Inertial magnetic reconnection effects on the electron dynamics in a three-dimensional configuration

The three-dimensional response of a population of thermal electrons to a collision-less magnetic reconnection process is investigated through a relativistic Hamiltonian guiding centre formulation of the particle dynamics. The resulting electron equations have been implemented in a test-particle code that evolves the spatial position and the velocity of the electrons according to the fields calculated by the numerical solutions of a two-fluid reconnection model. In particular, we consider here reconnection events triggered by single helicity perturbations. By following the evolution of the electron distribution function we can quantify the number of suprathermal electrons generated during the nonlinear phase of reconnection and observe how the increase in the electron energy deforms the moments of the electron distribution function with respect to the corresponding fluid quantities.