Laboratory tests of the response stability of the ATLAS Tile Calorimeter photomultipliers

High performance of the ATLAS Tile Calorimeter response is achieved with a multi- stage calibration. One step of the calibration is based on measurements of the response to laser pulse excitation of the PMTs used to read out the calorimeter cells. A facility to study the PMT stability response is operating in the PISA-INFN laboratories since 2015. Goals of the tests are to study the time evolution of the PMT response as a function of the integrated anode charge and to compare test bench results with the observed response drifts of the Tile Calorimeter PMTs during LHC Run I and Run II. A new statistical approach was used to measure the drift of the absolute PMT gain. A new procedure which combines studies of the time evolution of the global PMT responses and of the individual PMT gains was adopted to derive the evolution of the cathode quantum efficiency. The experimental setup of the Pisa facility is described and the first results obtained by testing about 30 PMTs Hamamatsu model R7877 (a special evolution for Tile of the R5900 model, 10 stages, 20 mm × 20 mm active cathode surface) are presented.