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Reports until 16:42, Wednesday 20 May 2026
H1 AOS (SUS, SYS)
jason.oberling@LIGO.ORG - posted 16:42, Wednesday 20 May 2026 (90296)
BBS Position Alignment, Round 1

R. Crouch, J. Oberling, I. Abouelfettouh, O. Patane

As Ibrahim reported here, we have completed the first round of BBS position alignment (I say first round as we still have to do the pitch/yaw alignment, and that has the potential to change the position alignment so we may be doing this again).  In the basis of our alignment equipment, which is set normal to the AR face of the BBS, the deviations from nominal are:

If we rotate these deviations to the XYZ axes using the BBS yaw we get deviations along those axes.  I'm using the target BBS yaw for this (specifically, the AR surface yaw from the +X axis of 45.1056°), as we have yet to measure or align the actual BBS yaw, so this is more of an estimate at this point but will work for now (it takes a yaw change on the order of several degrees to change this calculation at the 0.1 mm level, so this is a pretty good estimate); this will be tightened up once we align the BBS pointing and revisit the positioning.  The results (the tolerances rotate with the deviations, hence the change in X and Y):

The below table gives the target position of the center of the BBS's AR surface and the current position based on the above estimate of the XYZ deviations (all units are in mm):

BBS AR Surface Postion Alignment Results, Round 1
Axis Target Position Actual Position Deviation Tolerance
X -160.4 -160.5 -0.1 +/- 1.4
Y -226.3 -225.8 +0.5 +/- 1.4
Z -83.1 -83.2 -0.1 +/- 1.0

The next step in the alignment is to use the FARO to set up a total station/laser autocollimator combo looking along the target surface normal of the HR surface of the BBS.  This will be used to align the BBS pitch and yaw.  Once that is done we'll have to re-check the BBS position alignment (again, using the AR surface of the BBS) to ensure the pointing alignment did not change the optic's position (which may happen in this case as the BBS is currently, as Ibrahim reports, "quite yawed").

H1 AOS (SUS, SYS)
jason.oberling@LIGO.ORG - posted 17:05, Monday 18 May 2026 (90274)
BBS SUS Cage Aligned to ISI

R. Crouch, B. Weaver, I. Abouelfettouh, J. Oberling, R. Thompson

Today we placed and aligned the BBS SUS cage on the WBSC2 ISI.  In the morning we rough placed the SUS, and thought we had done a really good job on the first attempt.  However, that was fed by a misread of how the Build/Inspect function in PolyWorks, well, works, and upon doing a more thorough measurement (directly measuring a constraining plane to inform SMR radius compensation instead of letting PolyWorks handle it automatically) we found there was a position and rotation error to the cage.

In the afternoon we moved the SUS cage around until things looked really good.  We were well within our +/-1.0 mm XYZ tolerance, but once the SUS had been fully dog clamped to the ISI things shifted (as they do).  In this case, it was roughly 0.5 mm in the +Y direction.  All of our measurement points except one are within tolerance, so we called this good enough for SUS cage placement.  To end, Ryan and I measured the circle that's defined by the lower section of the Figure 8 (the round section of the SUS cage that surrounds the BBS) on both the HR and AR sides of the cage.  The first attachement shows the position deviations of the 4 points we used for cage placement/alignment and the current position of the HR and AR Figure 8; all except the Y axis position of 1 point are within our tolerance.  The second attachment shows the rotation of the SUS cage w.r.t. the ISI; the angles listed are in degrees and are measured from the positive axes they are associated with (so X Ang is measured from the +X axis).  These 2 lines show that the SUS cage is rotated roughly 400 - 500 µrad CCW (top-down view) from nominal.

Next up is to set up a total station looking at the AR face of the BBS to precisely align the optic to the ISI.

Images attached to this report
H1 AOS (SYS)
jason.oberling@LIGO.ORG - posted 09:43, Friday 08 May 2026 - last comment - 10:55, Friday 08 May 2026(90170)
aLIGO BS Test Stand Surveying Complete (WP 13210)

R. Crouch, J. Oberling, B. Weaver, S. Appert

We are done with the surveying of the aLIGO BS on the mechanical test stand.  I'm still working on processing the data but can give a quick overview of where things stand:

I'm working on a larger alog tying together all of our BS and WBSC2 measurements (WBSC2 support tube ends, BS in-chamber, and BS on the test stand) to provide a more complete picture of the BS alignment as we have measured it these last couple of weeks (it's going to be a long one); this alog will have the full set of data from the various test stand measurements.  In addition, the SUS and IAS teams met yesterday to discuss our path forward.  We decided that, despite the error seen in pointing on the test stand, we will align the BBS to its nominal position and pointing w.r.t. the ISI on the test stand.  Once back in-chamber we will use the BBS SUS cage position as the metric for adjusting HEPI to once again place the BBS in its nominal in-chamber position; pointing will be restored with the BS optical lever, as originally planned.  I'll write up a RODA documenting this decision and upload it to the DCC ASAP.

