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Reports until 23:53, Wednesday 30 January 2013
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giacomo.ciani@LIGO.ORG - posted 23:53, Wednesday 30 January 2013 (5329)
IMC re-alignment from PSL

[Kiwamu, Cheryl, Giacomo]

Today, after we completed the power budget, we left the IMC locked and went to lunch. later on, we cound the IMC unlocked and almost impossible to lock, with any sort of higher order modes flashing and the control signals going a bit crazy.

A look at the last couple of hours showed that shortly after we locked the IMC, the mode matching had a glitch and then began to drift rapidly, bringing the DC_REFL power from about 75% to about 60% in 5 min, after which the lock was lost (see attached figure)

After verifying that both suspension and ISIs did not show any anomaly tha could explain the drift, we realized tha Kiwamu had been working in the PSL enlcosure around that time, and in particular installing a bracket on the PSL periscope. He reported that no particular accident accurred, and he did not vibrate or kick the periscope.

Kiwamu went back to the PSL and did a wonderful job in manually adjusting the top mirror mount, bringing the visibility back to about 87%. The operation required very tiny corrections to the mount, confirmng that nothing macroscopic happened during Kiwamu's previous work in the PSL (although ti was enough to make the IMC unlockable). The lock went back to be as easy as it used to be...

It is not clear if the added bracket weight caused the periscope to flex, or if the vibrations of working at the periscope caused the mount to move. In any case, it is clear that the IMC alignment is extrmely sensitive to any work perfomed around the PSL periscope... it is good to keep that in mind!

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