In this research letter, we build upon recent studies about the sleeping beauties awakened by the COVID-19 pandemic. We prove that a peak of citations for sleeping beauties is associated with a sharp increase in the number of citations received by their references. This demonstrates the existence of a cascading activation of citation-based sleeping beauties.
Keywords: Citation impact; Indirect impact; References; Sleeping beauties.
© Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary 2022.