Polarization transfer in relativistic electron-nucleus bremsstrahlung

The emission of circularly polarized photons during the scattering of fast spin-polarized electrons from heavy nuclei is studied within the Dirac-Sommerfeld-Maue approach. Predictions are made for the dependence of the polarization correlations C₃₂ and C₁₂ on collision energy, photon energy and nuclear charge. A comparison with pilot measurements of the transmission asymmetry, sensitive to C₃₂, for 3.5 MeV e + Pb verifies that the polarization transfer increases with photon energy for small emission angles.