Abstract
Abstract We investigate a mechanism to produce a seed population enriched in heavy ions, such as those observed in 3He-rich solar energetic particle events. It is shown that if an initial particle population following a power law in energy nucleon−1 passes through a small amount of material, at energies below the dE/dx Bragg peak, the greater affinity of heavier ions for electron pick-up results in their penetrating the material more easily. This results in an enhancement of heavy ions in the particle population that just barely penetrates the material. The bulk of the seed particles fall in the energy range of 10 s of keV nucleon−1. It is supposed that some further process then energizes this seed population to produce the particles observed in interplanetary space. We find a broad range of parameters that produces enhancements comparable to Fe/O ∼ 8 commonly observed.
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