Information for Authors

Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy

The Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy publishes papers on all aspects of Astrophysics and Astronomy, including instrumentation. The submission of a paper will be held to imply that it represents the results of original research not previously published; that it is not under consideration for publication, elsewhere; and that if accepted for the journal, it will not be submitted elsewhere.

The decision of the Chief Editor/Editorial Board on the suitability of a paper for publication will be final.

The jurisdiction for all disputes concerning submitted articles, published material, subscription and sale will be at courts/tribunals situated in Bengaluru City only.

Preprint Submissions: Indian Academy of Sciences journals permit the submission of manuscripts that are already posted as preprints on servers like arXiv .org, etc. The guidelines for submission are the same as for original submissions, and the submitted manuscript will undergo the same review process as “non-preprint” manuscripts.

Manuscript Submission

Authors are required to submit manuscripts online to http://www.editorialmanager.com/joaa

Editorial Manager is a user-friendly online submission and review management system. Authors can submit manuscripts and track the processing of their papers. Electronic files in LATEX are preferred. However, MS-WORD files are also acceptable.

On-line submission of manuscripts to JOAA (www.editorialmanager.com/joaa) in the Regular paper format following the guidelines presented in the sample TeX source file using the JAA style file will result in quicker and more efficient processing.

Please note the journal ‘strongly recommends’ the corresponding/Lead author to provide ORCID Ids of all the co-authors, though it is not mandatory. If ORCID is provided it will help in quick processing of the article.

Click here to download TeX file and Style file

Since January 2016, the Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy has moved to Continuous Article Publishing (CAP) mode. This means that each accepted article is being published immediately online with DOI and article citation ID with starting page number 1. Articles are also visible in Web of Science immediately. All these have helped shorten the publication time and have improved the visibility of the articles.

For information on Academy's policy on plagiarism, manuscript submission form and authorship confirmation and copyright transfer, please click on the respective links listed below:

• Academy's Policy on Plagiarism
• Manuscript Submission Form
• Authorship Confirmation and Copyright Transfer

Special Issue articles

The journal welcomes thematic Special Issues that are within the scope of the journal. Final editorial decisions on all thematic issue submissions will be made by the Editor/Editorial Board Members. Special issue articles should fulfill all the norms and should be relevant to a wide international and multidisciplinary readership. Special Issue articles must not consist of overviews of the authors’ previously published work, e.g. peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, official reports, etc. Papers submitted for inclusion in thematic issues will be evaluated by the same strict criteria as regular contributed submissions. Authors should note the same criteria of quality and originality to articles in special issues as to regular articles.

Data rights for Regular as well as Special Issue Articles

Papers published in Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy should include citations to previously published papers especially when new ideas or results are being presented. Deliberate refusal to credit or cite prior or corroborating results represents a breach of professional ethics and will be dealt with seriously. When submitting an article for publication in JAA, and you choose to use material (including short extracts or diagrams) published previously by other authors in journals other than JAA, then you must first obtain the written permission of the author and the publisher concerned. Authors should also obtain permission from competent authorities to use data from large collaborations. All articles; collaborative, corporate, collective, or group author articles shall be indicated with both the group name and the named individual authors who accept responsibility of the article. This would help in easy location of articles in bibliographic databases. Each group author article should thereby indicate a suggested citation. You must submit signed copies of the permission granted when you submit your article in the journal.

Review Articles

JAA publishes Review articles apart from regular research papers. These are by invitation and represent a scholarly review of an area of astronomy and astrophysics, with substantial references to the existing literature in the field. The invitations are generally initiated by the Editorial Board. However, any author(s) with ideas for a potential review article are welcome to communicate to the Editors a synopsis and a detailed plan of the proposed review. This will be assessed and if found acceptable an invitation to contribute a review could result. All review articles are still refereed after their submittal. JAA also intends to publish topical reviews which are not necessarily comprehensive but represent a particularly interesting or important viewpoint (even if it is not universally accepted) since such articles can stimulate further work.

