{"id":"dc14bfa5-19a4-45eb-aacd-f7603836bfaf","arxiv_id":"2607.02106","paper_version":1,"verdict":"UNVERDICTED","confidence":"LOW","novelty_score":4.0,"correctness_risk":"unknown","formal_verification":"none","parameter_count":0,"one_line_summary":"SORAMAME app uses smartphone CMOS sensors for cosmic ray detection and reports altitude/latitude flux variations consistent with geomagnetic shielding from in-flight and Raspberry Pi tests.","lead":"SORAMAME is a smartphone app that repurposes built-in CMOS camera sensors to detect cosmic ray particles in real time with on-device processing and cloud storage. It aims to enable educational outreach and large-scale citizen science data collection on cosmic rays without specialized hardware.","discovery_kind":"unclear","skeptic_critique":{"model":"grok-4.3","headline":"In-flight validation lacks cross-calibration against established detectors, so altitude/latitude flux variations could arise from sensor artifacts rather than cosmic rays.","rationale":"The reader's weakest assumption directly identifies the same methodological gap; the full-text placeholder does not alter the absence of cross-calibration evidence needed to secure the strongest claim.","tokens_in":1675,"tokens_out":266,"duration_ms":16970,"concrete_test":"Re-run the in-flight or Raspberry Pi campaign with a co-located calibrated muon telescope (e.g., two scintillator paddles in coincidence); compute the Pearson correlation between SORAMAME event rate and reference rate binned by altitude/latitude. If correlation < 0.6 or the reference shows the expected variation while SORAMAME does not, the claim is unsupported.","verdict_should_be":"UNCHANGED","load_bearing_attack":"The central claim requires that the on-device CMOS pipeline (calibration, noise filtering, track detection) isolates genuine cosmic-ray ionization tracks. Consumer sensors exhibit temperature-dependent dark current, hot pixels, and cosmic-ray-like artifacts from other sources; without reported efficiency/purity metrics or simultaneous runs against a scintillator/PMT reference detector, the observed geomagnetic-shielding signature could be an environmental correlation with sensor noise rather than particle flux.","agreement_with_reader":"agree"},"referee_report":{"model":"grok-4.3","summary":"The manuscript presents SORAMAME, a smartphone/tablet application that repurposes consumer CMOS image sensors for cosmic-ray detection via on-device calibration, noise filtering, and track-candidate detection, integrated with cloud data management. It additionally describes Raspberry Pi implementations. The central claim is that in-flight validation and Raspberry Pi measurements successfully captured altitude- and latitude-dependent particle flux variations consistent with geomagnetic shielding.","tokens_in":1766,"tokens_out":393,"duration_ms":19554,"significance":"If the validation claims hold with quantitative support, the work would meaningfully lower barriers to cosmic-ray observation for education and citizen science, leveraging the ubiquity of CMOS-equipped devices for scalable data collection. The approach itself is a practical contribution to accessible instrumentation in astro-ph.IM.","major_comments":[{"comment":"Abstract and the in-flight validation description: the assertion that measurements 'successfully captured altitude and latitude-dependent variations in particle flux consistent with geomagnetic shielding' supplies no quantitative flux values, uncertainties, baseline comparisons, or statistical significance tests. This directly undermines evaluation of whether the on-device pipeline isolates cosmic-ray events.","section":"Abstract and validation results"},{"comment":"On-device extraction pipeline (calibration, noise filtering, track-candidate detection): no efficiency, purity, or false-positive metrics are reported, nor is there cross-calibration against a reference detector (scintillator/PMT). Consumer CMOS artifacts (hot pixels, temperature-dependent dark current) could produce altitude/latitude correlations unrelated to cosmic rays, making this assumption load-bearing for the central claim.","section":"Methods (SORAMAME pipeline)"}],"minor_comments":[{"comment":"Figure captions and text would benefit from explicit scale bars or pixel-to-track conversion factors when showing example events.","section":"Figures"}],"recommendation":"major_revision","confidential_remarks":null},"author_rebuttal":{"model":"grok-4.3","summary":"We thank the referee for the constructive feedback