Examination of a blood vessel based on nuclear resonant absorption

A computer-implemented method for determining at least one characteristic of a portion of a blood vessel, the method comprising:

• controlling a tunable monochromatic x-ray source to emit x-ray radiation;
• detecting the x-ray radiation after travelling through the portion of the blood vessel, wherein the portion of the blood vessel comprises blood including a contrast agent exhibiting nuclear resonant absorption;
• varying a tuning of the x-ray source, thereby varying energy of the x-ray radiation emitted by the x-ray source;
• determining, based on the detection signal, the tuning of the x-ray source at which nuclear resonant absorption of the x-ray radiation incident onto the portion of the blood vessel occurs;
• and
• estimating the at least one characteristic based on the determined tuning.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium having executable instructions stored thereon which, when executed by at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform a computer-implemented method for determining at least one characteristic of a portion of a blood vessel, the method comprising:

• controlling a tunable monochromatic x-ray source to emit x-ray radiation;
• detecting the x-ray radiation after travelling through the portion of the blood vessel, wherein the portion of the blood vessel comprises blood including a contrast agent exhibiting nuclear resonant absorption;
• varying a tuning of the x-ray source, thereby varying energy of the x-ray radiation emitted by the x-ray source;
• determining, based on the detection signal, the tuning of the x-ray source at which nuclear resonant absorption of the x-ray radiation incident onto the portion of the blood vessel occurs;
• and
• estimating the at least one characteristic based on the determined tuning.