Scaling of Sweet–Parker reconnection with secondary islands

Sweet–Parker (collisional) magnetic reconnection at high Lundquist number is modified by secondary islands. Daughton et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 065004 (2009)] suggested the Sweet–Parker model governs the fragmented current sheet segments. If true, the reconnection rate would increase by the square root of the number of secondary islands. High Lundquist number resistive magnetohydrodynamic simulations are presented which agree, in a time-averaged sense, with the predicted scaling. This result may have important implications for energy storage before a solar eruption and its subsequent release.