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We show that magnetic reconnection in a magnetically-dominated fast-coolingplasma can naturally produce bright flares accompanied by rotations in thesynchrotron polarization vector. With particle-in-cell simulations ofreconnection, we find that flares are powered by efficient particleacceleration at the interface of merging magnetic flux ropes, or "plasmoids".The accelerated particles stream through the post-merger plasmoid towards theobserver, thus progressively illuminating regions with varying plane-of-skyfield direction, and so leading to a rotation in the observed polarizationvector. Our results provide evidence for magnetic reconnection as the physicalcause of high-energy flares from the relativistic jets of blazars (which recentobservations have shown to be frequently associated with polarizationrotations), and provide a first-principle physical mechanism for such flares.

A First-Principle Model for Polarization Swings during Reconnection-Powered Flares