Nonthermal Particle Acceleration in Radiative Magnetic Reconnection in Relativistic Astrophysical Environments

In this talk I will review observational evidence and theoretical arguments for nonthermal particle acceleration in various astrophysical scenarios, with a focus on relativistic plasmas around compact objects such as neutron stars and black holes. I will place a particular emphasis on the role of radiation reaction in controlling particle acceleration to very high energies and its interplay with complex, multi-scale collective plasma dynamics in the context of 2D and 3D plasmoid-dominated magnetic reconnection in the astrophysically-relevant large-system regime. I will also identify the key theoretical and computational challenges to our understanding of this important problem and will outline the prospects for overcoming them in future first-principles simulation studies.