The Nine Axes of Merit for Technosignature Searches

Abstract

The diverse methodologies and myriad orthogonal proposals for the best technosignatures to search for in SETI can make it difficult to develop an effective and balanced search strategy, especially from a funding perspective. Here I propose a framework to compare the relative advantages and disadvantages of various proposed technosignatures based on nine "axes of merit". This framework was first developed at the NASA Technosignatures Workshop in Houston in 2018 and published in that report. I give the definition and rationale behind the nine axes as well as the history of each axis in the SETI and technosignature literature. These axes are then applied to three example classes of technosignature searches as an illustration of their use. An open-source software tool is available to allow technosignature researchers to make their own version of the figure.

arXiv commentSubmitted, waiting for review

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Cited by in corpus (23)

• The Case for Technosignatures: Why They May Be Abundant, Long-lived, Highly Detectable, and Unambiguous
• The Breakthrough Listen Search for Intelligent Life: A 3.95-8.00 GHz Search for Radio Technosignatures in the Restricted Earth Transit Zone
• Concepts for future missions to search for technosignatures
• The Breakthrough Listen Search for Intelligent Life: Searching for Technosignatures in Observations of TESS Targets of Interest
• Searching for broadband pulsed beacons from 1883 stars using neural networks
• Project Hephaistos I. Upper limits on partial Dyson spheres in the Milky Way
• Strategies and Advice for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
• Longevity is the key factor in the search for technosignatures
• The Detectability of Nightside City Lights on Exoplanets
• Searching for interstellar quantum communications
• Developing a Drift Rate Distribution for Technosignature Searches of Exoplanets
• Earth Detecting Earth: At what distance could Earth's constellation of technosignatures be detected with present-day technology?
• Searching the SETI Ellipsoid with Gaia
• SETI in 2020
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• Detecting Extraterrestrial Civilizations That Employ an Earth-level Deep Space Network
• A Data-Driven Search For Mid-Infrared Excesses Among Five Million Main-Sequence FGK Stars
• One of Everything: The Breakthrough Listen Exotica Catalog
• Artificial Greenhouse Gases as Exoplanet Technosignatures
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