  An explicitly energy-conserving full orbit code CUEBIT, developed originally
to describe energetic particle effects in laboratory fusion experiments, has
been applied to the problem of proton acceleration in solar flares. The model
fields are obtained from solutions of the linearised MHD equations for
reconnecting modes at an X-type neutral point, with the additional ingredient
of a longitudinal magnetic field component. To accelerate protons to the
highest observed energies on flare timescales, it is necessary to invoke
anomalous resistivity in the MHD solution. It is shown that the addition of a
longitudinal field component greatly increases the efficiency of ion
acceleration, essentially because it greatly reduces the magnitude of drift
motions away from the vicinity of the X-point, where the accelerating component
of the electric field is largest. Using plasma parameters consistent with flare
observations, we obtain proton distributions extending up to gamma-ray-emitting
energies (>1MeV). In some cases the energy distributions exhibit a bump-on-tail
in the MeV range. In general, the shape of the distribution is sensitive to the
model parameters.
