  The influence of the stellar plasma on the production and destruction of
K-isomers is studied for the examples 176Lu and 180Ta. Individual
electromagnetic transitions are enhanced predominantly by nuclear excitation by
electron capture, whereas the other mechanisms of electron scattering and
nuclear excitation by electron transition give only minor contributions. It is
found that individual transitions can be enhanced significantly for low
transition energies below 100 keV. Transitions with higher energies above 200
keV are practically not affected. Although one low-energy transition in 180Ta
is enhanced by up to a factor of 10, the stellar transition rates from low-K to
high-K states via so-called intermediate states in 176Lu and 180Ta do not
change significantly under s-process conditions. The s-process nucleosynthesis
of 176Lu and 180Ta remains essentially unchanged.
