Gizem K, Wanda V, Jenne, Fil

Since yesterday (alog 91299) and Monday (alog 91271) we saw lots of back-reflection from the end of the fibers, today we went to the ends to terminate the fibers with what is essentially a fiber beam dump.

First, Fil went to each end, and connected a jumper fiber cable to the junction box panel at the end of each of our fibers (recall we're using #24 on each arm).  Then we went, and Gizem spliced in to that jumper fiber a cladding-only "fiber", that will absorb the light since there isn't a core to this fiber.  This termination fiber is laid inside of a pvc pipe, which is then laying on the floor, taped closed to be light-tight as well as secured to the floor using UltraTape.  

Unfortunately, the data looks more noisy now than it did earlier in the week.  Gizem and Wanda ran an OTDR test on the newly terminated fibers, and indeed the ends of the fibers seem to be absorbing the light as desired.  However the connection point between the LIGO fiber and the jumper fiber seems to have lots of reflection.  

Folks will look at the data further to help decide whether we should keep the termination fibers, or just remove them and live with the slightly-noisy data that we had earlier in the week rather than the very noisy data we have today.

Attached are some action shots of Gizem splicing, Wanda watching, and the pvc pipes we have the termination fibers in.