Extended frequency range measurements for determining the Kneser-type acoustic relaxation time

In the present paper, the authors discuss studies carried out for many years dealing particularly with two compounds: benzene and carbon disulphide and compare them with the results obtained by numerous acoustics researchers. These compounds are typical liquids in which acoustic Kneser-type relaxation occurs, caused by an irreversible vibrational and translational (VT) transition. Since magnitudes describing the relaxation process were diverse in many papers, we have undertaken an attempt to clarify these differences and to indicate how to avoid errors resulting from instrumental imperfections and the disregard of the considerable measurement errors when investigating velocity dispersion in the hypersonic (GHz) range. The results of these researches changed the interpretation of previous papers.