A new interpretation of dielectric data in molecular glass formers

Literature dielectric data of glycerol, propylene carbonate, and ortho-terphenyl show that the measured dielectric relaxation is a decade faster than the Debye expectation but still a decade slower than the breakdown of the shear modulus. From a comparison of time scales, the dielectric relaxation seems to be due to a process which relaxes not only the molecular orientation but also the entropy, the short range order, and the density. On the basis of this finding, we propose an alternative to the Gemant-DiMarzio-Bishop extension of the Debye picture.