arXiv subjects

Dan Werthimer

Publications and source records attributed to Dan Werthimer.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

First Lunar Farside SETI Observations for Periodic Signals with the Low-frequency Radio Spectrometer of Chang'E-4 Mission

Chang'E-4 (CE4), the first mission to soft-land on the lunar farside, provides a unique opportunity for astronomical observations from an environment shielded from terrestrial radio interference, and thus serves as pathfinder for lunar farside radio search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) studies. We present a search for periodic technosignatures using low-frequency radio observations from the CE-4 mission, the first radio SETI study based on data from on the observation in lunar farside. We analyze the CE4 dynamic spectra with a component-level framework that combines principal component analysis (PCA), cross-antenna basis alignment, as well as temporal periodicity and frequency comb structure diagnostics. No final periodic candidate signal is found after the selection procedure, and we therefore find no evidence in the present CE4 sample for a credible periodic artificial signal. This study serves as a pathfinder and provides a practical framework for lunar radio SETI analysis. As more future lunar missions begin to incorporate radio instrumentation, lunar farside may become a promising site for expanding radio SETI research.

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arXiv2026

Long-Integration Magnetar Burst Observatory (LIMBO): Instrument Summary and Early FRB Rate Constraints

The Long-Integration Magnetar Burst Observatory (LIMBO) is a real-time radio transient detection pipeline designed to search for dispersed fast radio bursts (FRBs) from Galactic magnetars. Deployed at the University of California, Berkeley's Leuschner Radio Observatory, LIMBO employs a $4.3~\mathrm{m}$ dish with a dual-polarization feed to continuously monitor a $125~\mathrm{MHz}$ band centred at $1460~\mathrm{MHz}$. A real-time processing pipeline performs a search for dispersed transients on the summed polarizations, with detections triggering dumps of buffered voltage data to disk. Based on calibrated sensitivity measurements, synthetic signal-injection and recovery tests, and successful detection of pulses from the Crab Pulsar, we determine that LIMBO is sensitive to radio transients with fluences $\geq 43~\mathrm{Jy \cdot ms}$. Between May and August 2023, LIMBO conducted 833 hours of follow-up observations of the Galactic magnetar SGR 1935+2154, yielding 12 candidate FRB detections. If these events are true, we measure FRB-like event rates from SGR 1935+2154 of $R(\geq 65~\mathrm{Jy \cdot ms}) = 112.3^{+81.3}_{-54.5}~\mathrm{yr}^{-1}$ and $R(\geq 130~\mathrm{Jy \cdot ms}) = 17.7^{+40.8}_{-15.1}~\mathrm{yr}^{-1}$. Combining these results with previously reported FRBs from SGR 1935+2154, we infer a cumulative rate-fluence power-law slope of $\alpha=-0.60^{+0.24}_{-0.28}$ in the fluence range between $10$ and $10^6\rm\, Jy \cdot ms$. These observations demonstrate the capability of continuous, real-time monitoring of Galactic magnetars and establish LIMBO as an effective instrument for detecting Galactic FRBs.

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arXiv2026

An Open-Source High-Level Graphical Signal Processing Language with Simulation and HDL Generation

The CASPER (Collaboration for Astronomy Signal Processing and Electronic Research) toolflow is a widely used framework for designing and implementing digital signal processing systems, particularly in the field of radio astronomy. It provides a set of tools and libraries that enable researchers to create custom hardware and software solutions for processing astronomical data. The CASPER toolflow has been instrumental in the development of Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) based digital instruments for various radio telescopes, enabling for real-time data processing and analysis. However, the current frontend tool that CASPER uses for high-level FPGA design is based on Model Composer integrated into MATLAB/Simulink, which is a proprietary software. In this paper, we introduce Scilab as a new frontend tool for the CASPER toolflow. Scilab is an open-source software platform for numerical computation and data visualization, which offers a similar environment to MATLAB/Simulink for designing CASPER blocks, generating FPGA Intellectual Property (IP) cores, and simulating Digital Signal Processing (DSP) systems. We present our implementation of Scilab in the CASPER toolflow and demonstrate its capabilities by developing an FPGA based spectrometer on a RFSoC4x2, a commonly used CASPER platform well suited to radio astronomy applications. We have also developed Scilab support for other CASPER compatible platforms. Our results show that Scilab can successfully be used as an alternate frontend for CASPER-based designs.

