[Koji, gautam]

Summary:

We think we got to the bottom of this issue today. The RF signal level going into the demod board is too high. This electronics chain needs some careful gain reallocation.

Details:

I was demonstrating to Koji a strange feature I had noticed in the ALS control, whereby when applying a CARM offset to detune the arms, the two arms seemed to respond differently (based on the transmission levels). This kind of CARM-->DARM coupling seemed strange to me. Anyway, I also noticed that the EPICS indicators on the ALS MEDM screen suggested ADC saturations were going on. I had never really looked at the fast time series of the inputs to the phase tracker servos, but these showed saturating behavior on ndscope traces. I went to the LSC rack and measured these on a scope, indeed, they were ~20V pp.

The output of the BeatMouth PDs are going to a ZHL-3A amplifier - we should consider replacing these with lower gain amplifiers, e.g. the Teledyne AP1053. This is relegated to a daytime task.

Other findings tonight:

While working on the PSL table, I somehow put the IMC FSS into a bad state, reminiscent of this behavior. Seems like this is linked to some flaky connection on the PSL table. One candidate is the unstable attachment of the Pomona box between the NPRO PZT and the FSS output - we should install a short BNC cable between these to avoid the lever arm situation we have right now.

In calculating the above numbers, I assumed a DC transimpedance of 10 khhms and an RF Transimpedance of ~800 V/A.

[Elog14480]: per these calculations, with the NewFocus 1611 PDs, we cannot achieve shot noise limited sensing for any power below the rated maximum for linear operation (i.e. 1mW). Moreover, the noise figure of the RF amplifier we use to amplify the sensed beat note before driving the delay-line frequency discriminator is unlikely to be the limiting noise source in the current configuration. Rana suggested that we get two Gain Blocks. These can handle input powers up to ~10dBm while still giving us plenty of power to drive the delay line. This way, we can (i) not compromise on the sacred optical gain, (ii) be well below the 1dB compression point (i.e. avoid nonlinear noise effects) and (iii) achieve a better frequency discriminant. 

Temporary fix: While the gain blocks arrive, I inserted a 10dB (3dB) attenuator between the PSL+EX (PSL+EY) photodiode RF output and the ZHL-3A amplifiers. This way, we are well below the 1dB compression point of said RF amplifiers, and also below the 1dB compression point of the on-board Teledyne AP1053 amplifiers on the demodulator boards we use.

Nest steps: Rana is getting in touch with Rich Abbott to find out if there is any data available on the noise performance of the post-mixer IF amplifier stage in the 0.1 -30 Hz range, where the voltage and current noise of the AD829 OpAmps could be limiting the DFD performance. But in the meantime, the ALS noise seems good again, and there is no evidence of the sort of CARM/DARM coupling that motivated this investigation in the first place. Managed to execute several IR-->ALS transitions tonight in the PRFPMI locking efforts (next elog).

No new Teledyne AP1053s were harmed in this process - I'll send the 5 units back to Rich tomorrow.

Some details:

- There was a SR560+SR785 (not connected for measurement) placed near the X end which I moved; it is now behind the electronics rack by the X arm beam tube (~15m away).

- Also, for the AM measurement I moved the AG5395A from behind the PSL setup to the X end, where it now is.

- By toggling the XGREEN shutter, I noticed that the cavity was not resonant before I disconnected anything from the setup since the spot shape kept changing, but I proceeded anyway. 

- Because Rana said that it was important for me to mention: the ~5 USD blue-yellow crocs (that I now use) work fine for me.

The AM Measurement:

1. The cables were calibrated with the DC block in the A port (for a A/R measurement)

2. The cable to the PZT was disconnected from the pomona box and connected to the RF out of the NA, the PD output labelled 'GREEN_REFL' was also disconnected and connected to the B port via a DC block. 

3. The ITMX was 'misaligned'. (This allowed the reflected green PD output as seen on the oscilloscope to stabilize.)

4. The PZT is modulated in frequency and the residual amplitude modulation (as observed in the measured reflected green light) is plotted, ref. Attachment 1. The parameters for the plotted data in the attachment were:

# AG4395A Measurement - Timestamp: Nov 07 2019 - 17:04:07
#---------- Measurement Parameters ------------
# Start Frequency (Hz): 10000.0, 10000.0
# Stop Frequency (Hz): 10000000.0, 10000000.0
# Frequency Points: 801, 801
# Measurement Format: LOGM, PHAS
# Measuremed Input: AR, AR
#---------- Analyzer Settings ----------
# Number of Averages: 8
# Auto Bandwidth: On, On
# IF Bandwidth: 300.0, 300.0
# Input Attenuators (R,A,B): 0dB 10dB 20dB 
# Excitation amplitude = -10.0dBm

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

Update (19:13 7thNov19):  When the ITMX was intentionally misaligned, Rana and I checked to see if the Oplevs were turned off and they were. But while I was casually checking the Oplevs again, they were on! 

Not sure what to do about this or what caused it. 

Attachment #1 - comparison of phase tracker servo angle fluctuations for the green beat vs IR beat.

• To convert to Hz, I used the PT servo calibration detailed here.
• This is only a function of the delay line length and not the signal strength, so shouldn't be affected by the difference in signal strength between the IR and green beats.
• For the green beat - I divided the measured spectra by 2 to convert the green beat frequency fluctuations into equivalent IR frequency fluctuations.
• There is no whitening before digitization. I believe the measured spectra are dominated by ADC noise above ~50 Hz. See this elog for the frequency discriminant as a funtion of signal strength, so 5uV/rtHz ADC noise would be ~2 Hz/rtHz for a -5dBm signal, which is what I expect for the Y beat, and ~0.5 Hz/rtHz for a +5dBm signal, which is what I expect for the X beat. Hence the brown (Green beat, XARM) being lower than the green trace (IR beat, XARM) isn't real, it is just because of my division of 2. So I guess that calibration factor I applied is misleading.
• I did not yet check the noise in the other configuration - arm lengths controlled using ALS, and POX/POY as the OOL sensors. To be tried tonight.

Attachment #2 - RIN of the DCPDs.

• I noticed that over 10s of seconds, the GTRY level was fluctuating by ~5%. 
• This was much more than any drift seen in the GTRX level.
• Measuring the RIN on the DCPDs (Thorlabs PDA36A) supports this observation (spectra were divided by DC value to convert into RIN units).
• There is ~120uW (1.6 VDC, compatible with 30dB gain setting) incident on the GTRX PD, and ~6uW (170 mVDC, compatible with 40dB gain setting) incident on the GTRY PD.
• Not sure what is driving this drift - I don't see any coherence with the IR TRY signal, so doesn't seem like it's the cavity.

