Kinetic modeling of asymmetric magnetic reconnection

We study basic behaviors of asymmetric magnetic reconnection with two different upstream conditions akin to Earth's magnetopause. By using fully kinetic particle-in-cell simulations, we investigate the nonlinear evolution of the reconnection process. In this contribution we pay special attention to the structures near the critical reconnecting region. The system exhibits complicated structures due to asymmetric incoming properties and to charge separation in the presence of the guide field. To better understand these structures, we propose a measure of the magnetic dissipation, and then generalize it by taking Lorentz-invariance into account. Along with the dissipation region structure, reconnection rates and the relevance to asymmetric reconnection theories (e.g., Cassak & Shay 2007, Birn et al. 2010) also will be discussed.