2015/10/26 by J. Vandenbroucke, Vandenbroucke, Justin, Sílvia Bravo +15
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex) #Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM) #Particle Detector Development and Performance
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1510.07665
openalex publication_date 2015/10/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In 2014 the number of active cell phones worldwide for the first time\nsurpassed the number of humans. Cell phone camera quality and onboard\nprocessing power (both CPU and GPU) continue to improve rapidly. In addition to\ntheir primary purpose of detecting photons, camera image sensors on cell phones\nand other ubiquitous devices such as tablets, laptops and digital cameras can\ndetect ionizing radiation produced by cosmic rays and radioactive decays. While\ncosmic rays have long been understood and characterized as a nuisance in\nastronomical cameras, they can also be identified as a signal in idle camera\nimage sensors. We present the Distributed Electronic Cosmic-ray Observatory\n(DECO), a platform for outreach and education as well as for citizen science.\nConsisting of an app and associated database and web site, DECO harnesses the\npower of distributed camera image sensors for cosmic-ray detection.\n