We report on an experimental test of the spin selection rule for two-photon transitions in atoms. In particular, we demonstrate that the $5S_{1/2}to 6S_{1/2}$ transition rate in a rubidium gas follows a quadratic dependency on the helicity parameter linked to the polarization of the excitation light. For excitation via a single Gaussian beam or two counterpropagating beams in a hot vapor cell, the transition rate scales as the squared degree of linear polarization. The rate reaches zero when the light is circularly polarized. In contrast, when the excitation is realized via an evanescent field near an optical nanofiber, the two-photon transition cannot be completely extinguished (theoretically, not lower than 13% of the maximum rate, under our experimental conditions) by only varying the polarization of the fiber-guided light. Our findings lead to a deeper understanding of the physics of multiphoton processes in atoms in strongly nonparaxial light.
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