Isospin Character of the Pygmy Dipole Resonance in Sn-124

The pygmy dipole resonance has been studied in the proton-magic nucleus Sn-124 with the (alpha, alpha'gamma) coincidence method at E-alpha = 136 MeV. The comparison with results of photon-scattering experiments reveals a splitting into two components with different structure: one group of states which is excited in (alpha, alpha'gamma) as well as in (gamma, gamma') reactions and a group of states at higher energies which is only excited in (gamma, gamma') reactions. Calculations with the self-consistent relativistic quasiparticle time-blocking approximation and the quasiparticle phonon model are in qualitative agreement with the experimental results and predict a low-lying isoscalar component dominated by neutron-skin oscillations and a higher-lying more isovector component on the tail of the giant dipole resonance.