A Focusing-Lightguide Disc DIRC for PID for the PANDA experiment at FAIR/GSI

Proton-antiproton annihilation is a unique tool to address fundamental questions of the strong interaction and to explore the structure of the nucleon. The PANDA collaboration proposes to build a state-of-the-art universal detector system to study reactions of anti-protons impinging on a proton or nuclear target internal to the high energy storage ring at the planned FAIR facility at GSI, Darmstadt, Germany. Superior particle identification of charged and neutral particles is mandatory to fulfill PANDA´s physics aims. Detectors for particle identification include energy measurements in tracking detectors, precision Time-Of-Flight detectors, electromagnetic calorimeters, muon chambers and Cherenkov detectors imaging. The central detector will feature a barrel DIRC covering the central region and a novel Disc DIRC providing particle identification capabilities in the forward region. Both DIRC systems will benefit from recent advances in detector technology aiming for a 3D DIRC design. The technical detector design, the current status of the development and first results from the recent prototype test experiment of the Focusing-Lightguide Disc DIRC will be presented.