The IMC wasn't locking when I came to the control room at 13:30 local. People told me that there was a Beckoff restart. So I burtrestored h1ecatc1plc2 to 9 am this morning. The IMC is now back to operation.

All the nds command line clients (such as minute_trend_cli, second_trend_cli, streamer_cli and others) have been recompiled to fix a bug in which channel lists were not written correctly.  This resulted in an inability to accurately report values for any channel that wasn't a float data type.  Any users of these tools should use the tools to write a new channel list.  Also the Makefile was changed to allow compiling with Ubuntu 12.04.

Valved in the roughing pump at X end ~9:30.

Alexa, Sheila, Cryus, Dave, Arnaud

We went to end X to start working on the table there this afternoon.  calibrated the PDs on the table, preparing to set up the PLL.  Along the way Cyrus helped us with a problem connecting the End X beckoff computer to SVN (restarting the windows machine) and Dave restarted an epics gateway.  We saw that we have half the fiber transmission in the wrong polarization, so we will need to adjust it in the morning. We tried to align the two beams to interfer on the beam splitter, but with only 10uW or so in the fiber beam.  

We sent the green beam into the transmon, locked the QPD servos, and set up irises once the ETM and transmon offsets were restored.  We then raised the front apperature of the EOM, where the beam seemed to be clipping.  This greatly improved the beam shape going into the chamber.  After that we looked for the return beam, and could not find it.  Arnaud had a look at what might have changed for us.  He saw a change of about 40urad in HEPI, but that doesn't seem like enough to explain us completely not seeing the beam.  

ISC EX PD Calibrations

Fiber rejected polarization 20uW, 0.23V,30dB gain TI=2000 Ohms, meaning responsivity= 0.19A/W

Fiber transmission monitor- 40uW out of fiber, light on PD too small to measure (we are using the old measurement of the splitting ratio 6%) 0.03V, 2000 Ohms, 30dB gain, gives responsivity 0.208 A/W

Laser IR monitor 0.35mW on PD, 1.68V, 2000 Ohms, 30dB, 0.08 A/W. The beam splitter right before the PD has a spliting ratio of 0.55%.  

Green laser monitor (this is the beam rejected from the Faraday, so the power observed here depends on any polarization drift as well).  with 53 mW of532 coming out of the laser, we have 0.8 mW on this PD, so a splitting ratio of 1.9%

Fiber BBPD (Fiber A) 0.56mW, 2000 Ohms, no gain, 0.14V responsitivty of 0.125 A/W

[Mark B Chris W Arnaud]

After modifying the tip tilts model this afternoon, I adapted the adl files to match with the new channel names, in order to resurrect the medm screens. The filterfile, as well as the snap file were also adapted. The only thing missing in order for the system to work is to connect the masterswitch, which will be done tomorrow morning. Other than this, everything seems fine, cf screenshot

Details of the process :

* Created a htts folder in /opt/rtcds/userapps/release/sus/common/medm/
* Copied the 42 adl files located in /opt/rtcds/userapps/release/asc/common/medm/asctt in the new htts folder
* Modified their filename from ASC_CUST_TIPTILT* to SUS_CUST_TIPTILT*
* Modified the content of each of them by changing the ASC/asc occurences to SUS/sus and ASCTT/asctt to SUSHTTS/sushtts (except for the IOP channels which were unchanged)
* Modified the sitemap to point out to the correct adl files
* Modified the H1SUSHTTS.txt filterfile that has been generated when installing the model this afternoon, to make it match with the old H1ASCTT.txt filterfile thanks to some magic tricks from Chris
* Created a softlink H1SUSHTTS.txt -> /opt/rtcds/userapps/release/sus/h1/filterfiles/H1SUSHTTS.txt

Bonne nuit !

I looked into IMC alignment changes from before we started the pump down, to the current position.  What I found is that MC1 pointing has changed dramatically.  Pitch is  changed by 332urad, and yaw by 184urad, when comparing the optic as it hangs without any drive.  MC2 has seen changes as well, but smaller, with ptich changed by 52urad and yaw 12urad.

The MC1 pointing changes reuslt in beam position changes of 5.3mm in pitch and 3mm in yaw, at 16m.  Very signiicant.  

As noted in alog6341, the gain on the Dual PD Amp board was set to 30dB (photo 1). I have reduced the gain to 10dB (photo 2). However, I still see saturation at 10V in the external PD monitor. Tomorrow I will try reducing the gain to 0dB.  

Since we postponed the HAM1 in-vac mission today, we moved on to the interferometer alignment for now.

Here are what I did:

• The forward propagating beam was steered on the in-vac POP A and B QPDs.
  • To make the signals bigger, I increased the whitening gains of the QPDs from 0 to 45 dB.
  • Although the readouts are very tiny i.e. POP_A(B)_SUM ~ 4 counts, this was big enough to be discriminated from back ground noise.
  • This was done by steering IM4. I had to move IM4 mostly in pitch.
• PRM was then realigned to this new IM4 alignment such that we keep having the retroreflection back to PSL.
  • This means there is no impacts on the interferometer REFL paths.
• The PR2 and PR3 alignment were restored back to July 25th 1:00 AM PDT by using the bottom mass OSEMs as a reference.
• The BS alignment was restored back to July 25th 1:00 AM PDT by using the oplve as a reference.
• ITMY DC bias was restored back to July 25th 1:00 AM PDT.
  • We didn't trust the oplev for ITMY.

The attached is a screenshot of the resultant vertex alignment.

