DYSON SPHERES

Serbian Astronomical Journal

article

Jason T. Wright¹ 

[1] Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics and Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds and Penn State Extraterrestrial Intelligence Center 525 Davey Laboratory, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park

关键词: Astrobiology;    Stars: general;   

DOI  :  10.2298/SAJ2000001W

来源: Astronomical Observatory, Department of Astronomy, Belgrade

【 摘 要 】

I review the origins and development of the idea of Dyson spheres, their purpose, their engineering, and their detectability. I explicate the ways in which the popular imagining of them as monolithic objects would make them dynamically unstable under gravity and radiation pressure, and mechanically unstable to buckling. I develop a model for the radiative coupling between a star and large amounts of material orbiting it, and connect the observational features of a star plus Dyson sphere system to the gross radiative properties of the sphere itself. I discuss the still-unexplored problem of the effects of radiative feedback on the central star’s structure and luminosity. Finally, I discuss the optimal sizes of Dyson spheres under various assumptions about their purpose as sources of low-entropy emission, dissipative work, or computation.

【 授权许可】

CC BY-NC-ND