Editing Helmholtz decomposition (section)

=== Medical Imaging ===

In [[magnetic resonance elastography]], a variant of MR imaging where mechanical waves are used to probe the viscoelasticity of organs, the Helmholtz decomposition is sometimes used to separate the measured displacement fields into its shear component (divergence-free) and its compression component (curl-free).<ref name="manduca2021" /> In this way, the complex shear modulus can be calculated without contributions from compression waves.