Observing Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays with Smartphones

by Daniel Whiteson (UC Irvine)

Thursday 12 Mar 2015, 15:00 → 16:00 US/Eastern

Universe

We propose a novel approach for observing cosmic rays at ultra-high energy ($>10^{18}$~eV) by repurposing the existing network of smartphones as a ground detector array. Extensive air showers generated by cosmic rays produce muons and high-energy photons, which can be detected by the CMOS sensors of smartphone cameras. The small size and low efficiency of each sensor is compensated by the large number of active phones. We show that if user adoption targets are met, such a network will have significant observing power at the highest energies.