Searching for Extraterrestrial Intelligence with the Square Kilometre Array

The vast collecting area of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), harnessed by sensitive receivers, flexible digital electronics and increased computational capacity, could permit the most sensitive and exhaustive search for technologically-produced radio emission from advanced extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) ever performed. For example, SKA1-MID will be capable of detecting a source roughly analogous to terrestrial high-power radars (e.g. air route surveillance or ballistic missile warning radars, EIRP 10 17 erg sec -1 ) at 10 pc in less than 15 minutes, and with a modest four beam SETI observing system could, in one minute, search every star in the primary beam out to 100 pc for radio emission comparable to that emitted by the Arecibo Planetary Radar (EIRP 2 x 10 20 erg sec -1 ) . The flexibility of the signal detection systems used for SETI searches with the SKA will allow new algorithms to be employed that will provide sensitivity to a much wider variety of signal types than previously searched for.