Application of Bradford's Law of Scattering to the Literature of Stellar Physics

The present paper tests one of the important bibliometric laws of Bradford's Law of scattering for the literature related to ‘stellar physics’ for the period 1988–2013 as available in the Web of Science Core Collection database. A total of 2738 articles related to Stellar Physics published in journals in English language during the study period are retrieved. Data are analysed with respect to year-wise growth of articles, relative growth rate and doubling time of literature. The 2738 articles are scattered in 188 journals. A list of ranked journals was prepared and it was found that the Astrophysical Journal with 895 articles is the most productive journal publishing Stellar Physics literature followed by Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society with 507 articles and Astronomy and Astrophysics with 380 articles. In this study, theoretical aspects of Bradford's Law of Scattering are tested and found that the data do not fit to the present sample. The Leimkuhler model is tested and found to fit the data for the Bradford Multiplier (k) at 11.65. The Bradford law is also tested through graphical formulation by drawing the Bradford bibliograph and is found to confirm all the three characteristics.