It is part of the Journal of Physics series and covers theoretical physics focusing on sophisticated mathematical and computational techniques.

The journal is divided into six sections covering: statistical physics; chaotic and complex systems; mathematical physics; quantum mechanics and quantum information theory; classical and quantum field theory; fluid and plasma theory.

The editor in chief is Joseph A Minahan (Uppsala Universitet, Sweden).

[2] Journal of Physics A was established in 1968 as one of the subdivisions of the earlier title, Proceedings of the Physical Society, established in 1874, the flagship journal of the Physical Society of London.

Its papers began being made available electronically in 1991; by 2002, its entire back archive had been digitised, as the first step in a larger project to digitise all of the Institute's publishing archives.