Top Scientists in Physics & Astronomy (2026)
Explore scientists classified in Physics & Astronomy in the 2026 single-year ranking, with global rankings, institutions, countries and historical representation.
Historical Listings
2020–2026 · Both ranking typesDisciplines with Similar Representation
Closest scientist counts listed in 2026 Single-year dataset.
Top 10 Scientists in Physics & Astronomy
2026 · Single-year| Field position | Worldwide | Scientist | c-score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 |  Kresse, Georg Universität Wien, Austria | 5.25 |
| 2 | 13 |  Perdew, John Tulane University School of Science and Engineering, United States of America | 5.01 |
| 3 | 30 |  Newman, Mark E.J. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, United States of America | 4.84 |
| 4 | 31 |  Lu, Tian Beijing Kein Research Center for Natural Sciences, China | 4.84 |
| 5 | 37 | Becke, Axel D. Dalhousie University, Canada | 4.80 |
| 6 | 45 |  Witten, Edward Institute for Advanced Study, United States of America | 4.76 |
| 7 | 90 | Geim, Andre K. The University of Manchester, United Kingdom | 4.61 |
| 8 | 115 | Barabási, Albert Lásló Northeastern University, United States of America | 4.55 |
| 9 | 153 |  Green, Martin A. UNSW Sydney, Australia | 4.48 |
| 10 | 154 | Hawking, Stephen W. University of Cambridge, United Kingdom | 4.48 |
Top 10 Institutions in Physics & Astronomy
Number of listed scientists by recorded affiliation.
Top 10 Countries in Physics & Astronomy
Number of listed scientists by country.
How to Interpret These Figures
The Physics & Astronomy grouping follows the broad Science-Metrix field recorded in the underlying bibliometric dataset. Counts refer to scientists listed in the 2026 single-year dataset, not to all researchers working in the field.
Discipline position is derived from the number of listed scientists across the 20 fields. It is not an official ranking of disciplinary quality. Country figures reflect recorded affiliations, not citizenship. Institution names may have variants; historical changes may also reflect changes in dataset coverage.
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers about Physics & Astronomy based on the 2026 single-year ranking data.
20,385 researcher records are classified under Physics & Astronomy in the 2026 single-year dataset. This is not a census of everyone conducting research in the field.
Physics & Astronomy is positioned #3 when broad disciplines are ordered by their listed researcher counts in the selected dataset. This is not a ranking of disciplinary quality or scientific importance.
The Top 10 Institutions and Top 10 Countries charts show where listed researchers classified under Physics & Astronomy are most frequently associated in the selected dataset. These figures represent researcher counts, not comparisons of institutional or national research quality.
The page uses the broad Science-Metrix field recorded in the underlying Scopus-derived ranking dataset. This classification should not be interpreted as a complete description of a researcher’s expertise or interdisciplinary work.
Both views can be explored, but they summarize citation impact over different timeframes. Their counts and positions should not be treated as directly interchangeable measures of disciplinary performance.
Use the Browse all scientists link on this page to explore researcher records filtered by Physics & Astronomy, 2026, and the selected single-year ranking.