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The Pygmy Dipole Resonance is part of the electric dipole response of an atomic nucleus. There are still several open questions concerning, e.g., its structure. Systematic studies are crucial to improve the knowledge of this excitation mode. Such systematic studies have already been performed along the magic N = 82 isotonic chain using the Nuclear Resonance Fluorescence (NRF) technique, hinting to a trend of increasing strength with increasing N/Z ratio. Comparing these results to those from further NRF experiments on neighbouring non-magic isotopes and on 142Ce, a more fragmented strength distribution seems to occur.

Two complementary real-photon scattering experiments were conducted on the proton-magic nucleus 64Ni to study the dipole response up to its neutron-separation threshold of Sn = 9.7 MeV. By combining both measurements, 87 E1 and 23 M1 transitions were identified above 4.3 MeV. The results of the observed M1 transitions were compared to shell-model calculations using two different model spaces. It was found that the inclusion of excitations across the Z = 28 shell gap in the calculations has a large impact. Furthermore, average cross sections for decays to the ground state (elastic transitions) as well as to lower-lying excited states (inelastic decays) were determined. The corresponding E1 channel was compared to calculations within the relativistic equation of motion (REOM) framework. Whereas the calculation of highest possible complexity reproduces the fragmentation and overall behavior of the E1 average elastic cross section well, the predicted absolute cross sections are approximately twice as high as the experimental upper limits for the E1 cross section. The latter also include an estimation of the inelastic-decay channel.