Project Hephaistos -- III. Characterizing anomalous infrared sources identified as Dyson-sphere candidates

Engineering notes

Engineering notes will be added by the Power for Solar editorial team.

Chinese explanation / 中文解读

中文解读待补充：本站会优先为光伏效率、钙钛矿太阳能电池、储能技术、太阳能热利用、BIPV、并网技术等高价值论文补充中文说明。

Original abstract

The infrared-flux excess of stars harbouring Dyson spheres represent one potential technosignature of extraterrestrial intelligence. In a previous Project Hephaistos paper, we highlighted seven M dwarfs within 300 pc with unusual infrared properties that seem to resemble those expected for Dyson spheres. In the present study, we present an analysis of photometric and, in some cases, spectroscopic data on these seven objects, plus three additional objects with similar properties, to further constrain their nature. The stellar parameters, derived from calibrated empirical relationships for M dwarfs, reveal no irregularities with respect to the overall M-dwarf population of main-sequence stars. While the infrared properties of our targets resemble those of circumstellar disks in a transitional state, the objects with spectroscopic data show no signs of youth usually associated with such objects. One of our spectroscopic targets does exhibit weak H$α$ emission, but this is more likely attributed to stellar activity than to the gaseous accretion disk expected for a young star. After this analysis, we still find no clear explanation for the infrared excess of these stars, but note that observations with the JWST and/or the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array would be able to probe scenarios in which the infrared excess is due to circumstellar dust emission or an infrared-bright background source that remains undetected at shorter wavelengths. For two of our stars, JWST observations have recently revealed superpositions with very red background galaxies.

Links and sources

• Official / arXiv page
• PDF from original source

Comments