Could the “Wow” signal have originated from a stochastic repeating beacon?. (arXiv:2206.08374v2 [astro-ph.IM] UPDATED)
<a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Kipping_D/0/1/0/all/0/1">David Kipping</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Gray_R/0/1/0/all/0/1">Robert Gray</a>

The famous “Wow” signal detected in 1977 remains arguably the most compelling
SETI signal ever found. The original Big Ear data requires that the signal
turned on/off over the span of ~3 minutes (time difference between the dual
antennae), yet persisted for 72 seconds (duration of a single beam sweep).
Combined with the substantial and negative follow-up efforts, these
observations limit the allowed range of signal repeat schedules, to the extent
that one might question the credibility of the signal itself. Previous work has
largely excluded the hypothesis of a strictly periodic repeating source, for
periods shorter than 40 hours. However, a non-periodic, stochastic repeater
remains largely unexplored. Here, we employ a likelihood emulator using the Big
Ear observing logs to infer the probable signal properties under this
hypothesis. We find that the maximum a-posteriori solution has a likelihood of
32.3%, highly compatible with the Big Ear data, with a broad 2 $sigma$
credible interval of signal duration 72 secs < T < 77 mins and mean repeat rate
0.043 1/days < $lambda$ < 59.8 1/days. We extend our analysis to include 192
hours of subsequent observations from META, Hobart and ATA, which drops the
peak likelihood to 1.78%, and thus in tension with the available data at the
2.4 $sigma$ level. Accordingly, the Wow signal cannot be excluded as a
stochastic repeater with available data, and we estimate that 62 days of
accumulated additional observations would be necessary to surpass 3 $sigma$
confidence.

The famous “Wow” signal detected in 1977 remains arguably the most compelling
SETI signal ever found. The original Big Ear data requires that the signal
turned on/off over the span of ~3 minutes (time difference between the dual
antennae), yet persisted for 72 seconds (duration of a single beam sweep).
Combined with the substantial and negative follow-up efforts, these
observations limit the allowed range of signal repeat schedules, to the extent
that one might question the credibility of the signal itself. Previous work has
largely excluded the hypothesis of a strictly periodic repeating source, for
periods shorter than 40 hours. However, a non-periodic, stochastic repeater
remains largely unexplored. Here, we employ a likelihood emulator using the Big
Ear observing logs to infer the probable signal properties under this
hypothesis. We find that the maximum a-posteriori solution has a likelihood of
32.3%, highly compatible with the Big Ear data, with a broad 2 $sigma$
credible interval of signal duration 72 secs < T < 77 mins and mean repeat rate
0.043 1/days < $lambda$ < 59.8 1/days. We extend our analysis to include 192
hours of subsequent observations from META, Hobart and ATA, which drops the
peak likelihood to 1.78%, and thus in tension with the available data at the
2.4 $sigma$ level. Accordingly, the Wow signal cannot be excluded as a
stochastic repeater with available data, and we estimate that 62 days of
accumulated additional observations would be necessary to surpass 3 $sigma$
confidence.

http://arxiv.org/icons/sfx.gif