Title Page

The title of the paper should be brief and contain words useful for indexing. Full names and affiliations of all authors, and complete postal and email addresses should be provided. An abbreviated running title of not more than 50 characters (including spaces) is required.

Abstract

Each paper must include an abstract describing, in not more than 200 words, the significant results reported in the paper. Abbreviations are discouraged. Abstracts should not include citations to references.

Keywords

Between 3 and 6 keywords must be provided for indexing and information retrieval services.

Main Text

This should be divided into sections and should preferably begin with an introduction where the results are placed in perspective and some indication of the methods of proof is given. Manuscript should be prepared in double column. Use British English as the preferred language.

Equations

Equations must be clearly written, each on its own line, well away from the text. All equations must be numbered consecutively in arabic numerals with the equation number in parentheses on the right hand margin; number displayed equations consecutively within the article, not within the section. Use italic for variables, bold for vectors and matrices, script for transforms, and sans serif for tensors. Use superscripts and subscripts in superior or inferior position; do not use raised and lowered fonts. Extend fraction bars under the entire length of the numerator. Use the "degree" symbol instead of superscript lowercase "o." Use "exp" rather than "e" if the argument of an exponential is complicated or lengthy. Avoid awkward fractional composition by using negative powers. Use solidus fractions (l/r) in text. Use the following to avoid ambiguity: parentheses, brackets, and braces, in that order { [ ( ) ] }. Add one extra line space above and below all displayed equations.

Tables

All tables must be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals in the order of appearance in the text. The tables should be self-contained as possible, with a descriptive but brief title. Tables should be arranged as far as possible to conform to printed column or page size. All columns must have headings arranged to clarify their relation to the data. Footnotes should be indicated by superscript, lowercase letters. Each table must be cited in text. Avoid tables created with the tab key, pictures, and embedded objects.

Figures

All figures including photographs should be numbered consecutively in arabic numerals in the order of appearance in the text. The figure captions must be typed on a separate sheet. Do not include in the figure any information that could easily be included in the caption.

The journal publishes colour figures free of cost if the reviewers and the editors are convinced that colour is essential for a figure.

For most graphics with lines and text only, use vector graphics EPS (Encapsulated PostScript). EPS is preferred because it is scalable and one can zoom in without seeing large pixels in most cases. Most vector-based illustration software allows you to save an illustration as an EPS file.

For images or photographs, use TIFF or high-resolution JPEG. JPEG is the best format for photos with a large file size because of the automatic compression used, which dramatically reduces file size while still providing good detail.

Use Helvetica as the font for legends and labels. Ensure that no label or legend is smaller than 8 pt. All lines must be at least 0.5 pt (no hairline rules).

Appendices

All appendices should be numbered consecutively using the English alphabets, e.g. Appendix A, Appendix B, etc. Display equations appearing within the Appendices should also be numbered consecutively, i.e. for Appendix A as (A1), (A2),... and for Appendix B as (B1), (B2),...

References

References should follow the format prescribed by the International Astronomical Union, which is set out in I.A.U. Trans. XIIC and also described in the 'Guidelines for Authors'.

For example,

Arpitha R. K., Banerjee J. P. K., Ashok R. M. 2006, ApJ, 604, L129

Das G. C. et al. 2008a, in Evans A., Bode M. F., eds, Multiwavelength Astrophysics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 159

Osterbrock D. E., Ferland G. J. 2005, Astrophysics of Gaseous Nebulae and Active Galactic Nuclei, 2nd edition, University Science Books

Van Loon J. Th. 2008, in Evans A. et al., eds, R S Ophiuchi (2006) and the Recurrent Nova Phenomenon, ASP Conference Series, Volume 401, p. 90

Acknowledgement

This should follow immediately after the end of the main text. In references to granting agencies, the names should be written out fully. Funding agencies and technical assistance only need to be acknowledged.

Proofs

Authors are requested to prepare the manuscript carefully and in accordance with these instructions to avoid delays and to minimize corrections and alterations. The corresponding author will receive page proofs, typically as a PDF file. Corrections should be emailed within two or three days. No further proofs will be sent.