diamond Open Access activities across all disciplines (i.e. Arts and Humanities as well as Science).
  5. Work with Government to provide a much more coherent system of funding research infrastructure, including if necessary requiring HEIs to commit a share of their surpluses to capital projects. In the UK, for example, capital projects funded by research councils usually require 50% institutional contribution.

That’s just five off the top of my head. I’m sure others will have suggestions. If so, please feel free to make suggestions through the comments box below.

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