This completes LHO WP 13210.

Edit: Some spelling and grammar clean up.

Comments related to this report
ryan.crouch@LIGO.ORG - 10:55, Friday 08 May 2026 (90174)EPO

Adding some photos I took throughout the test stand measurements Tagging EPO.

Images attached to this comment
H1 General (SPI, SYS)
mitchell.robinson@LIGO.ORG - posted 14:34, Wednesday 06 May 2026 (90138)
Mode Cleaner Lower Baffle panel removed

Robert, Mitchell

During HAM3 chamber work yesterday the lower panel of the MCB2 panel was removed. This was needed for a clear path for the SPI. There were concerns that the removal would be difficult. The tolerence on the holes in the panels put strain and binding pressure on the screws going into the gussets. A few of the screws needed to gentle coaxing with patience and some Isopropal alcohol. Eventually they all came out without breaking or seizing. No pictures of the removal process were taken.

Pictures of the baffles added to HAM3 will be documented in a different alog.

Images attached to this report
H1 ISC (INS, ISC, SYS)
keita.kawabe@LIGO.ORG - posted 15:50, Tuesday 28 April 2026 - last comment - 15:50, Tuesday 28 April 2026(90039)
OMC QPD sense pin problem: Solved

Summary:

The problem of "Sense" pin of OMCA QPD1 short-circuited to the BHDS structure (alog 90029 from yesterday) was tracked down to the free "sense" wire inside the QPD enclosure touching the aluminum part inside the enclosure. We solved the problem by trimming the wire short.

Merely opening the QPD enclosure broke the short circuit temporarily:

We lifted the OMCA QPD1 from the BHDS while QPD2 is still attached to the BHDS and confirmed that the sense pin for the QPD1 is conductive to the QPD1 enclosure but not to the BHDS. As soon as we opened the back of the QPD1 enclosure, the short-circuit to the enclosure was broken. 

It seemed that the free part of the sense wire was a bit too long and bowed in the enclosure, allowing the tip of that wire to touch the inside wall of the enclosure itself (see Elenna's first image in her comments).

Cutting the sense wire short broke the short circuit permanently:

I cut the wire short such that it cannot touch the enclosure (Elenna's second picture), reassembled the enclosure and confirmed that there's no short circuit between the sense pin and anything else. 

Repeating the tests:

We put the QPD1 back on the BHDS and connected the cable to the transimpedance amplifier. On the oscilloscope, it was immediately apparent that the terrible 60Hz noise (which was 6.5V p-p) was gone (Elenna's 3rd picture).

We repeated the flashlight test, all segments responded with O(1)mV negative voltage (i.e. positive output minus negative output from the TIA amplifier was negative few mV maximum) while the dark offset was O(0.1mV).

We also measured the dark noise. It seems that all measurements for both QPD1 and QPD2 were limited by the noise of the TIA. Low frequency noise especially 60Hz and its harmonics varied from channel to channel, but in all cases it seemed that there's very little difference between the noise measured with QPD connected VS the noise without QPD. As such, I'll just show here a few examples. First attachment is the QPD1 segment 1 noise with the QPD attached, the second is the same thing but without QPD connected to the front panel of the TIA. They look identical. The third one is the QPD1 segment 4 (with QPD attached, not much different without QPD). The fourth one is the QPD2 segment 3 (with QPD attached, not much different without QPD).

There's no reason to suspect that QPD1 for OMCA is broken (nor QPD2).

Images attached to this report
Comments related to this report
elenna.capote@LIGO.ORG - 15:27, Tuesday 28 April 2026 (90040)

Here are photos of the QPD housing with the back removed. You can see a long unsoldered wire that we identified as the "sense" wire with conducitivity tests. This is pointed out with the pink arrow. You can also see an extra mystery wire pointed out by the blue arrow. We don't know what that wire is attached to. The wire pointed by the blue arrow is actually the shielding wire which is connected to pin 1.

The after photo shows the sense wire after Keita clipped it short, pointed out with a pink arrow.

I have also included a photo of the oscilloscope image of segment 1 of both OMCA QPDs.

Images attached to this comment
H1 ISC (CDS, INS, ISC, SYS)
keita.kawabe@LIGO.ORG - posted 23:16, Monday 27 April 2026 - last comment - 23:46, Monday 27 April 2026(90026)
OMCA-QPD1 sense pin is shorted to the suspension platform, causing massive 60Hz problem (Elenna, Keita)

Problem

We started checking the health of QPDs and were puzzled that all four quadrants of the OMCA QPDA are much, much noisier than OMCA QPDB.

