ver: 050713
TO: Dr. Saad E. Hebboul
Assistant Editor
Physical Review Letters
“Response to a DAE report on our paper (LP9512) under appeal”
Dear Dr. Saad E. Hebboul,
We received the letter of an editorial decision (17 June 05) on our paper (LP9512)
based on the DAE report by Prof. Henry van Driel. In the DAE report, he made a summary of
the previous referee reports, and explained that the referees are properly selected. Then, he
mentioned, on the basis of the consistency of the remarks, especially those dealing with
relation to previous work in this area, that it is difficult to overturn the recommendations
offered by the referees.
Judging from this DAE report, we are afraid that the DAE may not have been fully
informed or appreciated some unusual but key issues in the review process of our paper,
which are recent publication of a very similar paper in PRL by Prof. Deveaud et al., DAE
judgment by Prof. Deveaud in declining review of our paper that the physics discussed in his
published paper and our paper is the same, and irregularity in the 2nd-round review by the
three referees. We want to make sure that they are properly recorded in the editorial log and
informed to the DAE, and to ask the DAE to make a DAE judgment consistent with the
previous DAE judgment and the editorial processes.
1.
As shown below, we heard from Prof. Deveaud, a DAE of PRL who is in charge of
the field of our work, that our paper with a letter of appeal was first sent to him, but he
declined to review it on the grounds that he was working on exactly the same topics and had
published a paper containing very similar physical results (Kappei et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 94,
147403 (2005)). Prof. Deveaud, the most appropriate DAE for our paper, judged that his and
our papers report the same physics, and the editor approved his judgment, so the editor sent
our paper to the next DAE. However, we are afraid that the present DAE, Prof. van Driel, did
not get this important information in the editorial records, because the DAE's approval of the
referee A-C's reports is inconsistent with the judgment by Prof. Deveaud. Succeeding review
must not ignore but be consistent with his judgment, which already has affected the review
process of our paper.
We learned this fact in the following way. According to the APS Journal Author Status
Inquiry System, our paper was sent to a DAE (sent:02May05, received:11May05) before it
was sent to the second DAE (sent:12May05, received:31May05). Indeed, between our
sending of our letter for appealing (APS received:20Apr05) and receiving of the editorial
ver: 050713
decision with the DAE report (APS sent:17Jun05), Prof. Akiyama, one of the authors of our
paper, received an e-mail from Prof. Deveaud indicating his judgment for our paper, which is
attached at the end of this letter. Such a personal contact by a DAE to authors seems
questionable in view of the editorial ethics in PRL, but it is not our main issue. We want to
ask a consistent judgment by the DAE based on full knowledge of these facts, and a fair
evaluation of our paper in reference to the Deveaud's paper published in PRL.
2.
Deveaud's paper was published in PRL on 15 Apr 05, while our paper is not yet
published. Though the samples are different and they did not see biexcitons, the described
physics in his and our papers is the same, a crossover from excitons to an e-h plasma in
semiconductors, and there are many similar expressions in his and our papers. This essential
point was indeed addressed by Prof. Deveaud, as the reason why he refrained from reviewing
our paper as a DAE. On the other hand, as for our paper, our referees concerned about the
concepts, the model, the interpretation, the novelty, and the significant overlap with
previously published work of one or more of the authors. If it were the case, Deveaud’s paper
should have been rejected by the same reason. At this point, the criteria to judge physical
importance for our paper and Deveaud's paper are completely different and inconsistent.
Our paper was submitted to PRL (and uploaded to cond-mat) on 27 Feb 04, which is 5
months before Deveaud’s paper was submitted to PRL (22 July 04). If our paper is rejected by
PRL, the first priority will be given to his paper, which is inconsistent with the PRL journal
policy to give fair priority. Even if our paper is published in another journal with a received
date of today or later, a completely biased credit will be given to Deveaud’s paper.
3.
In the DAE report (APSsent:17 June 05), the DAE approved the five reports by the
three referees, on the basis of the considerable consistency among them. Note, however, that
only the first two reports were made independently. In the second-round reviewing process,
all the referees read all the previous reports and our reply. (This is evident from their review
comments. For example, Referee B wrote “….. , see the comment by Ref. A on the paper by
Guillet.”, at the end of the 7th paragraph in the second report, and also Referee C wrote this
fact in the first paragraph of the report.) A more detail is that, after we received the editorial
judgment of rejection for PRL after the first-round reviewing process, we wrote an APPEAL
letter to a DAE and our revised manuscript (APS received:11Jan05) asking a fair neutral
scientific review. However, our letter addressed to a DAE, the first two reports by Referees A
and B, and the revised manuscript were all together sent back to Referees A and B and to a
new anonymous referee C for the second-round reviewing. This is why the three reports in the
second-round review became converged, though the first two reports had different emphases.
The considerable consistency among the five reports is due to this irregular 2nd-round review
process, and has nothing to do with their validity.
ver: 050713
Despite these unusual issues in the reviewing process, the present DAE only
described difficulty of overturning the referees recommendations by taking the "consistent"
five reports seriously, and refrained from disclosing his original scientific evaluation, by
which we are afraid that the present DAE may not have been fully informed these issues.
