Helium 3 rich flares and some related problems of solar cosmic ray composition

Some peculiarities of solar cosmic ray composition is considered. A plasma mechanism that appears to account for all of the observations of 3He rich flares is described. The mechanism makes use of a common current instability to preferentially heat ambient 3He in the corona and thus to preferentially inject it into the flare acceleration process. The expected heating appears to be sufficient to yield a 3He/4He ratio, of the order of one for the accelerated particles. From the Fisk nonlinear analysis it is possible to estimate the heating rates for various ion species. The results of this analysis are given in the form where the square of the thermal velocity of various ion species is plotted versus time as the instability proceeds. Enhancements in the other heavier elements, particularly iron ions, are discussed. Some observations that should be made to test the theory are presented