Note, there's a naming inconsistency about the QPD numbering between D2200276 wiring diagram and D0981811 (see "cartoon version"). 

D0981811 OMCA QPD-1 OMCA QPD-2 OMCB QPD-1 OMCB QPD-2
D2200276 QPD-2 QPD-1 QPD-8 QPD-7

Cause of the problem

Anyway, the problem was tracked down to short-circuit of common mode noise sensing line for OMCA-QPD1 (pin 11 of DB25 inside the vacuum, pin 3 outside of the vacuum, see attached) to the metal part of the suspension structure (i.e. ISI surface and the chamber) which in turn is grounded to the lab ground.

OMCA QPD-2 as well as both of the QPDs for OMCB are fine.

All QPD segments (incl. OMCA QPD1) responded to the flashlight.

Dark noise test: OMCB QPDs looks OK, not sure about OMCA QPDs

We connected a dual-QPD trans impedance chassis (S1102832, which is the original version of D1002481) to the OMCB QPDs like this:

QPDs-DB25 assy - in-vac cable (DB25F-DB25F)  - feedthrough simulator - DB25F-to-DB25M-cable - S1102832 front panel.

We looked at the output of the TIA with SR785 when there's only ambient light on QPDs (not much), segment by segment. No segment was extra noisy or anything.

OMCA QPDs are a different story because of the 60Hz problem. 

We'll see if the problem could be solved by somehow reassembling the QPD or cutting the noise line. 

Images attached to this report
Comments related to this report
keita.kawabe@LIGO.ORG - 23:46, Monday 27 April 2026 (90029)

1st attachment shows the connection from the QPD to TIA. ("S1P" "S2N" etc. mean segment 1 positive pin, segment 2 negative pin etc.) Before the in-vac cable was actually connected to the feedthrough simulator, we confirmed that the positive bias (3V) came to pin 23 and pin 20 of the feedthrough simulator on the in-vac side as per the connection diagram D2200276.

2nd attachment shows how the output of the TIA (all differential) was connected to SR785 or oscilloscope, using QPD1 seg1 as an example.

3rd attachment shows that CH1 (yellow), which is the segment 1 positive pin of the QPD1 for OMCA, was terrible while the segment 1 positive of QPD2 for OMCA (blue) was not. Though there's no picture, the terrible 60Hz noise appeared in the negative pin with the opposite sign (for QPD1) so it's not cancelled.

For OMCB QPDs, DC offset of all segments were smaller than 1mV when there was no light (used a fluke DVM to measure across positive and negative pins). For OMCA QPD2 that was also the case.

OMCB_QPD[12]_SEG[1234].jpg are the noise measurements for OMCB QPDs using SR785. The TIA output (which receives 0.4:40 whitening in the chassis) just shows the TIA noise from 200Hz and higher for the entire frequency range without any light on QPDs, which looks fine to me. There's no reason to suspect that one or more of these segments/QPDs are broken.

The last attachment (QPD_removed.jpg) shows a measurement of OMCB_QPD2_SEG4 after disconnecting the QPD from the front panel, showing the TIA noise floor. SR785 noise floor is lower than this.

Images attached to this comment
H1 SYS
betsy.weaver@LIGO.ORG - posted 14:05, Monday 27 April 2026 - last comment - 10:38, Friday 08 May 2026(90021)
BSC2 Cartridge on the Test Stand
The BSC2 cartridge was removed from the BSC2 chamber today and placed on the Test Stand in the West Bay (+Y bay).  The lift took 3 "test lifts" to make very minor adjustments to the CG prior to lift out of the chamber - on the 4th lift, we were very well balanced so embarked on the flight.
Like LLO, the BS had it's "Stay Leg" assemblies and Vibration Absorber Assemblies removed for the flight.  This means it was probably lighter than the 2013 time (alog 5689) when we did this which had the weight slightly heavier.  The cartridge plus 3-point lift fixture and load cell together all weighed 9380 lbs.  It was rotated 90deg Counterclockwise per the procedures and landed on the threaded rod in the test stand with little issue other than careful craning and spotting.
All went as expected and according to the procedures E1200433-v3, E1200971-v4 and associated docs.

Mitchell, Travis, Tyler, Randy (on crane) all up on the platform
Jim and Tony inside of BSC2
Gerardo, Jordan on the eMod as Support
TJ on the camera
Betsy soaking it all in (support)

A pre-lift meeting was held to go over the teams and maneuver details (again) at 9am prior to work starting.

Particle counts up at the dome level were all 0,0 before starting.
More photos and videos will be posted when those folks have them available.

