Hi-z Tidal Disruption: Special Lunch Talk

The department of Astronomy & Astrophysics is proud to announce a special colloquium by a distinguished visitor:

TITLE: Emission Lines Accompanying Gamma-Ray Flares from the Tidal Disruption of Dyson Spheres by Binary Intermediate-Mass Black Holes at z ~ 10.

Special Lunch Talk, Monday, April 1, 2013
by Professor Rajesh Koothrappali, Circumference Institute
[Host: Hofstadter]

ABSTRACT: "I will begin this talk in medias res by assuming that Dyson spheres can exist as early as z~10. I will describe general relativistic electromagenetohydrodynamic simulations of the disruption of a Dyson sphere by an intermediate mass black hole and present a calculation of its multi-messenger signature. A characteristic feature of the electromagnetic spectrum are strong, semi-permitted lines from the most abundant constituents of the spheres, dilithium and tritanium. In particular, the [Tr XIX and [Di VIII lines in the mid-IR remain strong for several centuries after the disruption. Thus the emission lines from the burst can be observed with the OWL and BFD telescopes currently on the horizon. The prompt sterile-neutrino signal from such disruptions should be detectable by the Vanilla-Ice instrument. I also propose that such an event is responsible for the unusual burst Swift J1644. Remnants of past events can be found by employing peta-scale computing and data mining techniques to look for objects with unusual infrared colors in existing data archives. The results of this archival search can provide the most strict constraints to date on the contributions of the shadow sector to the dark side. In the second half of the talk, I will ask whether the raw materials needed for the construction of Dyson spheres will have been available to extraterrestrial civilizations at z~10. Using the most up-to-date models for nucleosynthesis in post-main sequence stars, I will demonstrate that sufficient quantities of tritanium can be produced by isolytic reactions during the onset of gigantoerythrotropism in pop 4 and pop 5 stars even as early as z~20. Therefore, high-redshift intelligent civilizations could have constructed Dyson spheres out of tritanium nanotubes. I further speculate that the large "Dyson machines," needed to construct Dyson spheres should be detectable around transiting extrasolar planets through the photoeccentric effect."

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BRIEF BIO:



Dr. Koothrapali

Dr Koothrapali carried out his doctoral research at the Roddenberry Institute for Fantastic Science (RIFS) where he worked under the supervision of M. Scott and J. LaForge on the development of dilithium crystals with variable phase inverters for gravitational wave detection. As a postdoc, he turned his attention to astro-statistics and, in collaboration with D. Adams, he proved the maximum improbability theorem and pioneered its application to the analysis of heteroskedastic data. For his ground-breaking work on this problem he later won the Beeblebrox Award. He is now the deputy director of the Circumference Institute and is also serving as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Irreproducible Results. His most recent work is at the interface between astrophysics and mathematics and focuses on the topology of Dyson-Hoberman spheres, the volumes of red balls, and alternative explanations of the Banach–Tarski paradox.

Anyone interested in joining our speaker for dinner see Lenny.
As it is monday night, dinner will be Thai.

Additional highlights of Dr. Koothrappali career

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Considering the SETI implications, I find it disappointing that the host has not invited professor Tarantoga (see the novels and anthologies featuring Ijon Tichy).

By Birger Johansson (not verified) on 05 Apr 2013 #permalink

Also, regarding supercivilisations, see "Nova Cosmogonia" by Nobel laureate Alfred Testa (Stanislaw Lem: "A Perfect Vacuum"). Eventually, as supercivilisations remodel the whole cosmos the distinction between "artifact" and "nature" becomes meaningless.

By Birger Johansson (not verified) on 05 Apr 2013 #permalink