Pretransitional behavior of the nonlinear dielectric effect for the liquid-solid transition in nitrobenzene.

The nonlinear dielectric effect describes changes of dielectric permittivity induced by the strong electric field. This report shows the evidence for the critical-like pretransitional behavior for the liquid-solid transition in the supercooled nitrobenzene. Hallmarks of such behavior extend even above the melting temperature. A method for the analysis of pretransitional effects, avoiding the biasing impact of the noncritical background contribution, is proposed.