on Relaxation in NMR

If we only switch on the transverse magnetic field for some time tau. after the field is off, the system will go back to the thermal equilibrium. it is due to the system is not completely isolated.

instead of consider a single spin, we have to consider the ensemble. and an ensemble is describe by the density matrix.

the reason for not consider a single spin state is, we don’t know what is going on for individual spin. in fact, in the previous section, the magnetization is a Marco effect. a single spin cannot have so many states, it can only have 2 states - up or down. if we insist the above calculation is on one spin, thus, it only give the chance for having that direction of polarization. which, is from many measurements.

so, for a single spin, the spin can only have 2 states. and if the transverse B field frequency is not equal to the Larmor frequency , and the pule is not a pi-pulse, the spin has chance to go to the other state, which probability is given by a formula. and when it goes to relax back to the minimum energy state, it will emit a photon. but when it happen, we don’t know, it is a complete random process.

However, an ensemble, a collection of spins, we can have some statistic on it. for example, the relaxation time, T1 and T2.