TL;DR
This paper reviews the concept of Dyson spheres, analyzing their stability, detectability, and potential sizes, while developing models for their radiative interactions with stars and exploring their engineering and observational aspects.
Contribution
It provides a detailed analysis of Dyson spheres' stability, radiative properties, and optimal sizes, incorporating new models for star-sphere interactions and addressing their detectability.
Findings
Monolithic Dyson spheres are dynamically and mechanically unstable.
A model for radiative coupling between stars and orbiting material is developed.
Optimal Dyson sphere sizes vary based on their intended purpose.
Abstract
I review the origins and development of the idea of Dyson spheres, their purpose, their engineering, and their detectability. I explicate the ways in which the popular imagining of them as monolithic objects would make them dynamically unstable under gravity and radiation pressure, and mechanically unstable to buckling. I develop a model for the radiative coupling between a star and large amounts of material orbiting it, and connect the observational features of a star plus Dyson sphere system to the gross radiative properties of the sphere itself. I discuss the still-unexplored problem of the effects of radiative feedback on the central star's structure and luminosity. Finally, I discuss the optimal sizes of Dyson spheres under various assumptions about their purpose as sources of low-entropy emission, dissipative work, or computation.
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