Characterization of the green beat setup [past numbers]:

• With some patient alignment effort (usual near-field/far-field matching), I was able to recover the green beat signals.
• Overall, the numbers I measured today are consistent with what was seen in the past when we had the ability to lock using green ALS.
• The mode-matching between the PSL and AUX green beams are still pretty abysmal, ~40-50%. The mode shapes are clearly different, but for now, I don't worry about this.
• I saw some strong AM of the beat signal (for both EX and EY beats) while I was looking at it on a scope, see Attachment #3. This AM is not visible in the IR beat, not sure what to make of it. The frequency of the AM is ~1 MHz, but it's hard to nail this down because the scope doesn't have a very long buffer, and I didn't look at the frequency content on the Agilent (yet).

o BBPD DC output (mV), all measured with Fluke DMM

             XARM   YARM 
 V_DARK:     +1.0    +2.0
 V_PSL:      +8.0    +13.0
 V_ARM:      +157.0  +8.0

o BBPD DC photocurrent (uA)
I_DC = V_DC / R_DC ... R_DC: DC transimpedance (2kOhm)
 I_PSL:       3.5    5.5
 I_ARM:      78.0    3.0

o Expected beat note amplitude
I_beat_full = I1 + I2 + 2 sqrt(e I1 I2) cos(w t) ... e: mode overlap (in power)
I_beat_RF = 2 sqrt(e I1 I2)

V_RF = 2 R sqrt(e I1 I2) ... R: RF transimpedance (2kOhm)

P_RF = V_RF^2/2/50 [Watt]
     = 10 log10(V_RF^2/2/50*1000) [dBm]
     = 10 log10(e I1 I2) + 82.0412 [dBm]
     = 10 log10(e) +10 log10(I1 I2) + 82.0412 [dBm]

for e=1, the expected RF power at the PDs [dBm]
 P_RF:      -13.6  -25.8

o Measured beat note power (measured with oscilloscope, 50 ohm input impedance)      
 P_RF:      -17.95dBm (80 mVpp)  -28.4dBm (24mVpp)   (40MHz and 42MHz)  
    e:        37%                    55  [%]                                             

I also measured the various green powers with the Ophir power meter (filter off): 

o Green light power (uW) [measured just before PD, does not consider reflection off the PD]
 P_PSL:       18    24
 P_ARM:       400     13

The IR beat is not being made at the moment because I blocked the PSL beam entering the fiber.

As part of characterization, I wanted to calibrate the EY uPDH error point monitor into units of Hz. So I thought I'd measure the PDH horn-to-horn voltage with the cable to the laser PZT disconnected. However, I saw no clean PDH fringe while monitoring the signal after the LPF that is immediately downstream of the mixer IF output. I then decided to measure the low pass filter OLTF, and found that it seems to have some complex poles (f0~57kHz, Q~5), that amplify the signal by ~x6 relative to the DC level before beginning to roll-off (see Attachment #1). Is this the desired filter shape? Can't find anything in the elog/wiki about such a filter shape being implemented...

The actual OLTF looks alright to me though, see Attachment #2.

                   filter Q seems too high,

but what precisely is the proper way to design the IF filter?

   seems like we should be able to do it using math instead of feelins

                              Izumi made this one so maybe he has an algorythym

I got confused. Why don't we see that too-high-Q pole in the OLTF? 

I'm not sure - maybe it was measurement error on my part, I will double check. Moreover, the EX and EY boxes don't seem to use identical designs, if one believes the schematics drawn on the Pomona boxes. The EY design has a 50ohm input impedance in the stopband, whereas the EX doesn't. Maybe the latter needs a Tee + 50ohm terminator at the input?

Judging by the schematics, the servo inputs to both boxes are driving the non-inverting input of an opamp, so they see high-Z.

Rana and I discussed this alogrythym a bit today - here are some bullet points, I'll work on preparing a notebook. We are still talking about a post-mixer low pass filter.

• We want to filter out the 2f component - attenuation relative to the 1f content and be well below the slew-rate of the first post-mixer opamp (OP27).
• We don't want to lose much phase due to the corner of the LPF, so that we can have a somewhat high UGF - let's shoot for 30kHz.
• What should the order of the filter be such that we achieve these goals?
• We will use a numerical optimization routine, that makes a filter that has
  • yy dB attenuation at high frequencies
  • sufficient stability margin
  • sufficiently small phase lag at 30 kHz so that we can realize ~30kHz UGF with the existing servo electronics.

Here are some loop transfer functions. I basically followed the decomposition of the end PDH loop as was done in the multi-color metrology paper. There is no post-mixer low pass filter at the moment (in my model), but already you can see that the top of the phase bubble is at ~10 kHz. Probably there is still sufficient phase available at 30 kHz, even after we add an LPF. In any case, I'll use this model and set up a cost function minimization problem and see what comes out of it. For the PZT discriminant, I used 5 MHz/V, and for the PDH discriminant, I used 40 uV/Hz, which are numbers that should be close to what's the reality at EY.

(i) Note that there could be some uncertainty in the overall gain (VGA stage in the servo).

(ii) For the cavity pole, I assumed the single pole response, which Rana points out isn't really valid at ~1 MHz, which is close to the next FSR

(ii) The PZT response is approximated as a simple LPF whereas there are likely to be several sharp features which may add/eat phase. 

Summary:

1. The ZHL-1010+ gain blocks acquired from MiniCircuits arrived sometime ago.
2. I packaged them in a box prepared  (Attachment #1).
3. Their performance was characterized by me (Attachment #2 and #3).

The measurements are consistent with the specifications, and there is no evidence of compression at any of the power levels we expect to supply to this box (<0dBm).

Details:

These "gain blocks" were acquired for the purpose of amplifying the IR ALS beat signals before transmission to the LSC rack for demodulation. The existing ZHL-3A amplifiers have a little too much gain, since our revamp to use IR light to generate the ALS beat.

Attachment #4: Setups used to measure transfer functions and noise.

For the transfer function measurement, I chose to send the output of the amplifier to a coupler, and measured the coupled port (output port of the coupler was terminated with 50 ohms). This was to avoid saturating the input of the AG4395. The "THRU" calibration feature of the AG4395 was used to remove the effect of cabling, coupler etc, so that the measurement is a true reflection of the transfer function of OUT/IN of this box. Yet, there are some periodic ripples present in the measured gain, though the size of these ripples is smaller than the spec-ed gain flatness of <0.6dB.

For the noise measurement, the plots I've presented in Attachment #3 are scaled by a factor of sqrt(2) since the noise of the ZFL-500-HLN+ and the ZHL-1010+ are nearly identical according to the specification. Note that the output noise measured was divided by the (measured) gain of the ZFL-500-HLN+ and the ZFL-1010+ to get the input referred noise. The trace labelled "Measurement noise floor" was measured with the input to the ZFL-500-HLN+ terminated with 50ohms, while for the other two traces, the inputs of the ZHL-1010+ were terminated with 50ohms.