on our manuscript describing the SORAMAME application and Raspberry Pi implementations for cosmic-ray detection. We address each major comment below, indicating planned revisions where appropriate.","responses":[{"response":"We agree that the abstract and validation section would be strengthened by including quantitative details. The full manuscript contains figures and data from in-flight and Raspberry Pi measurements showing the reported variations, but these are not summarized numerically in the abstract. In revision we will update the abstract to report representative flux values (with uncertainties) at different altitudes and latitudes, along with a brief note on the consistency checks performed against expected geomagnetic effects.","revision_made":"yes","referee_comment":"[Abstract and validation results] Abstract and the in-flight validation description: the assertion that measurements 'successfully captured altitude and latitude-dependent variations in particle flux consistent with geomagnetic shielding' supplies no quantitative flux values, uncertainties, baseline comparisons, or statistical significance tests. This directly undermines evaluation of whether the on-device pipeline isolates cosmic-ray events."},{"response":"The manuscript describes the on-device pipeline but does not include quantitative efficiency, purity, or false-positive rates, nor direct cross-calibration with a reference detector. We will revise the methods section to discuss mitigation strategies for common CMOS artifacts (hot pixels, dark current) and to note the absence of formal efficiency metrics as a limitation. The Raspberry Pi tests provide an independent implementation using similar sensors, offering some supporting consistency, but we cannot retroactively supply cross-calibration data that was not collected.","revision_made":"partial","referee_comment":"[Methods (SORAMAME pipeline)] On-device extraction pipeline (calibration, noise filtering, track-candidate detection): no efficiency, purity, or false-positive metrics are reported, nor is there cross-calibration against a reference detector (scintillator/PMT). Consumer CMOS artifacts (hot pixels, temperature-dependent dark current) could produce altitude/latitude correlations unrelated to cosmic rays, making this assumption load-bearing for the central claim."}],"tokens_in":1325,"tokens_out":478,"duration_ms":17589,"standing_objections":["Quantitative efficiency, purity, and false-positive metrics for the on-device pipeline, as these were not measured or reported in the original study and cannot be added without new experiments."]},"desk_editor":{"model":"grok-4.3","letter":"The paper introduces SORAMAME, an Android app that uses phone CMOS sensors to record particle-like tracks, does on-device calibration and filtering, and uploads to the cloud. They also ran parallel measurements with Raspberry Pi cameras. The main new element is the packaged system plus their report of altitude and latitude flux changes during flights that match the expected geomagnetic pattern.\n\nWhat works is the practical focus on accessibility. The app removes the need for extra hardware, which genuinely lowers the entry cost for schools and citizen projects. The Raspberry Pi side shows they thought about scaling beyond phones.\n\nThe weak part is the evidence. The abstract claims successful capture of flux variations but gives no counts, efficiencies, purity numbers, or side-by-side runs against a scintillator or other reference detector. Consumer CMOS sensors are known for temperature-dependent dark current and hot pixels that can look like tracks, so the geomagnetic signature could be an environmental correlation with sensor behavior rather than real particles. Without those controls the central claim stays under-supported.\n\nThis is aimed at groups doing educational instrumentation or large-scale citizen monitoring rather than precision astrophysics. A reader interested in open hardware for outreach would get something usable from it.