Polychromatic Excitation of Delocalized Long-Lived Proton Spin States in Aliphatic Chains

Phys Rev Lett. 2022 Oct 28;129(18):183203. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.183203.

Abstract

Long-lived states (LLS) involving pairs of magnetically inequivalent but chemically equivalent proton spins in aliphatic (CH_{2})_{n} chains can be excited by simultaneous application of weak selective radio frequency fields at n chemical shifts by polychromatic spin-lock induced crossing. The LLS are delocalized throughout the aliphatic chains by mixing of intrapair singlet states and by excitation of LLS comprising products of four and six spin operators. The measured lifetimes T_{LLS} in a model compound are about 5 times longer than T_{1} and are strongly affected by interactions with macromolecules.