SETI with ZTF

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)

2) alerts from known exoplanet host systems

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

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

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