Covers used - A BS/QUAD SUS tube cover up underneath, an ISI cover up on the ISI, the BSC Cartridge sock which encased the whole thing, dropped down to Jim and Tony once the lift was up a couple feet.  

The bulk of the work was from ~10:30am-1pm.  Most of the time before was getting folks in headsets and gear and getting equipment on.


Images attached to this report
Comments related to this report
jenne.driggers@LIGO.ORG - 20:36, Monday 27 April 2026 (90028)

Going over the details during the 9am pre-lift meeting. Congratulations, all, on a smooth operation!

Images attached to this comment
betsy.weaver@LIGO.ORG - 08:15, Tuesday 05 May 2026 (90121)

More photos posted at alog 90103.

corey.gray@LIGO.ORG - 10:38, Friday 08 May 2026 (90177)EPO

tagging for photos.

H1 SYS (SUS)
betsy.weaver@LIGO.ORG - posted 16:52, Thursday 23 April 2026 - last comment - 08:24, Wednesday 29 April 2026(89991)
BSC2 Cartridge de-install prep
Today, with the BS SUS set to SAFE and the SEI chassis turned off at the rack, Tony, Ibrahim and I started unplugging and logging all of the cables in the chamber at the feedthrus.  I have a master log going which will be posted as an As-Built to the D1003079 BSC2 Flange Feedthru Layout Drawing for future re-plug-in activities.  Pictures of 2 feedthrus prior to unplugging are attached for samples of what I'm talking about.

As well, we dropped the ITMX Elliptical Baffle and Down Tube Sub assemblies from Stage 2 and have a good start on the ITMY one but didn't finish since it has mismatched hardware and we need a different tool.  (In the event we need to put them back up, we left them off to the sides of the chamber to deal with later - the ITMX one is the one closest into the ITMX chamber.)

Also also, we locked the BS SUS, tightened all of the nuts, removed all of the Vibration Absorber Cubes, and put the sock on the full SUS.

Tomorrow we need to:

Add the BS Face cover
Remove a Stay or 4
Finish stowing all of the dangling cables
Finish removing the ITMY Elliptical Baffle
Get on with the Support Tube and SEI work
Images attached to this report
Comments related to this report
betsy.weaver@LIGO.ORG - 08:24, Wednesday 29 April 2026 (90051)
Here is a snapshot of the LHO BSC2 AS-BUILT cheatsheet of cable serial numbers, also posted as a google doc on https://dcc.ligo.org/LIGO-D1003079.
Non-image files attached to this comment
H1 SYS
betsy.weaver@LIGO.ORG - posted 14:31, Wednesday 22 April 2026 (89977)
BSC2 Cartidge preps
PARTICLE COUNTS in Cleanroom Tent on top of BSC2:  All zeros (or puffs of 10) across from the HEPA flow bank on the opposite side of the ISI pillow, see pix attached.  Counted just after crew left area doing walking plates.  The Tent is working as planned.

PEM BNCs wandering across the West bay was coiled up out of the way of all of the heavy foot traffic.

PEM WEST BAY WALL COIL cables across floor has been disconnected and also coiled up and now out of the way of heavy foot traffic. 

Travis/Mitchell/Randy installed the Walking Plates for better access to the ISI up at the platform level.  Note, after some deliberation and re-reviewing of the drawings (which are actually incorrect), it turns out that you cannot attach the bolts to the underside of the flanges anyways due to in-accessibility of the area.  LLO doesn't recall using them recently either. (Last picture)
Images attached to this report
H1 AOS (SEI, SUS, SYS)
jason.oberling@LIGO.ORG - posted 15:45, Thursday 16 April 2026 - last comment - 11:40, Tuesday 26 May 2026(89913)
Survey of WBSC2 ISI, BS SUS, and ITM Elliptical Baffles (WP 13171)

J. Oberling, R. Crouch, J. Warner, B. Weaver, I. Abouelfettouh

This week we surveyed the position of the components that reside in WBSC2: The BS SUS cage (BSS), the ISI optics table (ISI Stage 2), and the 2 ITM Elliptical Baffles.

BS and the SUS Cage

The first picture shows our FARO survey of points on the BS SUS cage, chiefly along the bottom of the main support structure.  These were surveyed by holding the FARO SMR against the hole being measured; the PolyWorks software handles the compensation from the center of the SMR to the point being measured.  As can be seen, each point is very close in both X and Y axis position, being less than 0.1mm from its nominal location.  The Z axis deviations are larger, but the largest of them is just over 0.25 mm, so every point is well within the positioning specifications used during installation and alignment in 2013.

