  Dependence of the energy of ions accelerated during interaction of the laser
pulse obliquelly incident on the thin foil target on the laser polarization is
studied experimentally and theoretically. We found that the ion energy being
maximal for the p-polarization gradually decreases when the pulse becomes
s-polarized. The experimentally found dependences of the ion energy are
explained by invoking the anomalous electron heating which results in high
electrostatic potential formation at the target surface. Anomalous heating of
electrons beyond the energy of quiver motion in the laser field is described
within the framework of theoretical model of driven oscillator with a step-like
nonlinearity. We have demonstrated that the electron anomalous heating can be
realized in two regimes: nonlinear resonance and stochastic heating, depending
on the extent of stochasticity. We have found the accelerated ion energy
scaling determined by the laser intensity, pulse duration, polarization angle
and incident angle.
