Physics with the CHIMERA detector at LNS CATANIA methodology-experimental results- Future development

The new Charged Heavy Ion Mass and Energy Resolving Array CHIMERA was designed to significantly contribute to Multifragmentation studies in Heavy Ion collisions at Fermi energy (20A.MeV < E < 100A.MeV). The multi detector is presently being set up at LNS in Catania. On April 2000 the first physical campaign, the REVERSE experiment, was started and data analysis is going on. Tile nuclear systems Sn-124 + Ni-64, Sn-124 + Al-27 and Sn-112 + Ni-58 at 35 A.MeV were investigated in reverse kinematics. Preliminary results have proved experimental capability of the apparatus for the full isotopic identification of both light charged particles (1<Z<4) and light clusters (Z<10) in a large angular domain. The relevant role of the isospin degree of freedom in multifragmentation is deduced from isotope distribution analysis. Moreover CHIMERA fostered the interest of researchers on Informatics disciplines. Distributed architecture of PCs and DSP's boards has been developed for the control of the multidetector and on-line computation. while neural network approach has been used in the application of image processing to the automatic analysis of the collected data.