Theory of long-lived nuclear spin states in solution nuclear magnetic resonance. II. Singlet spin locking.

In a previous paper [M. Carravetta and M. H. Levitt, J. Chem. Phys. 122, 214505 (2005)], we presented the theory of long-lived nuclear spin singlet states in low magnetic field. In this paper, we consider the spin locking of long-lived singlet states in high magnetic field by the application of resonant radio frequency irradiation. We present theoretical results for unmodulated irradiation, including approximate analytical expressions for the singlet decay rate constants. We show the results of numerical simulations, which indicate that modulated radio frequency fields may be used to achieve broadband spin locking of singlet states but only in the case of a small difference in Larmor frequencies between the members of the spin pair.