Q. Dear Editor
My collaborators and I just submitted a paper to Nature. We would like to know whether we can send the present paper on the physics arxiv web site (see for example xxx.lanl.gov) or if – to respect Nature policy– we should wait for the editorial decision.
A. Dear Author
Thank you for your message. It would be fine for you to send your preprint to the arxiv site, or any other recognised community preprint server. Please provide the arxiv reference number to the editor handling your paper for his/her information, though.
“Contributions submitted to, in press with or published in Nature must not be posted on any web site, except for preprints posted on recognized preprint servers (such as ArXiv) where this is community practice. The server concerned must be identified to the editor in the cover letter accompanying submission of the paper, and the content of the paper must not be advertised to the media by virtue of being on the preprint server, as explained fully in Nature.”
Best wishes
Nature.