ArXiv API#

The ArXiV API allows programmatic access to the arXiv’s e-print content and metadata. “The goal of the interface is to facilitate new and creative use of the the vast body of material on the arXiv by providing a low barrier to entry for application developers.” https://arxiv.org/help/api

The API’s user manual (https://arxiv.org/help/api/user-manual) provides helpful documentation for using the API and retrieving article metadata.

Our examples below will introduce you to the basics of querying the ArXiV API.

Install Packages#

import urllib
import arxiv
import requests
import json
import csv
import pandas as pd
from collections import Counter, defaultdict
import numpy as np # for array manipulation
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt # for data visualization
%matplotlib inline 
import datetime

Query the API#

Perform a simple query for “graphene.” We’ll limit results to the titles of the 10 most recent papers.

search = arxiv.Search(
  query = "graphene",
  max_results = 10,
  sort_by = arxiv.SortCriterion.SubmittedDate
)

for result in search.results():
  print(result.title)

/opt/hostedtoolcache/Python/3.7.17/x64/lib/python3.7/site-packages/ipykernel_launcher.py:7: DeprecationWarning: The '(Search).results' method is deprecated, use 'Client.results' instead
  import sys

TODD-Graphene: A Novel Porous 2D Carbon Allotrope for High-Performance Lithium-Ion Batteries
Revealing the Charge Density Wave Proximity Effect in Graphene on 1T-TaS$_2$
Fluctuation-induced currents in suspended graphene nanoribbons: Adiabatic quantum pumping approach
Graphene-based thermopneumatic generator for on-board pressure supply of soft robots
Tunable Inter-Moiré Physics in Consecutively-Twisted Trilayer Graphene
On valley asymmetry in a topological interaction for quasi-particles
Klein tunneling degradation and enhanced Fabry-Pérot interference in graphene/h-BN moiré-superlattice devices
Realization of corner and helical edge states in topologically trivial band gap by twig edge
Quantum Hall Effect on Dirac electrons in modulated graphene
Angular dependence of the interlayer coupling at the interface between two dimensional materials 1T-PtSe2 and graphene

Do another query for the topic “quantum dots,” but note that you could swap in a topic of your liking.

You can define a custom arXiv API client with specialized pagination behavior. This time we’ll process each paper as it’s fetched rather than exhausting the result-generator into a list; this is useful for running analysis while the client sleeps.

Because this arxiv.Search doesn’t bound the number of results with max_results, it will fetch every matching paper (roughly 10,000). This may take several minutes.

results_generator = arxiv.Client(
  page_size=1000,
  delay_seconds=3,
  num_retries=3
).results(arxiv.Search(
  query='"quantum dots"',
  id_list=[],
  sort_by=arxiv.SortCriterion.Relevance,
  sort_order=arxiv.SortOrder.Descending,
))

quantum_dots = []
for paper in results_generator:
  # You could do per-paper analysis here; for now, just collect them in a list.
  quantum_dots.append(paper)

Organize and analyze your results#

Create a dataframe to better analyze your results. This example uses Python’s vars built-in function to convert search results into Python dictionaries of paper metadata.

qd_df = pd.DataFrame([vars(paper) for paper in quantum_dots])

We’ll look at the first 10 results.

