The artificial intelligence used to detect undetected fast radio bursts – Astronomy Now



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The Green Bank observatory Robert C. Byrd has detected multiple fast radio bursts in a distant source of 3 billion light-years. Artificial intelligence algorithms helped researchers find 72 unpublished programs. Image: AUI / GBO

Using Artificial Intelligence algorithms, Breakthrough Listen project researchers, who are part of the Intelligent Life in the Universe (SETI) research, discovered 72 undetected fast radio waves from an unknown source. unknown located 3 billion light-years away.

Fast radio bursts are emissions of a millisecond range from distant galaxies through a yet unknown mechanism. Possible explanations range from explosions caused by gas drop on highly magnetized neutron stars to advanced technology signatures.

While fast radio gusts are typically only observed once, the body in question – FRB 121102 – has been repeatedly gusty since its discovery in 2012. In August 2017, the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia has " listened to »collecting some 400 terabytes of data. An initial analysis using traditional algorithms revealed 21 fast radio bursts, all occurring within one hour.

But a new data analysis using a sophisticated AI algorithm developed by Gerry Zhang, a graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley, and his collaborators found 72 flushes additional information that escaped detection earlier.

"This work is only the beginning of the use of these powerful methods to find radio transients," Zhang said. "We hope our success could inspire further serious efforts in the application of machine learning to radio astronomy."

Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center and Principal Investigator at Breakthrough Listen, said the research was exciting "not only because it helps us better understand the dynamic behavior of fast radio gusts, but also by using the Automatic learning to detect signals missed by conventional algorithms.

"As the FRBs themselves turn out to be signatures of extraterrestrial technologies, Breakthrough Listen is helping to push the boundaries of a new and growing field of our understanding of the universe around us."

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