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Non-ideal fields solve the injection problem in relativistic reconnection

Magnetic reconnection in relativistic plasmas is well established as a fast and efficient particle accelerator, capable of explaining the most dramatic astrophysical flares. With particle-in-cell simulations, we demonstrate the importance of non-ideal fields for the early stages ("injection") of particle acceleration. Most of the particles ending up with high energies (near or above the mean magnetic energy per particle) must have passed through non-ideal regions where the assumptions of ideal magnetohydrodynamics are broken (i.e., regions with $E>B$ or nonzero $E_\parallel={\bf E}\cdot {\bf B}/B$), whereas particles that do not experience non-ideal fields end up with Lorentz factors of order unity. Thus, injection by non-ideal fields is a necessary prerequisite for further acceleration. Our results have important implications for the origin of nonthermal particles in high-energy astrophysical sources.