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Published on: February 12, 2013
Optical search for extraterrestrial intelligence with Air Cerenkov telescopes
1Department of Physics, Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheva, Israel. eichler@bgumail.bgu.ac.il
Abstract:
We propose using large Air Cerenkov telescopes (ACTs) to search for optical, pulsed signals from extraterrestrial intelligence. Such dishes collect tens of photons from a nanosecond-scale pulse of isotropic equivalent power of tens of solar luminosities at a distance of 100 pc. The field of view for giant ACTs can be on the order of 10 square degrees, and they will be able to monitor 10-100 stars simultaneously for nanosecond pulses of about 6th magnitude or brighter. Using the Earth's diameter as a baseline, orbital motion of the planet could be detected by timing the pulse arrivals.
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