  Magnetic Reconnection is an efficient and fast acceleration mechanism by
means of direct electric field acceleration parallel to the magnetic field.
Thus, acceleration of particles in reconnection regions is a very important
topic in plasma astrophysics. This paper shows that the conventional analytical
models and numerical test particle investigations can be misleading concerning
the energy distribution of the accelerated particles, since they oversimplify
the electric field structure by the assumption that the field is homogeneous.
These investigations of the acceleration of charged test particles are extended
by considering three-dimensional field configurations characterized by
localized field-aligned electric fields. Moreover, effects of radiative losses
are discussed. The comparison between homogeneous and inhomogeneous electric
field acceleration in reconnection regions shows dramatic differences
concerning both, the maximum particle energy and the form of the energy
distribution.