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arXiv2025

An Improved Machine Learning Approach for Radio Frequency Interference Mitigation in FAST-SETI Survey Archival Data

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) commensal surveys aim to scan the sky to detect technosignatures from extraterrestrial life. A major challenge in SETI is the effective mitigation of radio frequency interference (RFI), a critical step that is particularly vital for the highly sensitive Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST). While initial RFI mitigation (e.g., removal of persistent and drifting narrowband RFI) are essential, residual RFI often persists, posing significant challenges due to its complex and various nature. In this paper, we propose and apply an improved machine learning approach, the Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise (DBSCAN) algorithm, to identify and mitigate residual RFI in FAST-SETI commensal survey archival data from July 2019. After initial RFI mitigation, we successfully identify and remove 36977 residual RFIs (accounting for $\sim$ 77.87\%) within approximately 1.678 seconds using the DBSCAN algorithm. This result shows that we have achieved a 7.44\% higher removal rate than previous machine learning methods, along with a 24.85\% reduction in execution time. We finally find interesting candidate signals consistent with previous studies, and retain one candidate signal following further analysis. Therefore, DBSCAN algorithm can mitigate more residual RFI with higher computational efficiency while preserving the candidate signals that we are interested in.

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arXiv2025

SETI@home: Data Acquisition and Front-End Processing

SETI@home is a radio Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project, looking for technosignatures in data recorded at multiple observatories from 1998 to 2020. Most radio SETI projects analyze data using dedicated processing hardware. SETI@home uses a different approach: time-domain data is distributed over the Internet to $\gt 10^{5}$ volunteered home computers, which analyze it. The large amount of computing power this affords ($\sim 10^{15}$ floating-point operations per second (FPOP/s)) allows us to increase the sensitivity and generality of our search in three ways. We use coherent integration, a technique in which data is transformed so that the power of drifting signals is confined to a single discrete Fourier transform (DFT) bin. We perform this coherent search over 123 000 Doppler drift rates in the range ($\pm$100 Hz s$^{-1}$). Second, we search for a variety of signal types, such as pulsed signals and arbitrary repeated waveforms. The analysis uses a range of DFT sizes, with frequency resolutions ranging from 0.075 Hz to 1221 Hz. The front end of SETI@home produces a set of detections that exceed thresholds in power and goodness of fit. We accumulated $\sim 1.2\times 10^{10}$ such detections. The back end of SETI@home takes these detections, identifies and removes radio frequency interference (RFI), and looks for groups of detections that are consistent with extraterrestrial origin and that persist over long timescales. This paper describes the front end of SETI@home and provides parameters for the primary data source, the Arecibo Observatory; the back end and its results are described in a companion paper.

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arXiv2025

SETI@home: Data Analysis and Findings

SETI@home is a radio Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project that looks for technosignatures in data recorded at the Arecibo Observatory. The data were collected over a period of 14 years and cover almost the entire sky visible to the telescope. The first stage of data analysis found billions of detections: brief excesses of continuous or pulsed narrowband power. The second stage removed detections that were likely radio frequency interference (RFI), then identified and ranked signal candidates: groups of detections, possibly spread over the 14 years, that plausibly originate from a single cosmic source. We manually examined the top-ranking signal candidates and selected a few hundred. In the third and final stage we are reobserving the corresponding sky locations and frequency ranges using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) radio telescope. This paper covers SETI@home's second stage of data analysis. We describe the algorithms used to remove RFI and to identify and rank signal candidates. To guide the development of these algorithms, we used artificial candidate birdies that model persistent ET signals with a range of power, bandwidth, and planetary motion parameters. This approach also allowed us to estimate the sensitivity of our detection system to these signals.

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arXiv2024

A 400Gbit Ethernet core enabling High Data Rate Streaming from FPGAs to Servers and GPUs in Radio Astronomy

The increased bandwidth coupled with the large numbers of antennas of several new radio telescope arrays has resulted in an exponential increase in the amount of data that needs to be recorded and processed. In many cases, it is necessary to process this data in real time, as the raw data volumes are too high to be recorded and stored. Due to the ability of graphics processing units (GPUs) to process data in parallel, GPUs are increasingly used for data-intensive tasks. In most radio astronomy digital instrumentation (e.g. correlators for spectral imaging, beamforming, pulsar, fast radio burst and SETI searching), the processing power of modern GPUs is limited by the input/output data rate, not by the GPU's computation ability. Techniques for streaming ultra-high-rate data to GPUs, such as those described in this paper, reduce the number of GPUs and servers needed, and make significant reductions in the cost, power consumption, size, and complexity of GPU based radio astronomy backends. In this research, we developed and tested several different techniques to stream data from network interface cards (NICs) to GPUs. We also developed an open-source UDP/IPv4 400GbE wrapper for the AMD/Xilinx IP demonstrating high-speed data stream transfer from a field programmable gate array (FPGA) to GPU.

