Are we keeping these?

He has moved the levitation stuff for his surf student to Jan's lab in W-Bridge.

The pictures that we took are now on the Picasa web site. Check it out.

After lots of trial and error, and a little inspiration from Koji, I have written a new script that will run when you select "update snapshot" in the yellow ! button on any MEDM screen. 

Right now, it's only live for the OAF_OVERVIEW screen.  View snapshot and view prev snapshot also work. 

Next on the list is to make a script that will create the yellow buttons for each screen, so I don't have to type millions of things in by hand.

The script lives in:  /cvs/cds/rtcds/caltech/c1/scripts/MEDMsnapshots, and it's called....wait for it....... "updatesnap".

 Currently the update snapshot script looks at the 3 letters after "C1" to determine what folder to put the snapshots in.  (It can also handle the case when there is no C1, ex. OAF_OVERVIEW.adl still goes to the c1oaf folder).  If the 3 letters after C1 are SYS, then it puts the snapshot into /opt/rtcds/caltech/c1/medm/c1sys/snap/MEDM_SCREEN_NAME.adl

Mostly this is totally okay, but a few subsystems seem to have incongruous names.  For example, there are screens called "C1ALS...." in the c1gcv folder.  Is it okay if these snapshots go into a /c1als/snap folder, or do I need to figure out how to put them in the exact same folder they currently exist in?  Or, perhaps, why aren't they just in a c1als folder to begin with? It seems like we just weren't careful when organizing these screens.

Another problem one is the C1_FE_STATUS.adl screen.  Can I create a c1gds folder, and rename that screen to C1GDS_FE_STATUS.adl?  Objections?

Many photos were taken by many different people....most of the fuzzy ones are by yours truely (doing a reach-around to get to hard-to-reach places), so sorry about that.

I put all the photos from yesterday and today into 6 new albums on Picasa:  https://picasaweb.google.com/foteee

The album titles are generally descriptive, and I threw in a few comments where it seemed prudent.

Big note:  The tip tilt on the ITMX table does, in fact, have the arrow pointing in the correct direction.  Photo is in the TT album from today.

Notes of stuff we discussed @ today's meeting, and afterwards, towards measuring ponderomotive squeezing at the 40m.

1. Displacement noise requirements
   • Kevin is going to see if we can measure any kind of squeezing on a short timescale by tuning various parameters.
   • Specifically, without requiring crazy ultra low current noise level for the coil driver noise.
2. Investigate how much actuation range we need for lock acquisition and maintaining lock.
   • Specifically, for DARM.
   • We will measure this by having the arms controlled with ALS in the CARM/DARM basis.
   • Build up a noise budget for this, see how significant the laser noise contribution is.
3. RC folding mirrors
   • In the present configuration, these are introducing ~2.5% RT loss in the RCs.
   • This affects PRG, and on the output side, measurable squeezing.
   • We want to see if we can relax the requirements on the RC folding mirrors such that we don't have to spend > 20 k$.
   • Specifically, consider spec'ing the folding mirror coatings to only have HR @1064 nm, and take what we get at 532 nm.
   • But still demand tolerances on RoC driven by mode-matching between the RCs and the arm cavities.
4. ALS with Beat Mouth
   • Use the fiber coupled light from the ends to make the ALS signals.
   • Gautam will update diagram to show the signal chain from end-to-end (i.e. starting at AUX laser, ending at ADC input).
   • Make a noise budget for the same - preliminary analysis suggests a sensing noise floor of ~10 mHz/rtHz.

