A High Resolution Survey of OH Masers in the Southern Hemisphere with a Parasitic SETI Program

Abstract

We describe the ongoing high and ultrahigh-resolution survey of OH masers in the southern hemisphere. The study is made using one of the 30-m antennas of the Argentine Institute for Radioastronomy (IAR) connected simultaneously to two different spectrometers: (a) one 1008 channel correlator with a spectral resolution of 33 to 312 Hz, and (b) an eight million channel analyzer with a spectral resolution of 0.05 Hz (META II). The observations are performed with a high-gain feed with 35K system temperature. The preliminary survey is concentrated within a list of 24 strong OH masers at 1665 and 1667 MHz. The purpose of our research is to test theoretical considerations about the mechanisms of temporal variation in OH masers as well as the possible use of OH masers as natural amplifiers of extraterrestrial artificial signals.