The universality of particle acceleration in relativistic magnetic reconnection

In the most powerful astrophysical sources, reconnection operates in the "relativistic" regime, where the magnetic field energy exceeds even the rest mass energy of the plasma. Here, reconnection can lead to fast dissipation rates and efficient particle acceleration, thus being a prime candidate for powering the observed fast and bright flares of high-energy non-thermal emission. With fully-kinetic particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations and analytical theory, we investigate three fundamental aspects of the physics of particle acceleration in relativistic reconnection: (1) the injection from thermal energies up to relativistic energies; (2) the physics of power-law formation; (3) the constraints on maximum energy.