SETI with ZTF

21 May 2018

Intro

These slides given (remotely) to the VASCO workshop in early 2018

The Point (TM): ZTF (or LSST) isn’t necessarily the ideal place to do SETI work, but we get it for “free”. Might as well be looking! It could be a critical piece of the ZTF/LSST - Astrobiology connection.

ZTF is Online

data streams are rolling now, we should put in alert trigger thingys.

lightcurves will come. do batch analysis later

Search Methods

Here are some actual approaches I have come up with that we might pursue, roughly in order of ease of implementation. This list should be viewed as perpetually in-prep.

1) alerts from the stars within the “restricted Earth Transit Zone (Heller & Pudritz 2016)

• anytime we can see them w/ ZTF
• especially at our opposition (i.e. when we appear to transit)

2) alerts from known exoplanet host systems

• use an existing archive of exoplanets, like this or this

3) alerts coinciding with any known transit conjunction (mid-transit)

• allow some tolerance window to account for TTVs

4) VASCO-type events, stars appearing or disappearing.

• Esp. stars appearing that do not have a Gaia DR2 detection, for example.
• stars disappearing will be very interesting

5) event (alert?) coordination/synchronization (e.g. see Makovetskii 1977, Shostak 2004)

• especially the SETI ellipsoid, a’la SN1987A (Lemarchand 1994)
• could use galactic novae to provide time/place
• list of new Novae
• historic Novae (till 2010)