7. Following a field

A keyword search finds what you know to ask for. Two commands find the rest: papers related to one you trust, and the papers that appear after today.

Papers like this one

Boeuf's 2017 tutorial on Hall thruster physics makes a good seed:

$ mosaic similar 10.1063/1.4972269 --max 8

Similar to: Tutorial: Physics and modeling of Hall thrusters

 #     Title                             Authors       Year   DOI                 Source         OA     PDF       Cited
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 1     Optimization of Electric          Monika        2003   10.2514/2.6124      OpenAlex       no     –            13
       Thrusters for Primary             Auweter‐Ku…
       Propulsion Based on the Rocket    & Helmut
       E…                                Kurtz
 2     New concept of metal ion          Ioana–Laura   2020   10.1088/1361-6595   OpenAlex       yes    ✓             4
       thruster based on pulsed          Velicu et            /abd0dd
       thermionic vacuum arc dischar…    al.
 3     Application of electric           N. E.         2022   10.26732/j.st.202   OpenAlex       yes    –             1
       thrusters in a spacecraft         Kovalenko &          2.2.02
       propulsion system                 А. А.
                                         Внуков
 4     THRUST GENERATION BY ION          Vishal        2022   10.47893/gret.202   OpenAlex       yes    ✓             1
       PROPULSION TECHNOLOGY             Kaushik et           2.1134
                                         al.
 5     Investigation of a miniature      Cheryl        2011   –                   OpenAlex       yes    ✓             2
       differential ion thruster         Collingwood
 6     An RF Plasma Thruster for Use     Lynn Olson    2001   –                   OpenAlex       yes    ✓             0
       in Small Satellites
 7     A Microwave Thruster for          USDOE         2012   10.2172/1047100     OpenAlex       yes    ✓             0
       Spacecraft Propulsion [Slides]    National
                                         Nuclear
                                         Security
                                         Administra…
                                         (NNSA) &
                                         Vincent
                                         Chiravalle
 8     Ion thruster project              G. E.         1984   –                   OpenAlex       yes    ✓             0
                                         Perche
8 result(s)

mosaic similar takes a DOI (or arxiv:<id>) and asks OpenAlex for the works it relates to that paper by shared concepts. With a Semantic Scholar API key (mosaic config --ss-key) it also asks Semantic Scholar for recommendations, which usually adds more. The options of search apply: --sort, --oa-only, --download, --output, --json.

A saved search

mosaic watch add saves a search and records what it returns today as the baseline:

$ mosaic watch add "hall thruster anomalous transport" --name hall-transport --source arxiv

Watch 'hall-transport' saved — baseline of 25 paper(s) recorded.

$ mosaic watch list
 Name             Query                               Source   Seen   Last run (UTC)
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 hall-transport   hall thruster anomalous transport   arxiv      25   2026-10-14 16:59:43

mosaic watch run repeats every watch, or the ones you name, and reports only the papers that watch has never returned, even if another search already put them in the cache:

$ mosaic watch run

hall-transport — nothing new (25 result(s))

Run right after add, it finds nothing new. Run it daily from cron, and download what is new:

# crontab -e
0 7 * * *  mosaic watch run --download >> ~/watch.log 2>&1

mosaic watch run --json prints the new papers of each watch for a script or a notification; mosaic watch remove NAME deletes a watch. watch add takes the options of search: --source, --year, --author, --journal, --field, --raw-query, --oa-only, --max.

What you learned

mosaic similar from a seed paper; mosaic watch add, list, run and remove for searches that report what is new. Reference: similar, watch; guides: Similar papers, Watches.

Next: 8. A local model.