\n\nIt deserves a serious referee. The idea is straightforward and the implementation details are worth checking even if the validation needs tightening.","headline":"SORAMAME is a workable smartphone app for basic cosmic-ray counting with Raspberry Pi support, but the in-flight results rest on uncalibrated sensor data that could be noise.","tokens_in":2223,"tokens_out":344,"would_cite":false,"duration_ms":12437,"reading_group":"maybe","serious_thinker":"yes","would_accept_peer_review":true},"rs_alignment":null,"lean_confirmation":null,"pith_extraction":{"msc":[],"pacs":[],"model":"grok-4.3","headline":"Smartphone CMOS sensors detect cosmic ray particles and record their expected flux changes with altitude and latitude.","keywords":["cosmic rays","CMOS sensors","smartphones","citizen science","particle detection","geomagnetic shielding","altitude dependence","Raspberry Pi"],"falsifier":"A side-by-side comparison at the same flight altitudes and latitudes where the smartphone system records no flux increase while a calibrated professional detector does.","tokens_in":2592,"feed_emoji":"📱","tokens_out":546,"duration_ms":17400,"temperature":0.7,"pith_summary":"The paper introduces an application that repurposes the cameras already inside smartphones and tablets to record particle events from cosmic rays. It processes the raw sensor data on the device itself to filter noise and identify candidate tracks, then manages the results through cloud storage. Validation flights and separate Raspberry Pi measurements show that the detected rates rise at higher altitudes and vary with geographic latitude in the way geomagnetic shielding predicts. The approach aims to make cosmic ray observation accessible enough for schools and citizen groups to contribute real data.","feed_headline":"Smartphones record cosmic ray flux changes with altitude","feed_subtitle":"In-flight and Raspberry Pi tests show variations matching geomagnetic shielding using only built-in phone cameras.","key_machinery":"SORAMAME application that performs on-device extraction, calibration, noise filtering, and track-candidate detection using built-in CMOS image sensors.","core_discovery":"SORAMAME performs on-device calibration, noise filtering, and track-candidate detection on consumer CMOS image sensors to record particle-like events in real time. In-flight validation together with Raspberry Pi-based measurements captured altitude-dependent and latitude-dependent variations in particle flux that match the pattern expected from geomagnetic shielding.","pith_inferences":["Dense coverage from everyday phones might reveal fine-scale regional differences in cosmic ray arrival that sparse professional arrays miss.","The same on-device filtering approach could be tested on other common sensors to detect additional environmental particles.","If the method scales, real-time global flux maps could be generated from user devices during solar events."],"forward_implications":["Large numbers of existing internet-connected devices become usable for cosmic ray observation without added hardware.","Educational programs can shift into sustained citizen-science data collection at global scale.","Cloud aggregation of many low-cost measurements could supplement professional cosmic ray monitoring networks."],"fun_headline_variants":["Phone cameras record cosmic ray flux altitude changes","Smartphones measure particle variations from shielding","CMOS sensors detect cosmic ray latitude shifts","Devices track cosmic flux with geomagnetic patterns","Smartphones capture altitude cosmic ray variations"],"cache_read_input_tokens":2112,"weakest_assumption_plain":"The on-device image processing correctly identifies genuine cosmic ray particle tracks rather than noise or unrelated artifacts inside ordinary smartphone cameras.","fun_headline_variants_meta":{"raw":{"variants":["Phone cameras record cosmic ray flux altitude changes","Smartphones measure particle variations from shielding","CMOS sensors detect cosmic ray latitude shifts","Devices track cosmic flux with geomagnetic patterns","Smartphones capture altitude cosmic ray variations"]},"model":"grok-4.3","cost_usd":0.004177,"raw_usage":{"total_tokens":2011,"prompt_tokens":627,"num_sources_used":0,"completion_tokens":60,"cost_in_usd_ticks":41765500,"prompt_tokens_details":{"text_tokens":627,"audio_tokens":0,"image_tokens":0,"cached_tokens":64},"completion_tokens_details":{"audio_tokens":0,"reasoning_tokens":1324,"accepted_prediction_tokens":0,"rejected_prediction_tokens":0}},"tokens_in":627,"tokens_out":60,"duration_ms":12951,"temperature":1.0,"reasoning_tokens":1324,"cache_read_input_tokens":64,"cache_creation_input_tokens":0},"cache_creation_input_tokens":0},"created_at":"2026-07-03T05:06:13.315829+00:00","model_set":{"reader":"grok-4.3"},"falsifier":"A side-by-side comparison at the same flight altitudes and latitudes where the smartphone system records no flux increase while a calibrated professional detector does.","supporting_citations":[],"review_version":1}