Coalescence of Magnetic Islands in the Low-Resistivity, Hall-MHD Regime

The coalescence of magnetic islands in the low-resistivity η, Hall-MHD regime is studied. The interaction between the ion inertial length di and the dynamically evolving current sheet scale length δJ is established. Initially, di<<δJ. If η is such that δJ dynamically thins down to di prior to the well-known sloshing phenomena, then sloshing is avoided. This results in η independent peak reconnection rates. However, if di is small enough that δJ cannot be thinned down to this scale prior to sloshing, then sloshing proceeds as in the resistive MHD model