  Astrophysical reconnection takes place in a turbulent medium. The turbulence
in most cases is pre-existing, not caused by the reconnection itself. The model
of magnetic reconnection in Lazarian & Vishniac (1999) predicts that in the
presence of turbulence the reconnection becomes fast, i.e. it is independent of
resistivity, but dependent on the level of turbulence. Magnetic reconnection
injects energy into plasmas through a turbulent outflow from the reconnection
region and this outflow can enhance the level of turbulence creating bursts of
reconnection. Magnetic reconnection in the presence of turbulence can
accelerate energetic particles through the first order Fermi mechanism, as was
discussed in Gouveia dal Pino & Lazarian (2005). We discuss new numerical
results on particle acceleration in turbulent reconnection, compare the
acceleration arising from turbulent reconnection to the acceleration of
energetic particles in turbulent medium.
