  Earth's magnetotail is an excellent laboratory to study the interplay of
reconnection and turbulence in determining electron energization. The process
of formation of a power law tail during turbulent reconnection is a documented
fact still in need of a comprehensive explanation. We conduct a massively
parallel particle in cell 3D simulation and use enhanced statistical resolution
of the high energy range of the particle velocities to study how reconnection
creates the conditions for the tail to be formed. The process is not direct
acceleration by the coherent, laminar, reconnection-generated electric field.
Rather, reconnection causes turbulent outflows where energy exchange is
dominated by a highly non-gaussian distribution of fluctuations. Electron
energization is diffuse throughout the entire reconnection outflow but it is
heightened by regions of intensified magnetic field such as dipolarization
fronts traveling towards Earth.
