Statistics of tunneling rates in the presence of chaotic classical dynamics is discussed on a realistic example: a hydrogen atom placed in parallel, uniform, static electric, and magnetic fields, where tunneling is followed by ionization along the fields direction. Depending on the magnetic quantum number, one may observe either a standard Porter-Thomas distribution of tunneling rates or, for strong scarring by a periodic orbit parallel to the external fields, strong deviations from it. For the latter case, a simple model based on random matrix theory gives the correct distribution.

• Received 11 July 2003

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.68.062110