Aims. The study investigates the relevance of the seed particle population in the results of particle acceleration in interplanetary shock waves, when wave–particle interactions are treated self-consistently.

Methods. We employed the SOLar Particle Acceleration in Coronal Shocks (SOLPACS) model, which is a proton acceleration simulation in shocks with self-consistent nonlinear wave–particle interactions. We compared a suprathermal monoenergetic injection with a two-component injection, including the suprathermal monoenergetic component and a broad-spectrum energetic component corresponding to the observed background particle spectrum. Energetic particles in the beginning of the simulation could increase the local wave intensities sufficiently to increase the rate of acceleration for injected particles and even reshape the resulting particle energy spectra and spatial distributions. The resulting particle energy spectra, particle spatial distributions, and wave intensity spectra are compared to observations made by Solar Orbiter’s instrument suite of the 2021 October 30 energetic storm particle (ESP) event to evaluate the relevance of the seed particle population in the acceleration model.

Results. The energetic component of the seed particle population shortens the needed acceleration time for particles and enhances the tail of the spectrum to a level that matches the observations. The highest compared energies (> 1 MeV) match only when an energetic component is included in the seed particle population. The wave intensities and spatial distributions, on the other hand, showed no significant differences with the monoenergetic and two-component injection. While the simulated and observed wave intensities match within five minutes before the shock passing, the simulated wave field is too intense farther out from the shock, probably due to a lack of wave damping and/or decay processes in the simulation, leading to particles being slightly overly trapped to regions closer to the shock.