Line 1 in the picture was created from the first and last survey points and represents the pointing of the BS SUS cage; all angles are reported in degrees.  Some things to note here: I'm using the Acute Angle datum in PolyWorks, which is the angle measured from the closest axis.  For the HR surface normal of the BS, the X Acute Angle is measured from the -X axis, the Y Acute Angle is measured from the +Y axis, and the Z Acute Angle is measured from the +Z axis.  Since Line 1 is roughly perpendicular to the surface normal of the BS HR face, the axes the angles measure from are changed: The X Acute angle is now measured from the +X axis, the Y Acute Angle is still from the +Y axis, and the Z Acute Angle is now from the -Z axis.  In addition, since Line 1 is nominally perpendicular to the BS HR surface normal I would expect the X and Y Acute angles to be swapped (BS X Acute = Line 1 Y Acute; BS Y Acute = Line 1 X Acute), but they aren't exactly.  This appears to be a small error in the CAD model, if we make the assumption that the BS HR surface and the HR side of the BS SUS cage are nominally pointing in the same direction.  This does, however, change the deviations for the X and Y Acute angles for Line 1.  The table below shows what the data for Line 1 should be:

  Nominal Measured Deviation
X Acute Angle 44.9699 44.9073 -0.0626
Y Acute Angle 45.0301 45.0927 0.0626
Z Acute Angle 90.0000 89.9661 -0.0339

This means the BS SUS cage is yawed 0.0626°, or ~1.09 mrad, in the clockwise (CW) direction when looking from the top down (since Line 1 is closer to the +X axis than it should be).  The Z Acute Angle represents a slight counterclockwise (CCW) roll of the SUS cage, when looking directly at the HR surface of the BS.

To attempt to better locate the BS in the IFO coordinate system, several measurements were taken with a ruler from points on the "Figure 8" section of the BS SUS cage to the BS optic itself.  All measurments except one were done using a scale with 0.5 mm tic marks (so accurate to +/- 0.25 mm).  The 10:00 "Figure 8 face to BS HR face" measurement had to be done using the side of the scale in inches, with 1/32" tic marks (so accurate to +/- 1/64") and then converted to mm (so accurate to +/- 0.4 mm).  The measurements positions are listed like the BS HR surface is a clock, and assumes you are looking directly at the HR surface.  The below table gives those results:

  Outside Edge of Figure 8 to BS optic edge (mm) Front face of Figure 8 to BS HR face (mm)
3:00 (-X/-Y) 6:00 (-Z) 9:00 (+X/+Y) 2:00 6:00 10:00
Measurement 49.0 48.75 48.5 24.75 27.0 26.2
CAD Nominal 49.0 49.0 49.0 26.2 26.2 26.2
Deviation 0.0 -0.25 -0.5 -1.45 +0.8 0.0

The BS sits decently centered in the Figure 8 portion of the SUS cage, a little bit low and to the +X/+Y side.  I would say not as much horizontally as it looks from the table, given the inherent error with reading the scale (the BS is not wider than its 370.0 mm specification, it's actually 0.15 mm narrower at 369.85 mm).  The pointing implied by this measurement, however, is more than a little alarming.  The 2:00 and 10:00 measurements show a significant yaw of the BS optic w.r.t. the SUS cage, and in the same direction as the yaw of the SUS cage as measured by the FARO.  There is ~320.0 mm between the 2:00 and 10:00 positions on the BS, so that 1.45 mm difference in depth is a 4.53 mrad CW yaw.  When added to the CW yaw of the SUS cage, this measurement shows that the BS optic is yawed 5.62 mrad CW from its nominal yaw.  Even assuming the errors fall in our favor (so the 2:00 at 25.0 mm and the 10:00 at 25.8 mm), that's still a 3.59 mrad CW yaw (2.5 mrad BS and 1.09 mrad SUS cage).  In addition, the 6:00 measurement implies a significant downward pitch of potentially several mrad, although with no way to measure the top of the optic we can't actually measure it.  I have to be honest, I'm having a very hard time believing this measurement; we will revisit this once the BS cartridge has been moved to the test stand, where we have a better field of view for the FARO, more room to work and much better lighting around the BS, and can take direct measurements of the BS position and pointing using a total station and laser autocollimator (although there is no guarantee that the optic will be pointing in exactly the same direction after being craned across the LVEA).  More to come on this.

ISI Optics Table

The second attachment shows the ISI positions as measured by the FARO.  I've corrected the Z axis positions for the length of the rod we use to hang the SMR from the ISI so they give a better idea of the Z axis position.  Not much can be said here, as LLO discovered that while these rods are good for measuring the Z axis position, they are not at all good at measuring X and Y.  This makes sense as they were designed to be accurate in length and only length, so there's no guarantee that X and Y are repeatable.  We plan on measuring the X and Y errors of this particular set of rods in the coming days (align to a table with a known hole pattern, attach the rod and measure with the FARO, repeat multiple times to see how the X and Y positions change).  For now, we can say that the ISI is lower on the -X side vs the +X side, and lower on the +Y side vs the -Y side.  I'm not alarmed by the deviations in Z axis position, as this ISI was supposed to be lower by ~2.5 mm (to place the BS in proper Z axis position, since it's lower in the IFO coordinate system but the SUS is the same length as the QUADs), but this was never captured in the CAD files.