RXA:

• For the ALS-DARM budget the idea is that we can do lock acquisition better, so we don't need to care about the acquisition reqs. i.e. we just need to set the ETM coil driver current range based on the DARM in-lock values.
  • To get the coil driver noise to be low enough to detect squeezing we need to use a ~10-15 kOhm series resistor.
  • We assume that all DAC and coil driver input noises can be sufficiently filtered.
  • We are assuming that we don't change the magnet sizes or the number of coil windings in the OSEMs.
  • The noise in the ITMs doesn't matter because we don't use them for any locking activity, so we can easily set the coil driver series resistors to 15 kOhm.
  • We will do the bias for the ETMs and ITMs using some HV circuit (not the existing ones on the coil driver boards) and doing the summation after the main coil driver series resistor. This HV bias module needs to handle the ~ (2 V / 400 Ohm) = 5 mA which is now used. This would require (5 mA) x (15 kOhm) = 60+ V drivers.
• IF we can get away with doing the ALS beat note with just red (still using GREEN light from the end laser to lock to the arms from the ends), we will not have any requirements for the 532 nm transmission of any optics in the DRMI area.
  • Get some quotes for the new PR/SR mirrors having tight RoC tolerance, high R for 1064, and no spec for 532.
  • Check that the 1-way fiber noise for 1064 nm is < 100 mHz/rHz in the 50-1000 Hz band. If its more, explore putting better acoustic foam around the fiber run.
  • Improve the mode-matching of the IR beam into the fibers at the ends. We want >80% to reduce the noise do to scattering; we don't really care about the amount of light available in the PSL - this is just to reduce the IR-ALS noise.

I have been looking into whether we can observe squeezing on a short timescale. The simulations I show here say that we can get 2 dBvac of squeezing at about 120 Hz using extreme signal recycling.

The parameters used here are

• 100 ppm transmissivity on the folding mirrors giving a PRC gain of 40.
• 10 kΩ series resistance for the ETMs; 15 kΩ series resistance for the ITMs.
• 1 W incident on the back of PRM.
• PD quantum efficiency 0.88.

The first attachment shows the displacement noise. The red curve labeled vacuum is the standard unsqueezed vacuum noise which we need to beat. The second attachment shows the same noise budget as a ratio of the noise sources to the vacuum noise.

This homodyne angle and SRC detuning give about the maximum amount of squeezing. However, there's quite a bit of flexibility and if there are other considerations, such as 100 Hz being too low, we should be able to optimize these angles (even with more pessimistic values of the above parameters) to see at least 0.2 dBvac around 400 Hz.

• ought to tune for 210 Hz (in-between powerlines) since 100 Hz is tough to work due to scattering, etc.
• rename DAC - I think what this curve shows is really the coil driver noise. The DAC noise we can always filter out with the dewhitening board; i.e. once we have 1000x attenuation between the DAC and the coil driver input, DAC noise is not dominant.

We can get 1.1 dBvac at 210 Hz.

The first two attachments are the noise budgets for these optimized angles. The third attachment shows squeezing as a function of homodyne angle and SRC detuning at 210 Hz. To stay below -1 dBvac, the homodyne angle must be kept between 88.5 and 89.7 degrees and the SRC detuning must be kept between -0.04 and 0.03 degrees. This corresponds to fixing the SRC length to within a range of 0.07/360 * 1064 nm = 200 pm.

Interesting. My understanding is that this is close to signal recycling, rather than resonant sideband extraction. Is that correct?

For signal recycling, we need to change the resonant condition of the carrier in the SRC. Thus the macroscopic SRC length needs to be changed from ~5.4m to 9.5m, 6.8m, or 4.1m.
In the case of 6.8m, SRC legnth= PRC length. This means that we can use the PRM (T=5%) as the new SRM.

Does this T(SRM)=5% change the squeezing level?

Yes, this SRC detuning is very close to extreme signal recycling (0° in this convention), and the homodyne angle is close to the amplitude quadrature (90° in this convention).

For T(SRM) = 5% at the optimal angles (SRC detuning of -0.01° and homodyne angle of 89°), we can see 0.7 dBvac at 210 Hz.

Maybe you've accounted for this already in the Optickle simulations - but in Finesse (software), the "tuning" corresponds to the microscopic (i.e. at the nm level) position of the optics, whereas the macroscopic lengths, which determine which fields are resonant inside the various cavities, are set separately. So it is possible to change the microscopic tuning of the SRC, which need not necessarily mean that the correct resonance conditions are satisfied. If you are using the Finesse model of the 40m I gave you as a basis for your Optickle model, then the macroscopic length of the SRC in that was ~5.38m. In this configuration, the f2 (i.e. 55MHz sideband) field is resonant inside the SRC while the f1 and carrier fields are not.

