Atypical variable stars...

["Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury@aeiveos.com>]

I would like to ask the question of whether or not the
TASS data reduction processes are capable of detecting
what I would call a "long term variable star".

In the cases I am thinking of "long term" might be anything
from days to years.  The type of data that I am interested
in might be similar to that one would encounter on the tail
end of a supernova event.  I.e. one has an observed star that
"fades to black" over some period.  It would differ from
classical supernovas in that there would not be any increase
in brightness associated with a supernova event at the
beginning.

The TASS efforts as far as I can determine are directed
towards the identification of classical variable stars
and perhaps supernovas (obviously a fair amount of high
end astronomical resources are devoted to supernova surveys
due to their impact on our current understanding of the
structure of the universe).  It may be the case that
current screens for variable stars in the TASS data
would miss the types of objects that I am interested in
(I don't know because I don't understand the data compression
extraction process that TASS is using).

The "long term variable star" which which may be of significant
interest is one that is involved in the construction of a
"Matrioshka Brain" [1].  Briefly one can view a "MBrain"
as a Dyson shell supercomputer constructed by an
advanced technological civilization (not far beyond
our current level of technological development).  I have
written a paper which discusses this process [2].  I am
happy to accept criticisms or thoughts on this topic and
how it may relate to TASS.

While the term "Matrioshka Brains" may be unfamiliar to most --
it (and variants) have been under discussion by a small group
of well educated people for about a decade.  The concepts are
based on Dyson Shells that go back more than 40 years.  It may be
worth noting that these ideas are in the process of becoming
mainstream as they are mentioned in Popular Science this month [3].

I would leave it to the group to determine the relative value
of detecting "yet another variable star" vs. detecting the
first example of an extraterrestrial advanced technological
civilization under development.  Mind you -- I do not believe
that TASS data might yield conclusive evidence in that area
but it could well provide clues that would lead to observational
programs which could quite literally "shock the world".

Robert

1. http://www.aeiveos.com/~bradbury/MatrioshkaBrains/index.html
2. http://www.aeiveos.com/~bradbury/MatrioshkaBrains/WSGD.html
3. http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/article/0,12543,676265-1,00.html