New paper on SETI observations of the Kepler field

Hi all,

We've just finished up the first paper resulting from our observations of the Kepler field with the GBT. Preprint available at http://seti.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/kepler_seti_I_siemion_et_al_preprint.pdf

Andrew

http://seti.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/kepler_seti_I_siemion_et_al_preprint.pdf

OK... A few glib questions:


At a transmission power of x8 the power of Arecibo... Isn't that a little insensitive?...

Would we detect a present day "Earth" around a Kepler found planet? Even for picking up planetary or military radar (if the radar frequencies were covered) ?

So, only intended to pick up intentional transmit beacons?

Is the sensitivity limited by the equipment or by background cosmic noise?...


And... Even though no artificial looking signals were found other than terrestrial interference, fantastic work for the targeted search! Roll on the follow-up with the SKA ;-)

Keep searchin',
Martin
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Re: sensitivity, we have to work with what we have! However, distributing these data to SETI@Home volunteers (coming soon!) will improve our sensitivity by a factor of between ~few - 10, depending on how the work units are structured. Arecibo is about as bright as Earth transmitters get, and it's just out of reach for most of the systems we targeted. For more nearby systems, an exo-Arecibo would be readily detectable. In this experiment, the largest contributor to the total noise in the observing system was the radio receiver noise.

Re: intentional signals, you're correct that the most plausible signal we might expect to receive in an experiment like this is an intentional beacon. It is indeed difficult to imagine that a very advanced civilization would 'leak' huge amounts of energy in the form of narrow band radio signals inadvertently. However, we have to be careful not to over think this too much. Remember, the principal reasons why we search for narrow-band signals are 1. they are obvious indicators of technology and 2. they transit the interstellar medium very readily. These two facts are true regardless of the motivations of the transmitting civilization.

Thanks for the heads up Andrew.

Thanks, found it also on: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1302.0845.pdf :)
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UCB put out a nice article describing the paper and some of our plans for the future: http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2013/02/08/intelligent-civilizations-rarer-than-one-in-a-million/

Thanks for the heads up Andrew.