# Most-cited Physics and Astronomy papers of 2016, with free PDFs

The 25 most-cited Physics and Astronomy research papers published in 2016, ranked by citations in OpenAlex, with their original abstracts and free PDFs where available.

1. [Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger](https://nerdi.pages.dev/paper/W2252795400) · 14,192 citations · Free PDF
2. [Planck 2015 results](https://nerdi.pages.dev/paper/W4292875581) · 10,599 citations · Free PDF
3. [Review of Particle Physics](https://nerdi.pages.dev/paper/W3084106382) · 7,365 citations
4. [The Gaia mission](https://nerdi.pages.dev/paper/W147232447) · 6,958 citations · Free PDF
5. [Planck 2015 results](https://nerdi.pages.dev/paper/W1909359706) · 5,332 citations
6. [Discovering governing equations from data by sparse identification of nonlinear dynamical systems](https://nerdi.pages.dev/paper/W2239232218) · 4,794 citations · Free PDF
7. [Recent developments in Geant4](https://nerdi.pages.dev/paper/W1990869665) · 4,198 citations
8. [LOBSTER: A tool to extract chemical bonding from plane‐wave based DFT](https://nerdi.pages.dev/paper/W2282942319) · 3,742 citations
9. [GW151226: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a 22-Solar-Mass Binary Black Hole Coalescence](https://nerdi.pages.dev/paper/W2437571239) · 3,450 citations · Free PDF
10. [Active Particles in Complex and Crowded Environments](https://nerdi.pages.dev/paper/W2304845716) · 2,978 citations · Free PDF
11. [MESA ISOCHRONES AND STELLAR TRACKS (MIST). I. SOLAR-SCALED MODELS](https://nerdi.pages.dev/paper/W2344233738) · 2,871 citations · Free PDF
12. [Classification of topological quantum matter with symmetries](https://nerdi.pages.dev/paper/W1904914631) · 2,859 citations · Free PDF
13. [Nine-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Cosmological Parameter Results](https://nerdi.pages.dev/paper/W3100514957) · 2,616 citations
14. [From quantum chaos and eigenstate thermalization to statistical mechanics and thermodynamics](https://nerdi.pages.dev/paper/W1919133474) · 2,332 citations · Free PDF
15. [A bound on chaos](https://nerdi.pages.dev/paper/W2118301480) · 2,330 citations · Free PDF
16. [A 2.4% DETERMINATION OF THE LOCAL VALUE OF THE HUBBLE CONSTANT *](https://nerdi.pages.dev/paper/W2339590713) · 2,257 citations · Free PDF
17. [Gaia Data Release 1](https://nerdi.pages.dev/paper/W2522000147) · 2,107 citations · Free PDF
18. [TianQin: a space-borne gravitational wave detector](https://nerdi.pages.dev/paper/W2192039719) · 2,053 citations · Free PDF
19. [Planck 2015 results](https://nerdi.pages.dev/paper/W2962843235) · 1,959 citations · Free PDF
20. [Quantum spin liquids: a review](https://nerdi.pages.dev/paper/W2256298911) · 1,940 citations · Free PDF
21. [MESA ISOCHRONES AND STELLAR TRACKS (MIST) 0: METHODS FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF STELLAR ISOCHRONES](https://nerdi.pages.dev/paper/W2287912467) · 1,932 citations · Free PDF
22. [Remarks on the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model](https://nerdi.pages.dev/paper/W2344612405) · 1,868 citations · Free PDF
23. [Tests of General Relativity with GW150914](https://nerdi.pages.dev/paper/W2273892807) · 1,784 citations · Free PDF
24. [Dual-comb spectroscopy](https://nerdi.pages.dev/paper/W2338411369) · 1,740 citations
25. [Isotopic compositions of the elements 2013 (IUPAC Technical Report)](https://nerdi.pages.dev/paper/W2918011602) · 1,677 citations

Canonical page: https://nerdi.pages.dev/papers/physics-and-astronomy/most-cited-2016