The FIDIAS project: Development of a Micromegas TPC for the detection of low-energy heavy ions

Time Projection Chambers are widely used since many years for tracking and identification of charged particles in high energy physics. We present here a new R&D project, called FIDIAS, meant to investigate the feasibility of a Micromegas TPC for low energy heavy ions detection. In this framework, a TPC prototype based on Micromegas bulk technique has been extensively tested with spontaneous fission source. A deep analysis of the experimental results has been realized leading to a full characterization of the prototype in terms of gain, energy resolution and track reconstruction as a function of three working gas: helium, neon and argon. The encouraging results have also been compared to simulations, showing the Micromegas TPC is a very well suited detector for the detection of heavy ions in nuclear reactions at low energy.