S. Dwyer, J. Kissel, K. Kawabe, E. Merilh, G. Moreno, C. Vorvick

With the help of all listed above, we were able to complete the entire by-hand, bypassed-input-mode-cleaner, IFO alignment plan, as described in LHO aLOG 39547. This means that the we are confident that the mechanical alignment of the following optics are good enough that we will be able to recover some alignment after we pump down:
    IM1, IM2, IM3, IM4,
    PR2, PR3,
    ITMX, ITMY, BS
    SR2, SR3.
I.e. all of these optics have enough range on their sliders that it's possible to find *an* alignment that sends a beam through the output faraday, can create a michelson fringe, and can retroreflect beams from the ITMs back to PRM.
In closing of the procedure -- after aligning SR2, SR3, and ITMY to steer a michelsom fringing beam through SRM into the OFI -- we went back to PRM, and checked whether the ITMs were still retroreflecting back to PRM. We found their beams in the PRM iris, but a little bit +Y in yaw and a little bit low in pitch. We suspect that this is merely a result of the drift of optics or the input beam over the course of a day's work. 

We were even able to get a little bit further than planned: we checked 
(12) that the IFO beam, incorrectly polarized with a temporary half-wave plate on the OFI, went to ZM2. It did, but the check admittedly not very precise.
(13) SRM alignment by looking for the reflected beam off of SRM. Sadly SRM is out of range of its sliders in pitch. Not a terrible surprise, since this brand new monolithic optic has not yet had its mechanical alignment fine tuned. We'll work with the suspension team to fix this in the coming days.
(14) to see if we could align PRM, by looking for secondary retro-reflections from the ITMs back at PRM. We found secondary reflections, and were able to move them with PRM, but it was too late and we got confused as to which beam was which ITM, so we decided to call it a night. (Note: before playing we restored the alignment to the values that got the REFL beam back into HAM1, so that path is still good -- so far.)

All-in-all, a really successful, power-house of a day. Nice work team!!

What does this leave next?
- Mechanically aligning SRM to get a reflected beam back to the ITMs.
- Exploring PRM sliders to align secondary beams into PRM iris if not well-co-aligned with the forward input beam and the primary reflection.
- Move OMs to catch the new alignment through the OFI
Unfortunately, that means we'll have to reconstruct this alignment tomorrow, but hopefully now that we've gotten this far, it'll be easier to get back to this point faster tomorrow.

Please remember -- no computer / front-end restarts until further notice.


I attach a screenshot of all OSEM values and suspension (plus PSL PZT) slider values at the end of the day, with all optics mentioned above in their desired alignment state.
Also, I attach a more detailed log of the activity.

WP 7222
FRS 4559

Continued with WP 7222, isolating the HWS cameras. Both end stations were completed today. Same steps taken as work done in LVEA, see alog 39532. All temporary power cables removed from enclosures and cameras connected to Hartmann Corner/End Station Breakout Power Chassis.

F. Clara, T. Shaffer

SamC and ConorML have designed some sensor correction filters using some matlab swarm optimization routines. Their designs are summarized in SEI log 1234 (yes, really) and a technical note in the DCC (https://dcc.ligo.org/DocDB/0147/T1700541/001/T1700541-V1.pdf ). I've installed these to test on ETMY and I'm leaving them running overnight. Microseism is pretty high right now so it's a good time to test. I've already collected some data, but the differences aren't dramatic, but I wasn't comparing very long stretches, I found a long window from last January with high microseism, that I'll try to use for comparison tomorrow.

First attached plot is the St1 Y motion measured by the T240 (thick lines), their RMS (dashed) and the ground motions (thin), red traces are for the swarm filters, blue are for the broadband filter we used during O2. Second plot shows the comparison of the CPS (SCSUM_CPS, thick lines), the cps RMS (dashed) and ground again (thin lines), again red traces are for the swarm filters, blue are for the O2 configuration. Last attached plot shows the two filter designs in displacement, and their complements, stolen from the DCC doc. Blends were not changed during these measurements. 

Sam says that the filters were design when .1-.3 hz gnd blrms was around 450 nm/s. I've put ETMY back to damped to give them some time with higher microseism to design with.