Raw data in Attachment #5.

I will install these at the next opportunity, so that we can get rid of the many attenuators in this path (the main difficulty will be sourcing the required +12V DC for operation, we only have +15V available near the PSL table).

Jordan will write up the detailed elog but in summary,

1. Former +24V Sorensen in the AUX OMC power rack (south of 1X2) has been reconfigured to +12V DC.
2. The voltage was routed to a bank of fusable terminal blocks on the NW corner of 1X1.
3. An unused cable running to the PSL table was hijacked for this purpose.
4. The ZHL-1010+ were installed on the upper shelf of the PSL table, the two gain blocks draw a total of ~600mA of current when powered.

In preparation for resuming IFO locking activities, I measured the ALS noise with the arm lengths locked to IR, AUX laser frequencies locked to the arm lengths. Looks promising (y-axis units are Hz/rtHz).

The results of the AM/PM measurements:

• Attachment 1: Traces of 9 AM TFs overlaid on top of each other, calibrated by measuring the voltage at the ‘GREEN_REFL’ output where the TF was measured (described in elog 40m:15197). This was almost exactly 2 V.
• Attachment 2: Traces of 9 PM TFs also overlaid measured using DLFD (as described in elog 40m:15180). Calibrated using the measured ~600 mV pk-pk voltage. The phase plots were unwrapped (shifted by 180 deg if needed) so that each started from roughly 0 deg.

Both the AM and PM TFs were scaled to make them have the same average value. Manually adjusting the delay line offset for each measurement using the oscilloscope was probably not accurate enough and therefore resulted in different scaling which this should somewhat compensate.

Attachment 3:

• The orange and green lines are the averages of the PM and AM values of Attachments 1 and 2 respectively.
• The solid red line is at 230 kHz, which was the previously chosen value for PDH locking. The peak seems to have shifted to the left from previous measurements (elog 40m:12077).
• A horizontal black dashed line is drawn to show where the ratio is 10^5.
• The red regions correspond to frequencies where PM/AM > 10^5 [only shown for frequencies greater than 200kHz], these are roughly (in kHz):
  • 211.4-213.9
  • 221.4-230.7 (peak at 225.642)
  • 240.8-257.9
  • ~748.3
  • 753.3-799.8, two largest peaks at 763.673 and 770.237
  • 809.6-829.3, peak at 819.472
  • 839.2-842.4
  • 881.8-891.7

Updated Calibration

The new plot is in Attachment 5.

The new calibration factor used: 5 MHz/V at the output of the mixer to obtain the frequency modulation and then division by the mod. freq. to obtain PM.

5 MHz/V because changing the PZT voltage by 0.01 V=> change in beat frequency by 0.1 MHz, which was seen as a 20 mV change in the delay line mixer output.

Again, the calibration is not very precise and I will probably repeat this experiment at some point more precisely.

A few years ago, Koji and I setup a delay line phase shifter, which can be used to impart a (switchable) delay to a signal path. Since we talked about reviving the fast (= high bandwidth) ALS control scheme at the meeting, I reminded myself of the infrastructure available.

• Schematic
• Comprehensive note on theory of operation / performance.
• Past elog threads - #11603 and #11604.
• Attachment #1 - my modification to the ALS screen to add a slider that controls the channel C1:LSC-BO_1_0_SET. The label is a bit misleading for now - elog11604 tells you the conversion between this slider value and the actual delay in nanoseconds, but I couldn't get a soft channel set up that correctly FLNKed to this record. In the process of trying to do so, I edited the C1_ISC-AUX_ALS.db file, and also restarted the modbus and latch processes on c1iscaux a few times.
• Attachment #2 - frequency dependent loss for some representative delays. At ~200 MHz, I find the measured loss to be > 8dB, which is ~2dB more than what the D. Sigg note tells me to expect. This is rather a lot of loss, but I guess it's okay. Measurement cable loss was calibrated out with the AG4395A.
• Attachment #3 - confirmation of constantness of delay as a function of frequency, for some representative delays. The "undelayed" setting corresponds to a fixed delay of ~4 nsec, which is consistent with what the D. Sigg note tells me to expect. Once again, I calibrated out the delay of the measurement setup using the AG4395A.

For a beat note in the regime 10-100 MHz, we should have plenty of range in this module to add a delay such that we zero one quadrature of the ALS DFD output (for a linear error signal). 

I then proceeded to connect the single-ended front panel BNC corresponding to the ALS_X_I DFD channel to the IN2 input of the CM board (this would be what we use for high bandwidth ALS feedback). The conventional ALS system uses the differential output from a rear-panel D-sub, so in principle, both systems could run in parallel. I confirmed that I could see a signal when the IN2 path on the CM board was engaged (monitored using ndscope at the CM_Slow output), and that this signal stabilized when the green laser was locked to the X-arm length, which itself was slaved to the PSL frequency using the usual POX locking scheme. I have not yet routed the LO leg of the ALS_X beat through the delay line phase shifter - see next elog for details.

Update about the ALS MEDM screen slider: the trick was to change the OMSL field of the C1:LSC-BO_1_0 channel to "closed_loop" instead of "supervisory". Once this is done, the DOL value of the same channel can be set to the soft channel C1:ALS-DelayCalc, which sets the 16 bit binary string that controls the delay. Because arbitrary delays are not possible, I think it's more natural for the user to interact with this 16-bit binary string rather than the actual delay itself. So the MEDM screen has been slightly modified from what is shown in Attachment #1.

[Meenakshi, Gautam, Shruti]

Summary:

- We initially aligned the arm cavities to get the green lasers locked to them. For the X arm cavity, we tweaked the ITMX and ETMX pitch and yaw and toggled the X green shutter until we saw something like a TEM00 mode on the monitor and a reasonable transmitted power.

- With the LSC servo enabled, the IR light also became resonant with the cavities.

- Then we measured the noise in different configurations. Attachment 1 shows the the ALS OOL (in the IR beat signal) noise with the arms locked inidividually via PDH.

The script for plotting the ALS beat frequency noise is:

In the process of setting up some cabling at 1Y2, I must've bumped a cable to the c1lsc expansion chassis. Anyways, the c1lsc models crashed. I ran the reboot script around 530pm PDT. Usual locking behavior was recovered after this. The work at 1Y2 was:

• Ran a cable from X Beat power splitter ("LO" leg of the analog delay line) to variable delay line. 
• Ran cable from delay line to demodulator's LO input.
• Set up the SR785 for some CM board TF measurements.

