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A quantitative assessment of communicating extra-terrestrial intelligent civilizations in the galaxy and the case of FRB-like signals

Frontiers of Physics volume 15, Article number: 54502 (2020) Cite this article

Abstract

A formula is proposed to quantitatively estimate the signal emission rate of Communicating Extra-Terrestrial Intelligent civilizations (CETIs) in the Galaxy. I suggest that one possible type of CETI signal would be brief radio bursts similar to fast radio bursts (FRBs). A dedicated search for FRB-like artificial signals in the Galaxy for decades may pose a meaningful upper limit on the emission rate of these signals by CETIs. The Fermi-Hart paradox is answered in terms of not having enough observing times for this and other types of signals. Whether humans should send FRB-like signals in the far future is briefly discussed.

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Acknowledgements

I thank Qiang Yuan for an important remark on an earlier version of the paper, Jason Steffen for discussing the current status of exoplanet searches, and Maura McLaughlin for discussing the current status of Galactic FRB-like signal searches.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV, 89154, USA

    Bing Zhang

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  1. Bing Zhang
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Correspondence to Bing Zhang.

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arXiv: 2006.08493.

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Zhang, B. A quantitative assessment of communicating extra-terrestrial intelligent civilizations in the galaxy and the case of FRB-like signals. Front. Phys. 15, 54502 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11467-020-0973-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11467-020-0973-5

Keywords

  • fast radio bursts
  • astrobilogy

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