Kerr effect. I. Field effect on correlation in polarizable fluids

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Abstract
We make a systematic study of the distortion induced by a strong electric field on the orientationally averaged particle–particle correlations in a fluid. Such distortion occurs even for nonpolar particles with linear scalar polarizability and gives rise to the Kerr effect (which in general has other contributions as well). After obtaining our general result we consider explicitly its low-density contribution to the Kerr constant and its behavior in the critical region.