Structure and Evolution of Indian Physics Co-authorship Networks

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the evolution of Indian physics co-authorship networks from 1919 to 2013, revealing collaboration patterns, influential scientists, and structural differences across physics subfields using network analysis.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive network-based analysis of Indian physics research evolution, highlighting collaboration trends and community dynamics over nearly a century.

Findings

Indian-Foreign collaborations are increasing faster than Indian-Indian collaborations.

Degree distribution follows a power law with distinct patterns across journals.

Structural differences exist between low-energy and high-energy physics journals.

Abstract

We trace the evolution of Indian physics community from 1919 to 2013 by analysing the coauthorship network constructed from papers published by authors in India in American Physical Society journals. We make inferences on Indias contribution to different branches of Physics and identify the most influential Indian physicists at different time periods. The relative contribution of India to global physics publication(research) and its variation across subfields of Physics is assessed. We extract the changing collaboration pattern of authors between Indian physicists through various network measures. We study the evolution of Indian physics communities and trace the mean life and stationarity of communities by size in different APS journals. We map the transition of authors between communities of different sizes from 1970 to 2013, capturing their birth, growth, merger and collapse. We find that Indian-Foreign collaborations are increasing at a faster pace compared to the Indian-Indian. We observe that the degree distribution of Indian collaboration networks follows the power law, with distinct patterns between Physical Review A, B and E, and high energy physics journals Physical Review C and D, and Physical Review Letters. In almost every measure, we observe strong structural differences between low-energy and high-energy physics journals.