Cosmic-Ray Extremely Distributed Observatory: Status and Perspectives

The Cosmic-Ray Extremely Distributed Observatory (CREDO) is a project dedicated to global studies of extremely extended cosmic-ray phenomena, the cosmic-ray ensembles (CRE), beyond the capabilities of existing detectors and observatories. Up to date, cosmic-ray research has been focused on detecting single air showers, while the search for ensembles of cosmic-rays, which may overspread a significant fraction of the Earth, is a scientific terra incognita. Instead of developing and commissioning a completely new global detector infrastructure, CREDO proposes approaching the global cosmic-ray analysis objectives with all types of available detectors, from professional to pocket size, merged into a worldwide network. With such a network it is possible to search for evidences of correlated cosmic-ray ensembles. One of the observables that can be investigated in CREDO is a number of spatially isolated events collected in a small time window which could shed light on fundamental physics issues. The CREDO mission and strategy requires active engagement of a large number of participants, also non-experts, who will contribute to the project by using common electronic devices (e.g., smartphones). In this note, the status and perspectives of the project are presented.

[1]  M. Giller,et al.  The Pierre Auger Observatory , 2005 .

[2]  M. Kasztelan,et al.  Search for Extensive Photon Cascades with the Cosmic-Ray Extremely Distributed Observatory , 2018, 1804.05614.

[3]  T. Hebbeker,et al.  Search for photons with energies above 10 18 eV using the hybrid detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory , 2016 .

[4]  Guenter Sigl,et al.  Origin and propagation of extremely high-energy cosmic rays , 1998 .

[5]  G. Farrar,et al.  (In)Feasability of Studying Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic Rays with Smartphones , 2015, 1505.04777.

[6]  Matthew Meehan,et al.  Measurement of cosmic-ray muons with the Distributed Electronic Cosmic-ray Observatory, a network of smartphones , 2016 .

[7]  E. Bernardini,et al.  A method for untriggered time-dependent searches for multiple flares from neutrino point sources , 2011, 1103.2644.

[8]  D. Heck,et al.  Simulation of ultra-high energy photon propagation in the geomagnetic field , 2005, Comput. Phys. Commun..

[9]  David Mattingly,et al.  Modern Tests of Lorentz Invariance , 2005, Living reviews in relativity.

[10]  Piotr Homola,et al.  Simulation of ultra-high energy photon propagation with PRESHOWER 2.0 , 2013, Comput. Phys. Commun..

[11]  J. Jarvis,et al.  Cosmic-Ray Extremely Distributed Observatory: a global cosmic ray detection framework , 2017, 1709.05230.

[12]  Don E. Groom Cosmic Rays and Other Nonsense in Astronomical CCD Imagers , 2004 .

[13]  M. Kasztelan,et al.  Cosmic ray ensembles as signatures of ultra-high energy photons interacting with the solar magnetic field , 2018, Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.