ITM Elliptical Baffles

The final four attachments show our survey of both ITM elliptical baffles.  Our view of the baffles and available fiducials to take measurements from were both limited, but we can say a few things.

ITMx Elliptical Baffle

We were able to get two points along the +Y bottom edge of the baffle, a single point along the +Y top edge, and single point near the center of the -X bottom edge of the baffle.  From this I made a couple of planes that represent the +Y and bottom sides of the baffle and are shown in the third and fourth attachments; I, J, and K are the direction cosines of the surface normal of the plane, while the listed angles are the angle from the surface normal to the +X, +Y, and +Z axes. Interestingly, the point on the top edge looks very well aligned, within 1.0 mm all around, while the points along the bottom of the baffle are all low by several mm.  In addition, there appears to be a significant upward pitch to the baffle.  Jim did note that when attaching the transport bracket he had to push the baffle in the +X direction to clear ~0.5 mm at the point where the bracket attaches to the suspended portion of the baffle.  This point is roughly 476 mm away from the baffle's suspension blade, so this is an ~1.05 mrad angle.  Applying this same angle along the bottom of the baffle box gives an ~ -0.33 mm Z axis move of that bottom -X edge of the baffle, so this does not account for the measured deviation.  In addition to the pitch, the bottom plane also shows a large roll (CCW when looking at the ITMx in WBSC3), while the side plane shows a large yaw (CCW when looking from the top down).  We know these baffle panels aren't exactly straight, so it's hard to say if this significant pointing is also present on the elliptical hole of the baffle (we couldn't see it, so we couldn't measure it directly).

ITMy Elliptical Baffle

Similar to the ITMx baffle, we were only able to get a handful of points along the -X side and the bottom of the baffle.  I made planes from these points representing the -X side and the bottom of the baffle (fifth and sixth attachments).  As seen with the ITMx baffle, the points along the top of the baffle all look good while the points on the bottom are too low by several mm.  There is a significant upward pitch to this baffle as well, as well as a large roll (CCW when looking at ITMy in WBSC1) and yaw (CCW when looking from the top down), although none are as large those as seen on the ITMx elliptical baffle.  Again, we could not see the elliptical hole in the baffle to measure it, so we can't say if this pointing is an artifact of the panels or also present on the actual baffle portion of the baffle.

This completes our in-chamber measurements of the WBSC2 cartridge assembly, and closes LHO WP 13171.

I also want to note, Ryan and I also preformed some in-chamber FARO measurements in WHAM3 (ISI, MC2 SUS cage, PR2 SUS cage, MC2 and PR2 baffles) on April 10th; I will post those as soon as I get a chance to process the data in PolyWorks.

Images attached to this report
Comments related to this report
corey.gray@LIGO.ORG - 15:59, Thursday 16 April 2026 (89925)EPO

Some action photos while Jason & RyanC were chamberside at HAM3.

Images attached to this comment
jason.oberling@LIGO.ORG - 11:06, Tuesday 19 May 2026 (90280)

Ignore the very first table in the above alog, concerning the yaw of the BS SUS cage, as I apparently forgot how to do math when creating that.  In writing a master alog trying to tie together the series of measurements we took on the BS (still a WIP) I went back to PolyWorks and, in a separate file so to not compromise the existing data, rotated the CAD model so the HR face of the BS SUS matched the target yaw of the BS HR surface.  The results of that are shown in the attachment here.  The angles listed for Line 3 are measured from the positive axis; i.e. X Ang is measured from the +X axis.  Takeaways:

  • The yaw is much smaller than I first thought: ~113 µrad, not ~ 1 mrad
  • Yaw direction remains the same at clockwise (CW) from nominal, when viewed top-down
  • SUS cage positions only changed by fractions of a mm, so the cage is still well positioned w.r.t. the IFO axes
Images attached to this comment
jason.oberling@LIGO.ORG - 11:40, Tuesday 26 May 2026 (90340)

Honestly, ignore everything I wrote above about BS yaw.  Not only was my math bad on the rotation correction (see previous comment), the error bar on the scale measurements used to calculate the yaw is so large that the only thing we can definitively say about the BS in-chamber yaw is that it is yawed CW w.r.t. the SUS cage.

