Coulomb Collisions

Coulomb collisions—interactions between charged particles—gradually erase differences in speed and temperature between ion types. In nearly collision-free solar wind, helium ions and proton beams drift away from the core proton population, but their behaviors diverge: alpha particles slow down more with increased collisions, while proton beams maintain their speed better. This suggests that beams might be less affected by collisions or are sustained by other forces like wave interactions.

Summary generated with ChatGPT based on my first-author publications for clarity and accessibility.