qd_df.head(10)
entry_id updated published title authors summary comment journal_ref doi primary_category categories links pdf_url _raw
0 http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0310363v1 2003-10-15 20:15:59+00:00 2003-10-15 20:15:59+00:00 Excitonic properties of strained wurtzite and ... [Vladimir A. Fonoberov, Alexander A. Balandin] We investigate exciton states theoretically in... 18 pages, accepted for publication in the Jour... J. Appl. Phys. 94, 7178 (2003) 10.1063/1.1623330 cond-mat.mes-hall [cond-mat.mes-hall] [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.1623330, http://a... http://arxiv.org/pdf/cond-mat/0310363v1 {'id': 'http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0310363v...
1 http://arxiv.org/abs/2008.11666v1 2020-08-26 16:48:21+00:00 2020-08-26 16:48:21+00:00 A two-dimensional array of single-hole quantum... [F. van Riggelen, N. W. Hendrickx, W. I. L. La... Quantum dots fabricated using techniques and m... 7 pages, 4 figures None 10.1063/5.0037330 cond-mat.mes-hall [cond-mat.mes-hall] [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/5.0037330, http://a... http://arxiv.org/pdf/2008.11666v1 {'id': 'http://arxiv.org/abs/2008.11666v1', 'g...
2 http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0411742v1 2004-11-30 02:56:15+00:00 2004-11-30 02:56:15+00:00 Polar optical phonons in wurtzite spheroidal q... [Vladimir A. Fonoberov, Alexander A. Balandin] Polar optical-phonon modes are derived analyti... 11 pages J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 17, 1085 (2005) 10.1088/0953-8984/17/7/003 cond-mat.mes-hall [cond-mat.mes-hall] [http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0953-8984/17/7/003,... http://arxiv.org/pdf/cond-mat/0411742v1 {'id': 'http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0411742v...
3 http://arxiv.org/abs/1403.4790v1 2014-03-19 13:03:49+00:00 2014-03-19 13:03:49+00:00 Group-velocity slowdown in quantum-dots and qu... [Stephan Michael, Weng W. Chow, Hans Christian... We investigate theoretically the slowdown of o... Physics and Simulation of Optoelectronic Devic... None 10.1117/12.2042412 cond-mat.mes-hall [cond-mat.mes-hall, cond-mat.mtrl-sci] [http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.2042412, http://... http://arxiv.org/pdf/1403.4790v1 {'id': 'http://arxiv.org/abs/1403.4790v1', 'gu...
4 http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0403328v1 2004-03-12 18:28:06+00:00 2004-03-12 18:28:06+00:00 A new method to epitaxially grow long-range or... [J. Bauer, D. Schuh, E. Uccelli, R. Schulz, A.... We report on a new approach for positioning of... None None None cond-mat.mes-hall [cond-mat.mes-hall] [http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0403328v1, http... http://arxiv.org/pdf/cond-mat/0403328v1 {'id': 'http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0403328v...
5 http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0411484v1 2004-11-18 16:47:14+00:00 2004-11-18 16:47:14+00:00 Giant optical anisotropy in a single InAs quan... [I. Favero, Guillaume Cassabois, A. Jankovic, ... We present the experimental evidence of giant ... submitted to Applied Physics Letters None 10.1063/1.1854733 cond-mat.other [cond-mat.other] [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.1854733, http://a... http://arxiv.org/pdf/cond-mat/0411484v1 {'id': 'http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0411484v...
6 http://arxiv.org/abs/1003.2350v1 2010-03-11 15:52:09+00:00 2010-03-11 15:52:09+00:00 Linewidth broadening of a quantum dot coupled ... [Arka Majumdar, Andrei Faraon, Erik Kim, Dirk ... We study the coupling between a photonic cryst... 5 pages, 4 figures None 10.1103/PhysRevB.82.045306 quant-ph [quant-ph] [http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.82.045306,... http://arxiv.org/pdf/1003.2350v1 {'id': 'http://arxiv.org/abs/1003.2350v1', 'gu...
7 http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.1258v1 2012-01-05 18:56:21+00:00 2012-01-05 18:56:21+00:00 Photoluminescence from In0.5Ga0.5As/GaP quantu... [Kelley Rivoire, Sonia Buckley, Yuncheng Song,... We demonstrate room temperature visible wavele... None None 10.1103/PhysRevB.85.045319 quant-ph [quant-ph, physics.optics] [http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.85.045319,... http://arxiv.org/pdf/1201.1258v1 {'id': 'http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.1258v1', 'gu...
8 http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.2674v1 2012-06-12 21:00:22+00:00 2012-06-12 21:00:22+00:00 Effective microscopic theory of quantum dot su... [U. Aeberhard] We introduce a quantum dot orbital tight-bindi... 9 pages, 6 figures; Special Issue: Numerical S... Optical and Quantum Electronics 44, 133 (2012) 10.1007/s11082-011-9529-9 cond-mat.mes-hall [cond-mat.mes-hall, cond-mat.mtrl-sci] [http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11082-011-9529-9, ... http://arxiv.org/pdf/1206.2674v1 {'id': 'http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.2674v1', 'gu...
9 http://arxiv.org/abs/1405.1981v1 2014-05-08 15:51:52+00:00 2014-05-08 15:51:52+00:00 A single quantum dot as an optical thermometer... [Florian Haupt, Atac Imamoglu, Martin Kroner] Resonant laser spectroscopy of a negatively ch... 11 pages, 4 figures Phys. Rev. Applied 2, 024001 (2014) 10.1103/PhysRevApplied.2.024001 cond-mat.mes-hall [cond-mat.mes-hall] [http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.2.02... http://arxiv.org/pdf/1405.1981v1 {'id': 'http://arxiv.org/abs/1405.1981v1', 'gu...

