Technosignature Search with the Allen Telescope Array

Abstract:

SETI surveys have been typically conducted at lower frequencies, i.e., less than 1.5 GHz. Utilizing the new hardware upgrades and the newly deployed Digital Signal Processing (DSP) backend of the Allen Telescope Array (ATA), we present an ongoing SETI survey of over 300 stars selected from the REsearch Consortium On Nearby Stars (RECONS) catalog, within 10 pc of the Earth. The ATA is a flexible 42-element interferometer located in Northern California, and the first instrument to be solely built to conduct SETI research. We perform observations of the selected stars between 3-10 GHz, with an instantaneous bandwidth of 1.4 GHz, using the newly commissioned beamformer. The output of the beamformer was analyzed using a high-resolution spectrometer and a de-doppler search algorithm, looking for narrow band signals over a wide range of drift-rates across all covered sub-bands. In this talk, I will present early results of the ongoing SETI survey, and the upgrades envisioned for the telescope’s frontend and backend.