Spin: the Book
IK's lecture courses are now combined into a book, published in 2023 by Springer. The book contains the following chapters:
Mathematical Background | A gentle introduction into the mathematical structure of spin physics: Lie groups and algebras, aspects of special relativity, etc.
What Exactly Is Spin? | Spin is derived from the basic symmetries of physical reality. Spin Hamiltonian is obtained from the weakly relativistic limit of Dirac's equation.
Bestiary of Spin Hamiltonians | A catalogue of electron and nuclear interactions that enter spin Hamiltonians.
Coherent Spin Dynamics | Simulation infrastructure: density operator formalism, perturbation theories, effective Hamiltonian theories, Floquet theory, etc.
Other Degrees of Freedom | An overview of spatial and chemical dynamics in spin systems, including couplings to external quantum mechanical degrees of freedom.
Dissipative Spin Dynamics | All major spin relaxation theories and mechanisms in a single narrative, including chemical kinetics.
Incomplete Basis Sets | Efficient time-domain simulation methods for weakly correlated spin systems using the restricted state space approximation.
Optimal Control of Spin Systems | Gradient ascent pulse engineering (GRAPE) method for optimal control of spin system dynamics, including many recent extensions.
Notes on Software Engineering | Practical implementation, parallelisation, and GPU processing advice for large-scale numerical spin dynamics simulation software.
Season 1: Magnetic resonance for physicists
A lecture course for first year physics and chemistry PhD students at the Weizmann Institute of Science. The course skips the discussion of chemical structure determination and practical spectral analysis and focuses instead on the mathematics and physics of spin processes.
(handout, video) – Episode 01A – Spin as a fundamental physical property
(handout, video) – Episode 01B – What goes on inside the nucleus?
(handout, video) – Episode 02 – What is Magnetic Resonance and why bother?
(handout, video) – Episode 03 – Overview of NMR hardware
(handout, video) – Episode 04 – Bloch equations and the rotating frame
(handout, video) – Episode 05 – Fourier transform
(handout, video) – Episode 06 – Fourier spectroscopy
(handout, video) – Episode 07 – Spin echoes and relaxation
(handout, video) – Episode 08 – Pulsed field gradients and k-space
(handout, video) – Episode 09 – MRI in three dimensions
(handout, video) – Episode 10 – Orbital angular momentum
(handout, video) – Episode 11 – Nuclear spin operators
(handout, video) – Episode 12 – Liquid state NMR Hamiltonian
(handout, video) – Episode 13 – Introducing the density matrix
(handout, video) – Episode 14 – Thermal equilibrium, correlations, coherences
(handout, video) – Episode 15 – Product operator formalism
(handout, video) – Episode 16 – Magnetisation transfer
(handout, video) – Episode 17A – Spin relaxation theory, part 1
(handout, video) – Episode 17B – Spin relaxation theory, part 2
(handout, video) – Episode 18 – Common spin relaxation mechanisms
(handout, video) – Episode 19 – Nuclear Overhauser effect
(handout, video) – Episode 20 – 2D NMR spectroscopy
(handout, video) – Episode 21 – Liquid state protein NMR
(handout, video) – Episode 22 – Rotations and powder averages
(handout, video) – Episode 23 – Nuclear quadrupolar interaction
(handout) – Workshop 01 – Questions
(handout) – Workshop 02 – Questions
(handout) – Workshop 03 – Questions
(handout) – Workshop 04 – Questions
(handout) – Workshop 05 – Questions
(handout) – Workshop 06 – Questions
(handout) – Workshop 07 – Questions
(handout) – Workshop 08 – Questions
(handout) – Workshop 09 – Questions
(handout) – Workshop 10 – Questions
(handout) – Workshop 11 – Questions
(handout) – Workshop 12 – Questions
(handout) – Workshop 13 – Questions
(handout) – Workshop 14 – Questions
(handout) – Workshop 15 – Questions
(handout) – Workshop 16 – Questions
(handout) – Workshop 17 – Questions
(handout) – Workshop 18 – Questions
(handout) – Workshop 19 – Questions
(handout) – Workshop 20 – Questions
(handout) – Homework 01 – Questions
(handout) – Homework 02 – Questions
(handout) – Homework 03 – Questions
Season 2: Basic electronic structure theory
A graduate level course for chemists, physicists, and biologists who wish to acquire practical skills of performing electronic structure theory calculations on realistic systems. The lectures provide basic theoretical background and focus on practical recipes for the calculation of commonly encountered physical and chemical properties.