K. Kawabe, J. Kissel, E. Merilh, C. Vorvick

Hoping not to have a repeat of yesterday's failed attempt at aligning the IFO by hand, we hit the whiteboard this morning to clearly outline our plan after Cheryl and Keita thought hard about what went wrong and what to do over night. Here's the game plan we're going forward with today:

Prep: misalign SRM, put face shield on ITMY

#      Step                            Drive Optic(s)               Alignment Metric
1      Input Align                     PSL PZT & (IM3 or IM4)       PRM and PR2 irises, IR card

2      Check PR3 spot                  (if bad, move PR2)           Target on PR3, camera viewer

3      Check ITMX Spot                 (if bad, move PR3)           Face shield on ITMX, camera viewer
  
4      Retro Reflect back to PRM       Walk PR2 and PR3             Return Beam overlap with forward beam @ PRM Iris, IR card
       For walk, 
       move PR2 opposite of PR3 in Pitch
       move PR2 same as PR3 in Yaw
       For walk, move with a ratio of 9.7 : 1 in PR2 : PR3 step sizes

5      Check ITMX Spot                 (if bad, walk PR2 and PR3)   Alternate between (face shield on ITMX, camera viewer) and (return beam Return Beam overlap with forward beam @ PRM Iris, IR card)

6      Check PR3 Spot                                               Target on PR3, camera viewer

--------- PRM to ITMX is set. Do not touch Input and PR optics ---------

Prep: put face shield on ITMX, keep SRM misaligned

7      Check ITMY Spot                 (if bad, roughly adjust BS)  Face Shield on ITMY

8      Retro Reflect IY back to PRM    Walk ITMY & BS               Return Beam overlap with forward beam @ PRM Iris

--------- PRM to ITMY is set. Do not touch Input, PR, ITMs, or BS optics until Step 11 ---------

Prep: remove ITMX face shield

9      Check SR3 spot                                               Target on SR3, camera viewer

10     Check SR2 spot(s)                                            IR card

11     Fine-tune ITMX and ITMX beam on SRM                              IR card
                                      Walk (ITMY & BS) for differential spot change
                                      Walk (SR2 & SR3) for common spot change / centering
       For walk, move with ratio 5.8 : 1 in SR2 : SR3 step sizes

As we break for lunch, we're mid-way through step 5.

I attach a screenshot of our alignment offsets and OSEM values as we left it. #TouchWood

Sheila discovered an editing issue with ASC_COMMON.mdl using 2012b, which is not a problem with 2015b. Since we were planning on changing the default version of matlab for RCG model development to 2015b, I made the transition this morning.

I am seeing some warnings when starting 2015b, which I am working on removing.

Chandra noticed some strange dataviewer plots when asking for long look-back minute trends (see attached). After some investigation, I found:

• minute trend data from h1nds1 only goes back to 26 May 2017
• plotting error only occurs when asking for data beyond this date
• vertex of the squiggles is 18 Oct 2017

The problem is with h1nds1's configuration of archived raw minute trends. The most recent archive spans the dates 5/26 to 10/18. The older archives are not being accessed, which I think is a result of my reordering the archived directories in the daqdrc file. After Dan and I had moved all the minute trends to their own RAID, I noticed that raw minute trends are ordered oldest-to-most-recent which would not be efficient since most data requests are for recent (within the last year). I reordered the list to most-recent-to-oldest and now only the most-recent directory is being read. When we are able to restart the NDS, I'll reverse the order to verify this. In the mean time, minute trends before 5/26/2017 are unavailable.

Terry, Sheila, Nutsinee

---------------

Yesterday we were able to get the SHG ~99% mode matched. After we tilted the first lens to avoid the back reflection into the laser we ended up with ~98% mode matched.

Given that we can find all the optics, we should be able to finish the rest of the table within a week or two.

---------------

Other notes:

• So far our SQZ table drawing and mode matching calculations are similar to what LLO has. 
• The waist of the mephisto is measured to be 160um. 
• Distance from the laser waist to the first lens is 26 cm. Distance from the laser waist to second lens is 132cm. Distance from the laser waist to the final lens before the SHG is  234.5cm
• The measured waist at the position of the SHG is 72.5um (before insertion of the SHG). Close to the solution at LLO (71um). 