If we decide to change the macroscopic length of the SRC, there may also be a small change to the requirements on the RoCs of the RC folding mirrors. Actually, come to think of it, the difference in macroscopic cavity lengths explains the slight differences in mode-matching efficiencies I was seeing between the arms and RCs I was seeing before.

In fact, that is my point. If we use signal recycling instead of resonant sideband extraction, the "tuning" of the SRC is opposite to the current setup. We need to change the macro length of the SRC to make 55MHz resonant with this tuning. And if we make the SRC macro length together with the PRC macro length for this reason, we need to thing again about the mode matching. Fortunately, we have the spare PRM (T=5%) which matches with this curvature. This was the motivation of my question. We may also choose to keep the current SRM because of its higher T and may want to evaluate the effect of expected mode mismatch.

In light of the discussion at today's meeting, Guantanamo and I looked at how the series resistance for the test mass coil drivers limits the amount of squeezing we could detect.

The parameters used for the following calculations are:

• 4.5 kΩ series resistance for the ETM's (this was 10 kΩ in the previous calculations, so these numbers are a bit worse); 15 kΩ for the ITM's
• 100 ppm transmissivity on the folding mirrors giving a PRC gain of 40
• PD quantum efficiency of 0.88

Since we need to operate very close to signal recycling, instead of the current signal extraction setup, we will need to change the macroscopic length of the SRC. This will change the mode matching requirements such that the current SRM does not have the correct radius of curvature. One solution is to use the spare PRM which has the correct radius of curvature but a transmissivity of 0.05 instead of 0.1. So using this spare PRM for the SRM and changing the length of the SRC to be the same as the PRC we can get

• 0.63 dBvac of squeezing at 205 Hz for 1 W incident on the back of PRM
• 1.12 dBvac of squeezing at 255 Hz for 5 W incident on the back of PRM

This lower transmissivity for the SRM also reduces the achievable squeezing from the current transmissivity of 0.1. For an SRM with a transmissivity of 0.15 (which is roughly the optimal) we can get

• 1 dBvac of squeezing at 205 Hz for 1 W incident on the back of PRM
• 1.7 dBvac of squeezing at 255 Hz for 5 W incident on the back of PRM

The minimum achievable squeezing moves up from around 205 Hz at 1 W to 255 Hz at 5 W because the extra power increases the radiation pressure at lower frequencies.

To be quantitative, since we are looking at smaller squeezing levels and considering the possibility of using 5 W input power, it is possible to see a small amount of squeezing below vacuum with no SRM.

Attachment 1 shows the amount of squeezing below vacuum obtainable as a function of homodyne angle with no SRM and 5 W incident on the back of PRM. The optimum homodyne angle at 210 Hz is 89.2 deg which gives -0.38 dBvac of squeezing. Figure 2 is the displacement noise at this optimal homodyne angle and attachment 3 is the same noise budget shown as the ratio of the various noise sources to the unsqueezed vacuum.

The other parameters used for these calculations are:

• 4.5 kΩ series resistance for the ETM coils; 15 kΩ for the ITM coils
• 100 ppm transmissivity on the folding mirrors giving a PRC gain of 40
• PD quantum efficiency of 0.88

So maybe it's worth considering going for less squeezing with no SRM if that makes it technically more feasible.

[kevin, gautam]

We have been working on double checking the noise budget calculations. We wanted to evaluate the amount of squeezing for a few different scenarios that vary in cost and time. Here are the findings:

All calculations done with

• 4.5kohm series resistance on ETMs, 15kohms on ITMs, 25kohm on slow path on all four TMs.
• Detuning of SRC = -0.01 deg.
• Homodyne angle = 89.5 deg.
• Homodyne QE = 0.9. 
• Arm losses is 20ppm RT.
• LO beam assumed to be extracted from PR2 transmission, and is ~20ppm of circulating power in PRC.

