Citation Distributions in High Energy Physics

The probability that a given paper in the SPIRES data base has $x$ citations is well described by simple power laws, $P(x) \propto x^{-\alpha}$, with $\alpha \approx 1.2$ for $x$ less than 50 citations and $\alpha \approx 2.3$ for 50 or more citations. A consideration of citation distribution by subfield shows the data base to be remarkably homogeneous. We demonstrate the extreme improbability that the citation records of selected individuals and institutions have been obtained by a random draw on the resulting distribution.