SETI Observations of Exoplanets with the Allen Telescope Array

We report radio SETI observations on a large number of known exoplanets and other nearby star systems using the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) for about 19000 hours from May 2009 to Dec 2015.

This search focused on narrow-band radio signals from a set totaling 9293 stars, including 2015 exoplanet stars and Kepler objects of interest and an additional 65 whose planets may be close to their Habitable Zone. The ATA observations were made using multiple synthesized beams and an anticoincidence filter to help identify terrestrial radio interference. Stars were observed over frequencies from 1-9 GHz in multiple bands that avoid strong terrestrial communication frequencies.

Data were processed in near-real time for narrow-band (0.7-100 Hz) continuous and pulsed signals with transmitter/receiver relative accelerations from -0.3 to 0.3 m/s^2. A total of 1.9 x 10^8 unique signals requiring immediate follow-up were detected in observations covering more than 8 x 10^9 star-MHz. We detected no persistent signals from extraterrestrial technology exceeding our frequency-dependent sensitivity threshold of 180-310 10^-26 W m^-2.

G. R. Harp, Jon Richards, Jill C. Tarter, John Dreher, Jane Jordan, Seth Shostak, Ken Smolek, Tom Kilsdonk, M. K. R. Wimberly, John Ross, W. C. Barott, R. F. Ackermann, Samantha Blair
(Submitted on 14 Jul 2016)

Comments: 225 pages including very long table, 9 figures, 7 tables, submitted to Astrophysical Journal
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
Cite as: arXiv:1607.04207 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:1607.04207v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Gerald Harp Ph.D.
[v1] Thu, 14 Jul 2016 16:58:55 GMT (3586kb)
http://arxiv.org/abs/1607.04207