Scenarios:

1. Existing setup, new RC folding mirrors for PRG of ~45.
2. Existing setup, send Innolight (Edwin) for repair (= diode replacement?) and hope we get 1.7 W on back of PRM.
3. Repair Innolight, new PRM and SRM, former for higher PRG, latter for higher DARM pole.
4. Same as #3, but with 10 W input power on back of PRM (i.e. assuming we get a fiber amp).

Remarks:

• The errors on the small dB numbers is large - 1% change in model parameters (e.g. arm losses, PRG, coil driver noise etc) can mean no observable squeezing. 
• Actually, this entire discussion is moot unless we can get the RIN of the light incident on the PRM lower than the current level (estimated from MC2 transmission, filtered by CARM pole and ARM zero) by a factor of 60dB.
  • This is because even if we have 1mW contrast defect light leaking through the OMC, the beating of this field (in the amplitude quadrature) with the 20mW LO RIN (also almost entirely in the amplitude quad) yields significant noise contribution at 100 Hz (see Attachment #1).
  • Actually, we could have much more contrast defect leakage, as we have not accounted for asymmetries like arm loss imbalance.
  • So we need an ISS that has 60dB of gain at 100 Hz. 
  • The requirement on LO RIN is consistent with Eq 12 of this paper.
• There is probably room to optimize SRC detuning and homodyne angle for each of these scenarios - for now, we just took the optimized combo for scenario #1 for evaluating all four scenarios.
• OMC displacement noise seems to only be at the level of 1e-22 m/rtHz, assuming that the detuning for s-pol and p-pol is ~30 kHz if we were to lock at the middle of the two resonances
  • This assumes 0.02 deg difference in amplitude reflectivity b/w polarizations per optic, other parameters taken from aLIGO OMC design numbers.
  • We took OMC displacement noise from here.

Main unbudgeted noises:

• Scattered light.
• Angular control noise reinjection (not sure about the RP angular dynamics for the higher power yet).
• Shot noise due to vacuum leaking from sym port (= DC contrast defect), but we expect this to not be significant at the level of the other noises in Atm #1.
• Osc amp / phase.
• AUX DoF cross coupling into DARM readout.
• Laser frequency noise (although we should be immune to this because of our homodyne angle choice).

Threat matrix has been updated.

Summary:

On the call last week, I claimed that there isn't much hope of directly measuring Ponderomotive Squeezing in aLIGO without some significant configurational changes. Here, I attempt to quantify this statement a bit, and explicitly state what I mean by "significant configurational changes".

Optomechanical coupling:

The I/O relations will generally look something like:

.

The. magnitudes of the matrix elements C_12 and C_21 (i.e. phase to amplitude and amplitude to phase coupling coefficients) will encode the strength of the Ponderomotive squeezing. 

Readout:

For the inital study, let's assume DC readout (since there isn't a homodyne readout yet even in Advanced LIGO). This amounts to setting  in the I/O relations, where the former angle is the "homodyne phase" and the latter is the "SRC detuning". For DC readout, the LO quadrature is fixed relative to the signal - for example, in the usual RSE operation, . So the quadrature we will read out will be purely  (or nearly so, for small detunings around RSE operation). The displacement noises will couple in via the  matrix element. Attachment #1 and Attachment #2 show the off-diagonal elements of the "C" matrix for detunings of the SRC near RSE and SR operation respectively. You can see that the optomechanical coupling decays pretty rapidly above ~40 Hz. 

SRC detuning:

In this particular case, there is no benefit to detuning the SRC, because we are assuming the homodyne angle is fixed, which is not an unreasonable assumption as the quadrature of the LO light is fixed relative to the signal in DC readout (not sure what the residual fluctuation in this quantity is). But presumably it is at the mrad level, so the pollution due to the orthogonal anti-squeezed quadrture can be ignored for a first pass I think. I also assume ~10 degrees of detuning is possible with the Finesse ~15 SRC, as the linewidth is ~12 degrees.

