Time-resolved optical Kerr effect in a fragile glass-forming liquid, salol

We report an optical Kerr effect experiment, performed on liquid and supercooled liquid salol, in order to test some predictions of the mode-coupling theory of the liquid-glass transition. We show that this experiment is sensitive mostly to the reorientational motion of the molecules and the corresponding correlation function exhibits, above the critical temperature T-C, a von Schweidler relaxation followed by an alpha relaxation regime. The critical temperature and the critical exponent derived from the analysis of the experiment are in good agreement with the same quantities previously determined, in the frequency domain, through a depolarized light-scattering experiment, by Li et al. [Phys. Rev. B 46, 3343 (1992)]. [S1063-651X(98)04702-3].