TITLE: 11/26 Owl Shift: 08:00-16:00 UTC (00:00-08:00 PST), all times posted in UTC

STATE of H1: Observing at 70.3054Mpc

OUTGOING OPERATOR: TJ

CURRENT ENVIRONMENT: Wind: 4mph Gusts, 3mph 5min avg Primary useism: 0.04 μm/s Secondary useism: 0.62 μm/s

QUICK SUMMARY: TJ had it locked for me.

TITLE: 11/26 Eve Shift: 00:00-08:00 UTC (16:00-00:00 PST), all times posted in UTC
STATE of H1: Observing
INCOMING OPERATOR: Nutsinee
SHIFT SUMMARY: PEM work for the whole shift, broke lock a few times, but recovery was pretty usual. POP90 jumped on me once, but I missed it and didn't notice till Anamaria pointed out the loss of range. I turned off the SCR1 loops and thenmoved SRM back to where it was.

The PEM crew is running the lines from alog31845
LOG:

• 01:21 Lockloss. Possibly PEM inj., but SCR1 Y maybe drifted a bit too much? Not too sure, plots attached.
• 02:28 NLN - Had some annoyances at DRMI but normal other than that.
• 02:47 Lockloss. ETMY HEPI, ISI, AND TMS tripped. PEM crew responsible.
• 03:35 NLN. Had to move TMSX a bit after it tripped to get good ALS powers.
• 04:09 Lockloss. HAM6 ISI tripped. PEM.
• 04:46 NLN. Nothing to note.
• 05:00 Lockloss. ETMY SUS, TMSY, ISIST1&2 tripped. Not too sure of the cause.
• 05:46 NLN. Nothing to note.
• 05:54 PEM crew to LVEA
• 07:00 PEM crew out
• 07:04 Brief CP4 minor alarm, everything looks ok.
• 07:08 SCR1 OFF, I missed POP90 jumping up, but trended and brought it about back.
• 08:06 Observing

Today we shook HEPIs, all chambers, and shook the input and output arm beam tubes at the corner station. A few of the lines in DARM were excited by the BS injections. We left low frequency lines In the  cal line of ETMX L1 (0.3 Hz lenght) and ITMX L1 (0.2 Hz yaw) to produce side bands on certain lines. These lines are considerably smaller than the microseismic peak, so we didnt want them to keep us from going to observation mode.

TITLE: 11/26 Eve Shift: 00:00-08:00 UTC (16:00-00:00 PST), all times posted in UTC
STATE of H1: Calibration
OUTGOING OPERATOR: Ed
CURRENT ENVIRONMENT:
    Wind: 4mph Gusts, 3mph 5min avg
    Primary useism: 0.03 μm/s
    Secondary useism: 0.46 μm/s
QUICK SUMMARY: Robert and Anamaria are doing their injections, we are currently locked at 72Mpc.
 

23:31 Took about 17 sec. to overfill CP3 at 50% open on LLCV.

This is a follow up of 31765.

Sheila reported a very interesting behaviour in this past Wednesday (31765) and also the last Friday (31559) in which lowering the power recycling gain improved the sensitivity for some reason. This reminds us about the behaviour we encountered at 50 W in the past -- we spent a good amount of time trying to increase the power recycling gain, however, ending up with worse noise in the end. So I wanted to see if the behaviour Sheila saw was a same kind or not with a hope to get a hint for future improvement. I started looking at various power signals and etc, but no conclusion yet.

[Some observations]

See the plot below.

This is a collection of some relevant signals for a lock stretch during of which Sheila was moving the PR3 spot position. In the middle plot in the 2nd row, POP_B_PIT shows the movement, changing its value from -0.2 to 0.2 counts. The upper left panel shows the improved BNS range coincided wit the PR3 move.

At the same time as the PR3 move, many power monitors dropped by almost 5% including, TR signals, POP powers. For the RF build ups, the 45 MHz sidebands seem to have dropped by the same amount of 5% by the PR3 movement, but the 9 MHz was affected a bit less. Another interesting thing is REFL LF, which decreased as the power recycling gain dropped, indicating that the interferometer approached closer to the critical coupling (assuming the mode matching stayed the same), or probably even passed the critical coupling as we have been having difficulty engaging the REFL WFSs (for example 31557).

Also, at the same time, the kappa_c value dropped by roughly 3% which is consistent with the decreased power recycling gain because the optical gain scales with the square root of the arm circulating power (when the DCPD's DC current was kept same). The cavity pole increased by 5Hz or so although I am not sure what this indicates in this case.

[Comparison with the 50 W case]

Looking at Stefan's plot in alog 28337, I see the typical behaviour that the 9 MHz sidebands drops a lot quicker than the recycling gains of the carrier and 45 MHz sidebands. This is due to the fact that the effective finesse for the 9 MHz is higher that the others, making the 9 MHz more vulnerable to losses. However, looking at the data from this past Wednesday, I found that the 9 MHz droped less steeper than the other two, see the lower right panel in the above plot. I don't know how this could happen in a smiple loss-increasing picture. Also, besides, the 9 MHz's initial drop (for 15 minutes or so at the very beginning) is smaller than the 50 W case presumably due to the less thermal lensing in the interferometer. It used to drop all the way to 40% of its maximum build up, while the recent drop goes to 75% of the maximum only.

