Investigation of parity mixing in Ta and Lu by measurement of the circular polarization of γ-rays

The circular polarization of the 482 keV γ-radiation of ¹⁸¹Ta and the 343 keV γ-radiation of ¹⁷⁵Lu was measured with a Compton polarimeter. Spurious effects arising from higher order contributions of quantum electrodynamics to the Compton scattering cross section were discovered. The results for the polarization are P = − (4.1±1.3)10⁻⁶ for ¹⁸¹Ta and P = − (1.5±6.0)10⁻⁶ for ¹⁷⁵Lu. These values are corrected for instrument asymmetries, bremsstrahlung and intensity of other lines.