Time minimal saturation of a pair of spins and application in magnetic resonance imaging (Q2175612)

The aim of the article is to provide a complete classification of the time minimal synthesis to saturate a single spin and extend the analysis to the case of two spins. Actually, there is mostly a presentation of the state of the art in geometric, symbolic and simulation techniques that are used to analyze the problem of saturating a pair of spins in relation with the so-called \(B_0\) and \(B_1\) inhomogeneities, associated to the applied magnetic fields. The second section is devoted to the presentation of general concepts, the mathematical model expressed by the Bloch equations, the formulation of time minimal control problem, singular extremals and maximum principle. Elements of optimal synthesis, main assumptions, switching functions and optimality status are developed in the third section. The time-minimal saturation problem of a pair of spin-1/2 particles, the so-called bi-saturation problem is introduced in the fourth section. Theoretical results, algebraic techniques, singularity analysis and classification are presented in the fifth section. Candidates as minimizers are computed by using direct methods and the costs are compared by means of lower bounds computed with LMI techniques. Two softwares are mentioned: Bocop and HamPath. Validation and numerical results are largely discussed.