Trends in Multiple Authorship among Papers in Astronomy

Abstract

In an effort to document how astronomers have become increasingly collaborative, the evolution in the fraction of refereed papers published by n authors per year has been derived for four journals: The Astrophysical Journal (ApJ), Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS), The Astronomical Journal , and Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A). Records compiled here for the ApJ and MNRAS extend back to 1920. The fraction of single-author papers has dropped steadily with time since 1940 in the ApJ and MNRAS, and at least since 1970 for the other two journals. Over a period of ≈20–25 years commencing around 1980, two-author papers were more common than those by any other number of authors. Both f (2) and f (3) have since gone through a maximum in all four journals, albeit at different times, while f (4) either evinces a maximum or has leveled off. The general situation for n = 5 to 9 is the same in all four journals, with the fraction of such papers increasing steadily since 1980. For values of n in this range it is found that to 0.7 in the ApJ, MNRAS, and A&A. Among papers with n = 2, 5, and 8–10, in all four journals studied the percentage of occasions in which the first and second authors have worked at the same institution exceeds 50%.

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