Searching the SETI Ellipsoid with TESS

The SETI Ellipsoid is a strategy for technosignature candidate selection which assumes that extraterrestrial civilizations have observed a common, galactic-scale event — such as supernova 1987A — and may use it as an instance to broadcast synchronized signals indicating their presence. Continuous wide-field surveys of the sky offer a powerful new opportunity to look for these signals, compensating for the uncertainty in their estimated time of arrival. Consequently, we explore Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) targets observed during the first three years of the mission in the continuous viewing zone (CVZ), which corresponds to less than 5% of the total data sample. Using improved 3D locations for stars from Gaia Early Data Release 3 (EDR3), we developed algorithms to detect 32 SN 1987A SETI Ellipsoid technosignature candidates in the TESS CVZ with uncertainties better than 0.5 lyr.