Stark Effect on Cesium-133 Hyperfine Structure

Abstract

The change of the hyperfine-structure separation energy caused by an electric field has been measured in ${\mathrm{Cs}}^{133}$ by the atomic-beam magnetic-resonance method. The shift of the $(F=4, {m}_{F}=0)\ensuremath{\leftrightarrow}(F=3, {m}_{F}=0)$ transition frequency in the electric field $\mathcal{E}$ is given by $\ensuremath{\Delta}(\mathcal{E})=\ensuremath{-}2.29\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}6}(1\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.03){\mathcal{E}}^{2} \mathrm{cps},$ where $\mathcal{E}$ is in volts/cm. This number is 2.8 times the value predicted from the atomic polarizability measurements of Scheffers and Stark if a simplified theory which neglects hyperfine-structure perturbations of the ground-state wave functions is used.