  Magnetic reconnection occurring in collisionless environments is a
multi-scale process involving both ion and electron kinetic processes. Because
of their small mass, the electron scales are difficult to resolve in numerical
and satellite data, it is therefore critical to know whether the overall
evolution of the reconnection process is influenced by the kinetic nature of
the electrons, or is unchanged when assuming a simpler, fluid, electron model.
This paper investigate this issue in the general context of an asymmetric
current sheet, where both the magnetic field amplitude and the density vary
through the discontinuity. A comparison is made between fully kinetic and
hybrid kinetic simulations of magnetic reconnection in coplanar and guide field
systems. The models share the initial condition but differ in their electron
modeling. It is found that the overall evolution of the system, including the
reconnection rate, is very similar between both models. The best agreement is
found in the guide field system, which confines particle better than the
coplanar one, where the locality of the moments is violated by the electron
bounce motion. It is also shown that, contrary to the common understanding,
reconnection is much faster in the guide field system than in the coplanar one.
Both models show this tendency, indicating that the phenomenon is driven by ion
kinetic effects and not electron ones.
