On: A modest proposal for an interstellar communicatio...

[dexen]

That's why the proposal hinges on using neutrinos with particular energy (6.3PeV, 6.3 * 10^15eV). The article mentions those have two properties:

* quite likely to release a W- boson (itself easily detectable) when interacting with matter in detector, and

* not being emited in any sizeable numbers from natural sources -- thus implicating artificial source.

[retube → dexen]

> Quite likely to release a W- boson.

Possibly, if it interacts at all. This is still a vanishingly small probability, even if high compared to other neutrino energies.

10^15eV is an astonishingly high energy. About 1,000 times as energetic as a proton in the LHC (which benefits from a gigantic rest-mass). To generate enough of them to be detected is seriously the realms of ultra-science fiction. Along the lines of turning Jupiter into a star or building a Dyson Sphere.

[ceejayoz → retube]

> Along the lines of turning Jupiter into a star or building a Dyson Sphere.

Neither of which is likely to be all that hard for a civilization a million years further in development than we are.

[neutronicus → ceejayoz]

That's assuming ... quite a bit.

[mchouza → retube]

Apparently, a significant background of 10^19 eV neutrinos is expected: http://web.phys.ntnu.no/~mika/taup.pdf