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arXiv2024

CuRIOS-ED: The Technology Demonstrator for the CubeSats for Rapid Infrared and Optical Surveys Mission

The rise of time-domain astronomy including electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational waves, gravitational microlensing, explosive phenomena, and even astrometry with Gaia, are showing the power and need for surveys with high-cadence, large area, and long time baselines to study the transient universe. A constellation of SmallSats or CubeSats providing wide, instantaneous sky coverage down to 21 Vega mag at optical wavelengths would be ideal for addressing this need. We are assembling CuRIOS-ED (CubeSats for Rapid Infrared and Optical Survey--Exploration Demo), an optical telescope payload which will act as a technology demonstrator for a larger constellation of several hundred 16U CubeSats known as CuRIOS. In preparation for CuRIOS, CuRIOS-ED will launch in late 2025 as part of the 12U Starspec InspireSat MVP payload. CuRIOS-ED will be used to demonstrate the StarSpec ADCS pointing capabilities to <1" and to space-qualify a commercial camera package for use on the full CuRIOS payload. The CuRIOS-ED camera system will utilize a Sony IMX455 CMOS detector delivered in an off-the-shelf Atik apx60 package which we modified to be compatible with operations in vacuum as well as the CubeSat form factor, power, and thermal constraints. By qualifying this commercial camera solution, the cost of each CuRIOS satellite will be greatly decreased (~100x) when compared with current space-qualified cameras with IMX455 detectors. We discuss the CuRIOS-ED mission design with an emphasis on the disassembly, repackaging, and testing of the Atik apx60 for space-based missions. Characterization of the apx60's read noise, dark current, patterned noise, and thermal behavior are reported for a range of temperatures (-35 C to 40 C) and exposure times (0.001s to 30 s). Additionally, we comment on preliminary environmental testing results from a successful thermal vacuum test.

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arXiv2023

PeV Gamma-ray Astronomy With Panoramic Optical SETI Telescopes

The Panoramic Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (PANOSETI) experiment is designed to detect pulsed optical signals on nanosecond timescales. PANOSETI is therefore sensitive to Cherenkov radiation generated by extensive air showers, and can be used for gamma-ray astronomy. Each PANOSETI telescope uses a 0.5 m Fresnel lens to focus light onto a 1024 pixel silicon photomultiplier camera that images a 9.9$^\circ\times$9.9$^\circ$ square field of view. Recent detections of PeV gamma-rays from extended sources in the Galactic Plane motivate constructing an array with effective area and angular resolution surpassing current observatories. The PANOSETI telescopes are much smaller and far more affordable than traditional imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACT), making them ideal instruments to construct such an array. We present the results of coincident observations between two PANOSETI telescopes and the gamma-ray observatory VERITAS, along with simulations characterizing the performance of a PANOSETI IACT array.

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arXiv2023

A Search for Extraterrestrial Technosignatures in Archival FAST Survey Data Using a New Procedure

The "search for extraterrestrial intelligence" (SETI) commensal surveys aim to scan the sky to find possible technosignatures from the extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI). The mitigation of radio frequency interference (RFI) is an important step, especially for the most sensitive Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), which can detect more weak RFI. In this paper, we propose several new techniques for RFI mitigation, and use our procedure to search for ETI signals from the archival data of FAST's first SETI commensal survey. We detect the persistent narrowband RFI by setting a threshold of the signals' sky separation, and detect the drifting RFI (and potentially other types of RFI) using the Hough transform. We also use the clustering algorithms to remove more RFI and select candidates. The results of our procedure are compared to the earlier work on the same FAST data. We find that our methods, though relatively simpler in computation, remove more RFI (99.9912% compared to 99.9063% in the earlier work), but preserve the simulated ETI signals except those (5.1%) severely affected by the RFI. We also report more interesting candidate signals, about a dozen of which are new candidates that are not previously reported. In addition, we find that the proposed Hough transform method, with suitable parameters, also has the potential to remove the broadband RFI. We conclude that our methods can effectively remove the vast majority of the RFI while preserving and finding the candidate signals that we are interested in.

