SWIFT PUBLICATION STATISTICS AND THE COMPARISON WITH OTHER MAJOR OBSERVATORIES

Abstract

The gamma-ray bursts (GRB) Swift satellite was launched at the end of 2004 and is funded until 2014. Its γ -ray, X-ray, and optical-UV instruments discover and localize about 100 GRBs per year. We report on the success of this mission by counting the number of papers with Swift data and their impact ( i.e. , number of citations to those papers) for the publication years 2005 to 2011. In the first year, the number of papers was 24, and it steadily increased to 287 in the year 2011, reaching Keck. If this trend continues, before the end of the mission Swift may be approaching XMM-Newton and Chandra, with  ~400 publications. Science topics of Swift publications have widened over time, and in 2011 almost 3/4 of all publications were about other energetic targets, such as AGN, novae, supernovae, X-ray binaries, pulsars, massive and stellar black holes.