ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the subject by reviewing the experimental situation regarding the giant dipole resonance, the single giant vibration which has been clearly identified in the γ-decay of excited nuclei. The giant dipole resonance was seen as a change in the slope of the intensity curve taking place in the range of the resonance energy. Since the time in which the presence of the giant dipole resonance in hot nuclei as a thermal excitation was established, much experimental and theoretical work has been dedicated to the subject. The chapter focuses on the description of the multideteetor systems constructed at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s and used in the study of giant dipole vibrations in hot nuclei. The basic assumption made in such analysis, is that all nuclear degrees of freedom have reached statistical equilibrium before the cooling process starts.
