How Have Astronomers Cited Other Fields in the Last Decade?
Résumé
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. Second, 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.