TL;DR
This paper presents a stochastic model that explains the disproportionate scientific impact of certain researchers by incorporating a citation copying mechanism proportional to an author's total citations, aligning with empirical observations.
Contribution
It introduces an upgraded citation copying model that accounts for unequal scientific impact without assuming inherent talent differences.
Findings
Model reproduces empirical citation distribution patterns
Citation copying probability depends on total author citations
Results align with previous empirical studies on scientific impact
Abstract
Recent research has found that select scientists have a disproportional share of highly cited papers. Researchers reasoned that this could not have happened if success in science was random and introduced a hidden parameter Q, or talent, to explain this finding. So, the talented high-Q scientists have many high impact papers. Here I show that an upgrade of an old random citation copying model could also explain this finding. In the new model the probability of citation copying is not the same for all papers but is proportional to the logarithm of the total number of citations to all papers of its author. Numerical simulations of the model give results similar to the empirical findings of the Q-factor article.
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