NMR Time Reversal Experiments in Highly Polarised Liquid 3He-4He Mixtures

Long-range magnetic interactions in highly magnetised liquids (laser-polarised 3He-4He dilute mixtures at 1 K in our experiment) introduce a significant non-linear and non-local contribution to the evolution of nuclear magnetisation that leads to instabilities during free precession. We recently demonstrated that a multi-echo NMR sequence, based on the magic sandwich pulse scheme developed for solid-state NMR, can be used to stabilise the magnetisation against the effect of distant dipolar fields. Here, we report investigations of echo attenuation in an applied field gradient that show the potential of this NMR sequence for spin diffusion measurements at high magnetisation densities.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Journal of Low Temperature Physic

High nuclear polarization of helium-3 at low and high pressure by metastability exchange optical pumping at 1.5 Tesla

We perform metastability exchange optical pumping of helium-3 in a strong magnetic field of 1.5 T. The achieved nuclear polarization, from 80% at 1.33 mbar to 25% at 67 mbar, shows a substantial improvement at high pressures with respect to standard low-field optical pumping. The specific mechanisms of metastability exchange optical pumping at high field are investigated, advantages and intrinsic limitations are discussed. From a practical point of view, our results open the way to alternative technological solutions for polarized helium-3 applications and in particular for magnetic resonance imaging of human lungs.Comment: accepted for publication in Europhysics Letter

Magnetic Field Effects on the 1083 nm Atomic Line of Helium. Optical Pumping of Helium and Optical Polarisation Measurement in High Magnetic Field

The structure of the excited $2^{3}$S and $2^{3}$P triplet states of $^{3}$He and $^{4}$He in an applied magnetic field B is studied using different approximations of the atomic Hamiltonian. All optical transitions (line positions and intensities) of the 1083 nm $2^{3}$S-$2^{3}$P transition are computed as a function of B. The effect of metastability exchange collisions between atoms in the ground state and in the $2^{3}$S metastable state is studied, and rate equations are derived, for the populations these states in the general case of an isotopic mixture in an arbitrary field B. It is shown that the usual spin-temperature description remains valid. A simple optical pumping model based on these rate equations is used to study the B-dependence of the population couplings which result from the exchange collisions. Simple spectroscopy measurements are performed using a single-frequency laser diode on the 1083 nm transition. The accuracy of frequency scans and of measurements of transition intensities is studied. Systematic experimental verifications are made for B=0 to 1.5 T. Optical pumping effects resulting from hyperfine decoupling in high field are observed to be in good agreement with the predictions of the simple model. Based on adequately chosen absorption measurements at 1083 nm, a general optical method to measure the nuclear polarisation of the atoms in the ground state in an arbitrary field is described. It is demonstrated at $B\sim$0.1 T, a field for which the usual optical methods could not operate.Comment: 33 pages, 31 figures, 17 tables, 61 references. Revised version (typos corrected, figure 11 replaced by the proper one) Accepted for publication in EPJ

High rate production of polarized 3He with meta-stability exchange method

Keywords: polarized 3He, meta-stability exchange, infrared laserComment: 4 figures, submitted to J. Phys. Soc. Jpn

A Fast MOSFET RF Switch for TRASE MRI at Low Magnetic Field

International audienceTRansmit Array Spatial Encoding (TRASE) MRI uses trains of B1 pulses alternatively produced by distinct transmit coils. Commonly used coil switching involving PIN diodes is too slow for low-field MRI and would introduce wait times between pulses typically as long as each individual pulse (hence, significant diffusion-induced resolution loss in TRASE MRI of gas samples). A MOSFET-based RF switch is described and characterised. Up to 200 kHz, it allows for sub-µs switching of RF currents from a single amplifier to several coils with sufficient isolation ratio and no delay between pulses

Flexible construction of hierarchical scale-free networks with general exponent

Extensive studies have been done to understand the principles behind architectures of real networks. Recently, evidences for hierarchical organization in many real networks have also been reported. Here, we present a new hierarchical model which reproduces the main experimental properties observed in real networks: scale-free of degree distribution $P(k)$ (frequency of the nodes that are connected to $k$ other nodes decays as a power-law $P(k)\sim k^{-\gamma}$) and power-law scaling of the clustering coefficient $C(k)\sim k^{-1}$. The major novelties of our model can be summarized as follows: {\it (a)} The model generates networks with scale-free distribution for the degree of nodes with general exponent $\gamma > 2$, and arbitrarily close to any specified value, being able to reproduce most of the observed hierarchical scale-free topologies. In contrast, previous models can not obtain values of $\gamma > 2.58$. {\it (b)} Our model has structural flexibility because {\it (i)} it can incorporate various types of basic building blocks (e.g., triangles, tetrahedrons and, in general, fully connected clusters of $n$ nodes) and {\it (ii)} it allows a large variety of configurations (i.e., the model can use more than $n-1$ copies of basic blocks of $n$ nodes). The structural features of our proposed model might lead to a better understanding of architectures of biological and non-biological networks.Comment: RevTeX, 5 pages, 4 figure

Local and global modes of drug action in biochemical networks

It becomes increasingly accepted that a shift is needed from the traditional target-based approach of drug development to an integrated perspective of drug action in biochemical systems. We here present an integrative analysis of the interactions between drugs and metabolism based on the concept of drug scope. The drug scope represents the set of metabolic compounds and reactions that are potentially affected by a drug. We constructed and analyzed the scopes of all US approved drugs having metabolic targets. Our analysis shows that the distribution of drug scopes is highly uneven, and that drugs can be classified into several categories based on their scopes. Some of them have small scopes corresponding to localized action, while others have large scopes corresponding to potential large-scale systemic action. These groups are well conserved throughout different topologies of the underlying metabolic network. They can furthermore be associated to specific drug therapeutic properties