The interference in the decay of two ½ spins in a molecular medium, studied by the Nakajima–Zwanzig technique

This paper studies the decay, due to the spin-lattice coupling, of two ½ spins with slightly different Zeeman energies when the lattice is thermally excited. The analysis is based on obtaining, by means of the Nakajima–Zwanzig projection operator technique, an equation for the evolution of the reduced density operator of the spin system which manifests the influence of one spin on the relaxation process of the other. The zero-order solutions obtained for the evolution of the expectation values of the spin dynamics operators are essentially equivalent to the Bloch equations; higher order solutions are also obtained.