  The anticipated performance of calorimeter crystals in the environment
expected after the planned High-Luminosity upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider
(HL-LHC) at CERN has to be well understood, before informed decisions can be
made on the need for detector upgrades. Throughout the years of running at the
HL-LHC, the detectors will be exposed to considerable fluences of fast hadrons,
that have been shown to cause cumulative transparency losses in Lead Tungstate
scintillating crystals. In this study, we present direct evidence of the main
underlying damage mechanism. Results are shown from a test that yields a direct
insight into the nature of the hadron-specific damage in Lead Tungstate
calorimeter crystals exposed to 24 GeV/c protons.
