Experimental studies of the Pygmy Dipole Resonance

The electric dipole response of atomic nuclei has attracted a lot of attention from experimentalists and theorists in the last decade. This review gives an overview about the present status of experimental approaches to study low-lying electric dipole strength (often denoted as Pygmy Dipole Resonance) in stable and radioactive atomic nuclei and discusses the implications of these findings. Data published until July 2012 have been taken into account.