Travis, Angus and Alastair contued with the weld practice at end Y. Travis welded in all 4 practice fibres on the test set up and hung the dummy mass. We re-arranged the weld trolley and fibre preparation table positions to allow line of sight for Doug's alignment tooling during the welding. All tooling is functioning as expected. Tomorrow first thing we will remove the "old" ETM from the structure to allow TCS to work on the ring heater and then pop in the "new" ETM in the afternoon and do full alignment of the masses in preparation for welding again on Thursday

Days Activities

• Welding work continues at EY (practice welds and being filmed as well)
• EX was transitioned to Laser Hazard for ALS work (Alexa/Sheila)
• Kyle has begun pumping down at EX
• H1 SUS HTTS was rebooted (Dave/Arnaud)
• ITMx Oplev & electronics work (Thomas/Filiberto)
• Cleanroom was moved from BSC2 -> HAM4 (this required GV2 to be closed/opened)
• HAM4 HEPI electronics work (Hugh)
• Had another SUS Watchdog INVALID alarm for everybody.  Also get ALH Warning window saying there is a virtual circuit unresponsive context:  cdsegw0.cds.ligo-wa.caltech.edu:33029
• CP2 was filled (receiving overfill alarms)
• Sheila gave another PSL Operator Training session in the Control Room

[Jeff Dave Arnaud]

After Keita reported he couldn't access to tip tilts medm screen to damp the suspension (which hasn't been updated yet), I looked at RM1_M1_OSEMINF signals to see if I could damp it from the command line. Although, the readback was zero even though we were seeing numbers out of the ADC, which directed us to a model issue. Some modifications from last week would prevent the model to compile properly so we undid some of the changes and fixed some other issues. After restarting the models after the changes, the channels were back alive. Last thing to do is to resurrect the medm.

Modifications made on

**h1sushtts.mdl** (1st screenshot)

1) Grounded the calibrated ISI signals outputs from HTTS

2) Linked the ISI signals directly from the IPC to OM1/2/3, instead of the ones going out of HTTS

3) Changed ADC7 to ADC0

4) Modified the channels to match with 3)

**HSSS_MASTER.mdl** (2nd screenshot)

1) M1/ISIINF CdsEpicsOuput banks changed to CdsFilt banks

As soon as we flipped the beam diverter open we got the REFL beam on ISCT1.

Then we went into HAM1 and noticed that the beam was moving by a huge amount in PIT. TTs were not damping at all. Turns out that that was a TT model problem. SUS people and Dave Barker are working on it.

We will resume our work when TTs are fixed, and in the mean time we'll look at the IFO alignment.

We made one measurement using NanoScan by misaligning the 50% BS after the HWP to direct the  beam to the head. The BS and Nanoscan were approximately 8"x44" apart (give or take an inch).

These are just the numbers NanoScan software dumped. As was partially captured by https://alog.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/aLOG/index.php?callRep=8437, our experience is that Nanoscan, ModeMaster (takeing the beam size at the head) and hand-driven knife edge agree with each other within 10%.

power before AOM :31.1mW 

after single pass: 24.1mW 77% single pass effiicency

after double pass: 20.45mW  66% double pass efficiency

The beam position on the iris after the retro reflecting mirror has not changed. 

I tuned the upper periscope mirror pitch, this brought the transmitted PD voltage back to 1 V.  

We have 5.8 mW in the ALS path before the Faraday, 5.33 mW after the Faraday, 4.3mW going towards the fiber, and 1.04 mW going towards the fiber launch PD (external on the fiber dist box).  

After 11 days of pumping the vertex volume - HAM2,3, BSC1,2,3, and the X manifold.

Alexa, Sheila, Kiwamu

The goal of the day was to get the retro-reflection from PRM all the way back to PSL. And this was achieved. We are ready for the HAM1 incursion.

This work involved:

• Restoration of the IMC alignment back to that established in this past Friday.
• Re-engagement of the ASC loops on IMC.
• Checking the Faraday clearance by looking at scattering light around the waveplate baffle at the entrance of the Faraday,
• Adjustment of the alignment of IM1 and 2 to get through the Faraday.
• Adjustment of the alignment of IM2 and IM3 to get the same spot position (a.k.a. IM4 trans) marked on the wall.
• Adjustment of the alignment of IM4 to get the same spot position (a.k.a. return beam) marked on the wall.
• Adjustment of the alignment of PRM to get the retro-reflection all the way back to PSL.
  • For getting the retro-reflection, we used the beam splitters that Paul installed for his Faraday loss measurement.
  • The PD for this retro-reflected light is now connected to the SPARE_10 lemo cable, so that one can see the signal at the outside.

In the process of aligning PRM, we looked at the in-vac WFS in HAM1 with a viewer and saw the reflection light hitting the WFSs. We didn't check the beam on the WFSs after obtaining the retro-reflection, but they should be pretty close to the good alignment. Then after obtaining the retroreflectin, we went to ISCT1 to see if we get some light on the table, but we didn't find it. Maybe it is blocked by an optic for some reason as we can see scattered light. So the first thing we should do before the incursion is to check the beam alignment in HAM1 and see if makes sense. It might be possible that the alignment in HAM1 is bad even though we have a retro-reflection back to PSL. In this case, we should steer IM1 and IM2 to change the rejection angle of the REFL beam while keeping the retro-reflection.

P.S. We left PSL in the commissioning mode. The IMC autolocker is running on opsws3. The attached is the alignment that we established. I tried steering the IM4 trans picomotor, but it seemed not moving at all.