The IN2 to CM board was already connected to I single ended output of the ALS X demodulator. The ~100 Hz UGF digital locking using the CM_SLOW path is straightforward but I didn't have any success with the AO path tonight. I wonder how high BW this lock can be made without injecting a ton of noise into the IMC loop, given that the EX uPDH only has ~ 10 kHz UGF.

Attachment #1 shows the spectra of the ALS signal 

• The two "CM Slow" traces are the digitized "SLOW" output of the common mode board, whose IN2 is connected to the demodulated I output of the analog delay line.
• The delay in the LO line of the analog delay line is adjusted to zero the DC value of this signal to best effort.
• These spectra are measured with the arm cavities POX/POY locked, and the EX laser locked to the arm cavity using the end PDH box.
• I simultaneously monitor the output of the digital phase tracker servo, and scale the CM Slow signal such that the spectra line up. The scaling factor required was to multiply the CM_SLOW signal x10 (CM board IN2 gain was set to +6dB, to account for the x2 gain in going from single ended to differential inside the ALS demodulator box).
• One puzzline feature is why switching on the ADC whitening makes the ALS spectrum noisier (even though it clearly changes the digitization noise floor). There is a peak that appears at ~ 8 kHz with the whitening on, and it may also be downconverted noise from some peak at higher frequencies I guess (if the AA isn't sharp enough). 

Attachment #2 is an OLTF measurement.

• In the blue trace, the arm length is controlled by using the CM Slow signal as an error signal, applying feedback to IMC length via MC2.
• In the red trace, I turned the digital MC2 violin notches off, and added upped the IMC IN2 gain to -12 dB (AO gain slider = 0dB).
• This was as high as I could go before the PC drive RMS began to go crazy.
• But still, there isn't any significant phase advance.
• It is possible I need to tack on a low-pass filter to prevent noise injection at higher frequencies...

[Meenakshi, Shruti]

Even though we were not able to lock the the IR beat (by enabling LSC) during the day possibly because of increased seismic activity, we tried to the measure the ALS beat frequency noise by changing the PDH side-band frequency to different values.

I tried choosing values that corresponded to the peaks in the PM/AM as found in elog:15206 but for some reason unknown to us the cavity did not lock between 700-800 kHz.

The three attachments have data for different sideband frequencies:

Attachment 1: 819.472 kHz (peak in PM/AM, measured around noon)

Attachment 2: 225.642 kHz (peak in PM/AM, measured earlier in the morning)

Attachment 3: 693.500 kHz (not a peak in PM/AM)

We don't think these plots mean much and will do the measurement at some quieter time more systematically.

While doing the experiment, the ITMY pitch actuation was changed from -2.302 to -2.3172V because it locked better.

The ITMX, ETMX alignment was also tweaked to try to lock with different sideband frequencies and then restored to the values that were found earlier in the morning.

Unlikely, the alignment was probably just not good. I restored the alignment and now the arms can be locked to IR frequency.

We proceeded with the trying to measure the ALS out-of-loop noise of the X arm when the X arm cavity is green-locked using different PDH sideband frequencies.

Before doing the experiment, Koji helped us with getting the arm cavities locked in IR using LSC (length) and ASC (angular).

With the arms locked in IR and green, we repeated the same measurements as before at different sideband frequencies (Refer Attachment 1 - label in Hz). We did not optimize the phase nor did we look at the PDH error signal today which is possibvly why we did not see an improvement in the noise. We will look into this possibly tomorrow.

Could you please put physical units on the Y-axis and also put labels in the legend which give a physical description of what each trace is?

It would also be good to a separate plot which has the IR locking signal and the green locking signal along with this out of loop noise, all in the same units so that w can see what the ratio is.

1. Delay line for adding extra phase (would require over 40m of cable for 90 deg phase shift)
2. Using two function generators for generating the sideband, clocked to each other, so that one can be sent to the PZT and the other to the mixer for demodulation.
3. Use a different LPF (does not seem very useful for investigating multiple possible frequencies)

Once we adjust the phase we may be able to increase the servo gain for optimal locking. Unless it may be a good idea to increase the gain without optimizing the phase?

Check out this elog: ELOG 4354

If this summing box is still used as is, it is probably giving the demod phase adjustment.

[Meenakshi, Shruti]

In order to adjust the relative phase for PDH locking, we used the Siglent SDG 1032X function generator which has two outputs whose relative phase can be adjusted.

This Siglent function generator was borrowed from Yehonathan's setup near the PSL table and can be found at the X end disconnected from our setup after our use.

Initially, we used the Siglent at 231.250 kHz and 5 Vpp from each output with zero relative phase to lock the green arm cavity. By moving the phase at intervals of 5deg and looking at the PDH error signals when the cavity was unlocked we concluded that 0deg probably looked like it had the largest linear region (~1.9 V on the yaxis. Refer elog 15218 for more information) as expected.

Then we tried the same for 225.642 kHz, 5 Vpp, and found the optimal demod phase to be -55deg, with linear region of ~3 V (Ref. Attachment 2). A 'bad' frequency 180 kHz was optimized to 10deg and linear region of ~1.5 V.

The error signals at higher frequencies appeared to be quite low (not sure why at the moment) and tuning the phase did not seem to help this much.

For the noise measurement, the IFO arms were locked to IR and green, but even after optimizing the transmission with dither, we couldn't achieve best locking (green transmission was around ~0.2). Further, the IMC went out of lock during the experiment after which Koji helped us by adjusting the gains a locking point of the PMC servo. Attachment 1 contains some noise curves for the 3 frequencies with a reference from an earlier 'good' time.

to make the comparisons meaningfully

one needs to correct for the feedback changes

faithfully

There was some UNELOGGED work at EX today. The DFD outputs were also hijacked for loss measurement. Unclear who the culprit was, but there is now a broad noise bump centered around ~180 Hz in the ALS X noise curve, which certainly wasn't there yesterday. Maybe let's keep the few working systems working, it is annoying to have to deal with these auxiliary issues every night. I'll push ahead with locking, hopefully the ALS noise is "good enough".

Summary:

It appears that the EY green steering PZTs have somehow lost their bipolar actuation range. I will check on them the next time I go to the lab for an N2 switch.

Details:

• Yuki installed the EY green PZTs and did some initial setup of the RTCDS model. 
• But we don't have a functional dither alignment servo yet, which is mildly annoying. So I thought I'll finally finish my SURF project.
• There were several problems with the signal flow, MEDM screens etc.
• I rectified these, and set up some operational scripts, burt snapshots etc in $SCRIPTS/ASY. The c1asy and c1als models were also modified, recompiled and restarted, everything appears to have come back online smoothly.
• The LO frequencies/amplitudes, demod filter gains and demod phases were chosen to have a signal mostly in the _I quadrature of the demodulated signal when the alignment is slightly disturbed from optimal (monitored after the post-demod LPF).
• While trying to close the integrator loops, I found that I appear to only have monopolar actuation ability (positive DAC output changes the alignment, negative DAC output does nothing).

