Dynamic correlations in a dense dipolar liquid

The microscopic dynamics of liquid sulphur dioxide is investigated by means of the concurrent use of inelastic neutron scattering and molecular dynamics simulations. This enables an approximate separation of the dynamic processes contributing to the neutron spectra, thus allowing us to quantify the deviation from idealized behavior of quantities characterizing the single-particle and collective motions. From a comparison between experiment and simulation, an estimate of an inelastic structure factor comprising information about the extent of orientational correlations is derived. Finally, the relevance of the present results as benchmarks to assess recent predictions is discussed.