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 High Energy Thursday, March 19, 2015 3:30 PM Physics Building, Room 204 Note special date. Chase Shimmin [Host: Chris Neu] University of California, Irvine "Observing Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays with Smartphones"   Slideshow (PDF) ABSTRACT: In this talk I discuss the possibility of using a network smartphones and similar devices to search for ultra-high energy ($>10^{18}$ eV) cosmic rays via a community-sourced scientific platform. Muons and energetic photons produced in UHECR events leave a signature of bright pixels in images from on-board CMOS cameras, while GPS location data allows for the reconstruction of extensive air showers observed by multiple devices. The ubiquity of these consumer devices around the globe enables instrumenting a far greater area than conventional observatories, enhancing sensitivity to the very rarest events. Given certain levels of participation, it is even possible to match the observational power of state-of-the-art facilities such as the Pierre Auger observatory, at the highest energies. SLIDESHOW: