Feasibility of Correlated Extensive Air Shower Detection with a Distributed Cosmic Ray Network

TL;DR

This paper investigates the potential of a global network of consumer electronics to detect widely separated simultaneous air showers, which could reveal new physics phenomena beyond current observatories.

Contribution

It proposes using a distributed cosmic ray detection network (CRAYFIS) to observe phenomena like the GZ effect, enabling detection of coincident air showers over large distances.

Findings

Significant detection of spatially-separated showers possible within a few years with high adoption.

A network with 10^6 devices can detect burst phenomena with multiple simultaneous air showers.

Global network sensitivity surpasses current localized observatories for certain rare events.

Abstract

We explore the sensitivity offered by a global network of cosmic ray detectors to a novel, unobserved phenomena: widely separated simultaneous extended air showers. Existing localized observatories work independently to observe individual showers, offering insight into the source and nature of ultra-high energy cosmic rays. However no current observatory is large enough to provide sensitivity to anticipated processes such as the GZ effect or potential new physics that generate simultaneous air showers separated by hundreds to thousands of kilometers. A global network of consumer electronics (the CRAYFIS experiment), may provide a novel opportunity for observation of such phenomena. Two user scenarios are explored. In the first, with maximal user adoption, we find that statistically significant discoveries of spatially-separated but coincident showers are possible within a couple years. In the second, more practical adoption model with $10^6$ active devices, we find a worldwide CRAYFIS to be sensitive to novel "burst" phenomena where many simultaneous EASs occur at once.