• We had a few issues with the SHG PZT. The circuit was shorted due to the electrical contacts soldered on the edge of the PZT touching the brass plates (see SHG layout for reference, the plates mentioned are labeled I and J on page 2). Sheila put in a couple of insulating washers between the PZT and the brass (ordered from McMaster, part #95601A360). That fixed it.  

High power oscillator diode box current adjustment(s) [FAMIS 8449]

With the ISS off, the diode box currents were adjusted.  A screen dump of the laser main screen is attached.


  

    
 Diode Box [#] 
    
 Old [A] 
    
 New [A] 
  

    
 1 
    
 52.3 
    
 53.0 
  
  

    
 2 
    
 54.5 
    
 54.8 
  
  

    
 3 
    
 54.5 
    
 54.8 
  
  

    
 4 
    
 54.5 
    
 54.8 
  


Another largish increase, just like last week.  Not surprising really given that the diodes are near their end of life.
The power, with the ISS on, went from ~153 W to ~155 W.

This completes FAMIS task 8449

Power watchdog reset [FAMIS 3920]

Both the front end and oscillator power watchdogs were reset at 18:24 UTC (10:24 local).  This completes FAMIS task 3920.

   Posted are the 30 day particle count trends for the LVEA. Mostly all good. The normal pattern of a few sharp spikes that clear quickly in random cleanrooms is repeated in these trends. The cleaning crew (Christina, Karen, and Vanessa) continue to do a fantastic job of keeping the LVEA clean and the cleanrooms are working well at cleaning up the air inside the cleanroom.
    

Betsy, Keita, Kissel, Cheryl

We spent all morning aligning the PSL beam from the IMs through the MC bypass, PR3, PR2, PRM, BS, ITMs, and back reflections from the ITMs reverse to PRM.  We broke for a late lunch only to come back and find things misaligned again for unknown reasons.  We spent a few more afternoon hours on this but will have to restart again tomorrow, since it seems we need to align the entire chain of 12+ suspensions in one foul swoop and we ran out of steam today.

Also to note, PR3 was fussy to use today - we couldn't get it to damp in all 6 DOFs and think we tracked it down to strange BIO settings which may or may not be stuck.  Didn't have time to diagnose...

During the installation of the OFI table into the cage some time ago, the table slid and came to rest against one of the corners of the cage cracking the beam dump, today I replaced the broken input baffle beam dump D1001920-v4 SN001, with SN003.

Since the reflection of IR beam on septum window AR is so small, we shot a red laser pointer beam from HAM5 through septum so the beam clears the HAM6 iris closer to HAM5, and falls on the second iris closer to VOPO within a mm from the center. Sheila calculated the deflection difference between IR and red, and it's so small it doesn't make much difference over the lever arm (a meter or two) in this case.

There were two beams coming through the septum, we took the first one (brighter, and towards +X) as the main beam.

There were three beams reflected off of the septum into HAM5. We took the first two towards +X as the main beams to dump.

We also confirmed that the scribe mark showing the thickest side of the septum is -X for the ZM path and +X for the OMC path.

Pictures will be added later.

FRS9496

Jeff K, Richard, Dave:

At 07:30 PST Thursday 23rd November (Thanksgiving Day) PR3 rang up over two minutes. The T3 top OSEM shadow sensor RMS exceeded the 110mV threshold for 20 minutes continually, which caused the IOP Software Watchdog (SWWD) to DACKILL the h1sush2a DACs, at which time the oscillation stopped. The h1sush2a system remained in this state for the rest of the holiday weekend until the SWWD was reset this morning. Within an hour the ring-up occurred again. This cycle has repeated itself several times today. Investigation is continuing and an FRS has been opened.

Attached plot shows a 30 minute second trend plot of the Thursday morning event. Data shown is:  T3's shadow sensor ADC channel (Ch 3), the h1suspr3 T3 DAC drive (Ch 9) and the h1susauxh2 M1 T3 Voltmon. As can be seen, the OSEM shadow sensor and the model drive ring up in Unisom, driving the coil driver. After the SWWD trips the DACs at the 20 minute mark, the coil driver is quickly zeroed, which causes a bumpy ring-down of the shadow sensor (which the model's output mimics).