Noise budget:

To see how this would look in an actual measurement, I took the data from Lee's ponderomotive squeezing paper, as an estimate for the classical noises, and plotted the quantum noise models for a few representative SRC detunings near RSE operation - see Attachment #3. The curves labelled for various phis are the quantum noise models for those SRC detunings, assuming DC readout. I fudged the power into the IFO to make my modelled quantum noise curve at RSE line up with the high frequency part of the "Measured DARM" curve. To measure Ponderomotive Squeezing unambiguously, we need the quantum noise curve to "dip" as is seen around 40 Hz for an SRC tuning of 80 degrees, and that to be the dominant noise source. Evidently, this is not the case.

The case for balanced homodyne readout:

I haven't analyzed it in detail yet - but it may be possible that if we can access other quadratures, we might benefit from rotating away from the DARM quadrature - the strength of the optomechanical coupling would decrease, as demonstrated in Attachments #1 and #2, but the coupling of classical noise would be reduced as well, so we may be able to win overall. I'll briefly investigate whether a robust measurement can be made at the site once the BHD is implemented.

[Anchal, JC, Radhika, Paco]

JC reported that power outage happened twice in 40m today at around 4:17 pm.

We followed instructions from this page mostly to recover today. Following are some highlights:

Main laser controller fan broke

Paco reported that the adhoc fan in the back of main laser controller slid down and broke. Their might be contamination on the table from broken fan parts. Paco replaced this fan with another fan which is larger. I think it is time to fix this fan on the controller for good.

Main volume valve V1 shutdown

The main volume valve shut down because c1vac turned off. We restored the vacuum state by simply opening this valve again. Everything else was same as until the final step in vacuum resetting steps.

Mode cleaner locking issues

The burt restore for mode cleaner board settings do not bring back the state of channels C1:IOO-MC_FASTSW and C1:IOO-MC_POL. This has been an issue which has puzzled us in the past too as we try to get the mode cleaner to lock after power outage recovery. I have now added these channels and their required state in autolocker settings so that autolocker scan in the correct state always. It seems like I added with Yuta's name in the commit author.

Our main laser has tripped suspiciously twice since the power shutdown. The last time it happened on Thursday Feb 2 night (the day of power outage happened). Next morning Paco turned the laser back on, I'm not sure if he did anything else other than turning the diode current driver ON. Paco, please add anything else you did.

Chris reported that the laser tripped again last night on Feb 4th around 6 pm. I came today to see the same situation, laser diode turned OFF. After a discussion with a friend in the weekend, it turned out that sometimes when brief power outages happen, the TEC circuit for mainitaing laser tremperature turns OFF while the current driver keeps running. I'm not sure if that is the case for us but that can cause such tripping due to over heating. So today instead of simply turning on the current driver again, I power cycled the laser controller. Laser is back on and mode cleaner is locked with fewer counts though since PMC transmission dropped. I don't have time to realign PMC today and I think it might be the case that the transmission would increase once laser has reached a steady state. On Monday, we need to consult with people with more experience and understand why our laser is tripping. I hope it is not sick.

I came in today and it seems like the main laser tripped again yesterday around 3:00 pm.

There was a series of earthquakes in Turkey today, but all our suspension seem to be okay.

[Anchal, JC]

During shimmer test yesterday, the man laser tripped again. This morning, JC and I went to inspect the situation closer. We figured that if we can take a look inside the controller, we can get the replacement fan part number. Attached are some photos of inside. To open the controller, all you need to do is take out the two standoffs that are at the edges in the back side, then the top or botttom cover can slide out. Inside, all heatsinks of heat generating ICs are clamped to a larged metal heat sink which is covered on all side but one at the rear end. Through two holes in the top of this cavity, two fan push air through the heat sink to the back. This prompted us to understand that if the externam cooling fan direction is wrong, it would be pshing in air rather than pulling it out. So we decided to try the configuration where the fan is pulling out air. We think the direction of the fan was wrong till now which might be causing the laser controller to shut down. Now we need to wait and watch. For now, the laser is up and running.

