We investigate the polarization dependences of momentum, angular, and energy distributions and ionization rates for field and atomic parameters corresponding to die regime of optical tunneling. We describe the evolution of the differential distributions as the polarization changes from circular to linear. In particular, we show that over a wide range of ellipticities the angular distribution is extended along the small axis of the polarization ellipse in the direction transverse to the maximum electric field. Only for very small ellipticities does the distribution readjust to extend along the electric field, i.e., the case of a linearly polarized field. For the momentum and angular distributions we obtain closed analytic expressions valid for arbitrary ellipticity.
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