Discharge studies in Micromegas detectors in low energy hadron beams

We present measurements of discharge rates in various Micromegas detectors in low energy hadron beams for applications foreseen at the future experiments CLAS12 at JLab and MINOS at GSI. The tests were performed in the T11 beam line of the CERN/PS using hadron beams with momentum between 0.2 and 3GeV/c. The discharge probability decreases smoothly below 1GeV/c, except at some specific energies where narrow peaks are observed. The position of the peaks corresponds to the stop point of protons and heavier particles, predicted by the Geant4 simulation. Discharge rates were also measured using Micromegas prototypes equipped with a GEM foil as foreseen for the COMPASS experiment at CERN.