Galactic internet made possible by star gravitational lensing

TL;DR

This paper explores using the Sun's and other stars' gravitational lensing as a means to establish interstellar radio communication links, demonstrating the potential for feasible, high-gain channels over vast distances.

Contribution

It proposes a novel method of creating interstellar communication links by utilizing stellar gravitational lenses, analyzing bit error rates and capacity for such channels.

Findings

Gravitational lensing significantly reduces bit error rates over interstellar distances.

Dual-star lensing can create powerful radio bridges with high power efficiency.

Physical limits on information transfer are established for star-based gravitational lens communication channels.

Abstract

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 that, if we can send a probe along any radial direction away from the Sun up to the minimal distance of 550 AU and beyond, the Sun's mass will act as a huge magnifying lens, letting us "see" detailed radio maps of whatever may lie on the other side of the Sun even at very large distances. The 2009 book by this author, ref. [1], studies such future FOCAL space missions to 550 AU and beyond. In this paper, however, we want to study another possibility yet: how to create the future interstellar radio links between the solar system and any future interstellar probe by utilizing the gravitational lens of the Sun as a huge antenna. In particular, we study the Bit Error Rate (BER) across interstellar distances with and without using the gravitational lens effect of the Sun (ref. [2]). The conclusion is that only when we will exploit the Sun as a gravitational lens we will be able to communicate with our own probes (or with nearby Aliens) across the distances of even the nearest stars to us in the Galaxy, and that at a reasonable Bit Error Rate. We also study the radio bridge between the Sun and any other Star that is made up by the two gravitational lenses of both the Sun and that Star. The alignment for this radio bridge to work is very strict, but the power-saving is enormous, due to the huge contributions of the two stars' lenses to the overall antenna gain of the system. We study a few cases in detail. Finally, we find the information channel capacity for each of those radio bridges, putting thus a physical constraint to the amount of information transfer that will be possible even by exploiting the stars as gravitational lenses