[Tex/LaTex] Too much space between section and text in a twocolumn document

revtextwo-column

I don't know why there is so much space between the section's title and the beginning of the text. I am using the same 'template' with class revtex4-1 for others documents and it works normally. 

 \documentclass[twocolumn,prl,nobalancelastpage,aps,10pt]    {revtex4-1}
    %\documentclass[rmp,preprint]{revtex4-1}
\usepackage[latin9]{inputenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{graphicx,bm,times}
\usepackage{subfig}
\graphicspath{ {C:/Varie/UNI/MANO/primosemestre/fraboni/esperimenti/RT/pictures/} }
\begin{document}

\title{Electrical resistance of Cu, Ni and Ge in the range $120K$ - $400K$}

\author{...}

\affiliation{...}

\begin{abstract} 
We observed the temperature dependence of the electrical resistance of Cu, Ni and Ge in the range between $200K$ and $400K$. It resulted to be linear in the whole range for Cu and Ni. The one of the Ge exhibited this linear behaviour only up to $300K$ showing an exponential decay above. We also estimated the energy gap $E_g$ of Ge which resulted to be equal to $E_g=$
\end{abstract}

\date{\today}

\maketitle
\section{INTRODUCTION}
The aim of this study is to observe the dependence of the electrical resistance of two metals, Copper and Nickel, and of a doped semiconductor, the Germanium, as a function of the temperature. Furthermore our measurements allowed us to estimate the energy gap of the Germanium.
 %The two metals showed a linear dependence while the semiconductor has two different behaviour. Through our measuments  
  \\

 The starting point of our discussion are ...

enter image description here

Best Answer

Let us first have a look on the corrected mwe of you to recreate the issue. Please see that I deleted some packages not needed for this issue and please see that package times is outdated. To get the issue I used your The starting point of our discussion are ... some more times, because with \blindtext I can not define the needed lines to show your issue.

I marked with <========= the relevant code:

\documentclass[twocolumn,prl,nobalancelastpage,aps,10pt]    {revtex4-1}
    %\documentclass[rmp,preprint]{revtex4-1}
\usepackage[latin9]{inputenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{times} % <======================================== outdated!

\usepackage{blindtext} % <============================ to add dummy text


\begin{document}

\title{Electrical resistance of Cu, Ni and Ge in the range $120K$ - $400K$}

\author{...}

\affiliation{...}

\begin{abstract} 
We observed the temperature dependence of the electrical resistance of Cu, Ni and Ge in the range between $200K$ and $400K$. It resulted to be linear in the whole range for Cu and Ni. The one of the Ge exhibited this linear behaviour only up to $300K$ showing an exponential decay above. We also estimated the energy gap $E_g$ of Ge which resulted to be equal to $E_g=$
\end{abstract}

\date{\today}

\maketitle
\section{INTRODUCTION}
The aim of this study is to observe the dependence of the electrical resistance of two metals, Copper and Nickel, and of a doped semiconductor, the Germanium, as a function of the temperature. Furthermore our measurements allowed us to estimate the energy gap of the Germanium.
 %The two metals showed a linear dependence while the semiconductor has two different behaviour. Through our measuments  
  \\

 The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... % <====================

\blindtext % <==========================================================

\blindtext

\Blinddocument 

\end{document}

The result is (see red arrows for the culprit):

resulting page

The big white space results because LaTeX tries to fill the complete left column, because your class uses \flushbottom, that means the last line of the column has to be at the bottom of the column. You can use \raggedbottom instead to force not balanced colums.

MWE:

\documentclass[twocolumn,prl,nobalancelastpage,aps,10pt]    {revtex4-1}
    %\documentclass[rmp,preprint]{revtex4-1}
\usepackage[latin9]{inputenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{times} % <======================================== outdated!

\usepackage{blindtext} % <============================ to add dummy text

\raggedbottom % <=======================================================


\begin{document}

\title{Electrical resistance of Cu, Ni and Ge in the range $120K$ - $400K$}

\author{...}

\affiliation{...}

\begin{abstract} 
We observed the temperature dependence of the electrical resistance of Cu, Ni and Ge in the range between $200K$ and $400K$. It resulted to be linear in the whole range for Cu and Ni. The one of the Ge exhibited this linear behaviour only up to $300K$ showing an exponential decay above. We also estimated the energy gap $E_g$ of Ge which resulted to be equal to $E_g=$
\end{abstract}

\date{\today}

\maketitle
\section{INTRODUCTION}
The aim of this study is to observe the dependence of the electrical resistance of two metals, Copper and Nickel, and of a doped semiconductor, the Germanium, as a function of the temperature. Furthermore our measurements allowed us to estimate the energy gap of the Germanium.
 %The two metals showed a linear dependence while the semiconductor has two different behaviour. Through our measuments  
  \\

 The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... % <====================

\blindtext % <==========================================================

\blindtext

\Blinddocument 

\end{document}

Result:

second result

Now the white space is at the bottom of the column.

If you do not like that you need to rephrase your text in first column to fit.

If you delete for example one sentence The starting point of our discussion are ... with commented \raggedbottom you have the following code 

\documentclass[twocolumn,prl,nobalancelastpage,aps,10pt]    {revtex4-1}
    %\documentclass[rmp,preprint]{revtex4-1}
\usepackage[latin9]{inputenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{times} % <======================================== outdated!

\usepackage{blindtext} % <============================ to add dummy text

%\raggedbottom % <=======================================================


\begin{document}

\title{Electrical resistance of Cu, Ni and Ge in the range $120K$ - $400K$}

\author{...}

\affiliation{...}

\begin{abstract} 
We observed the temperature dependence of the electrical resistance of Cu, Ni and Ge in the range between $200K$ and $400K$. It resulted to be linear in the whole range for Cu and Ni. The one of the Ge exhibited this linear behaviour only up to $300K$ showing an exponential decay above. We also estimated the energy gap $E_g$ of Ge which resulted to be equal to $E_g=$
\end{abstract}

\date{\today}

\maketitle
\section{INTRODUCTION}
The aim of this study is to observe the dependence of the electrical resistance of two metals, Copper and Nickel, and of a doped semiconductor, the Germanium, as a function of the temperature. Furthermore our measurements allowed us to estimate the energy gap of the Germanium.
 %The two metals showed a linear dependence while the semiconductor has two different behaviour. Through our measuments  
  \\

 The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... The starting point of our discussion are ... % <====================

\blindtext % <==========================================================

\blindtext

\Blinddocument 

\end{document}

and the result:

third pdf

Sometimes rephrasing is better than everything else ...

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