One of the referees submitted his opinion after just one day

[amicus_tobias]

I recently submitted a manuscript to Physical Review Letters, the editor sent it out to two referees. One of the referees sent his comment back on the second day. Do you think-based on your experience-this bodes well or the paper received a disastrous comment from the referee??

I know this question is kind of ridiculous for a lot of the people here, I mean, what can I do. But I am a little worried..

Thank you for your comments!

 

[Ben Niehoff]

If the referee's comments are in, can't you read them? Then you would know the answer to your question...

 

[Choppy]

I'm not personally familiar with the details of PRL, but I suspect the issue is that the tracking system indicates that a review was received. Normally, the associate editor has to check out the reviews before making the comments available to the authors.

I wouldn't read too much into the time. It could mean anything from the fact that the reviewer simply had time to read it right away, to him or her citing a conflict of interest or not feeling qualified to review, or maybe they know that the work has been done before.

You won't know anything until the review is received, so don't sweat it. Just move on to other projects.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Exactly - you can't do anything, so why beat yourself up? It might mean anything - I had a paper accepted by PRL in 6 hours once. On a holiday. (Of course, I had warned the editor ahead of time)

 

[amicus_tobias]

I guess you are right. Thanks. I will try not to think about it for the moment...