Reports until 16:30, Wednesday 20 March 2013
H1 SUS
betsy.weaver@LIGO.ORG - posted 16:30, Wednesday 20 March 2013 (5851)
PR IAS alignment - PRM is problematic

With the longitudinal, vertical and horizontal alignments of the PRM and PR3 completed (although no alogs to support this since Jason has 180'ed to LLO again), the PLX was removed from the alignment.  The theodolite was set up on the IFO beam path (BS to PR3) and we retroreflected the beam through the PR optics.  We needed to use some alignment bias:

 

PR3 bias to center beam on PR2

PITCH = -225

YAW = -85

 

PR2 bias to center beam on PRM

PITCH = +450

YAW = +350

 

Finding the Theodolite HeNe beam reflection from PRM back up to PR2 proved extremely difficult however.  After spending a few hours walking the MC beam tube and sorting the who's-who of beams, we finally found it, but it was very faint and blowing up in size.  By the time it reached the IO baffle in the beam tube just a few feet away, it was ~3 inches in size.  I could not trace the beam back down the tube, even while walking it down with a laminated target.  We will need a different means of optical alignment to complete the PRM alignment.

 

Note, it would have been helpful for IAS to have a set of beam height targets, like we did for iLIGO.  I have not been fond of holding rulers up near the fronts of suspensions with naked optics inches (or less) away!  Please pursue this for the SR alignment.  I believe IO has some iris targets for specific suspensions in their chain - let's copy those...