Related papers: Interstellar communication. II. Application to the…
Recent technological advances could make interstellar travel possible, using ultra-lightweight sails pushed by lasers or solar photon pressure, at speeds of a few percent the speed of light. Obtaining remote observational data from such…
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.…
Stars provide an enormous gain for interstellar communications at their gravitational focus, perhaps as part of an interstellar network. If the Sun is part of such a network, there should be probes at the gravitational foci of nearby stars.…
The optimal frequency for interstellar communication, using "Earth 2017" technology, was derived in papers I and II of this series (arXiv:1706.03795, arXiv:1706.05570). The framework included models for the loss of photons from diffraction…
Galactic Internet may already exist, if all stars are exploited as gravitational lenses. In fact, the gravitational lens of the Sun is a well-known astrophysical phenomenon predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity. It implies…
The Solar Gravitational Lens (SGL) allows for major brightness amplification ($\sim 10^{11}$ at wavelength of $1~\mu$m) and extreme angular resolution ($\sim10^{-10}$ arcsec) within a narrow field of view. A meter-class telescope, with a…
The Solar Gravitational Lens (SGL) is a gift of nature that Humanity is now ready to exploit. SGL physics started with Einstein's 1936 paper on the gravitational lensing; it was not until 1979 that the idea of a space mission reaching the…
The solar gravitational lens (SGL) offers unique capabilities for high-resolution imaging of faint, distant objects, such as exoplanets. In the near future, a spacecraft carrying a meter-class telescope with a solar coronagraph would be…
The solar gravitational lens (SGL) provides a factor of $10^{11}$ amplification for viewing distant point sources beyond our solar system. As such, it may be used for resolved imaging of extended sources, such as exoplanets, not possible…
An interstellar communication network benefits from relay nodes placed in the gravitational lenses of stars. The signal gains are of order $10^{9}$ with optimal alignment, allowing for GBits connections at kW power levels with meter-sized…
We consider the optical properties of the solar gravitational lens (SGL) treating the Sun as a massive compact body. Using our previously developed wave-optical treatment of the SGL, we convolve it with a thin-lens representing an optical…
We discuss the feasibility of direct multipixel imaging of exoplanets with the solar gravitational lens (SGL) in the context of a realistic deep space mission. For this, we consider an optical telescope, placed in the image plane that forms…
We study image formation with the solar gravitational lens (SGL). We consider a point source that is positioned at a large but finite distance from the Sun. We assume that an optical telescope is positioned in the image plane, in the focal…
We present initial results of an ongoing engineering study on the feasibility of a space mission to the focal region of the solar gravitational lens (SGL). The mission goal is to conduct exoplanet imaging operations at heliocentric…
The remarkable optical properties of the solar gravitational lens (SGL) include major brightness amplification (~1e11 at wavelength of 1 um) and extreme angular resolution (~1e-10 arcsec) in a narrow field of view. A mission to the SGL…
We explore interstellar light transmission facilitated by gravitational lensing, focusing on axially-symmetric lensing configurations where the transmitter, lens, and receiver are nearly aligned. Positioning an optical transmitter in the…
The prospect of combining integral field spectroscopy with the solar gravitational lens (SGL) to spectrally and spatially resolve the surfaces and atmospheres of extrasolar planets is investigated. The properties of hyperbolic orbits…
We have explored the optimal frequency of interstellar photon communications and benchmarked other particles as information carriers in previous papers of this series. We now compare the latency and bandwidth of sending probes with…
Under the hypothesis that self-reproducing probes have formed a galactic-scale communication network by direct Gravitationally-Lensed (GL) links between neighboring systems, we identify Wolf 359, the third nearest stellar system, as an…
A search was conducted for laser signals, both sub-second pulses and continuous emission, from the regions of the sky opposite Proxima and Alpha Centauri. These regions are located at the foci of the gravitational lensing caused by the Sun,…