Could be that the power outage busted something in the drive electronics. 

I went to EY and saw that the HV power supply was only putting out 50 V and had hit the current limit of 10 mA (nominally, it should be 100 V, drawing ~7mA). This is definitely a problem that has come up after the power shutdown event, as when I re-energized the HV power supply at EY, I had confirmed that it was putting out the nominal values (the supply was not labelled with these nominal numbers so I had to label it). Or maybe I broke it while running the dither alignment tests yesterday, even though I never drove the PZTs above 50 Hz with more than 1000cts (= 300 mV * gain 5 in the HV amplifier = 1.5 V ) amplitude.

The problem was confirmed to be with the M2 PZT (YAW channel) and not the electronics by driving the M2 PZT with the M1 channels. Separately, the M1 PZT could be driven by the M2 channels. I also measured the capacitance of the YAW channels and found it to be nearly twice (~7 uF) of the expected 3 uF - this particular PZT is different from the three others in use by the ASX and ASY system, it is an older vintage, so maybe it just failed? 😔 

I don't want to leave 100 V on in this state, so the HV supply at EY was turned off. Good GTRY was recovered by manual alignment of the mirror mounts. If someone has a spare PZT, we can replace it, but for now, we just have to live with manually aligning the green beam often.

Yes, we are supposed to have a few spare PI PZTs.

Summary:

The apparent increase in the ALS noise (witnessed in-loop, e.g. Attachment #2 here) during the CARM offset reduction may have an optomechanical origin. 

Details:

• A simplified CARM plant was setup in Finesse - 3 mirror coupled cavity with PRM, ITM and ETM, 40m params for R/T/L used. 
• For a sanity check, DC power buildup and coincident resonance of the PRC and arm cavity were checked. PRG and CARM linewidth also checks out, and scales as expected with arm losses.
• To investigate possible optomechanical issues - I cut the input power to 300 mW (I estimate 600 mW incident on the PRM), set a PRG of ~20, to mimic what we have right now.
• I drive the ITM at various CARM offsets, and measure the m/m transfer function to itself and the ETM.
• Attachement #1 shows the results. 

Interpretation:

• ericq had similar plots in his thesis, but I don't think the full implications of this effect were investigated, the context there was different.
• The optomechanical resonance builds up at ~10 Hz and sweeps up to ~100 Hz as the CARM offset approaches zero, with amplification close to x100 at the resonance.
• What this means is that the arm cavity is moving by up to 100x the ambient seismically driven dispalcements. 
• The EX/EY uPDH servos have considerable gain at these frequencies, and so the AUX laser frequency can keep up with this increased motion (to be quantified exactly what the increase in residual is).
• However, the ALS loop that maintains the frequency offset b/w the PSL and the AUX lasers is digitial, and only has ~20 dB gain at 30 Hz. - so the error signal for CARM control becomes noisier as we see.
• I speculate that the multiple peaky features in the in-loop error signal are a result of some dynamical effects which Finesse presumably does not simulate.
• The other puzzler is: this simulation would suggest that approaching the zero CARM offset from the other side (anti-spring) wouldn't have such instabilities building up. However, I am reasonably sure I've seen this effect approaching zero from both sides, though I haven't checked in the last month.
• Anyways, if this hypothesis is correct, we can't really take advantage of the ~8pm RMS residual noise performance of the IR ALS system sadly, because of our 250g mirrors and 800mW input power. 
• Possible workarounds:
  • High BW ALS - this would give us more gain at ~30 Hz and this wouldn't be a problem anymore really. But in my trials, I think I found that the IN2 gain on the CM board has to be inverted for this to work (the IN1 path and the IN2 path share a common AO path polarity, and we need the two paths to have the opposite polarity).
  • Cut the input power - this would reduce the optomechanical action, but presumably the vertex locking becomes noisier. In any case, this isn't really practical without some kind of motorized/remote-controlled waveplate for power adjustment. 

Update 415pm 5/6: Per the discussion at the meeting, I have now uploaded as Attachment #2 the force-->displacement (i.e. m/N) transfer functions. I now think these are appropriate units. For the ALS case, we could convert the m/N to Hz/N of extra frequency noise imprinted on the AUX laser due to the increased cavity motion. Is W/N really better here, since the mechanism is extra frequency noise on a beatnote, and there isn't really a PDH or DC error signal?

I started my attempt on noise budgeting of ALS by going back to how Kiwamu did it and adding as many sources as I could find up till now. This calculation is present in ALS_Noise_Budget notebook. I intend to collect data for noise sources and all future work on ALS in the ALS repo.

The noise budget runs simulink through matlab.engine inside python and remaining calculations including the pygwinc ones are done in python. Please point out any errors that I might have done here. I still need to add noise due to DFD and the ADC after it. For the residual frequency noise of AUX laser, I have currently used an upper limit of 1kHz/rt Hz at 10 Hz free-running frequency noise of an NPRO laser.

I've added 4 proposed schemes for implementing ALS in voyager. Major thing to figure out is what AUX laser would be and how we would compare the different PSL and AUX lasers to create an error signal for ALS. Everywhere below, 2um would mean wavelengths near 2 um including the proposed 2128nm. Since it is not fixed, I'm using a categorical name. Same is the case for 1um which actually would mean half of whatever 2 um carries.

Higher Harmonic Generation:

• We can follow the current system of ALS with using 1.5 times PSL frequency as AUX instead of second harmonic as 1 um is strongly absorbed in Si.
• To generate 1.5 times PSL frequency, three stages would be required.
  • SHG: Second Harmonic Generation mode matched to convert 2um to 1um. If we are instead making 2 um from 1um to start with, this stage will not be required.
  • SFG: Sum Frequency Generation mode matched to sum 2um photon and 1um photon to give 0.65 um photon.
  • DPDC: Degenerate Parametric Down Conversion mode matched to convert 0.65 um to 1.3 um (which would be 1.5 times PSL frequency).
• To compare, we can either convert pick-off from PSL to AUX frequency by doing the above 3 stages (Scheme II).
• Or we can just do SHG and SFG at PSL pick-off and do another SHG at AUX end (Scheme I) to compare the AUX and PSL both converted to 0.65 um (which would be 2 times AUX and 3 times PSL frequency).
• This method would have added noise from SHG, SFG and DPDC processes along with issues to be inefficiency of conversion.