(handout, video) – Episode 01 – Introductions, Hartree-Fock theory, basis sets
(handout, video) – Episode 02 – Semi-empirics, MPn, CI, MCSCF, RI, BSSE
(handout, video) – Episode 03 – CC, DFT, exchange-correlation functionals
(handout, video) – Episode 04 – Molecular geometry optimisation
(handout, video) – Episode 05 – Transition state optimisation
(handout, video) – Episode 06 – Property calculations, Part A
(handout, video) – Episode 07 – Property calculations, Part B
(handout, video) – Episode 08 – Magnetic properties, Part A
(handout, video) – Episode 09 – Magnetic properties, Part B
Coursework A (handout, marking scheme, materials) – Equilibrium geometry and molecular volume of cocaine
Coursework B (handout, marking scheme, materials) – Equilibrium geometry and vibrational spectrum of sildenafil
Coursework C (handout, marking scheme, materials) – Equilibrium geometry and chemical shielding of modafinil
Season 3: Quantum optimal control theory
A lecture course for first year PhD students studying for a Quantum Technology degree by Ilya Kuprov at the University of Southampton.
(handout, video) – Episode 01 – Lie groups and algebras, Part A
(handout, video) – Episode 02 – Lie groups and algebras, Part B
(handout, video) – Episode 03 – Control channels of quantum devices
(handout, video) – Episode 04 – Gradient ascent pulse engineering
(handout, video) – Episode 05 – Controllability and reachability
Spin Dynamics
A graduate level lecture course for physicists and chemists working professionally in the area of magnetic resonance spectroscopy or using advanced NMR and EPR techniques as a part of their research. Students who wish to make distance examination arrangements (e.g. for the course to count towards their degree at their home institution) should contact Ilya Kuprov with the request.
Module I – Elementary topics (Ilya Kuprov, Giuseppe Pileio)
Lecture 01 (handout, video) – Fourier spectroscopy
Lecture 02 (handout, video) – Magnetic resonance instruments
Lecture 03 (handout, video a, video b) – Digital signal processing
Lecture 04 (handout, video) – Quantum theory of angular momentum
Lecture 05 (handout, video) – Quantum mechanical theory of spin
Lecture 06 (handout, video) – Spin interaction Hamiltonians, part I
Lecture 07 (handout, video) – Spin interaction Hamiltonians, part II
Lecture 08 (handout, video) – Formal theory of rotations
Lecture 09 (handout, video) – Wavefunction formalism
Lecture 10 (handout, video) – Density operator formalism
Lecture 11 (handout, video) – Product operator formalism
Lecture 12 (handout, video) – Rotating frame approximation
Module II – Algebra and programming (Ilya Kuprov)
Lecture 01 (handout, video) – Vector and matrix spaces
Lecture 02 (handout, video) – Groups and algebras
Lecture 03 (handout, video) – Formal theory of rotations
Lecture 04 (handout, video) – Overview of SU(n) groups
Lecture 05 (handout, video) – Simulation design and coding, part I
Lecture 06 (handout, video) – Simulation design and coding, part II
Lecture 07 (handout, video) – Simulation design and coding, part III
Lecture 08 (handout, video) – Simulation design and coding, part IV
Lecture 09 (handout, video) – Introduction into large-scale simulations
Lecture 10 (handout, video) – What is Spinach and what does it do
Lecture 11 (handout, video) – Pulse sequence modelling
Module IV – Solid state NMR (Malcolm Levitt, Marina Carravetta, Phil Williamson, Ilya Kuprov)
Lecture 01 (handout, video) – Spin interactions
Lecture 02 (handout, video) – Spherical tensors
Lecture 03 (handout, video) – Spherical tensors
Lecture 04 (handout, video) – Rotating frame approximation
Lecture 05 (handout, video) – Average Hamiltonian theory
Lecture 06 (handout, video) – Polarisation transfer and recoupling
Lecture 07 (handout, video) – Nuclear quadrupolar interaction
Lecture 08 (handout, video) – NMR of quadrupolar solids
Lecture 09 (handout, video) – Simulation of solid state DNP experiments
Lecture 10 (handout, video) – Anisotropic interactions in solid state NMR
Lecture 11 (handout, video) – Cross-polarisation and dipolar recoupling
Lecture 12 (handout, video) – Protein structure determination in solids
Shimon Vega's lecture notes
These are the famous handwritten lecture notes that many people in Magnetic Resonance will instantly recognise: a lot of us had been taught using photocopies of photocopies of these notes. The originals are kept in IK's office at the Weizmann Institute.
Basic Magnetic Resonance
Double Resonance in Solids
Group Theory (Set A)
Group Theory (Set B)
A number of PowerPoint slide sets were also found in summer school archives by Jörg Matysik. The original ppt files are here and their PDF versions are below.
Coherence and relaxation
Homonuclear decoupling
Understanding magnetic resonance
Leiden honours course, NMR
Leiden honours course, MRI
Mathematical Methods in Chemistry
The mathematics course that IK had been teaching at the University of Southampton from 2014 to 2024. The course was designed to give first year chemists all the background necessary for the subsequent courses in kinetics, thermodynamics, and molecular quantum mechanics. Basic statistics is covered, and an introduction is given into numerical methods and machine algebra systems.
Lecture 41 (handout, video) – Data integrity control
Lecture 42 (handout, video) – Laplace transform
Lecture 43 (handout, video) – Transfer function models
Lecture 44 (handout, video) – Dynamics of first order LTI systems
Lecture 45 (handout, video) – Dynamics of second order LTI systems