Vector model simulations to illustrate the dependence of Rex on φ, ωeff,GS and ωeff,ES during an on-resonance R1ρ experiment for a system undergoing two-state GS-ES exchange. A) Variation of Rex with φ for a fixed ωeff,GS and ωeff,ES, under fast and slow exchange conditions. Simulations were performed using ωeff,GS = 1000*2π rad s−1 and ωeff,ES = 1131*2π rad s−1 when on-resonance with the GS under slow exchange conditions. ωeff,GS = 1000*2π rad s−1 and ωeff,ES = 1128*2π rad s−1 under fast exchange conditions while maintaining the AVG state onresonance by suitably adjusting the offset of the GS and ES. Similar trends are observed for alternative values of the precession frequencies (data not shown). B) Heat maps of Rex as a function of ωeff,GS and ωeff,ES for a fixed φ under fast and slow exchange conditions. Horizontal dotted lines (blue) correspond to the condition ωeff,ES = kex. Orientations of the effective fields were kept fixed at those corresponding to application of ω1/2π = 1000 Hz on resonance. Similar trends are also observed for R1ρ, and for both Rex and R1ρ under off-resonance conditions, as long as the magnetization decay is mono-exponential (data not shown). For panels A and B, simulations were performed using 10,000 spins with pES = 0.01, , γ(1H)B0/2π = 700 MHz, R1,GS= R1,ES = 0.0 s−1, R2,GS = R2,ES = 0.0 s−1. The relaxation delays used were 3 s and 0.6 s for kex = 200 and 20000 s−1, respectively. For both panels, the initial alignment of magnetization and its projection to calculate Rex, was performed as described in Section 6.1.