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arXiv2023

Multibeam Blind Search of Targeted SETI Observations toward 33 Exoplanet Systems with FAST

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is to search for technosignatures associated with extraterrestrial life, such as engineered radio signals. In this paper, we apply the multibeam coincidence matching (MBCM) strategy, and propose a new search mode based on the MBCM which we call MBCM blind search mode. In our recent targeted SETI research, 33 exoplanet systems are observed by the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST). With this blind search mode, we search for narrowband drifting signals across $1.05-1.45$ GHz in two orthogonal linear polarization directions separately. There are two special signals, one of which can only be detected by the blind search mode while the other can be found by both blind and targeted search modes. This result reveals huge advantages of the new blind search mode. However, we eliminate the possibility of the special signals being ETI signals based on much evidence, such as the polarization, drift, frequency and beam coverage characteristics. Our observations achieve an unprecedented sensitivity and our work provides a deeper understanding to the polarization analysis of extraterrestrial signals.

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arXiv2022

Panoramic SETI: Program Update and High-Energy Astrophysics Applications

Optical SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) instruments that can explore the very fast time domain, especially with large sky coverage, offer an opportunity for new discoveries that can complement multimessenger and time domain astrophysics. The Panoramic SETI experiment (PANOSETI) aims to observe optical transients with nanosecond to second duration over a wide field-of-view ($\thicksim$2,500 sq.deg.) by using two assemblies of tens of telescopes to reject spurious signals by coincidence detection. Three PANOSETI telescopes, connected to a White Rabbit timing network used to synchronize clocks at the nanosecond level, have been deployed at Lick Observatory on two sites separated by a distance of 677 meters to distinguish nearby light sources (such as Cherenkov light from particle showers in the Earth's atmosphere) from astrophysical sources at large distances. In parallel to this deployment, we present results obtained during four nights of simultaneous observations with the four 12-meter VERITAS gamma-ray telescopes and two PANOSETI telescopes at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory. We report PANOSETI's first detection of astrophysical gamma rays, comprising three events with energies in the range between $\thicksim$15 TeV and $\thicksim$50 TeV. These were emitted by the Crab Nebula, and identified as gamma rays using joint VERITAS observations.

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arXiv2021

Panoramic SETI: overall mechanical system design

PANOSETI (Pulsed All-Sky Near-infrared Optical Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) is a dedicated SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) observatory that is being designed to observe 4,441 sq. deg. to search for nano- to milli-second transient events. The experiment will have a dual observatory system that has a total of 90 identical optical 0.48 m telescopes that each have a 99 square degree field of view. The two observatory sites will be separated by 1 km distance to help eliminate false positives and register a definitive signal. We discuss the overall mechanical design of the telescope modules which includes a Fresnel lens housing, a shutter, three baffles, an 32x32 array of Hamamatsu Multi-Photon Pixel Counting (MPPC) detectors that reside on a linear stage for focusing. Each telescope module will be housed in a triangle of a 3rd tessellation frequency geodesic dome that has the ability to have directional adjustment to correct for manufacturing tolerances and astrometric alignment to the second observatory site. Each observatory will have an enclosure to protect the experiment, and an observatory room for operations and electronics. We will review the overall design of the geodesic domes and mechanical telescope attachments, as well as the overall cabling and observatory infrastructure layout.

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arXiv2021

Panoramic SETI: Overall focal plane electronics and timing and network protocols

The PANOSETI experiment is an all-sky, all-the-time visible search for nanosecond to millisecond time-scale transients. The experiment will deploy observatory domes at several sites, each dome containing ~45 telescopes and covering ~4,440 square degrees. Here we describe the focal-plane electronics for the visible wavelength telescopes, each of which contains a Mother Board and four Quadrant Boards. On each quadrant board, 256 silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) photon detectors are arranged to measure pulse heights to search for nanosecond time-scale pulses. To simultaneously examine pulse widths over a large range of time scales (nanoseconds to milliseconds), the instrument implements both a Continuous Imaging Mode (CI-Mode) and a Pulse Height Mode (PH-Mode). Precise timing is implemented in the gateware with the White Rabbit protocol.

