Stellar J-Harvesting: A Novel Angular Momentum Technosignature And First Search In The Kepler Field

[astro-ph.SR] We introduce Stellar J-Harvesting (SJH), a technosignature in which an engineered system extracts rotational angular momentum from a star.

Unlike a classical Dyson sphere, such a system need not produce a detectable mid-infrared excess; its clearest signature would be a star rotating more slowly than comparable peers.

We derive the energy-period relation for this effect, outline several possible coupling channels, and apply a population-relative slow-rotator search to Kepler stars using colour-gravity bins. After eight false-positive filters, the clean sample contains 6,725 FGK main-sequence stars.

We find two >4 sigma slow rotators, but Gaia DR3 indicators and WISE imaging point to more ordinary explanations, including unresolved binaries and low metallicity. We therefore make no detection claim and place a conservative pilot upper limit on the occurrence of strong SJH-like signals, f_SJH < 4.5e-4.

The main result is a search framework: angular-momentum technosignatures are testable with existing stellar-rotation catalogues, and the strongest outliers define concrete targets for spectroscopic, imaging, and radio follow-up.

Sahin Torlakcik

Comments: Preprint. Comments are welcome
Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
Cite as: arXiv:2607.07781 [astro-ph.SR] (or arXiv:2607.07781v1 [astro-ph.SR] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2607.07781
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Submission history
From: Sahin Torlakcik
[v1] Wed, 8 Jul 2026 17:56:40 UTC (1,372 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.07781

Astrobiology,