PRL Supplemental Material (prl-supplementary)

When to trigger

• The Letter is over length and detail must move out of the body
• A reader cannot follow the Letter without consulting the SM
• You have derivations, extended datasets, or methods detail with no home
• You are unsure what is allowed in SM versus what must stay in the Letter
• Referees of a prior version asked for material that would bloat the body

The stand-alone rule (non-negotiable)

The Letter must be fully understandable on its own. The Supplemental Material supports the Letter; it must never be load-bearing for the central claim. A reader who never opens the SM should still grasp the result, the evidence for it, and why it matters.

• The central claim, its key evidence, and the decisive control live in the Letter.
• The SM holds the exhaustive backup that a skeptical referee or replicator wants.
• Every SM section is cited from the body at the point it is relevant.

If removing the SM breaks the argument, the partition is wrong — pull the essential piece back into the Letter (and trim elsewhere via prl-length-management).