PRL Methods (prl-methods)

When to trigger

• Your Methods text is several paragraphs of apparatus, sample, or derivation detail
• You cannot tell what a reader needs versus what is reassuring completeness
• Reviewers of a prior draft asked for more rigor, and you are tempted to add bulk
• The Letter is over length and methods are a prime trimming target
• You are unsure which derivation steps to keep inline versus move to SM

The trust-minimum principle

In a Letter, methods exist to let a competent physicist believe the central claim — not to enable full replication inline. Full replication detail lives in Supplemental Material. Keep in the body only what is load-bearing for trust:

• The essential experimental configuration or theoretical setup (one compact description).
• The key control(s) that rule out the obvious alternative explanation.
• The decisive statistical/systematic statement (uncertainties, significance) for the headline number.
• The one or two equations that define the quantity being claimed.