First Light from Beam Neutrinos on an LAPPD in ANNIE
hep-ex
/ Authors
B. W. Adams, S. Abubakar, D. Ajana, M. A. Aman, M. Ascencio-Sosa, A. Augusthy, Z. Bagdasarian, J. Beacom, M. Bergevin, D. Bick
and 64 more authors
M. Breisch, E. Brunner-Huber, G. Caceres Vera, S. Dazeley, S. Deng, S. Donnelly, S. Doran, E. Drakopoulou, S. Edayath, R. Edwards, J. Eisch, Y. Feng, V. Fischer, R. Foster, S. Gardiner, N. Goehlke, S. Gokhale, A. Gupta, P. Hackspacher, C. Hagner, J. He, B. Kaiser, M. Kandemir, J. Kautz
/ Abstract
The Accelerator Neutrino Neutron Interaction Experiment (ANNIE) is both a physics experiment and a technology testbed for next-generation light-based neutrino detection. In this paper, we report the first demonstration of a fully integrated Large Area Picosecond Photodetector (LAPPD) operating in a running neutrino beam experiment. Particular focus is given to the design, commissioning, and successful deployment of the Packaged ANNIE LAPPD (PAL), a waterproof, self-triggering module incorporating fast waveform digitization and precision timing synchronized to the ANNIE detector subsystems. We identify beam-correlated LAPPD data frames consistent with charged-current neutrino interactions observed in multiple detector subsystems, establishing the first detection of neutrino-induced Cherenkov light with an LAPPD. These results validate the system-level performance of LAPPDs under realistic experimental conditions-including long-term stability, timing synchronization, and event matching with conventional PMT and muon detector systems-marking a critical step toward their deployment in future large-scale neutrino and particle detectors.