Stark mixing spectroscopy in cesium

We present a new technique for selectively populating excited states which are inaccessible by dipole excitation from the ground state. The method uses a static electric field to introduce a component of a dipole-allowed state into the state of interest. We have applied the method to cesium to measure lifetimes and a Stark mixing coefficient. The results are $\text{τ(6}{}^2\text{D}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>5</mtext><mtext>2</mtext>}}\text{)=64(2) ns}$, $\text{τ(7}{}^2\text{D}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>5</mtext><mtext>2</mtext>}}\text{)=92.5(15) ns}$, and <6²D_{$\text{5}\text{2}$}|;ez |7²P_{$\text{3}\text{2}$}>/(E_7P?E_6D)=0.7(3)×10^?3 where is in kV/cm. 141