A 1.1 to 1.9 GHz SETI Survey of the Kepler Field: A Raster Scan Search for Narrow-band Emission
- Paper ID
25350
- author
- company
UC Berkeley / NASA Ames Research Center; University of California / ASTRON / Radboud University; University of California
- country
United States
- year
2014
- abstract
We present the data reduction process, current progress, and initial analysis of a search for narrow-band signals (width $<$5 Hz) of extraterrestrial origin arising from the Kepler field. In early 2011 we performed a raster scan of the entire Kepler field using the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) and the Green Bank Ultimate Pulsar Processor (GUPPI) instrument, covering a wavelength range of 1.1 - 1.9 GHz, saving all data for offline reduction and analysis. The procedures and results of a companion study with the same instrument, a targeted search for narrow-band signals from 86 Kepler stars hosting confirmed planets, was published in the Astrophysical Journal in 2013 (no extraterrestrial signals were found). We ultimately aim, through studies like these, to place limits on the number of intelligent and communicative extraterrestrial civilizations within the technical limitations of our experiment, acknowledging that we are probing only a very small subset of the parameter space open to us as SETI explorers.