  The collective excitation phenomena in atomic nuclei are studied in two
different formulations of the Random Phase Approximation (RPA): (i) RPA based
on correlated realistic nucleon-nucleon interactions constructed within the
Unitary Correlation Operator Method (UCOM), and (ii) relativistic RPA (RRPA)
derived from effective Lagrangians with density-dependent meson-exchange
interactions. The former includes the dominant interaction-induced short-range
central and tensor correlations by means of an unitary transformation. It is
shown that UCOM-RPA correlations induced by collective nuclear vibrations
recover a part of the residual long-range correlations that are not explicitly
included in the UCOM Hartree-Fock ground state. Both RPA models are employed in
studies of the isoscalar monopole resonance (ISGMR) in closed-shell nuclei
across the nuclide chart, with an emphasis on the sensitivity of its properties
on the constraints for the range of the UCOM correlation functions. Within the
Relativistic Quasiparticle RPA (RQRPA) based on Relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov
model, the occurrence of pronounced low-lying dipole excitations is predicted
in nuclei towards the proton drip-line. From the analysis of the transition
densities and the structure of the RQRPA amplitudes, it is shown that these
states correspond to the proton pygmy dipole resonance.
