Dielectric relaxation of glass-forming organic liquid in the crossover regime between normal and supercooled liquid states

Focusing on the crossover regime where the system changes from a normal liq uid to a supercooled one, we investigate the dielectric relaxation of a gla ss-forming liquid, salol. It is found that as temperature decreases, the al pha-process branches into two relaxation modes in the region of the crossov er temperature T*. This suggests that the supercooled liquid consists of tw o domains: the cooperative-rearranging domain pointed out by light scatteri ng studies and the independently mobile one, where the relaxation time show s a temperature dependence of the Arrhenius type with the same activation e nergy as that of the normal liquid.