  We analyze the time evolution of citations acquired by articles from journals
of the American Physical Society (PRA, PRB, PRC, PRD, PRE and PRL). The
observed change over time in the number of papers published in each journal is
considered an exogenously caused variation in citability that is accounted for
by a normalization. The appropriately inflation-adjusted citation rates are
found to be separable into a preferential-attachment-type growth kernel and a
purely obsolescence-related (i.e., monotonously decreasing as a function of
time since publication) aging function. Variations in the empirically extracted
parameters of the growth kernels and aging functions associated with different
journals point to research-field-specific characteristics of citation intensity
and knowledge flow. Comparison with analogous results for the citation dynamics
of technology-disaggregated cohorts of patents provides deeper insight into the
basic principles of information propagation as indicated by citing behavior.
