New technology announced for discovering Dyson rings

Dyson spheres and rings have always had a special fascination for me. The concept is simple. Build large structures as spheres or rings to harness energy from stars. Dyson rings are much simpler and possible to construct, and in a recent paper a team of scientists investigated how to detect them by analyzing light from distant stars. The researchers suggest that new technology may be able to detect Dyson rings around pulsars.

Like their spherical cousins, Dyson rings are here to stay, a popular idea in science fiction, but increasingly appearing in scientific discussions. The concept of a ring is similar to a sphere, a megastructure designed to surround a star and harness its energy on a gigantic scale.

It consists of a series of satellites, or habitats in circular orbit with solar collectors, and unlike a sphere, requires far fewer resources to construct. The concept of a sphere was first proposed by physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson in 1960. Such structures are detectable and could reveal the existence of an intelligent civilization.

It is interesting to think about the civilizations that built such structures. Our civilization currently consumes approximately 15,000 terawatts per hour, and that number will only increase as our population grows and we become even more dependent on technology. The Kardashev scale was developed to quantify energy usage from the level of technical ability.

On this scale, we are currently in Type I. This means that the power usage is 4 × 1019 ergs s1 (4 terawatts). If a civilization requires 4 × 1033 ergs s1 (400 trillion terawatts), it is considered to be Type II. These civilizations may be able to build Dyson structures, and may indeed need them.

Creating a solid sphere, or even a sphere with orbiting satellites, requires an incredible amount of material. A sphere with a radius of one astronomical unit (the average distance between the Earth and the Sun) would require more material than there is in the entire solar system.

It is much more likely that a civilization would create a ring-like structure. A ring of this nature around a star can harness significant amounts of energy, but a ring around a pulsar could generate even more energy, on the order of 10,000 trillion, if it could track the star’s pulsed beam. You will be able to capture it. Terawatt.

The paper, written by Ogetei Kayali and his team at Michigan Technological University, aims to further investigate the pulsar’s light curve to see if any signatures have been missed that could reveal the existence of a pulsar. is proposed. The features, the researchers suggest, result from the effects of pulsar beams impacting the ring structure. Because the beam travels at superluminal speed, multiple images of the pulsar spot on the Dyson ring can appear simultaneously. This may be confirmed by light curve analysis. A similar effect is seen when the dust ring is illuminated by pulsar radiation.

This research has been accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.