Coherent effects in Cs (nD) states in the presence of an external electric field

We present experimental and theoretical studies of coherent excitation of magnetic sublevels in nD states of cesium that cross in an external electric field. Coherent excitation of m_F magnetic sublevels of hyperfine F levels with Deltam_F = plusmn2 leads to resonances in the linearly polarized laser induced fluorescence (LIF), while coherent excitation of magnetic sublevels with Deltam_F = plusmn1 leads to alignment to orientation conversion (AOC). From the resonance signals we were able to measure atomic constants, such as the hyperfine constant A and the tensor polarizability alpha₂ (Auzinsh et al., 2006). AOC involves the deformation of the spatial distribution of an atom´s angular momentum and is of interest as a background in certain types of experiments that search for a permanent electric dipole moment (EDM) of the electron.