Photomultipliers activity inside the ANTARES project

The ANTARES collaboration is building a deep underwater neutrino telescope. The detection principle is based on the observation of the Cherenkov light produced by a lepton issued from a neutrino interaction with the matter. The detector will consist of about 10 000 large hemispherical photomultipliers with a very good time resolution. After an introduction to the ANTARES project, the design of the ANTARES Optical Module and the various testing facilities will be described. The measured performances on five types of photomultipliers from three different manufacturers (Electron Tube Limited Ltd, Hamamatsu and Photonis) will be finally presented and discussed.