The Breakthrough Listen search for intelligent life: Wide-bandwidth digital instrumentation for the CSIRO Parkes 64-m telescope

Price, Danny C.; MacMahon, David H. E.; Lebofsky, Matt; Croft, Steve; DeBoer, David R.; Enriquez, J. E.; Foster, Griffin; Gajjar, Vishal; Gizani, Nectaria; Hellbourg, Greg; Isaacson, Howard; Siemion, Andrew; Werthimer, Dan; Green, James; Amy, S. W.; Ball, Lewis; Bock, Douglas C.-J.; Craig, Dan; Edwards, P. G.; Jameson, A.; Mader, Stacy; Preisig, Brett; Smith, M.; Reynolds, John; Sarkissian, John

doi:10.1017/pasa.2018.36

Cited by 33 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…While the BL survey follows a similar observational strategy to the HTRU and SUrvey for Pulsars and Extragalactic Radio Bursts (SUPERB) surveys , technosignature searches require a far higher spectral resolution (∼ 1 Hz, Siemion et al 2015) than that available in archival data products from the HTRU/SUPERB surveys (∼ 390 kHz). As such, new digital recorder systems have been installed at both the Parkes and Green Bank observatories to allow voltage capture to disk across the full bandwidth of the available receivers (MacMahon et al 2018;Price et al 2018a).…”

Section: Frb 180301 11mentioning

confidence: 99%

A fast radio burst with frequency-dependent polarization detected during Breakthrough Listen observations

Price

Foster

Geyer

et al. 2019

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Here, we report on the detection and verification of Fast Radio Burst FRB 180301, which occurred on UTC 2018 March 1 during the Breakthrough Listen observations with the Parkes telescope. Full-polarization voltage data of the detection were captured-a first for non-repeating FRBs-allowing for coherent de-dispersion and additional verification tests. The coherently de-dispersed dynamic spectrum of FRB 180301 shows complex, polarized frequency structure over a small fractional bandwidth. As FRB 180301 was detected close to the geosynchronous satellite band during a time of known 1-2 GHz satellite transmissions, we consider whether the burst was due to radio interference emitted or reflected from an orbiting object. Based on the preponderance of our verification tests, we find that FRB 180301 is likely of astrophysical origin, but caution that anthropogenic sources cannot conclusively be ruled out.

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Section: Frb 180301 11mentioning

confidence: 99%

A fast radio burst with frequency-dependent polarization detected during Breakthrough Listen observations

Price

Foster

Geyer

et al. 2019

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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“…The use of multicast Ethernet allows copies of the data to be sent not only to Medusa, but also to the Breakthrough Listen (BL) data recorder (Price et al 2018). Data are transported from the UWL switch to the BL switch via eight 40 GbE links, which are configured as an aggregated group using Link Aggregration Control Protocol.…”

Section: Freqmentioning

confidence: 99%

An ultra-wide bandwidth (704 to 4 032 MHz) receiver for the Parkes radio telescope

Hobbs

Manchester

Dunning

et al. 2020

Publ. Astron. Soc. Aust.

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181

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We describe an ultra-wide-bandwidth, low-frequency receiver recently installed on the Parkes radio telescope. The receiver system provides continuous frequency coverage from 704 to 4032 MHz. For much of the band (∼60%), the system temperature is approximately 22 K and the receiver system remains in a linear regime even in the presence of strong mobile phone transmissions. We discuss the scientific and technical aspects of the new receiver, including its astronomical objectives, as well as the feed, receiver, digitiser, and signal processor design. We describe the pipeline routines that form the archive-ready data products and how those data files can be accessed from the archives. The system performance is quantified, including the system noise and linearity, beam shape, antenna efficiency, polarisation calibration, and timing stability.

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“…The non-coherent integration gain is given as AvgG = N avg 1/2 , where N avg is the number of averages. We assume Fast Fourier Transform (FFT)-based polyphase filter banks (Harris & Haines 2011;Price et al 2018) as the key coherent processing stage, so the noise bandwidth ∆ν is the PFB bin width or the reciprocal of T F F T , the time duration of the FFT at the input sample rate. Non-coherent integration is done by summing the magnitude-squared FFT output bins from two polarizations (Stokes I) over N avg FFT cycles (non-overlapping), which implies the total averaging time is τ = N avg T F F T , which must be less than the TX duration T T X .…”

Section: Expected Number Of Detectionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategies for Maximizing Detection Rate in Radio SETI

Houston,

Siemion,

Croft

2021

Preprint

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The Search for Extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a scientific and cultural effort seeking evidence of intelligent life beyond earth. Radio SETI observes the radio spectrum for "technosignatures" that could be produced by an advanced ET society. This work models radio SETI as an end-to-end system, and focuses on narrow-band intentional transmissions. We look at strategies to maximize the expected number of detections per year (DPY) of search. Assuming that ET civilizations will be associated with star systems, we want to maximize the number of stars that may be observed at one time. Assuming a representative star density, this requires maximizing the search volume in a cone defined by the detection range and field of view (FOV). The parameter trades are modified from the case where one simply maximizes signal-to-noise ratio. Instead, a joint optimization between FOV and sensitivity is needed. Some implications: 1) Instead of focusing on the terrestrial microwave window of 1 − 10 GHz, frequencies below 1 GHz may be optimal for detection rate due to the larger field of view; 2) Arrays of smaller dishes should be favored compared to a single dish of equivalent area; 3) Aperture arrays are desirable due to their large potential FOV. Many radio telescopes under development will provide both high sensitivity and large FOV, and should offer much improved SETI detection rates. Still higher DPY is needed, however, to achieve results in reasonable time horizons, which should be possible by greatly expanding computation capability to the next-generation wide-FOV antenna arrays.

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The Breakthrough Listen search for intelligent life: Wide-bandwidth digital instrumentation for the CSIRO Parkes 64-m telescope

Cited by 33 publications

References 39 publications

A fast radio burst with frequency-dependent polarization detected during Breakthrough Listen observations

A fast radio burst with frequency-dependent polarization detected during Breakthrough Listen observations

An ultra-wide bandwidth (704 to 4 032 MHz) receiver for the Parkes radio telescope

Strategies for Maximizing Detection Rate in Radio SETI

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