Effect of an Improved Molecular Potential on Strong-Field Tunneling Ionization of Molecules

We study the effect of one-electron model potentials on the tunneling ionization rates of molecules in strong fields. By including electron correlation using the modified Leeuwen-Baerends (LB α) model, the binding energies of outer shells of molecules are significantly improved. However, we show that the tunneling ionization rates from the LB α do not differ much from the earlier calculations [Phys. Rev. A 81, 033423 (2010)], in which the local correlation potential was neglected