However, the previous DAE have already judged that broad interest and novelty of our paper
is the same to those of his paper published in PRL though the referees are concerned about
them in their reports. Therefore, if the present DAE evaluates other parts of our paper as
correct and excellent, it must be published in PRL.
If the DAE needs an additional scientific judgment by an another neutral expert, we
prefer reliable researchers listed below, who can understand importance of our and Deveaud’s
papers and differences from Guillet’s and other papers referred, but not competitors working
in the field closely related to the quantum wire.
今のＤＡＥはこれらの unusual な issues を十分に知らなかったのだとおもう。
だから、今回のレポートでは、これまでの意見の要約と逆転の難しさを述べているだ
けで、直接の scientific な判断をひかえている。しかし、レフェリーがリジェクトの根
拠にしている広い物理や目新しさに関しては、前の DAE が彼自身の PRL で発表した
論文のそれと同じであるとすでに判断しているのだから、今のＤＡＥがそれ以外の部
分では我々の論文が正しくて新しいくエクセレントと判断するなら、出版するのが当
然だ。
もし、今の DAE の専門が遠くて自信を持ったサイエンス評価が出来ないなら、
中立の専門家に早急にサイエンティフィックなレビュー（コメント、アドバイス）を
頼んでも構わない。専門家の選択の際、ＤＡＥに、細線の研究ばかりに近すぎる人を
推薦することはやめてくれ。我々の論文とデボーの論文、必要なら、ジレットや他の
論文についてよく理解の出来る次のような人を推薦してくれ。
A list of reliable experts in the research field we can recommend.
T. Ando (Tokyo Institute Technologies, Japan)
D. G. Gammon (NRL, USA)
H. M. Gibbs (University of Arizona, USA)
B. Goldberg (Boston Univ., USA)
A. Gossard (UCSB、Santa Barbara, USA)
R. D. Grober (Yale Univ., USA)
P. B. Littlewood (University of Cambridge, UK)
J. L. Merz (Notre Dame, USA)
ver: 050713
C. Z. Ning (NASA Ames, USA)
P. Petroff (UCSB, Santa Barbara, USA)
A. Pinczuk (Colombia Univ., New York, USA)
H. Sakaki (Univ. of Tokyo, Japan)
J. Shah (DARPA, USA)
We hope your consideration.
Sincerely yours.
Masahiro Yoshita
Institute for Solid State Physics, Univ. of Tokyo
E-mail: yoshita@issp.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Attached is a copy of the e-mail that one of the authors (H.A.) received from Prof. B.
Deveaud with their paper (Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 147403 (2005)) recently published in PRL.
(In his "comment and proposition" part, he is probably talking on the previous version of our
manuscript, instead of the revised manuscript.)
***** Top of the attached e-mail *****
To: golgo@issp.u-tokyo.ac.jp
> From: Benoit Deveaud-Pl $BqE (Bran <benoit.deveaud-pledran@epfl.ch>
> Subject: LP9512
> Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 15:59:29 +0200
> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.622)
>
> Dear Hidefumi,
>
> I recieved a few days ago your paper under discussion at PRL (LP9512),
> as a DAE.
>
> On one hand, I have been very interested by your results and I would
> have liked to referee it, but as I am working on exactly the same
> topic, I had to dismiss myself under the present rules of DAEs.
> The fact is that we published results rather similar to yours very
> recently in PRL (I send you the pdf file of this paper that I am sure
> you will be interested in reading).
ver: 050713
>
> You will see, according to the discussion, that although we are in 2D,
> and you are in 1D, we come to very similar conclusions, except for the
> observation of the biexciton line.
>
>
I then have a comment and a proposition.
>
> My comment is the following :
> in the present experiment, you are not able to select the central par
> of the excitation spot in order to make sure that your density is
> homgeneous. What I would do in such a case is to defocus the laser, and
> use your imaging technique, possibly with a pinhole, to be sure that
> you have an homogeneous excitation.
>
> My proposition is the following :
> This may be difficult, but let me stress that we have the necessary
> set-up here, that allowed us to perform the appropriate measurements
> time resolved. I may also propose that you use our recently developped
> time resolved catholuminescence set-up with 50nm spatial resolution and
> 10 ps temporal resolution to have a look at your sample.
> Basically, I am offering you to collaborate, which might be done for
> example by your sending a student in Lausanne.
> I do understand that you may be willing to keep your results
> confidential to Eli Kapon. I do perfectly understand this and may
> garanty that we will make sure that your results are not passed to him
> if you are not so willing.
>
> I am looking forward to your comments, and hopefully to our future
> collaboration.
>
> Best regards
>
> Benoit
>
>
>
>
> Prof. Benoit Deveaud-Pl $BqE (Bran
ver: 050713
> Directeur
> Institut de Photonique et d' $BqM (Bectronique Quantique
> Station 3
> Ecole Polytechnique F $BqEqS (Bale de Lausanne
> CH 1015 Lausanne
>
> Tel : +41 21 693 54 96
> Fax : +41 21 693 45 25
***** End of the attached e-mail *****