  In the context of particle acceleration in high-energy astrophysical
environments featuring magnetic reconnection, the importance of the resistive
term of the electric field compared to the convective one is still under
debate. In this work, we present a quantitative analysis through 2D
magnetohydrodynamic numerical simulations of tearing-unstable current sheets
coupled to a test-particles approach, performed with the PLUTO code. We find
that the resistive field plays a significant role in the early-stage
energization of high-energy particles. Indeed, these particles are firstly
accelerated due to the resistive electric field when they cross an X-point,
created during the fragmentation of the current sheet. If this preliminary
particle acceleration mechanism dominated by the resistive field is neglected,
particles cannot reach the same high energies. Our results support therefore
the conclusion that the resistive field is not only non-negligible but it does
actually play an important role in the particle acceleration mechanism.
