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Reports until 15:06, Tuesday 03 December 2024
H1 PSL
jason.oberling@LIGO.ORG - posted 15:06, Tuesday 03 December 2024 (81600)
PSL Remote PMC and RefCav Beam Alignment Tweaks

After seeing the reflected spots on the PSL Quad display this morning and the "ISS diffracted power low" notification, since no one was using the beam today I performed a remote beam alignment tweak for both the PMC and RefCav.  I started shortly after 10am, after Masayuki and I finished his PMC measurements and sufficient time had passed for the PMC to recover.  The PMC Refl spot looked brighter on the left side vs. the right, indicating a potential alignment shift in yaw, while the RefCav Refl spot looked like it needed a pitch adjustment.

Starting with the PMC, with the ISS OFF there was ~103.3 W in transmission and ~25.0 W in reflection.  Tweaking beam angle (entirely in yaw as expected based on the Refl spot, pitch adjustment acheived nothing) resulted in ~105.2 W transmitted and ~22.7 W reflected; walking the beam got things a little better, with ~105.5 W transmitted and ~22.3 W reflected.  Seems this drop in PMC transmission was due to a slow alignment drift as the enclosure recovered from our NPRO swap ~10 days ago.  With the ISS ON and diffracting ~3.8% (I had to adjust the RefSignal to -1.97 V from -1.95 V due to the increase in PMC transmission) the PMC is now transmitting ~105.7 W and reflecting ~22.4 W.

Moving on to the RefCav, with the IMC locked the RefCav TPD was ~0.79 V.  Adjusting the beam angle got things a little better, with a TPD of ~0.82 V; as expected this adjustment was almost entirely in pitch.  While walking the beam alignment the IMC unlocked and was having a hard time relocking, so I asked TJ to take it to OFFLINE while I finished the alignment; I note this as with the IMC unlocked the RefCav TPD is generally a little bit higher than with the IMC locked.  With the IMC now unlocked I was able to get the RefCav TPD to ~0.86 V by walking the beam alignment.  While I was not able to get the TPD higher than this, the Refl spot on the PSL Quad display still looks like there's some alignment work to do; the central spot is usually centered in the ring that surrounds it, but now it looks a little low and left.  I don't have an explanation for this currently, we'll keep an eye on this in the coming days and see if/how things change.  TJ relocked the IMC and it did not have a problem this time.

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