Hunting for supernovae articles in the universe of scientometrics

TL;DR

This paper investigates the existence of 'supernovae' articles in scientometrics, characterized by sudden citation impact spikes followed by rapid decline, analyzing Google Scholar profiles to clarify this phenomenon.

Contribution

It identifies and explains the phenomenon of 'supernovae' articles in citation data, providing clarity on their existence and impact in scientometric analysis.

Findings

Supernovae articles exhibit sudden citation spikes.

Such articles are rare or possibly non-existent.

The analysis clarifies misconceptions about citation impact patterns.

Abstract

This short note records an unusual situation with some Google Scholar's profiles that imply the existence of "supernovae" articles, i.e., articles whose impact -- in terms of number of citations -- in a single year gets (almost) an order of magnitude higher than the previous year and immediate drops (and remains steady) to a very low level after the next year. We analyse the issue and resolve the situation providing an answer whether there exist supernovae articles.