Why can a comet’s ion tail disconnect from its coma?

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Comet Comet McNaught with filamentary tail and the Moon over the Pacific Ocean, photographed from Paranal Observatory, Chile, January 2007.

A comet’s ion tail, also known as a plasma tail, can disconnect from the coma when the comet crosses magnetic sector boundaries within the Sun’s magnetic field.1

Following such a disconnection event, the original ion tail slowly fades while the comet begins to develop a new one. This process is distinct from the formation of a Type II tail, which consists of dust pushed away by radiation pressure rather than the interaction between ionized molecules and the solar wind.1