H1 locked at NLN for 01:45

16:32 Switched ISI config to the new v2 state fter some trial and error.  It seems that the WINDY_NO_BRSX is giving me the most stability.

16:47 GRB alert. not even close to being locked.

18:18 CP4 alarm - red then yellow

18:37 NLN! manually closed all Beam Diverters except for POP

18:38 Robert out to LVEA for PEM injections.

18:56 PI mode 28 ringing up changed from -30ø to -90ø

19:04 PI mode 27 ringing up changed from -10ø to +60ø

19:15 chasing PI mode 27 round a bit more and finally settling on +120ø and adjusted gain from 5000 to 6000.

19:45 Robert back out to LVEA for PEM injections.

20:16 PI mode 28 ringing up. I flipped from -90ø to +90ø

TITLE: 11/25 Owl Shift: 08:00-16:00 UTC (00:00-08:00 PST), all times posted in UTC

STATE of H1: Down due to earthquakes

INCOMING OPERATOR: Ed

SHIFT SUMMARY: Anamaria left couple of suggestions of things that I can do to help improve the range. I was going to try for an hour but caused a lockloss in the process. Have been having trouble locking all my shift. There're only two ISI configurations I could try without using BRSX (which is still rung up). USEISM_NOBRSXY took me the furthest towards NLN (I was in NLN once with this configuration) but it seems unstable at ~37 mHz.

LOG:

9:22 Went to get food+cofee and came back to find PI mode 27 rung up pretty high. I was able to damp it.

14:53 Noticed an earthquake showing up on the FOM. USGS reported a 5.2M and 6.5M earthquake in Tajikistan. Terramon predicted the worst of it should arrive a little bit after 7am local time. I tried to switch ISI config to LARGE_EQ_NOBRSXY but lost lock in the process. Could switching the ISI state have caused the lockloss? The FOM reads about 0.8 um/s when I did the switch.

          About 20 mins later a verbal alarm warned me about the earthquake. For it to be useful I propose that the threshold is set lower (probably half way lower than the current threshold) so people have time to react accordingly.

15:05 GRB alert. Bad timing, Universe.

15:09 Kyle arrived, going into LVEA.

15:34 Kyle out

~0710 - 0730 hrs. local -> Kyle in and out of the LVEA  

Survey of temperatures is as expected, 85C +/- 10C.  Abiding by manufacturer's spec. of 80C at flange of gauge ( = 65C at PCB end of sensor tube).  As such, have low expectations of efficacy of bake-out.  At least the setup doesn't seem to intrude on the IFO folk's efforts so maybe they will forget about it and we can extend the bake period (if we can't go hotter, maybe we can go longer?).  

Also, I removed the access ladder that I had left leaning against BSC8's dome.  

Staying down as 5.2M and 6.5M earthquakes in Tajikistan arrive at the site. I switched ISI config from WINDY_NO_BRSX_V2 to LARGE_EQ_NOBRSXY.

"Image acquisition failed error on Nov 23 2016 11:52:23 UTC." I killed the zombie process and reran the code.

TITLE: 11/25 Owl Shift: 08:00-16:00 UTC (00:00-08:00 PST), all times posted in UTC

STATE of H1: Observing at 69.4735Mpc

OUTGOING OPERATOR: Corey

CURRENT ENVIRONMENT: Wind: 5mph Gusts, 3mph 5min avg Primary useism: 0.04 μm/s Secondary useism: 0.66 μm/s

QUICK SUMMARY: H1 was locked when I arrived. POPAIR dropped during the first half and hour into the shift but it seems stable now. So is the range.

TITLE: 11/25  EVE Shift: 0:00-08:00 UTC (16:00-0:00 PST), all times posted in UTC
STATE of H1:  PEM Calibration
INCOMING OPERATOR: Nutsinee
SHIFT SUMMARY:

• Seismic is still noisy (high useism & winds are blustery at 10-20mph).  
• BRSX is still down.
• See this alog for Guardian operation for the weekend.

