Method and magnetic resonance apparatus for determination of excitation profiles from excitation pulses

A magnetic resonance apparatus comprising:

• a magnetic resonance data acquisition unit;
• a homogeneous phantom placed within a measurement volume of the magnetic resonance apparatus;
• a control unit configured to operate said data acquisition unit to acquire at least one magnetic resonance measurement data set from the phantom according to a test pulse sequence that comprises an excitation pulse that produces an excitation profile in the phantom, and a test gradient that is activated at full strength while said excitation pulse is radiated;
• a computerized processor provided with said measurement data set, said computerized processor being configured to automatically determine an intensity profile of said at least one measurement data set in a direction in which said test gradient is activated;
• said computerized processor being configured to determine an excitation profile of said excitation pulse from the determined intensity profile;
• and
• said computerized processor being configured to make the determined excitation profile available in electronic form at an output of said processor.

A non-transitory, computer-readable data storage medium encoded with programming instructions, said storage medium being loaded into a computerized control computer of a magnetic resonance apparatus that also comprises a magnetic resonance data acquisition unit, said programming instructions causing said control computer to:

• operate the data acquisition unit to acquire at least one magnetic resonance measurement data set from a homogeneous phantom placed within a measurement volume of the data acquisition unit, according to a test pulse sequence that comprises an excitation pulse that produces an excitation profile in the phantom, and a test gradient that is activated at full strength while said excitation pulse is radiated;
• determine an intensity profile of said at least one measurement data set in a direction in which said test gradient is activated;
• determine an excitation profile of said excitation pulse from the determined intensity profile;
• and
• make the determined excitation profile available in electronic form at an output of said processor.