The Breakthrough Listen Search for Intelligent Life: Wide-bandwidth Digital Instrumentation for the CSIRO Parkes 64-m Telescope

TL;DR

This paper describes the digital data recording system developed for the Breakthrough Listen project at the Parkes Telescope, enabling wide-bandwidth observations to search for extraterrestrial signals.

Contribution

It introduces a new digital instrumentation system with multiple recording modes tailored for the Parkes Telescope, supporting current and future wide-bandwidth observations.

Findings

System successfully records wide-bandwidth data

Supports multiple observation modes including future upgrades

Initial performance results demonstrate system capability

Abstract

Breakthrough Listen is a ten-year initiative to search for signatures of technologies created by extraterrestrial civilizations at radio and optical wavelengths. Here, we detail the digital data recording system deployed for Breakthrough Listen observations at the 64-m aperture CSIRO Parkes Telescope in New South Wales, Australia. The recording system currently implements two recording modes: a dual-polarization, 1.125 GHz bandwidth mode for single beam observations, and a 26-input, 308-MHz bandwidth mode for the 21-cm multibeam receiver. The system is also designed to support a 3 GHz single-beam mode for the forthcoming Parkes ultra-wideband feed. In this paper, we present details of the system architecture, provide an overview of hardware and software, and present initial performance results.