# Exploring the Statistics of Magnetic Reconnection X-points in Kinetic Particle-in-Cell (PIC) Turbulence

## TL;DR

This paper analyzes magnetic reconnection in turbulent plasmas using kinetic PIC simulations, revealing broader reconnection rate distributions and identifying optimal noise reduction techniques for data analysis.

## Contribution

It introduces a generalized analysis method for PIC data and demonstrates the effectiveness of Fourier filtering at the Debye scale for reconnection studies.

## Key findings

- Reconnection rates can reach up to 0.5 in PIC turbulence.
- Fourier filtering at the Debye scale optimizes noise reduction.
- Reconnection rate distribution is broader than in MHD simulations.

## Abstract

Magnetic reconnection is a ubiquitous phenomenon in turbulent plasmas. It is an important part of the turbulent dynamics and heating of space and astrophysical plasmas. We examine the statistics of magnetic reconnection using a quantitative local analysis of the magnetic vector potential, previously used in magnetohydrodynamics simulations, and now generalized to fully kinetic PIC simulations. Different ways of reducing the particle noise for analysis purposes including multiple smoothing techniques are explored. We find that a Fourier filter applied at the Debye scale is an optimal choice for analyzing PIC data. Finlay, we find a broader distribution of normalized reconnection rates compared to the MHD limit with rates as large as 0.5 but with an average of approximately 0.1.