Angular distributions of photoneutrons from the 207, 208Pb(γ, n0) reactions

Angular distributions of photoneutrons from the ^{207, 208}Pb(γ, n₀) reactions were measured at 11 angles around θ = 90°. The γ-source, E_γ = 7–11.4 MeV, contained discrete lines (ΔE ? 30 eV) obtained from n-capture and was used in conjunction with a high-resolution ³He spectrometer. Strong evidence for an E2 contribution and for E2-E1 and possibly E1-M1 interference was obtained in both ²⁰⁷Pb and ²⁰⁸Pb. The results are compared with calculations using a direct-semidirect model which involved an E1 and isoscalar E2 giant resonances. The results indicate that this model could explain only certain features of the data while most of the other features remain unexplained.