As explained above, we did 2 measurements of the BS optic distance from the front face of the HR side Figure 8, one at roughly the 10 o'clock position and one at roughly the 2 o'clock position.  The only Class B ruler we had at the time had mm on one side and inches on the other; the mm side had 0.5 mm tic marks for a +/- 0.25 mm error bar, while the inches side had 1/64" tic marks for an error bar of +/- 0.4 mm.  2 measurements were required at each position, one from the HR Figure 8 to the gold wire baffle and then one from wire baffle to the BS itself.  Carrying the error bars from the multiple ruler measurements all the way through the yaw calculation yields a yaw of 4.53 +/- 4.06 mrad CW.  With the error bar almost as large as the result, the only definitive thing we can say is that the BS optic was yawed w.r.t. the SUS cage, but we can't put an accurate number on it with the measurement method used.

H1 SYS
betsy.weaver@LIGO.ORG - posted 14:13, Monday 06 April 2026 - last comment - 16:28, Monday 06 April 2026(89793)
BSC2 Cross Flow cleanroom and eMOD platform access
Randy has been hard at work adding temp handrails and the eMod garbing cleanroom to the BSC2 platform access area.  Its pretty workable now.  The temp handrails have a pretty large footprint so I might make changes to those in the next incarnation of this, so the walkway from the eMod to the BSC2 platform is pretty narrow.  This platform and eMod placement will service BSC1 and BSC3 as well however, so we will rework or remove some handrails as we add those sections.  The tent is easy to pull back when we need the dome and cartridge to be craned away.
Images attached to this report
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corey.gray@LIGO.ORG - 16:28, Monday 06 April 2026 (89795)EPO

tagging for EPO photos

H1 SYS
betsy.weaver@LIGO.ORG - posted 10:16, Thursday 26 March 2026 - last comment - 10:47, Friday 27 March 2026(89653)
BSC2 Platform additional pieces installed
On Monday, Randy, Jordan and the FAC team craned the HAM3 cleanroom over into the appropriate place for HAM3 entrance for installation planned next week.  The cleanroom is now up against the BSC2 Platform.  As well, Kim and Nellie have been cleaning the HAM3 cleanroom.

On Tuesday, Randy craned into place and attached the new Installation Platform Sections G and F to the BSC2 platform.  Handrails will be installed next.  These platforms allow access from the eMod cleanroom to the BSC2 cross flow Dome cleanroom and platform, as well as provide added walking space between BSC2 and BSC3.  They also form 2 sides of the BSC3 platform which will be needed in subsequent vents.  Recall, this new LHO BSC2 Installation setup is part of the readiness review for install at https://dcc.ligo.org/E2400329-v1, and is part of a bigger plan to add sections around BSC3 and BSC1 to make a larger platform instead of moving them and encountering interferences other items like racks, trays and equipment.
Images attached to this report
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corey.gray@LIGO.ORG - 10:47, Friday 27 March 2026 (89668)EPO

Tagging for EPO photos.

H1 AOS (PEM, SYS)
richard.mccarthy@LIGO.ORG - posted 12:16, Thursday 12 February 2026 (89137)
Turned on BSC2 Hepa Fans and put Dust monitor on platform

Today Randy T and I ran power for the Cross Flow HEPA fans on the platform around BSC2.  The fans are on and turned down to low at the moment.  We also moved the dust monitor from the floor to the platform to monitor dust counts to have a better understanding before pulling the dome.

H1 IOO (IOO)
masayuki.nakano@LIGO.ORG - posted 21:56, Friday 06 February 2026 - last comment - 09:23, Monday 09 February 2026(89073)
Vertical splited beam investigation

Summary of investigation into the vertically split beam from the EOM

 

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keita.kawabe@LIGO.ORG - 15:25, Saturday 07 February 2026 (89075)ISC, SYS

Horizontal beam position offset on the EOM input and output aperture on the side plates.

We realized that the nominal beam position on the EOM input and output aperture is NOT centered on the crystal cross section projected onto the side plate face, the beam is horizontally offset in +Y direction.

Look at the first cartoon (cartoon.jpg) and references therein. The beam spot offsets are 0.91mm on the input side plate and 0.54mm on the output side plate, respectively, assuming that the beam deflection angle per surface of EOM is 2.35 degrees as implied in D2500130.

0.91mm is not a small offset, it's almost 1/4 of the crystal thickness (it's 4x4x40mm).

This means that the beam should be (see nominal_sideplate.png, note that the drawing scale of the input aperture in this is twice that of the output aperture):

~3.9mm from the left (+Y) edge of the visual alignment aid notch on the input side plate,

~3.2mm from the right (again +Y) edge of the aperture hole on the output side plate.

Measurements, adjustments and measurements made the beam closer to the nominal location.

