Nongeneric structural-relaxation shape of supercooled liquids: Insights from linear and nonlinear experiments on propylene glycol

Abstract

Currently, there is a debate whether the structural relaxation of polar liquids is more faithfully reflected (i) by the generically shaped response detected by dynamic light scattering or rather (ii) by the slower, more stretched, system-dependent susceptibility response recorded by dielectric spectroscopy. In this work, nonlinearly induced transients probing structural relaxation reveal that near the glass transition, alternative (ii) is appropriate for propylene glycol. Results from shear rheology and from calorimetry corroborate this finding, underscoring the previously advanced notion (Moch et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 128, 228001, 2022) that the reorientationally probed structural susceptibility of viscous liquids displays a nongeneric spectral shape.