  Coulomb excitation of the exotic neutron-rich nucleus Ne26 on a Pb208 target
was measured at 58 MeV/u in order to search for low-lying E1 strength above the
neutron emission threshold. This radioactive beam experiment was carried out at
the RIKEN Accelerator Research Facility. Using the invariant mass method in the
Ne25+n channel, we observe a sizable amount of E1 strength between 6 and 10 MeV
excitation energy. By performing a multipole decomposition of the differential
cross section, a reduced dipole transition probability of B(E1)=0.49+-0.16e2fm2
is deduced, corresponding to 4.9+-1.6% of the Thomas-Reiche-Kuhn sum rule. For
the first time, the decay pattern of low-lying strength in a neutron-rich
nucleus is measured. The extracted decay pattern is not consistent with several
mean-field theory descriptions of the pygmy states.
