EB-1A scholarly articles
Scholarly articles means authorship of scholarly articles in the field, in professional or major trade publications or other major media. A citation count is not the criterion. It shows up again at final merits.
Authorship is the box
You wrote it. It appeared in a venue the field uses. A preprint can be discussed, but the stronger exhibit is the published version and the venue. Being thanked in someone else’s paper is not authorship. A patent is not this box either. Patents are usually argued as original contributions.
There is still no citation quota
USCIS has not published a number that makes this criterion met. A real paper with modest independent use can support authorship. A long list of self-cites does not show you are at the top of the field. Read the citations note before you treat a Scholar profile as the case.
Related: Citations, Published material about you, AI engineers.
This is not a law firm and does not file petitions. USCIS decides each case on its own record.