Projectile fragmentation forms the basis for beam production at radioactive beam facilities such as the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL), yet uncertainties remain about the specifics of the production mechanism. For example, very little is known about the excitation energy of the precursors of the observed final fragments. In the present work, isotopes of sodium, neon, and fluorine produced in the fragmentation of a $^{32}$Mg beam at 86 MeV/nucleon in a beryllium target, ranging in mass loss from $\Delta$A = 3-12, were observed and the coincident neutrons were detected using the Modular Neutron Array (MoNA). Neutron hit multiplicity in MoNA was compared to output from the statistical evaporation model PACE which was passed through a GEANT4 simulation to account for detector response with a $\chi^2_\nu$ analysis. The neutron hit multiplicity distributions were used to determine the mass loss and excitation energy of the precursor fragments created in the fast step of the reaction. The mass loss and excitation energy were compared to abrasion/ablation models and an internuclear cascade model, ISABEL. For sodium and neon observed fragments, a single precursor mass was found, with a wide range of high excitation energies, up to 60 MeV. Observed fluorine isotopes were also found to have high excitation energies, ranging from 40-80 MeV, but with some variation in precursor mass.
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