Based on the above knowledge, we took pictures of the beam position on the input/output aperture, paying attention to the errors that could arise from the parallax (which is unavoidable), i.e. the sensor card should be as close to the face of the side plate as possible and the beam spot on the sensor card should be as close to the sentor of the camera sensor as possible. This was a tougher job than you think.

Anyway, in the first round of measurements, we convinced ourselves that the beam was:

off in -Y direction by 0.7mm relative to the nominal beam position on the input plate of the EOM,

off in +Y direction by 0.5mm on the output,

give or take 0.2mm or so (the error is based on two pictures for the input beam position with random variation in parallax coming from camera position and the distance between the side plate surface and the viewer card).

We rotated the entire EOM base by using two dog clamps against the EOM base and inserting appropriate shims (EOM_rotation.png). We didn't use the YAW adjustment feature for the EOM pivot plate because there's no way to rotate it in a  controlled manner.

After the first adjustment we thought that the beam coming out of the EOM looked better (which might have been false). On the second adjustment the beam looked the same or slightly worse (which might have been false) and we reverted back to the same position as the first adjustment.

According to the pictures (input_measured.jpg and output_measured.jpg), the beam position is 
0.2mm off in -Y direction on the input,
0.6mm off in -Y direction on the output,
again give or take 0.2mm or so. Apparently the input got much better, we overshot for the output but it's not worse.
 
This is the last measurement done based on the pictures. After this, we reset the dog clamps without shims and used them as the YAW reference.
Images attached to this comment
keita.kawabe@LIGO.ORG - 15:55, Saturday 07 February 2026 (89076)INS, ISC, SYS

Multiple beams mostly in PIT coming out of EOM (pictures and history)

1W into HAM1, otherwise it's hard to photograph these clearly.

The first picture is right after the YAW adjustment was made but before adjusting PIT. The card is held just ABOVE the main beam, you can see four blobs that look like some kind of ghost beams. (If you try to picture the main beam, it's so bright these ghosts become hard to capture.)

The second picture is after the first PIT adjustment. You can only see maybe two blobs, but later we found that the rest went below the main beam (sorry no "below" picture).

So, to recap the history of the beam quality,

  1. Feb/03-04 (alog 89041).
    • The beam had horisontal line that was clearly visible even at 100mW input (horizontalstreak.jpg).
    • JAC beam was found to be higher than 1mm relative to the EOM, the latter was raised, the horizontal line was gone but I noted "but there was still a vertical streak that was hard to photograph".
    • Then the EOM was adjusted in YAW, I still noted "not sure if it's great though, it's hard to photograph but something faint might be coming out of the EOM". But note that the power was 100mW.
  2. Feb/05 (alog 89059)
    • With 1W input, Jason and Masayuki clearly saw multiple ghost beams in PIT above the main beam.
  3. Feb/06 (this alog)
    • EOM was adjusted in YAW, seemingly no change i.e.there were still multiple ghost beams in PIT.
    • Adjusting the EOM PIT angle made ghost beams go up and down relative to the main beam, but they didn't seem to go away.

Other things.

Just to make sure, we turned down the 9MHz and 45MHz RF power to 3dBm and disconnected the 118MHz and 24MHz cables and nothing changed.

We know that the crystal wedge is supposed to be horizontal and we know that the wedge orientation is correct. When we first installed the EOM in chamber, the EOM transmission was deflected horizontally in +Y direction.

Images attached to this comment
keita.kawabe@LIGO.ORG - 09:23, Monday 09 February 2026 (89084)

Curoius thing about the EOM dimensions

Crystal length L=40mm, thickness T=4mm=L/10, wedge angle w=2.85 deg, and tan(2w) = 0.09981 ~ 1/10.  

Though this is probably not related to the ghost beams in PIT direction, when the beam is perfectly aligned with the EOM (i.e. the light traveling the center of the crystal), the internal AR reflection of at the output face of the crystal hits the side of the crystal and the specular reflection will hit the input surface of the crystal and almost exactly comes back on top of the main beam with only 0.0272mm offset. See the 1st cartoon.

Note that the side surfaces are not polished (though the AOI is 84.3 deg so most of the power is reflected back into the crystal due to total internal reflection).

If you displace the beam in horizontal direction, the AR path is displaced in the opposite direction by about the same amount (i.e. if the main beam moves by 0.5mm toward the short face of the crystal, the AR-side-AR beam moves by about 0.5mm toward the long face). If you continue tracing the AR-side-AR beam, it turns out that the AR-side-AR-AR-side-AR beam will come back exactly on the main beam. See the 2nd cartoon (which is actually to scale, the main beam is off by 0.5mm and the 1st ghost is off by 0.5272 in the opposite direction, and the 2nd ghost is on top of the main beam).

Interesting design choice.

Images attached to this comment