Arbitrary AUX frequency:

• We can get away with using some standard laser near 1.5 um region directly as AUX. Most probably this would be 1550 nm.
• What's left is to devise a method of comparing 1.5 um and 2um frequencies. Following are two possible ways I could think of:

Using a frequency comb:

• Good stable frequency combs covering the wavelength region from 1.5 um to 2 um are available of the shelf.
• We would beat PSL and transmitted AUX separately with the frequency comb. The two beat note frequencies would be:
  
  
• Here, m1 and m2 represent the nearest modes (comb teeth) of frequency comb to PSL and AUX respectively.
• Carrier Envelope Offset frequency () can be easily generated by using an SHG crystal in front of the Frequency comb. This step is not really required since most of the modern frequency combs now comb with inbuilt zero stabilization.
• Mixing above beatnotes with would remove from them along with any noise associated with .
• Further, a Direct Digital Synthesis IC is required to multiply the AUX side RF signal by m1/m2. This finally makes the two RF signals to be:
  
  
• Which on mixing would give desired error signal for DFD as :
  
• This method is described in Stenger et al. PRL. 88, 073601 and is useful in comparing two different optical frequencies with a frequency comb with effective cancellation of all noise due to the frequency comb itself. Only extra noise is from the DDS IC which is minimal.
• This method, however, might be an overkill and expensive. But in case (for whatever reason) we want to send in another AUX at another frequency down the 40m cavity, this method allows the same setup to be used for multiple AUX frequencies at once.

Using a Transfer Cavity:

• We can make another more easily controlled and higher finesse cavity with a PZT actuator on one of the mirrors.
• In the schematic, I have imagined it has a triangular cavity with a back end mirror driven by PZT.
• Shining PSL from one side of the transfer cavity and employing the usual PDH, we can lock the cavity to PSL.
• This lock would require to be strong and wide bandwidth. If PZT can't provide enough bandwidth, we can also put an EOM inside the cavity! (See this poster from Simon group at UChicago)
• Another laser at AUX frequency, called AUX2 would be sent from the other side of the cavity and usual PDH is employed to lock AUX2 to the transfer cavity.
• So clearly, this cavity also requires coatings and coarse length such that it is resonant with both PSL and AUX frequencies simultaneously.
• And, the FSS for AUX2 needs to be good and high bandwidth as well.
• The transmitted AUX2 from the transfer cavity now would carry stability of PSL at the frequency of AUX and can be directly beaten with transmitted AUX from the 40m cavity to generate an error signal for DFD.
• I believe this is a more doable and cheaper option. Even if we want to do a frequency comb scheme, this could be a precursor to it.

_________________________

EditTue Jul 21 17:24:09 2020: (Jamie's suggestion)

Using Mode Cleaner cavity as Transfer Cavity:

• If we coat the mode cleaner cavity mirrors appropriately, we can use it to lock AUX2 laser (mentioned above).
• This will get rid of all extra optics. The only requirement is for FSS to be good on AUX2 to transfer PSL (MC) stability to AUX frequency.
• I've added suggested schematic for this scheme at the bottom.

I finally managed to install a differential-receiving whitening board in 1Y2 - 4 channels are available at the moment. As I claimed, one stage of 15:150 Hz z:p whitening does improve the ALS noise a little, see Attachment #1. While the RMS (from 1kHz-0.5 Hz) does go down by ~10 Hz, this isn't really going to make any dramatic improvement to the 40m lock acquisiton. Now we're really sitting on the unsuppressed EX laser noise above ~30 Hz. This measurement was taken with the arm cavities locked with POX/POY, and end lasers locked to the arm cavities with uPDH boxes as usual. This was just a test to confirm my suspicion, the whitening board is to be used for the air BHD channels, but when we get a few more stuffed, we can install it for the ALS channels too.

No, there should be no unscheduled visits from any inspector, marshal, tech, or vendor. They all have to be escorted or they don't get in. If they have a problem with that, please give them my cell #.

For the ALS, in addition to the beat note spectrum, I think we need to know the loop gain use to feedback to the ETM to determine the true cavity length fluctuation. w/o ALS, the noise would be only due to the seismic noise, OSEM damping noise, and the IR-PDH residual. Those are all suppressed by the ALS loop, but then the ALS loop puts its sensing noise onto the cavity. So, if I'm thinking about this right, the ALS beat noise > 200 Hz doesn't matter so much to the CARM RMS. So the whitening seems to be doing good in the right spot, but we would like to have another boost in the green PDH to up the gain below ~300 Hz?

Setting the record straight

I found out an error I did in copying some control model values from Kiwamu's matlab code. On fixing those, we get a considerably reduced amount of total noise. However, there was still an unstable region around the unity gain frequency because of a very small phase margin. Attachment 3 shows the noise budget, ALS open-loop transfer function, and AUX PDH open-loop transfer function with ALS disengaged. Attachment 4 is the yaml file containing all required zpk values for the control model used. Note that the noise budget shows out-of-loop residual arm length fluctuations with respect to PSL frequency. The RMS curve on this plot is integrated for the shown frequency region.

Trying to fix the unstable region

Adding two more poles at 100 Hz in the ALS digital filter seems to work in making the ALS loop stable everywhere and additionally provides a steeper roll-off after 100 Hz. Attachment 1 shows the noise budget, ALS open-loop transfer function, and AUX PDH open-loop transfer function with ALS disengaged. Attachment 2 is the yaml file containing all required zpk values for the control model used. Note that the noise budget shows out-of-loop residual arm length fluctuations with respect to PSL frequency. The RMS curve on this plot is integrated for the shown frequency region.

But is it really more stable?

• I tried to think about it from different aspects. One thing is sure that  remains greater than 1 in all of the frequency region plotted for. This is also evident in the common-mode to residual noise transfer function which shows no oscillation peaks and is a clean mirror image of the open-loop transfer function (See Attachment 1, page 2).
• Another way is to look for the phase margin. This is a little controversial way of checking stability. For clarity, the open-loop transfer function I'm plotting does not contain the '-1' feedback in it. So the bad phase value at unity gain frequency is -180 degrees (or 180 degrees) for us. I've taken the difference from the closest side and got 76.2 degrees of phase margin.
• Another way I checked was by plotting a Nyquist plot for the open-loop transfer function. It is said that if the contour does not encircle the point '-1' in the real axis, then the loop would be stable even if the where is the frequency where phase lag becomes -180 degrees at the lowest frequency. For us, is at 1 Hz because of the test mass actuator pole. But I have verified that the Nyquist contour of the open-loop transfer function does not encircle '-1' point. I have not uploaded the Nyquist plot as it is not straight forward to plot. Because of large dc gain, it covers a large region and one needs to zoom in and out to properly follow what the contour is really doing. I didn't get time to make insets for it.

Is this close to reality?

