Cost Optimized Interstellar Beacons: SETI Export

@article{citeulike:3463919, abstract = {What would SETI Beacon transmitters be like if built by civilizations with a variety of motivations, but who cared about cost? High-power transmitters might be built for wide variety of motives other than two-way communication; Beacons built to be seen over thousands of light years are such. Altruistic Beacon builders will have to contend with other altruistic causes, just as humans do, so may select for economy of effort. Cost, spectral lines near 1 GHz and interstellar scintillation favor radiating frequencies substantially above the classic water hole. Therefore the transmission strategy for a distant, cost-conscious Beacon will be a rapid scan of the galactic plane, to cover the angular space. Such pulses will be infrequent events for the receiver. Such Beacons built by distant advanced, wealthy societies will have very different characteristics from what SETI researchers seek. Future searches should pay special attention to areas along the galactic disk where SETI searches have seen coherent signals that have not recurred on the limited listening time intervals we have used. We will need to wait for recurring events that may arrive in intermittent bursts. Several new SETI strategies emerge from these ideas. Key words: SETI, METI, microwave, power beaming, beacons, radio astronomy, array antennas, HPM}, archivePrefix = {arXiv}, author = {Benford, Gregory and Benford, James and Benford, Dominic}, citeulike-article-id = {3463919}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.3966}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://arxiv.org/pdf/0810.3966}, day = {22}, eprint = {0810.3966}, keywords = {astronautics, seti, speculative}, month = {Oct}, posted-at = {2008-10-30 02:01:25}, priority = {2}, title = {Cost Optimized Interstellar Beacons: SETI}, url = {http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.3966}, year = {2008} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:3463919 L3 - citeulike-article-id:3463919 N2 - What would SETI Beacon transmitters be like if built by civilizations with a variety of motivations, but who cared about cost? High-power transmitters might be built for wide variety of motives other than two-way communication; Beacons built to be seen over thousands of light years are such. Altruistic Beacon builders will have to contend with other altruistic causes, just as humans do, so may select for economy of effort. Cost, spectral lines near 1 GHz and interstellar scintillation favor radiating frequencies substantially above the classic water hole. Therefore the transmission strategy for a distant, cost-conscious Beacon will be a rapid scan of the galactic plane, to cover the angular space. Such pulses will be infrequent events for the receiver. Such Beacons built by distant advanced, wealthy societies will have very different characteristics from what SETI researchers seek. Future searches should pay special attention to areas along the galactic disk where SETI searches have seen coherent signals that have not recurred on the limited listening time intervals we have used. We will need to wait for recurring events that may arrive in intermittent bursts. Several new SETI strategies emerge from these ideas. Key words: SETI, METI, microwave, power beaming, beacons, radio astronomy, array antennas, HPM TI - Cost Optimized Interstellar Beacons: SETI KW - astronautics KW - seti KW - speculative AU - Benford, Gregory AU - Benford, James AU - Benford, Dominic PY - 2008/Oct/22/ UR - http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.3966 ER -