Candidate Identification and Interference Removal in SETI@home

TL;DR

This paper discusses methods for identifying promising extraterrestrial signals and removing interference in the SETI@home project, which has analyzed billions of potential signals from the Arecibo telescope.

Contribution

It introduces the interference removal and candidate identification techniques used in SETI@home's post-processing pipeline, enhancing the search for extraterrestrial signals.

Findings

Effective interference removal methods implemented

Candidate signals identified for further analysis

Billions of signals processed with improved filtering

Abstract

SETI@home, a search for signals from extraterrestrial intelligence, has been recording data at the Arecibo radio telescope since 1999. These data are sent via the Internet to the personal computers of volunteers who have donated their computers' idle time toward this search. To date, SETI@home volunteers have detected more than 4.2 billion potential signals. While essentially all of these potential signals are due to random noise processes, radio frequency interference (RFI), or interference processes in the SETI@home instrumentation, it is possible that a true extraterrestrial transmission exists within this database. Herein we describe the process of interference removal being implemented in the SETI@home post-processing pipeline, as well as those methods being used to identify candidates worthy of further investigation.