Letter to Editors

From: "ODTU Rektor"
To: jhep-eo@jhep.sissa.it
Subject: Ethics Committee
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 10:22:46 +0200

Dear Editors,

We are writing this message concerning a serious plagiarism case that we have come across with in a paper published by JHEP. First of all, we would like to express our disappointment in finding out that it was completely unnoticed by your Editorial Office and Refereeing Process. The details are provided in the pdf file we attached to this message with the relevant comments inserted in appropriate places.

The authors of this article are two graduate students of our University, Department of Physics, METU, Ankara. They have submitted 46 papers to the physics ArXiv, in 23 months and some of these have already been published by journals similar to yours. These people are going through an investigation led by the Ethics Committee of the University and will, most probaby be expelled from METU. However, it is noteworthy to mention that in their defence, they use the paper mentioned below as 'evidence' that their work is 'of the highest quality since it has been published by one of the leading journals of its area'. Needless to say, JHEP's integrity is in question here and we strongly believe that it is also JHEP's responsibility to react urgently and help us clear out this issue.

We are looking forward to hearing from at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,
Prof.Dr. Ural Akbulut
President