Beyond Boltzmann and Bloch: Understanding Hyperpolarization, Hamiltonian manipulation, and Nonlinear NMR

Much of the frontier work presented at this meeting will use methods that get around the limitations set by room-temperature thermal magnetization, by thinking of relaxation only as T1 or T2, or by complex time evolution from the natural Hamiltonian. My goal in this series of lectures, aimed primarily at graduate students, is to establish the mathematical underpinnings behind the developments you will hear in the research talks (usually presented with little background, for lack of time).

Monday, Lecture 1: Essentials of hyperpolarization (overview of different technologies; fundamental physical limitations of each technology; how far are we, in each case, from the fundamental limits)

Tuesday, Lecture 2: Altering reality for nuclear spins (very brief review of density matrix formalism; average Hamiltonian theory; recent applications)

Wednesday, Lecture 3: Effects of large magnetization (coherence, correlation and entanglement; radiation damping; dipolar field; differences between concentrated thermal and dilute hyperpolarized magnetization)

Thursday, Lecture 4: Enhancing hyperpolarization (long lived states, pulsed DNP, complex fields in PHIP/SABRE)

Assumed background: I will begin by assuming students know how to analyse normal NMR spectra, have seen spin echoes, and are familiar with matrix manipulations (multiplication, direct product, eigenstates and eigenvalues). A basic understanding of density matrices would be helpful, but will be reviewed.