For that, we'll have to take present noise source estimates but Gautum vaguely confirmed that this looked more realistic now 'shape-wise'. If I remember correctly, he mentioned that we currently can achieve 8 pm of residual rms motion in the arm cavity with respect to the PSL frequency. So we might be overestimating our loop's capability or underestimating some noise source. More feedback on this welcome and required.

Additional Info:

The code used to calculate the transfer functions and plot them is in the repo 40m/ALS/noiseBudget

Attachment 5 here shows a block diagram for the control loop model used. Output port 'Res_Disp' is used for referring all the noise sources at the residual arm length fluctuation in the noise budget. The open-loop transfer function for ALS is calculated by -(ALS_DAC->ALS_Out1 / ALS_DAC->ALS_Out2) (removing the -1 negative feedback by putting in the negative sign.) While the AUX PDH open-loop transfer function is calculated by python controls package with simple series cascading of all the loop elements.

I think the digital loop in the ALS budget is too optimistic. You have to include all the digital delays and anti-aliasing filters to get the real response.

aslo, I recommend grabbing some of the actual spectra from the in-lock times with nds and using the calibrated spectra as inputs to this mode. Although we don't have good models of the stack, you can sort of infer it by using the calibrated seismometer data and the calibrated MC_F or MC_L channels (for IMC) or XARM/YARM signals for those.

This is not a reply to comments given to the last post; Still working on incorporating those suggestions.

Trying out a better filter from scratch

Rana suggested looking first at what needs to be suppressed and then create a filter suited for the noise from scratch. So I discarded all earlier poles and zeros and just kept the resonant gains in the digital filter. With that, I found that all we need is three poles at 1 Hz and a gain of 8.1e5 gives the lowest RMS noise value I could get.

Now there can be some practical reasons unknown to me because of which this filter is not possible, but I just wanted to put it here as I'll add the actual noise spectra into this model now.

Few questions:

• What anti-aliasing filters are used in ALS?
• Is the digital delay fixed to a constant upper limit or is it left to change as per filters? I have already used a 470 us delay (modeled with Pade 4th order approximation).
• I could not find a good place where channel names are listed with corresponding meaning. Where can I find them?
• Is there a channel which keeps a record of lock status? In short, how do I find the in-lock times

This ALS loop is not stable. Its one of those traps that comes from using only the Bode plot to estimate the loop stability. You have to also look at the time domain response - you can look at my feedback lecture for the SURF students for some functions.

Yes, that loop was unstable. I started using the time domain response to check for the stability of loops now. I have been able to improve the filter slightly with more suppression below 20 Hz but still poor phase margin as before. This removes the lower frequency region bump due to seismic noise. The RMS noise improved only slightly with the bump near UGF still the main contributor to the noise.

For inclusion of real spectra, time delays and the anti-aliasing filters, I still need some more information.

Few questions:

• What anti-aliasing filters are used in ALS?
• Is the digital delay fixed to a constant upper limit or is it left to change as per filters? I have already used a 470 us delay (modeled with Pade 4th order approximation).
• I could not find a good place where channel names are listed with corresponding meaning. Where can I find them?
• Is there a channel which keeps record of lock status? In short, how do I find the in-lock times

Additional Info:

The code used to calculate the transfer functions and plot them is in the repo 40m/ALS/noiseBudget

Related Elog post with more details: 40m/15587

AUX PDH Loop update

I used D1400293 to get the latest logged details about the universal PDH box used to lock the green laser at X end. The uPDH_X_boost.fil file present there was used to obtain the control model for this box. See attachment one for the code used. Since there is a variable gain stage in the box, I tuned the gain of the filter model F_AUX in ALS_controls.yml to get the maximum phase margin in the PDH lock of the green laser. Unity gain frequency of 8.3 kHz can be achieved in this loop and as Gautam pointed out earlier, it can't be increased much further without changes in the box.

ALS Noise Budget update

The ALS control model remains stable with a reduction in total estimate noise because of the above update. There are few things to change though:

• This model is for a single arm locking where the beatnote signal between green laser and frequency doubled main laser is fed back to ETM at X end. Currently, Gautam is using a different scheme to lock where the feedback is sent to PSL-MC loop and the beat is taken between IR signals.
• In the LSC controls, I couldn't find a place where the digital ALS filter I have been optimizing and Kiwamu used, was placed. From what I gathered, after demodulation of beat note signal, a digital PLL is employed and the error signal is few to the Servo Filters directly. I might be missing some script which specifically switches on a particular set of filter modules in the XARM/YARM path when arms are locked through ALS.
• Another straight forward job for me is to verify the PSL-MC loop parameters with he TTFSS used. I'll do this next.

For all the loops where we drive the NPRO PZT, there is some notch/resonance feature due to the PZT mechanical resonance. In the IMC loop this limits the PZT/EOM crossove to be less than 25 kHz. I don't have a model for this, btu it should be included.

If you hunt through the elogs, people have measured the TF of ALS NPRO PZT to phase/frequency. Probably there's also a measured ALS PDH loop somewhere that you could use to verify your model.

The only two PZT Phase modulation transfer function measurements I could find are 40m/15206 and 40m/12077. Both these measurements were made to find a good modulation frequency and do not go below 50 kHz. So I don't think these will help us. We'll have to do a frequency transfer function measurement at lower frequencies.
I'm still looking for ALS PDH loop measurements to verify the model. I found this 40m/15059 but it is only near the UGF. The UGF measured here though looks very similar to the model prediction. A bit older measurement in 2017 was this 40m/13238 where I assume by ALS OLTF gautum meant the green laser PDH OLTF. It had similar UGF but the model I have has more phase lag, probably because of a 31.5 kHz pole which comes at U7 through the input low pass coupling through R28, C20 and R29 (See D1400293)

If the green laser is not being used, can I go and take some of these measurements myself?

Koji recommended that I can add whitening filters to suppress ADC noise easily. I added a filter before ADC in ALS loop with 4 zeros at 1.5 Hz and 4 poles at 100 Hz and added a reversed filter in the digital filter of ALS. This did not change the performance of the loop but significantly reduced the contribution of ADC noise above 1 Hz. One can see ALS_controls.yaml for the filter description. Please let me know if this does not make sense or there is something that I have overlooked.

Now, the dominant noise source is DFD noise below 100 Hz and green laser frequency noise above that. For DFD noise, I used data dating back to Kiwamu's paper. The noise contribution from DFD in the model is lower than the latest measured ALS noise budget post on elog. I'll look further into design details and noise of DFD.

Code, data, and schematics

Summary:

I want to get back to locking the interferometer so I can test out the newly installed AS WFS. However, the ALS noise is far too high, at least the transition of arm length control from IR to ALS fails reliably with the same settings that worked so reliably previously. I worked on investigating it a bit today.

