Technosignatures in Transit

TL;DR

This paper discusses the potential of existing time-domain photometric data from missions like Kepler and TESS to detect artificial megastructures around stars, which could indicate extraterrestrial technologies, while also enhancing understanding of stellar variability.

Contribution

It proposes a systematic approach to analyze photometric data for non-spherical or anomalous transit signals, establishing a framework for upper limits on megastructures and improving stellar and exoplanet characterization.

Findings

Framework for detecting artificial structures in photometric data

Potential to set upper limits on megastructure occurrence rates

Enhanced understanding of stellar variability and exoplanet parameters

Abstract

Kepler, K2, TESS, and similar time-domain photometric projects, while designed with exoplanet detection in mind, are also well-suited projects for searches for large artificial structures orbiting other stars in the Galaxy. An effort to examine these data sets with an eye towards non-spherical or otherwise anomalous transit events, and a robust follow-up program to understand the stars and occulters that generate them, would enable the first robust upper limits on such megastructures in terms of their sizes, occurrence rates, and orbital properties. Such work also has the ancillary benefit of improving our understanding of stellar photometric variability and orbital and physical parameter estimation of exoplanets from photometric time series, and may lead to the identification of new, unexpected classes of stellar variables and exoplanets. Ultimately, searching for the most unusual and anomalous signatures benefits not only the search for technologies, but also the entire astronomical community by uncovering new mysteries to advance our understanding of the Universe.