Recovery from Maunder-like grand minima in a Babcock–Leighton Solar Dynamo Model

Many possible theories have been proposed to explain the origin of these minima. However, how the Sun managed to recover from such inactive phases every time is even more enigmatic.

The Babcock-Leighton type dynamos, which are successful in explaining many features of the solar cycle remarkably well, are not expected to operate during grand minima due to the lack of a sufficient number of sunspots. In this Letter, we explore the question of how the Sun could recover from grand minima through the Babcock-Leighton dynamo. In our three-dimensional dynamo model, grand minima are produced spontaneously as a result of random variations in the tilt angle of emerging active regions.