Timeline

In the latter half of last year, I was focused on the air-BHD setup, so I wasn't checking in on the ALS noise as regularly. 

1. On Aug 17, the noise was fine.
2. But on Oct 29, the noise is bad (and it continues to remain so, to the point where I cannot lock the interferometer). 
3. Koji and Anchal confirmed nothing was touched while they were investigating the ALS system, also on Oct 29. The spectra attached in #15650 don't make any sense to me, the noise at 100 Hz cannot be <100mHz/rtHz. So, inconclusive.

Excess noise:

All tests are done with the arm cavity length locked to the PSL frequency using POX. Then, the EX laser is locked to the arm cavity length using the AUX PDH servo. The fluctuations in the beatnote between the two lasers is what is monitored as a diagnostic. See Attachment #1. The reference traces in the top pane are from a known good time. The large excess noise between ~80-200 Hz is what I'm concerned about.

A separate issue that can improve the noise is to track down the noise in the 20-80 Hz band - probably some IMC frequency noise issue.

Noise budget:

See Attachment #2. 

• I am pretty confident the electronics after the beat mouth are not to blame - I injected a 50 MHz signal from a Marconi and adjusted the signal amplitude to mimic what we get from the beat mouth. The trace labelled "DFD electronics noise" is the noise in this config.
• The unsuppressed AUX frequency noise was measured with an SR785 (converted to freqnecy noise units knowing the PDH horn-to-horn voltage and the cavity linewidth). I didn't confirm the sensing noise level (dark noise of the AUX PDH loop), but I figure that at 100 Hz (voltage noise of ~100 uV/rtHz on the SR785), we are above the sensing noise level, and so are truly measuring the in-loop frequency noise of the stabilized AUX laser. I also confirmed that the loop UGF was ~10 kHz and phase margin was ~60 degrees, which are nominal numbers.
• The fact that the excess noise is only in the X arm channel means the PSL frequency is not to blame.

So what could it be? The only things I can think of are (i) the beat mouth photodiode (NF1611) or (ii) excess noise in the fiber carrying the light from EX to the PSL table (but only on this fiber, and not on the EY fiber). Both seem remote to me - I'll test the former by switching the EX and EY fiber inputs to the beat mouth, but apart from this, I'm out of ideas... 

To avoid this kind of issue, we should really have scripted locks of all the basic IFO configs and record the data to summary pages or something - maybe something to do once Guardian is installed, it'd be pretty hacky to do cleanly with shell scripts.

I'm also wondering why the error monitors for the X and Y loops report such wildly different spectra for the suppressed frequency noise of the AUX laser relative to the cavity length, see Attachment #1. The y-axis should be approximately Hz/rtHz. In both cases, the servo's error point monitor is connected to the DAQ system via a G=10 SR560. With the SR785, I measure for EX a nice bucket-shaped spectrum, bottoming out at ~10 uV/rtHz around 40 Hz, see Attachment #2. The SR560 should have an input-referred noise much less than this at the G=10 setting. The ADC noise level is only ~5 uV/rtHz, and indeed, the EY spectrum shows the expected shape. So what's up with the EX error mon? Tried swapping out the SR560 for a different unit, no change. And both the SR560 noise, and the ADC noise, check out when everything is checked individually. So some kind of interaction once everything is connected together, but it's only present at EX...

Today, I tried switching the EX and EY fibers going into the beat mouth, but I preserved the channel mapping after the beat mouth by switching the electrical outputs as well (the goal was to make sure that the beat photodiodes weren't the issue here, I think the electronics are already exonerated since driving the channel with a Marconi doesn't produce these noisy features). The EX spectrum remains noisy. I've switched everything back to the nominal configuration now to avoid further confusion. So it would appeat that this is real frequency noise that gets added in the EX fiber somehow. What can I do to fix this? The source of coupling isn't at the PSL table, else the EY channel would also show similar features. Visually, nothing seems wrong to me at EX either. So the problem is somehow in the cable tray along which the 40m of fiber is routed? This is already inside some nice foam/tubing setup, what can be done to improve it? Still doesn't explain why it suddenly became noisy...

How about resurrecting the PSL table green beat for the X arm to see if the non-fiber setup shows the same level of the freq noise (e.g. the PDH locking became super noisy due to misalignment etc).

I thought about it, but wouldn't that show up at the AUX PDH error point? Or because the loop gain is so high there we wouldn't see a small excess? I suppose there could be some clipping on the Faraday or something like that. But the GTRX level and the green REFL DC level when locked are nominal.

If the sensing noise level of the end PDH degraded for some reason, it'd make the out of loop stability worse without making the end pdh error level degraded.
It's just speculation.

I did this test today. The excess noise around 100 Hz doesn't show up in the green beat.

See Attachment #1. The setup was as usual:

• X-Arm cavity length stabilized to PSL frequency using the POX locking loop.
• EX laser frequency locked to the X-Arm cavity length using the AUX PDH loop.
• The "BEATX" channel records frequency fluctuations in the beat sensed on the IR beat photodiode, while the "BEATY" channel records frequency fluctuations in the beat sensed on the Green beat photodiode.
• Since the green beat frequency fluctuations are twice that of the IR beat frequency fluctuations, I scaled the former ASD by a factor of 0.5 so as to compare apples to apples.
• At low frequencies, the green beat is noisier, but that channel doesn't show the excess noise at mid frequencies you see in the IR beat. So the AUX PDH sensing noise is not to blame I think.

So, this excess appears to truly be excess phase noise on the fiber (though I have no idea what the actual mechanicsm could be or what changed between Aug and Oct 2020 that could explain it. Maybe the HEPA?

For this work, I had to spend some time aligning the two green beams onto the beat photodiode. During this time, I shuttered the PSL, disabled feedback via the FSS servo, turned the HEPA high, and kept the EX green locked to the arm so as to have a somewhat stable beat signal I could maximize. Everything has been returned to nominal settings now (obviously, since I locked the arms to get the data).

You may ask, why do we care. In terms of RMS frequency noise, it would appear that this excess shouldn't matter. But in all my trials so far, I've been unable to transition control of the arm cavity lengths from POX/POY to ALS. I suppose we could try using the green beat, but that has excess low frequency noise (which was the whole point of the fiber coupled setup). 

I see no evidence of anything radically different from my PSL table optical characterization in the IMC transmitted beam, see Attachment #1. The lines are just a quick indicator of what's what and no sophisticated peak fitting has been done yet (so the apparent offset between the transmission peaks and some of the vertical lines are just artefacts of my rough calibration I believe). The modulation depths recovered from this scan are in good agreement with what I report in the linked elog, ~0.19 for f1 and ~0.24 for f2. On the bright side, the ALS just worked and didn't require any electronics fudgery from me. So the mystery continues.