1. Delphine Perrodin INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari
SETI scientific activities at OAC/SRT Search for ET, Pulsars & Fast Radio Bursts
Delphine Perrodin
INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari
INAF headquarters, Rome, 24/10/2017

2. SETI data analysis
While the technological team works on the installation of the SERENDIP VI setup for future SETI data acquisition (whether targeted searches or in piggy-back mode), the scientific team will be learning how to perform the analysis of SETI data
Collaboration with the Breakthrough Listen (BL) program
Test SETI detection software such as BL’s GPU accelerated software spectroscopy suite on BL baseband data (GPU baseband data from GBT)
- Test KLT method on BL data. Collaboration with Berkeley team.

3. Pulsars Pulsars are fast-rotating neutron stars (1 ms–10 s)
Highly magnetized
Radio beams

4. Pulsars are “cosmic lighthouses”
SRT observation

5. Pulsar timing
We can determine pulsar properties with high accuracy: rotation period (up to 15 sig figs!), dispersion measure, orbital parameters if pulsar in binary The spin period of PSR J is: We can predict the pulse arrival times to ~ 10 ns over 1 year!

6. Pulsar science at SRT PULSAR TIMING
Monitoring of MSPs at L-band for LEAP project (simultaneous observations with 5 European radio telescopes)
Non-simultaneous EPTA observations at L-band, P-band, S-band
Find more stringent limits on background of SMBHBs and hopefully detect GW! (decade-long project)
Tests of strong gravity in binary systems
Monitoring of eclipsing binaries

7. European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA)
100m Effelsberg Telescope (Germany)
94m–equivalent Nancay Radio Telescope (France)
94m–equivalent WSRT (Netherlands)
76m Lovell Telescope (UK)
64m Sardinia Radio Telescope (Italy)
Sardinia

8. LEAP: The Large European Array for Pulsars
Supported by ERC Advanced Grant (2M euro, PI: M. Kramer)
From September 2009 to September 2014
Project continued with local funding at each institution

9. LEAP team Gemma Janssen Cees Bassa Roy Smits Sotiris Sanidas
Ben Stappers
James McKee
Lin Wang
Michael Kramer
Ramesh Karuppusamy
Kuo Liu
Weiwei Zhu
Ismael Cognard
CHINA: KJ Lee
Delphine Perrodin
+ SRT astrophysical validation team ( )
+ early science observing team: M. Burgay, S. Casu, R. Concu, A. Melis, M. Pilia,, A. Trois

10. LEAP: the experimental design

11. Pulsar research at SRT PULSAR SEARCHING
7-beam S-band project funded by Sardinia Region (>2013). Search for MSPs in the Galactic Center
Pulsar search software with GPUs
FRB searches and follow-ups [SUPERB collaboration]
Search for radio counterparts to LIGO/VIRGO GW detections

12. Pulsar instrumentation at SRT
So far have used the PDFB3 + ROACH1 backends L-band: 1300 – 1800 MHz P-band: MHz Near future: use of 2 ROACH1 for L-band and P-band simultaneously GPUs will enable full L-band (500 MHz) Further ahead: pulsar observing with SARDARA (7 ROACH2 + GPU) => SERENDIP VI

13. Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs)
FRB transients: short bursts ~ milliseconds
Single pulse signals in the radio, sometimes repeating/periodic
Highly dispersed: interstellar medium needs to be taken into account
Unknown origin: stellar phenomenon or artificial signal?
Large datasets -> search in real-time is preferred
Lorimer 2007

14. Pulsar and FRB searches with BL data
Collaborate with BL on development of pulsar and FRB search pipelines (specifically Vishal Gajjar)
Test pulsar and FRB pipelines on BL data
When SERENDIP VI is installed at SRT, we will have pipelines ready for SETI + pulsars + FRB searches

15. FRB searches with the KLT
Proposal by Trois & Pilia funded by Sardinia Region (RAS). Dedicated “borsista” to work on the project.
Extension of Alessio Magro’s work (“A real-time GPU non-imaging backend for radio telescopes”)
Development of software tool for study of transients, such as FRBs and SETI, using the KLT method
GPU implementation & machine learning
Implementation of KLT on GPUs
de-dispersion optimized for GPUs
candidate searching using machine learning
With KLT, will be able to detect weaker signals (both FRBs and SETI)
Reduction computing time will allow for real-time searches

16. SETI-related scientific activities
Goal for SETI at SRT: install SERENDIP VI setup at SRT and search simultaneously for ET, pulsars and Fast Radio Bursts (whether targeted search or in piggy-back)
Additional scientific activities:
Data analysis: testing SETI detection software on Breakthrough Listen data
Data analysis: testing KLT method on Breakthrough Listen data
Developing pulsar and FRB search pipelines
Testing pulsar and FRB search pipelines on Breakthrough Listen data
Software tool development for FRB/SETI searches with the KLT