Measurement of the static Stark Shift of the 7s ^2S_1/2 level in atomic cesium

We report a new precision measurement of the dc Stark shift of the 6s ^2S_1/2→ 7s^2S_1/2 transition in atomic cesium-133. Our result is 0.72246 (29) Hz(V/cm)^-2. This result differs from a previous measurement of the Stark shift by ∼0.5%. We use this value to recalculate the magnitude of the reduced dipole matrix elements ⟨7s ||r||7p_j⟩, as well as the vector transition polarizability for the 6s → 7s transition, β̃ = 27.043 (36) a_0^3. This determination helps resolve a critical discrepancy between two techniques for determining the vector polarizability.