ELECTRON-SPIN DEPOLARIZATION DERIVED FROM ELECTRON-PHOTON COINCIDENCEEXPERIMENTS WITH UNPOLARIZED BEAMS

We discuss how results from scattered-electron-polarized-photon coinci dence experiments on the impact excitation of unpolarized heavy atoms with unpolarized electron beams can be used to extract information abo ut the depolarization of spin-polarized electrons through exchange col lisions. The method is demonstrated with recent experimental and theor etical data for Hg (6s(2)) S-1(0)e --> (6s6p) P-3(1)0 excitation.