Background: Microscopic calculations of the electromagnetic response of light and medium-mass nuclei are now feasible thanks to the availability of realistic nuclear interactions with accurate saturation and spectroscopic properties, and the development of large-scale computing methods for many-body physics.

Purpose: To compute isovector dipole electromagnetic (E1) response and related quantities, i.e., integrated dipole cross section and polarizability, and compare with data from photoabsorption and Coulomb excitation experiments. To investigate the evolution pattern of the E1 response towards the neutron drip line with calculations of neutron-rich nuclei within a given isotopic chain.

Methods: The single-particle propagator is obtained by solving the Dyson equation, where the self-energy includes correlations nonperturbatively through the algebraic diagrammatic construction (ADC) method. The particle-hole (ph) polarization propagator is treated in the dressed random phase approximation (DRPA), based on an effective correlated propagator that includes some 2p2h effects but keeps the same computation scaling as the standard Hartree-Fock propagator.

Results: The E1 responses for ^14,16,22,24O, ^{36,40,48,52,54,70}Ca, and ⁶⁸Ni have been computed: The presence of a soft dipole mode of excitation for neutron-rich nuclei is found, and there is a fair reproduction of the low-energy part of the experimental excitation spectrum. This is reflected in a good agreement with the empirical dipole polarizability values. The impact of different approximations to the correlated propagator used as input in the E1 response calculation is assessed.

Conclusion: For a realistic interaction that accurately reproduces masses and radii, an effective propagator of the mean-field type computed by the self-consistent Green's function provides a good description of the empirical E1 response, especially in the low-energy part of the excitation spectrum and around the giant dipole resonance. The high-energy part of the spectrum improves and displays an enhancement of the strength when quasiparticle fragmentation is added to the reference propagator. However, this fragmentation (without a proper restoration of dynamical self-consistency) spoils the predictions of the energy centroid of the giant dipole resonance.