Next, we’ll create list of all of the columns in the dataframe to see what else is there:

list(qd_df)

['entry_id',
 'updated',
 'published',
 'title',
 'authors',
 'summary',
 'comment',
 'journal_ref',
 'doi',
 'primary_category',
 'categories',
 'links',
 'pdf_url',
 '_raw']

We have 14 columns overall. We’ll add two derived columns––the name of the first listed author and a reference to the original arxiv.Result object-–then narrow the dataframe to paper titles, published dates, and first authors to run some analysis of publishing patterns over time.

# Add a first_author column: the name of the first author among each paper's list of authors.
qd_df['first_author'] = [authors_list[0].name for authors_list in qd_df['authors']]
# Keep a reference to the original results in the dataframe: this is useful for downloading PDFs.
qd_df['_result'] = quantum_dots

# Narrow our dataframe to just the columns we want for our analysis.
qd_df = qd_df[['title', 'published', 'first_author', '_result']]
qd_df
title published first_author _result
0 Excitonic properties of strained wurtzite and ... 2003-10-15 20:15:59+00:00 Vladimir A. Fonoberov http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0310363v1
1 A two-dimensional array of single-hole quantum... 2020-08-26 16:48:21+00:00 F. van Riggelen http://arxiv.org/abs/2008.11666v1
2 Polar optical phonons in wurtzite spheroidal q... 2004-11-30 02:56:15+00:00 Vladimir A. Fonoberov http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0411742v1
3 Group-velocity slowdown in quantum-dots and qu... 2014-03-19 13:03:49+00:00 Stephan Michael http://arxiv.org/abs/1403.4790v1
4 A new method to epitaxially grow long-range or... 2004-03-12 18:28:06+00:00 J. Bauer http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0403328v1
... ... ... ... ...
11933 High-rate intercity quantum key distribution w... 2023-08-30 09:57:07+00:00 Jingzhong Yang http://arxiv.org/abs/2308.15922v1
11934 Effect of Electron-Phonon Interactions on Thre... 2023-09-08 17:14:18+00:00 Ankit Purohit http://arxiv.org/abs/2309.04448v1
11935 Dual-resonance nanostructures for colour down-... 2023-10-03 14:34:05+00:00 Son Tung Ha http://arxiv.org/abs/2310.02091v1
11936 The interplay between electron tunneling and A... 2023-10-20 07:43:06+00:00 Marcel Zöllner http://arxiv.org/abs/2310.13327v1
11937 Functional light diffusers based on hybrid CsP... 2023-07-12 14:36:29+00:00 Lena M. Saure http://arxiv.org/abs/2307.06197v1

