Pulsars as natural launchers of interstellar probes

Abstract

In this study, we investigate the feasibility of accelerating small probes up to relativistic energies via magnetocentrifugal acceleration by pulsars. Specifically, we consider a broad range of pulsars and examine probes with radii ranging from $10$ to $1000$ nm. We show that the probes may attain Lorentz factors of up to approximately $25$. Furthermore, we investigate the detectability of such probe swarms and demonstrate that, if a highly advanced civilization deploys probes with a total mass of approximately one billion tonnes for acceleration, their collective synchrotron emission could be detectable by the FAST radio telescope at a distance of 1 kpc. The study also discusses the potential resemblance between the emission from such probe swarms and fast radio bursts (FRBs), and outlines directions for future research.