Orbital distortion and parabolic channel effects transforming minima in molecular ionization probabilities into maxima

The fact that the shape of orientation-dependent molecular ionization rate curves can deviate from the shape of the ionized orbital at higher field strengths is often attributed to the increasing contribution of excited states in the process. In this work, the authors uncover a different mechanism, and show that orbital distortion and parabolic channel effects, which are independent of excited-state effects, can significantly modify the angular dependence of ionization yields as well.