Comment on "Test of the Brink-Axel Hypothesis for the Pygmy Dipole Resonance" [Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 182503 (2017)]

TL;DR

This paper critiques a previous claim of violating the Brink-Axel hypothesis by analyzing gamma and proton scattering data, concluding that the original claim is unsupported by the data and analysis presented.

Contribution

It clarifies that the alleged violation of the Brink-Axel hypothesis is not supported by the data and provides a critical assessment of prior claims.

Findings

No evidence of Brink-Axel violation in gamma-gamma' data.

Proton scattering data do not support the claimed violation.

The original claim is not substantiated by the data analysis.

Abstract

The authors of the letter "Test of the Brink-Axel Hypothesis for the Pygmy Dipole Resonance" [Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 182503 (2017)] claim a violation of the Brink-Axel hypothesis by (gamma,gamma') data from gELBE for 96Mo [Phys. Rev. C 79, 061302 (2009)]. This violation cannot be concluded from the (gamma,gamma') data and is not at all discussed in that work. The comparison of the (g,g') data with the new (p,p') data in the letter does not give any hint to such a violation.