Bt the way, we could not get any part number from the fans inside. We are still looking around in the lab if we have the replacement fans in hand as steve said they procured some.

 The measured power levels of the RF source harmonics are given below:

We are considering inclusion of bandpass filters centered on 11 and 55 MHz  to suppress the harmonics and meet the requirements specified in Alberto's thesis (page 88).

As part of the RF system upgrade some of the demod boards in the lab were modfied.  The filter U5 (see the circuit schematic) was replaced. These changes are tabulated below.

Next, I and Q phase has to be checked for orthogonality. And noise levels of the cards have to measured.

I am a little concerned about using these low pass filters so close to the band edge. Recall that there is no on-board preamp for the RF input to the mixer.

So, if the input impedance of the filters is not 50 Ohms, we will get some unwanted reflections and sensitivity to cable length.

I think its worth while to check the impedance or S-parameters of these things with the LO activated to find out if we need to remove them or not.

We found a stray unused heliax cable running from the LSC rack 1Y2 to a point between the cabinets 1X3 and 1X4. This cable will need to be redirected to the AS table in the new scheme.   It is labled C1LSC-PD5  The current situation has been updated as seen in the layout below

The suggested layout of the 1Y2 Rack is shown below.

To simplify the wiring, I have largely kept demod boards with the same same LO frequency close to each other. 

The Heliax cables land on the top and bottom of the of subracks.  These are currently flexible plastic sheets.  Steve has agreed to replace them with something more rigid.  It would be good to have eight N-type connectors on the top and eight  at the bottom.  As  demod boards occur in sets of eight per subrack.  So it would be convenient if the 11 and 55 Mhz Heliax cables land on the top and the rest at the bottom.  In the layout I have shown the current situation. 

The LO signals to the boards come from the RF Distribution box and this is kept in the middle so that cables to both the subracks can be kept short.

The outputs of the AA filter boards from both subracks  have to be connected to the SCSI Interface board with a twisted pair ribbon cable. 

New right angle PVC, 2 x 2 x  1/4" installed at the AP table to strain relief the 1/4" spiral corrugated RF coaxes.

As seen in the previous measurement the first harmonic of both the 11 MHz and 55 MHz outputs are about 30dB
higher than desired.  In an attempt to attenuate these and higher harmonics I introduced SBP-10.7 filters into
the 11MHz outputs and SLP-50 filters into the 55 MHz outputs.
Then I measured the height of the harmonics again and found that they were suppressed as expected.  Now harmonic
at 22 MHz is 58dB lower than the 11 MHz fundamental.  And the 110 MHz is lower by 55 dB compared to the 55 MHz
fundamental.  None of the higher harmonics are seen => they are below 70dB

SLP-50 has an insertion loss(IL) of 4.65 dB and Return Loss(RL) of 3dB.  It would be better to use SBP-60
(IL=1.4 dB and RL=23dB)

The filter on the 11 MHz lines is okay. The SBP-10.7 has IL=0.6 dB and RL=23 dB.

RF Amp operating temperature

Earlier measurement reported by Alberto in LIGO-T10004-61-v1 based on the LM34 temperature sensor were lower than that shown by placing a calibrated thermocouple sensor directly on the heat sink by about 5deg C. The difference probably arose because the LM34 was located on a separate free-hanging copper sheet attached to the RF Amp by a single screw, resulting in a gradient across the copper strip.   I tried to move the LM34 which was glued down, but broke the leads in the process.  I then replaced it with another one mounted much closer to the heat sink and held it down with a copper-strip clamp.  There is no glue involved and there is heatsink compound between the flat surface of the LM34 and the heatsink.  Picture attached. 

  The picture also shows the new filters which have been put in place to reduce the harmonics.  Note that the SBP-10.7 which was to go on the 11 MHz Demod output is located much farther upsteam due to space constraints.

RF Source box has been mounted in the 1X2 rack. 

Heliax cables have been directly attached to the box and anchored on the side of the 1X2 rack.  Here is a list of Helix cables which have been connected so far.

