Fine structure of giant resonances: What can be learned

Fine structure of giant resonances (GR) has been established in recent years as a global phenomenon across the nuclear chart and for different types of resonances. A quantitative description of the fine structure in terms of characteristic scales derived by wavelet techniques is discussed. By comparison with microscpic calculations of GR strength distributions one can extract information on the role of different decay mechanisms contributing to the width of GRs. The observed cross-section fluctuations contain information on the level density (LD) of states with a given spin and parity defined by the multipolarity of the GR.