1) Fidelity of response, e.g. of magnetic field gradients or the RF system, to input. The output of a linear system is directly proportional to its input.
2) Spatial uniformity of the magnetic field gradient over the imaging volume. Because of eddy current effects, static and dynamic linearity have to be distinguished. Both together with the magnet homogeneity determine the geometrical correctness of the images.

Forces can result from the interaction of magnetic fields. Pulsed magnetic field gradients can interact with the main magnetic field during the MRI scan, to produce acoustic noise through the gradient coil.
Magnetic fields attract ferromagnetic objects with forces, which can be a lethal danger if one is hit by an unrestrained object in flight. One could also be trapped between the magnet and a large unrestrained ferromagnetic object or the object could damage the MRI machine.
Access control and personnel awareness are the best preventions of such accidents. The attraction mechanism for ferromagnetic objects is that the magnetic field magnetizes the iron. This induced magnetization reacts with the gradient of the magnetic field to produce an attraction toward the strongest area of the field. The details of this interaction are very dependent on the shape and composition of the attracted object. There is a very rapid increase of force as one approaches a magnet. There is also a torque or twisting force on objects, e.g. a long cylinder (such as a pen or an intracranial aneurysm clip) will tend to align along the magnet's field lines. The torque increases with field strength while the attraction increases with field gradient.
Depending on the magnetic saturation of the object, attraction is roughly proportional to object mass. Motion of conducting objects in magnetic fields can induce eddy currents that can have the effect of opposing the motion.

See also Duty Cycle.

See also the related poll result: 'Most outages of your scanning system are caused by failure of'

Magnetic field gradient pulse applied to reverse the spatial variation of phase of transverse magnetization caused by a dephasing gradient. For example, in selective excitation, it is a magnetic field gradient applied for a brief period after a selective excitation pulse, in the opposite direction to the gradient used for the selective excitation. The result of the gradient reversal is a rephasing of the spins (which will have gotten out of phase with each other along the direction of the selection gradient), forming a gradient echo and improving the sensitivity of imaging after the selective excitation process.

Technique of MR imaging that uses a gradient of the RF excitation field (to give a corresponding variation of the flip angle along the gradient as a means of encoding the spatial location of spins in the direction of the RF field gradient) in conjunction with a static magnetic field gradient (to give spatial encoding in an orthogonal direction). It can be considered to be a form of Fourier transformation imaging.

Controlling the frequency spectrum (bandwidth) of a RF pulse (via tailoring) while imposing a magnetic field gradient on spins, such that only a desired region will have an appropriate resonant frequency to be excited.
Originally used to excite all but a desired region; now often used to select only a desired region, such as a plane, for excitation. Used without simultaneous magnetic field gradients, tailored RF pulses can be used to selectively excite a particular spectral line or group of lines. RF and gradient pulse combinations can be designed to select both spatial regions and spectral frequencies.