  The project OptoTracker aims to investigate a new approach to track charged
particles in a scintillating material, by using the optical signal. Our idea is
to reconstruct the trajectory of a charged particle by collecting the
scintillation light emitted along the path with pixelized photo-detectors. This
would permit to obtain an image of the track, similarly to what is done in a
photographic camera. Full 3D reconstruction is performed by using both the
charge distribution and the hit time information folded in a sophisticated
reconstruction algorithm.
  This solution, compared to "traditional" tracking methods, exploits the
fastest information carrier within a material: the light. Therefore, an optical
tracking detector would be intrinsically capable of sustaining a very high
interaction rate. Moreover, the intrinsic resolution would not be limited by
carriers diffusion, as happens in charge-transport based detectors. This new
technology could have a very large impact both on beam experiments, thanks to
the possible increase in the acquisition rate, and in rare-physics experiments
(double-$\beta$ decay, dark-matter searches, neutrino oscillation searches),
where the enhanced particle-id and directionality capability can provide
significant background reduction.
  This project has been presented to the INFN-Gruppo 5 call for young
scientists in 2014, with positive result. It has been founded for the years
2015-2016.
