Open Access Publications from the University of California

Telescope: Earth

• Author(s): Albin, Eric Kenneth
In this dissertation, I discuss the potential, the process and the problems faced in turning the populated planet into a cosmic ray telescope using smartphone cameras. In Chapter 2, I develop novel extensive air shower longitudinal muon and photon density models that clearly exhibit better agreement with CORSIKA simulations than popular alternatives. I also provide a parameterization scheme that spans variations in primary energy, inclination angle, and observation height. In Chapter 4, I identify muon and photon signatures present in real CRAYFIS user data, propose a novel test array of CRAYFIS-enabled smartphones, and present a high-performance data acquisition application. At last, in Chapter 5, I calculate the sensitivity of a global CRAYFIS network to simultaneous extensive air showers as a function of observation time and incident flux, and find that at least 1 million CRAYFIS users worldwide are needed to identify novel phenomena signal over background at 3$\sigma$ statistical significance over a reasonable time-span.