11938 rows × 4 columns

Visualize your results#

Get a sense of the how your topic has trended over time. When did research on your topic take off? Create a bar chart of the number of articles published in each year.

qd_df["published"].groupby(qd_df["published"].dt.year).count().plot(kind="bar")

<AxesSubplot:xlabel='published'>
../_images/2dfdff00f8d32f099576572589043b20017ec18957ac338bea563d47ac5072de.png

Explore authors to see who is publishing your topic. Group by author, then sort and select the top 20 authors.

qd_authors = qd_df.groupby(qd_df["first_author"])["first_author"].count().sort_values(ascending=False)
qd_authors.head(20)

first_author
Bing Dong                 27
Constantine Yannouleas    22
Y. Alhassid               20
David M. -T. Kuo          16
Akira Oguri               16
Vidar Gudmundsson         15
Xuedong Hu                15
Rafael Sánchez            14
Massimo Rontani           14
B. Szafran                14
Kicheon Kang              14
Ulrich Hohenester         14
P. W. Brouwer             13
C. W. J. Beenakker        13
David M T Kuo             13
G. Giavaras               12
Piotr Trocha              12
O. Entin-Wohlman          12
Tetsufumi Tanamoto        12
Arka Majumdar             11
Name: first_author, dtype: int64

Identify and download papers#

Let’s download the oldest paper about quantum dots co-authored by Piotr Trocha:

qd_Trocha_sorted  = qd_df[qd_df['first_author']=='Piotr Trocha'].sort_values('published')
qd_Trocha_sorted
title published first_author _result
805 Dicke-like effect in spin-polarized transport ... 2007-11-22 16:11:11+00:00 Piotr Trocha http://arxiv.org/abs/0711.3611v2
2451 Kondo-Dicke resonances in electronic transport... 2008-03-28 15:49:07+00:00 Piotr Trocha http://arxiv.org/abs/0803.4154v1
3567 Negative tunnel magnetoresistance and differen... 2009-11-02 11:45:03+00:00 Piotr Trocha http://arxiv.org/abs/0911.0291v1
5725 Beating in electronic transport through quantu... 2010-04-11 16:20:04+00:00 Piotr Trocha http://arxiv.org/abs/1004.1819v2
2609 Orbital Kondo effect in double quantum dots 2010-08-17 14:13:23+00:00 Piotr Trocha http://arxiv.org/abs/1008.2902v2
2657 The influence of spin-flip scattering on the p... 2011-05-08 20:12:41+00:00 Piotr Trocha http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.1550v1
5896 Large enhancement of thermoelectric effects in... 2011-08-11 14:49:51+00:00 Piotr Trocha http://arxiv.org/abs/1108.2422v2
8313 The role of the indirect tunneling processes a... 2011-09-12 20:51:49+00:00 Piotr Trocha http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.2621v1
2796 Spin-polarized Andreev transport influenced by... 2014-09-14 23:54:35+00:00 Piotr Trocha http://arxiv.org/abs/1409.4122v1
8400 Spin-resolved Andreev transport through double... 2015-08-24 19:02:49+00:00 Piotr Trocha http://arxiv.org/abs/1508.05915v1
6594 Spin-dependent thermoelectric phenomena in a q... 2017-05-02 14:55:38+00:00 Piotr Trocha http://arxiv.org/abs/1705.01007v1
6952 Cross-correlations in a quantum dot Cooper pai... 2018-07-23 22:28:01+00:00 Piotr Trocha http://arxiv.org/abs/1807.08850v1 
# Use the arxiv.Result object stored in the _result column to trigger a PDF download.
qd_Trocha_oldest = qd_Trocha_sorted.iloc[0]
qd_Trocha_oldest._result.download_pdf()

'./0711.3611v2.Dicke_like_effect_in_spin_polarized_transport_through_coupled_quantum_dots.pdf'

Confirm that the PDF has downloaded!

Bibliography#