Parametric modeling of steady-state gradient coil vibration: Resonance dynamics under variations in cylinder geometry

Gradient coil (GC) vibration is the root cause of many problems in MRI adversely affecting scanner performance, image quality, and acoustic noise levels. A critical issue is that GC vibration will be significantly increased close to any GC mechanical resonances. It is well known that altering the dimensions of a GC fundamentally affects the mechanical resonances excited by the GC windings. The precise nature of the effects (i.e., how the resonances are affected) is however not well understood. The purpose of the present paper is to study how the mechanical resonances excited by closed whole-body Z-gradient coils are affected by variations in cylinder geometry. A mathematical Z-gradient coil vibration model recently developed and validated by the authors is used to theoretically study the resonance dynamics under variation(s) in cylinder: (i) length, (ii) mean radius, and (iii) radial thickness. The forced-vibration response to Lorentz-force excitation is in each case analyzed in terms of the frequency response of the GC cylinder's displacement. In cases (i) and (ii), the qualitative dynamics are simple: reducing the cylinder length and/or mean radius causes all mechanical resonances to shift to higher frequencies. In case (iii), the qualitative dynamics are much more complicated with different resonances shifting in different directions and additional dependencies on the cylinder length. The more detailed dynamics are intricate owing to the fact that resonances shift at comparatively different rates and this leads to several novel and theoretically interesting predicted effects. Knowledge of these effects advance our understanding of the basic mechanics of GC vibration and offer practically useful insights into how such vibration may be passively reduced.     

Frustration effect and possibility of spin quantum liquid state in a tetrahedral spin ½ molecule

In this work, we studied the magnetic properties of a regularly tetrahedral molecule made of four spin-½, interconnected by exchange. For this purpose, we used the Heisenberg model and performed an exact resolution. In the case of a ferromagnetic coupling among the spins, the system orders itself under a magnetic field without displaying any net spontaneous magnetization. It behaves as a high spin-2 unique magnet.Under antiferromagnetic exchange, some exotic behaviour has been revealed due to the frustration governing the spin edifice. Thus, the magnetization is quantized into plateaus, which are separated by quantum phase transitions. In particular, we have argued the possibility of a quantum spin liquid (QSL) state that can occur at low temperature.This contribution intends mainly to bring single-molecular magnets to the front line of innovative nanoscale applications.