Related papers: On the maximum sufficient range of interstellar ve…
I compare three methods for transmitting signals over interstellar distances: radio transmitters, lasers and artificial transits. The quantitative comparison is based on physical quantities depending on energy cost and transmitting time L,…
Small satellite systems enable whole new class of missions for navigation, communications, remote sensing and scientific research for both civilian and military purposes. As individual spacecraft are limited by the size, mass and power…
NASA has been considering a solar sail that would accelerate a craft to a high velocity (~ 14 AU/yr) by the time it reached 5 AU. Then the sail would be dropped and the craft would coast alone to deep space. We propose that the sail be…
Quantum coherence could be sustained up to interstellar distances. It is shown that the photon mean free path in certain regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, such as within the radio or x-ray ranges, could allow sustaining of the…
This paper considers galactic scale Beacons from the point of view of expense to a builder on Earth. For fixed power density in the far field, what is the cost-optimum interstellar Beacon system? Experience shows an optimum tradeoff,…
In networks of mobile autonomous agents, e.g. for data acquisition, we may wish to maximize data transfer or to reliably transfer a minimum amount of data, subject to quality of service or energy constraints. These requirements can be…
Interstellar signals might be intermittent for many reasons, such as targeted sequential transmissions, or isotropic broadcasts that are not on continuously, or many other reasons. The time interval between such signals would be important,…
In many networks such as transportation or communication networks, distance is certainly a relevant parameter. In addition, real-world examples suggest that when long-range links are existing, they usually connect to hubs-the well connected…
The largest possible average diameter of a bounded cell of a simple hyperplane arrangement is conjectured to be not greater than the dimension. We prove that this conjecture holds in dimension 2, and is asymptotically tight in fixed…
Large-scale low-Earth-orbit satellite constellations offer a promising platform for global low-latency networking, aided by faster propagation in free space than in fiber and copper. In such systems, end-to-end latency is largely determined…
Data rates in an interstellar communication network suffer from the inverse square law due to the vast distances between the stars. To achieve high (Gbits/s) data rates, some combination of large apertures and high power is required.…
The design of mission scenarios for the flyby investigation of nearby star systems by probes launched using directed energy is addressed. Multiple probes are launched with a fixed launch infrastructure, and download of scientific data…
A solar sail propelled small satellite mission concept to intercept and potentially rendezvous with newly discovered transient interstellar objects (ISOs) is described. The mission concept derives from the proposal for a technology…
Let $G$ be a finite, simple connected graph. The average distance of a vertex $v$ of $G$ is the arithmetic mean of the distances from $v$ to all other vertices of $G$. The remoteness $\rho(G)$ of $G$ is the maximum of the average distances…
Consider a consensus-driven multi-agent dynamic system. The interaction range, which defines the set of neighbors for each agent, plays a key role in influencing connectivity of the underlying network. In this paper, we assume the system is…
Measurements by dust detectors on interplanetary spacecraft appear to indicate a substantial flux of interstellar particles with masses exceeding 10^{-12}gram. The reported abundance of these massive grains cannot be typical of interstellar…
The fact that we apparently live in an accelerating universe places limitations on where humans might visit. If the current energy density of the universe is dominated by a cosmological constant, a rocket could reach a galaxy observed today…
Arrival processes to service systems often display fluctuations that are larger than anticipated under the Poisson assumption, a phenomenon that is referred to as overdispersion. Motivated by this, we analyze a class of discrete stochastic…
In free-space optical satellite networks (FSOSNs), satellites can have different laser inter-satellite link (LISL) ranges for connectivity. Greater LISL ranges can reduce network latency of the path but can also result in an increase in…
Multi-epoch radio-interferometric observations of young stellar objects can be used to measure their displacement over the celestial sphere with a level of accuracy that currently cannot be attained at any other wavelength. In particular,…