Sensitive Multi-beam Targeted SETI Observations towards 33 Exoplanet Systems with FAST

Zhen-Zhao Tao; Hai-Chen Zhao; Tong-Jie Zhang; Vishal Gajjar; Yan Zhu; You-Ling Yue; Hai-Yan Zhang; Wen-Fei Liu; Shi-Yu Li; Jian-Chen Zhang; Cong Liu; Hong-Feng Wang; Ran Duan; Lei Qian; Cheng-Jin Jin; Di Li; Andrew Siemion; Peng Jiang; Dan Werthime; Jeff Cobb; Eric Korpela; David P. Anderson

doi:10.3847/1538-3881/ac8bd5

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arXiv · 2208.02421

Sensitive Multi-beam Targeted SETI Observations towards 33 Exoplanet Systems with FAST

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Abstract

As a major approach to looking for life beyond the Earth, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is committed to detecting technosignatures such as engineered radio signals that are indicative of technologically capable life. In this paper, we report a targeted SETI campaign employing an observation strategy named multi-beam coincidence matching (MBCM) at the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) towards 33 known exoplanet systems, searching for ETI narrow-band drifting signals across 1.05-1.45 GHz in two orthogonal linear polarization directions separately. A signal at 1140.604 MHz detected from the observation towards Kepler-438 originally peaked our interest because its features are roughly consistent with assumed ETI technosignatures. However, evidences such as its polarization characteristics are almost able to eliminate the possibility of an extraterrestrial origin. Our observations achieve an unprecedented sensitivity since the minimum equivalent isotropic radiated power (EIRP) we are able to detect reaches 1.48 x10^9 W.

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Zhen-Zhao Tao, Hai-Chen Zhao, Tong-Jie Zhang, Vishal Gajjar, Yan Zhu, You-Ling Yue, Hai-Yan Zhang, Wen-Fei Liu, Shi-Yu Li, Jian-Chen Zhang, Cong Liu, Hong-Feng Wang, Ran Duan, Lei Qian, Cheng-Jin Jin, Di Li, Andrew Siemion, Peng Jiang, Dan Werthime, Jeff Cobb, Eric Korpela, David P. Anderson. 2022-08-04. Sensitive Multi-beam Targeted SETI Observations towards 33 Exoplanet Systems with FAST. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881%2Fac8bd5

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