In the Dark

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am Editor-in-Chief of a Diamond open access journal called the Open Journal of Astrophysics. This has been running nicely for a few years now and as the number of submissions ramps up I would like to expand the Editorial Board so the workload on its members and myself (who are all volunteers) does not become too onerous.

We apply a simple criterion to decide whether a paper is on a suitable topic for publication, namely that if it it is suitable for the astro-ph section of the arXiv then it is suitable for the Open Journal of Astrophysics. This section of the arXiv, which is rather broad,is divided thuswise:

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.

The expertise of the current Editorial Board is concentrated in the area of (2), and a bit of (5), which is where most of our submissions come so we would like to have additional Editors in this area. In addition there are sometimes papers from large collaborations for which existing Editors may be conflicted.  We would also like to add some Editors from different areas (i.e. 1, 3, 4 and 6) so this call is open for volunteers from all other areas of astrophysics too,  especially stars/exoplanets, etc.

If you’re interested please let me know either by my work email or by using the contact form here:

If you join the Editorial Board we will invite you to an online training session to show you how the platform works.

Thank you in advance for your interest in this project, and I look forward to hearing from you.