On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 6:22 PM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> wrote:
> Perhaps that only way they would remain ionized would be if they had a > large amount of kinetic energy and bulldozed through the metal. > I think this is correct. For a proton, I believe the threshold is ~25 keV. As a comparison, it is common to see protons in the MeV range in hot fusion events. My understanding is that these protons will travel for a while as ions through a solid before dropping below that threshold and starting to pick up (and possibly lose) an electron. Eric
