Dyson swarms of von Neumann probes: prospects and predictions

Abstract

According to the Kardashev scale, possible Type-II and above civilizations could use energy sources of the universe in different ways. Self-replicator von Neumann probes believed to invade any galaxies in various studies could also have uses for gaining energy, in which Dyson swarm structures are likely to consist of probes that could emit energy from any luminous celestial object is to be considered first. On addressing some possible dynamical properties of probes, the study has examined in which size and populations they could enfold a star and how they could have observational evidences according to relevant star's energy output. On the basis of our solar system, it has also been shown using a weighted-directed network structure what kind of population and route they could have in case of spreading to the nearest-neighbouring stars.

From the SpaceX Starlink megaconstellation to the search for Type-I civilizations

“…( 1) and the fact that up to date there are 895 satellites each with the mass 260 kg (McDowell 2020), one can straightforwardly show that µ ≃ 0.021. Generally speaking, the megastructure might be constructed by advanced Type-I civilization from extraterrestrial resources without launch costs (Haliki 2020), but let us consider the worst case: the Solar energy is stored and then utilized to launch material on the orbit.…”

Picogram-Scale Interstellar Probes via Bioinspired Engineering

“…Freitas ( 1980 ) described “a self-reproducing starprobe … with generation time ∼10 3 years” with 84 chemical elements explicitly assigned “mass flow requirements for each element,” and masses of replicating and transporting units estimated at millions of kilograms. The recent work from Haliki ( 2020 ) and Osmanov ( 2020 ) describe von Neumann probes quite abstractly with replication based on hydrogen collisions, with a doubling time of 9 years.…”

Lotka–Volterra models for extraterrestrial self-replicating probes

“…However, the lack of any confirmed signal from deep space is not the only puzzling aspect of the mystery. We expect that any sufficiently advanced civilization would be able to design and manufacture self-replicating probes [10][11][12][13][14][15] (SRPs, also known as "replicators" or von Neumann probes [16]), perhaps even "nanobots" that can be launced en masse into interstellar space to explore the Universe. It has been argued that small-scale, partially self-replicating probes are feasible near-term even to us [17].…”