  The meeting of astrophysical plasmas and their magnetic fields creates many
reconnection sites. We experimentally compare the reconnection rate of
laser-driven magnetic reconnection when it takes place at a single site and
multiple sites. For a single site, where the ram pressure dominates the
magnetic pressure, the measured reconnection rate exceeds the well-established
rate of 0.1. However, in the case of multiple close-by sites, we observed a
reduction of the reconnection rate. Hybrid-PIC simulations support this
observation and suggest that the distortion of the Hall field as well as the
concomitant obstruction of one of the outflows are detrimental to the magnetic
reconnection rate.
