A big factor in how much IFO locking activities can take place is how cooperative the IMC is.
Since the c1psl upgrade, the IMC duty cycle has definitely deteriorated. I took a measurement of the dark noise at the IMC error point with 1 Hz FFT binwidth, with all electrical connections to the IMC servo board except the Acromag and Eurocrate power disconnected. I was horrified at the prominence of 60 Hz harmonics - see Attachment #1. In the past, this kind of feature has been indicative of some error in the measurement technique - but I confirmed that the lines remain even if I unplug the GPIB box, and all combinations of floating/grounded inputs that I tried. We know for sure that there is some excess noise imprinted on the laser light post upgrade. While these lines almost certainly are not responsible for the PCdrive RMS going bonkers, surely this kind of electrical situation isn't good?
Attachment #2 shows the same information translated to frequency noise units, taking into account the complementary sensitivity function, L/(1+L) - the sum contribution of the 60 Hz peaks to the RMS is ~11.5% of the total over the entire band (c.f. 1.7 % that is expected if the noise at multiples of 60 Hz was approximately equal to the surrounding noise levels). Moreover, the measured RMS is 55 times higher than a LISO model.
How can this be fixed? |