PoS(PSF07)017 Missing Dipole Excitation Strength below the Particle Threshold A.P. Tonchev a , C. Angell b , M. Boswell b , C.R. Howell a , H.J. Karwowski b , J.H. Kelley c , W. Tornow a , N. Tsoneva d a Duke University and TUNL, Department of Physics, Box 90308, Durham, NC 27708-0308, USA b University of North Carolina, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3255, USA c North Carolina State University and TUNL, Department of Physics, Box 8202, Raleigh, NC 27695-8202, USA d Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of Giessen, Heinrich-Buff-Ring 16, D-35392, Giessen, Germany E-mail: tonchev@tunl.duke.edu High sensitivity studies of E1 and M1 excitations from the 138 Ba(γ ,γ ’) reaction at energies close to the neutron emission threshold have been performed. The electric dipole character of the “pygmy” mode was experimentally verified for excitations from 5.5-8.5 MeV. Missing dipole strength has been reveal in our photon-scattering measurements. Workshop on Photon Strength Functions and Related Topics June 17-20 2007 Prague, Czech Republic c  Copyright owned by the author(s) under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Licence. http://pos.sissa.it/