Results of a theoretical investigation of two-photon, two-color excitation and linear depolarization spectra in atomic cesium are presented. The case of two-beam excitation, where one photon is absorbed through a quadrupole amplitude and the other through a dipole amplitude, is considered. When excitation is through a spin multiplet, the final-state population produced depends sensitively on the relative transition amplitudes through the nondengenerate spin-multiplet terms. In addition, the transition rate contains interference terms depending on the relative directions of the two beams. These terms are manifested strongly when the intermediate states are nonresonant and when the two beams have approximately the same frequency. Application of the results to the 6s
2S1/2\ensuremath{\rightarrow}5d
2Dj\ensuremath{\rightarrow}11p
2P3/2, quadrupole-dipole transition in atomic Cs is made. Polarization-dependent excitation spectra are presented for this case. Effects of hyperfine interactions are also considered.
An earlier study of the 6s
2S1/2\ensuremath{\rightarrow}5d
2Dj\ensuremath{\rightarrow}11p
2P3/2 two-photon, dipole-quadrupole transition in Cs is extended by including the effect of an external static electric field. The dependence of the absorption spectrum on the relative polarizations of the two light sources is found to be greatly modified by a moderately sized electric field, the predominant effect being mixing of the resonant 6p
2Pj levels into the ground 6s
2S1/2 level. Compact theoretical expressions, parametrized in terms of the electric-field strength and the relative transition matrix elements through the 5d
2Dj multiplet levels, are given. Results are presented for the electric-field dependence of a linear depolarization ratio, which is very sensitive to these quantities. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.