Lol when I read a paper that only cites its own work it’s an immediate eye-roll from me. Usually the realm of people who can’t keep their own biases out of their work.
Maybe it’s different for some hyper-specific subfield where no one else is doing anything relevant but I think that’s pretty rare. I don’t know much about physics though. The papers I read are all biology.
My absolute favorite is when there’s two competing camps of researchers who steadfastly refuse to cite the other’s work on a topic. It’s very silly. Citing doesn’t mean you have to agree with all of their conclusions. Not doing so is obstinately refusing to acknowledge relevant data.
Papers!
(jk my company mandates it after unilaterally deciding to stop paying for endnote and forbids other software im miserable send help)