A TESS Test of the Hybrid Ring Strategy for Technosignature Searches Using GRB 221009A

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteur principal: Seto, Naoki
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
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author Seto, Naoki
author_facet Seto, Naoki
contents We present the first observational test of the hybrid ring strategy, a general coordinated signaling scheme proposed by Seto (2025), which provides a practical Schelling-point realization for interstellar signaling. We use the exceptionally bright GRB 221009A as the anchoring flash for the scheme, together with the accurately measured distance to the Galactic center. This combination provides a high-precision relation linking sky position to a tightly constrained arrival-time window. TESS observed the region around the GRB nearly continuously for ~50 days in 2024, providing survey light curves that enable a direct test of this scheme with sharply predicted arrival-time windows of $\sim$3.4 days. Among 58 carefully selected stars, we identify two that show noticeable single-time-bin brightenings inside their predicted windows (where each time bin corresponds to a 200 s integrated TESS exposure). In both cases the brightenings coincide with excursions in at least one nearby star and are therefore most consistent with instrumental origins. This test demonstrates that the hybrid ring strategy is practical with existing survey data and could serve as a promising basis for future technosignature searches.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_06807
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A TESS Test of the Hybrid Ring Strategy for Technosignature Searches Using GRB 221009A
Seto, Naoki
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Popular Physics
We present the first observational test of the hybrid ring strategy, a general coordinated signaling scheme proposed by Seto (2025), which provides a practical Schelling-point realization for interstellar signaling. We use the exceptionally bright GRB 221009A as the anchoring flash for the scheme, together with the accurately measured distance to the Galactic center. This combination provides a high-precision relation linking sky position to a tightly constrained arrival-time window. TESS observed the region around the GRB nearly continuously for ~50 days in 2024, providing survey light curves that enable a direct test of this scheme with sharply predicted arrival-time windows of $\sim$3.4 days. Among 58 carefully selected stars, we identify two that show noticeable single-time-bin brightenings inside their predicted windows (where each time bin corresponds to a 200 s integrated TESS exposure). In both cases the brightenings coincide with excursions in at least one nearby star and are therefore most consistent with instrumental origins. This test demonstrates that the hybrid ring strategy is practical with existing survey data and could serve as a promising basis for future technosignature searches.
title A TESS Test of the Hybrid Ring Strategy for Technosignature Searches Using GRB 221009A
topic Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Popular Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.06807