LOG:

• H1 taken to NLN by:
  • Last few steps of Guardian have been in flux.  Just wanted a recap.  Basically after NOISE TUNINGS, we skip right to NLN.  (So if you select NLN, that will be the path you take.)
  • We are skipping PR3_REFL WFS because the PRC Gain (cyan trace on front StripTool was 29....should be 30+ in order to use PR3_REFL_WFS)
• 0:25 Lockloss due to either Robert's Injection, or SRC1 Loop issue (Kiwamu tried to fix the latter).
• Kyle onsite for BSC8 work.
• 1:19 H1 taken to NLN; NOT run an A2L (Cleared its SDF diffs during this lock)
  • Injection Incursions (Robert):  (1:22-1:34, 2:23-2:31, 3:26-3:36
  • 2:40 Mode28 rung up (Phase -30 --> +30 brought it down)
  • 2:57 Mode26 slowly ringing up (Phase -20 --> -80 took care of it).
  • 3:49-3:53 A2L run
  • 4:03  Lockloss:  EY ISI/SUS/TMS tripped as well as HAM6 ISI
• 5:38 NLN, 5:42 OBSERVING.
  • 5:52 PI Mode28 rung up (phase 30 --> -60 took care of it)
  • 6:02 PI Mode 27(?) (phase -200 -->-180)
  • 6:06 COMMISSIONING:  Closed AS & REFL Beam Diverters & ran A2L
  • 6:11 OBSERVING
  • 6:12 Lockloss
• Been a bit of a rough go for the last 1-2 hrs of the shift.  Locklosses at various places & from the last lock to the DRMI locks, something looks noisy.  
• Did see a "Tidal Limit" within 10% come up during one attempt at locking (looked at trends and they didn't look bad.  (Haven't received it since.)
• 7:42 NLN/OBSERVE & handing over to next shift at 8:00utc.

Wanted to make/consolidate a few notes regarding operations as of late & for this weekend

PRC Gain & PR3_REFL_WFS

The last few shifts/weeks we have been waivering on the PR3 (POP vs REFL) WFS steps.  As of this moment, we are bypassing BOTH of these steps in Guardian.  Kiwamu said that if we had higher PRC Gain, we could try for the POP WFS, but the PRC Gain (PR_GAIN_OUT16 on front StripTool) must be 30 or more....it has been hovering at 29, so we are skipping this step.  

Sheila tried to improve the PRC gain by tweaking on the PRC alignment over the last few weeks.  This sounds like a work in progress.  For the weekend, we will ignore these PR3 (POP/REFL) WFS steps.

Beam Diverters

Another step we have been skipping toward the end of the Guardian steps is the CLOSING BEAM DIVERTERS.  We want to keep the POP Beam Diverter open, but perhaps for better performance and consistency for PEM Injections, we have been closing the REFL & AS_AIR Beam Diverters Manually (i.e. Sitemap/LSC/Beam Diverters).  When you close the AS_AIR, it will give you a glitch in DARM, but it's not too scary.

POP90 & SRC1 pit/yaw Loop

There had been some issues with the SRC1 Loop.  Basically it would push the alignment such that the POPAIR_B_RF90 (on the front StripTool) trace would increase (a bad thing).  So, if you see this trace increase, you should:

• Go to the SRC1 Pit & Yaw Loops
• Zero their gains
• Then tweak on the SRM to bring the POPAIR_B_RF90 trace down. 
• Keep the SRC1 gains at zero.

Have not had issues with this for the (3) locks since Kiwamu left.  (Knock on wood.)

Topped Crystal Chiller with 250mL.  This Closes FAMIS 6498.

(The Sheet is full, & should be given to Jeff B.)

Fairly noisy seismically (useism has been holding at 0.7um/s for last 18hrs & winds are at a steady 9mph).

H1 has been also holding at a steady range of 70Mpc for the last 3hrs (even through some short injections by Robert);  Noticeable 

.......

Ugh!  

4:02:  LOCKLOSS:  EY Went Crazy!

As I was typing this alog, H1 dropped out of lock.  There were no noticeable issues (POP90 had been flat for hours, PI Modes were buried, seismic was noisy, but no changes).  However, in addition to the usual HAM6ISI trip, EY's ISI, ETMy, & SUS all tripped.

I reset everyone's Watchdog, but when trying to run ALS, I was getting PDH Alerts (not enough light).  Looked further and found that the ETMy DID NOT come back to a normal state:

• It had many filter banks in a RED state (mainly their outputs OFF), ranging from M0DAMP, to Optic Align (offsets OFF), to L1 LOCK, etc. etc..  I know there were some gains which were also zero-ed.  Too many things to note on here.
• The M0 output channels were also either frozen (for top half ones) or zero for bottom half ones (this was different from ETMx).
• ODC was also in a RED state for ETMy
• I tried to use ETMy's Guardian to restore ETMy (I had to put it in Manual since it was MANAGED by ALIGN IFO).  I tried several states, but the issues noted above never were remedied.  
• I sent texts to Betsy, Jeff, & Richard

So I opened ETMx, and then went through everything that looked different with ETMy.  After a while, ETMy started to look fine.  The ODC even came back green.  At around this point, I talked with Betsy and I snapped a photo of ETMy with my phone to her & at this point it looked OK.  We looked at the safe.snaps, and the Diffs for ETMy looked known & acceptable.  

Additionally, ALS was locking in the Y-arm.  So we are hesitantly going to say we are back, but I hope there isn't a switch, gain, filter, etc. which I could have missed.

OK, back at it.