A Search for Brief Optical Flashes Associated with the SETI Target KIC 8462852
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
2016-03-09 v2 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Abstract
The F-type star KIC 8462852 has recently been identified as an exceptional target for SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) observations. We describe an analysis methodology for optical SETI, which we have used to analyse nine hours of serendipitous archival observations of KIC 8462852 made with the VERITAS gamma-ray observatory between 2009 and 2015. No evidence of pulsed optical beacons, above a pulse intensity at the Earth of approximately 1 photon per m^2, is found. We also discuss the potential use of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescope arrays in searching for extremely short duration optical transients in general.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1602.00987,
title = {A Search for Brief Optical Flashes Associated with the SETI Target KIC 8462852},
author = {A. U. Abeysekara and S. Archambault and A. Archer and W. Benbow and R. Bird and M. Buchovecky and J. H. Buckley and K. Byrum and J. V Cardenzana and M. Cerruti and X. Chen and J. L. Christiansen and L. Ciupik and W. Cui and H. J. Dickinson and J. D. Eisch and M. Errando and A. Falcone and D. J. Fegan and Q. Feng and J. P. Finley and H. Fleischhack and P. Fortin and L. Fortson and A. Furniss and G. H. Gillanders and S. Griffin and J. Grube and G. Gyuk and M. Huetten and N. Hakansson and D. Hanna and J. Holder and T. B. Humensky and C. A. Johnson and P. Kaaret and P. Kar and N. Kelley-Hoskins and M. Kertzman and D. Kieda and M. Krause and F. Krennrich and S. Kumar and M. J. Lang and T. T. Y. Lin and G. Maier and S. McArthur and A. McCann and K. Meagher and P. Moriarty and R. Mukherjee and D. Nieto and S. O'Brien and A. O'Faolain de Bhroithe and R. A. Ong and A. N. Otte and N. Park and J. S. Perkins and A. Petrashyk and M. Pohl and A. Popkow and E. Pueschel and J. Quinn and K. Ragan and G. Ratliff and P. T. Reynolds and G. T. Richards and E. Roache and M. Santander and G. H. Sembroski and K. Shahinyan and D. Staszak and I. Telezhinsky and J. V. Tucci and J. Tyler and S. Vincent and S. P. Wakely and O. M. Weiner and A. Weinstein and D. A. Williams and B. Zitzer},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1602.00987},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters. Fixed a minor error in the title