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arXiv2020

First SETI Observations with China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST)

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) attempts to address the possibility of the presence of technological civilizations beyond the Earth. Benefiting from high sensitivity, large sky coverage, an innovative feed cabin for China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), we performed the SETI first observations with FAST's newly commisioned 19-beam receiver; we report preliminary results in this paper. Using the data stream produced by the SERENDIP VI realtime multibeam SETI spectrometer installed at FAST, as well as its off-line data processing pipelines, we identify and remove four kinds of radio frequency interference(RFI): zone, broadband, multi-beam, and drifting, utilizing the Nebula SETI software pipeline combined with machine learning algorithms. After RFI mitigation, the Nebula pipeline identifies and ranks interesting narrow band candidate ET signals, scoring candidates by the number of times candidate signals have been seen at roughly the same sky position and same frequency, signal strength, proximity to a nearby star or object of interest, along with several other scoring criteria. We show four example candidates groups that demonstrate these RFI mitigation and candidate selection. This preliminary testing on FAST data helps to validate our SETI instrumentation techniques as well as our data processing pipeline.

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arXiv2020

Opportunities to Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence with the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope

The discovery of ubiquitous habitable extrasolar planets, combined with revolutionary advances in instrumentation and observational capabilities, has ushered in a renaissance in the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI). Large scale SETI activities are now underway at numerous international facilities. The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) is the largest single-aperture radio telescope in the world, well positioned to conduct sensitive searches for radio emission indicative of exo-intelligence. SETI is one of the five key science goals specified in the original FAST project plan. A collaboration with the Breakthrough Listen Initiative has been initiated in 2016 with a joint statement signed both by Dr. Jun Yan, the then director of the National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC), and Dr. Peter Worden, the Chairman of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation. In this paper, we highlight some of the unique features of FAST that will allow for novel SETI observations. We identify and describe three different signal types indicative of a technological source, namely, narrow-band, wide-band artificially dispersed, and modulated signals. We here propose observations with FAST to achieve sensitivities never before explored.

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arXiv2020

The Breakthrough Listen Search for Intelligent Life: Observations of 1327 Nearby Stars over 1.10-3.45 GHz

Breakthrough Listen (BL) is a ten-year initiative to search for signatures of technologically capable life beyond Earth via radio and optical observations of the local Universe. A core part of the BL program is a comprehensive survey of 1702 nearby stars at radio wavelengths (1-10 GHz). Here, we report on observations with the 64-m CSIRO Parkes radio telescope in New South Wales, Australia, and the 100-m Robert C. Byrd Green Bank radio telescope in West Virginia, USA. Over 2016 January to 2019 March, a sample of 1138 stars was observed at Green Bank using the 1.10-1.90 GHz and 1.80-2.80 GHz receivers, and 189 stars were observed with Parkes over 2.60-3.45 GHz. We searched these data for the presence of engineered signals with Doppler-acceleration drift rates between -4 to 4 Hz/s. Here, we detail our data analysis techniques and provide examples of detected events. After excluding events with characteristics consistent with terrestrial radio interference, we are left with zero candidates. Given the sensitivity of our observations, we can put an upper limit on the power of potential radio transmitters at these frequencies at 2x10^12 W, and 9x10^12 W for GBT and Parkes respectively. These observations constitute the most comprehensive search over 1.10-3.45 GHz for technosignatures to date. All data products, totalling ~219 TB, are available for download as part of the first BL data release (DR1), as described in a companion paper (Lebofsky et. al., 2019)

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arXiv2019

The Breakthrough Listen Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

The discovery of the ubiquity of habitable extrasolar planets, combined with revolutionary advances in instrumentation and observational capabilities, have ushered in a renaissance in the millenia-old quest to answer our most profound question about the Universe and our place within it - Are we alone? The Breakthrough Listen Initiative, announced in July 2015 as a 10-year 100M USD program, is the most comprehensive effort in history to quantify the distribution of advanced, technologically capable life in the universe. In this white paper, we outline the status of the on-going observing campaign with our primary observing facilities, as well as planned activities with these instruments over the next few years. We also list collaborative facilities which will conduct searches for technosignatures in either primary observing mode, or commensally. We highlight some of the novel analysis techniques we are bringing to bear on multi-petabyte data sets, including machine learning tools we are deploying to search for a broader range of technosignatures than was previously possible.

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