How have astronomers cited other fields in the last decade?

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how astronomers' citation patterns to other disciplines, especially general relativity, computer science, and statistics, have evolved over the last decade, highlighting increased interdisciplinary influence.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of interdisciplinary citation trends in astronomy from 2010 to 2020 using arXiv data, revealing new patterns of cross-field influence.

Findings

General relativity became the most cited outside field by astronomers.

Citations to computer science and statistics grew 15-fold since 2015.

Interdisciplinary efforts are increasingly critical in astronomical research.

Abstract

We present a citation pattern analysis between astronomical papers and 13 other disciplines, based on the arXiv database over the past decade ($2010 - 2020$). We analyze 12,600 astronomical papers citing over 14,531 unique publications outside astronomy. Two striking patterns are unraveled. First, general relativity recently became the most cited field by astronomers, a trend highly correlated with the discovery of gravitational waves. Secondly, the fast growth of referenced papers in computer science and statistics, the first with a notable 15-fold increase since 2015. Such findings confirm the critical role of interdisciplinary efforts involving astronomy, statistics, and computer science in recent astronomical research.