Electron non-ideal physics in asymmetric magnetic reconnection

International audienceMagnetic reconnection is an ubiquitous phenomena enabling the transport across magnetic boundaries, while heating and accelerating plasma. These boundaries often separate plasmas with distinct origins, and therefore generally have different properties such as different densities and magnetic field amplitudes. Magnetic reconnection in these so-called asymmetric current layers is still poorly known, it is thus important to understand to what extent our previous understanding, gained from symmetric models, still applies to asymmetric configurations. In this presentation, we will show new results about reconnection in asymmetric systems, and will in particular address the role of electron kinetic physics within this context. Results are obtained from hybrid-PIC and fully kinetic PIC simulation, and discuss the modeling of non-ideal electron terms in Hybrid models, fluid versus kinetic behavior of the electrons and the way to visualize regions of non-fluid electron behavior with nongyrotropy