RF Distribution box has been mounted in the 1Y2 rack and is ready for use.

The box receives 11 and 55 MHz Demod Signals from the RF source located in the 1X2 rack.

[Joe, Jamie, Suresh]

We have installed the IDE to SCSI adaptor module into the 1X2 rack and have connected the AA filter outputs to it.

We have removed the following cables running between the 1X2 and 1X3 racks.

The long twisted pair ribbon cable which previously carried the ADC signals.

1X2-ASC 6, 1X2-ASC 47, 1X2-ASC 9, 1X2-ASC 8, 1X2-ASC 10, 1X2-ASC 7,

CAB-1X2-LSC 42, CAB 1X2-LSC 56,  CAB 1X2-LSC 41, CAB 1X2-LSC 43

1X3-2 ASC 47

We have also removed the following by mistake.  We will put them back them on Monday

1X2-LSC 21, 1X2-LSC-20.

We have also removed the ASC QPD cables and moved the QPD cards which were present in the middle Eurocate (#2) to the unused Eurocrate at the bottom position (#3).

The binary input cables at the back of the cards require to be supported so that their weight does not pull them out of the sockets at the back of the crates.

Some of the slots where we plan to plug in Demod boards (the 165 MHz boards)  are not currently connected to any binary output on the C1:LSC computer.  We need these binary controls for the fitlter modules on the cards.

When we eventually begin to use the 15PDs as planned, then we will occupy 30 ADC channels (I & Q outputs).  Currently we have just one ADC card installed on the C1:LSC providing 32 ADC channels.  Joe found another 16bit 32 channel ADC card in his stash but we need to get a timing+adaptor board for it. In general we are going to need the third Eurocrate.

A platform for the power supply of the RF Distribution box needs to be built and the power supply needs to be moved into the 1X2 rack rather than sit on top of 1X2 rack.

REFL55 has been installed on the AP table.  REFL11 has been moved to make space for a 50% beam splitter. The reflected beam from this splitter is about 30% of the transmitted beam power.  The reflected beam goes to REFL11 in the current configuration.  The DC levels are 1.2V on REFL 11 and 3.5V on the REFL55.

I redid some of the cabling on the table because the we need to choose the heliax cables such that they end up close to the demod board location.  As per the 1Y2 (LSC) rack layout given here, some of the PD signals have to arrive at the top and others at the bottom of the LSC rack.

Currently the PDs are connected as follows:

REFL11 PD --> Heliax (ASDD133) (arriving at the top of LSC rack) --> REFL11 Demod Board 

REFL55 PD --> Heliax (REFL166) (arriving at the top of LSC rack) --> AS55 Demod Board

AS55 PD --> Heliax (AS166) (arriving at the top of the LSC rack) --> not connected.

We are waiting for the Minicircuits parts to modify the rest of the demod boards.

The heliax cables arriving at the LSC rack are not yet fixed properly.  I hope to get this done with Steve's help today.

New right angle PVC front panel with SMA bulkhead connectors are in place. The connections are still lose. It is ready for Suresh to finalise his vision on it.

We now have the DC signal from three PDs available in the ADC channels 14,15 and 16.  The signals are from  REFL55, AS55 and POY photodiodes respectively.  As the DC signals on all the other PDs of the same port (REFL, AS and PO)  have the same information we do not need to monitor more than one DC PD at each port.

The LSC PD Interface Card, D990543 - Rev B, can take 4 PDs and provides the DC signals of the PDs on the connector P2 (the lower of the two) on the back plane of the chassis. An adaptor card, D010005-00, plugs into the back plane from the rear of the Eurorack and provides the four DC signals on two-pin lemo sockets.

I have connected the three DC signals from the relevant RF PDs (above) to a DC whitening filter, D990694-B-1 which is associated with the channels 9 to 16 of the ADC card.

The cables are in a bit of a mess right now as some of the PD power supply lines are too short to reach up the the Interface card in the top Eurocart. Steve and I plan to redo some of the cabling later today

The SLP-50 filters which were on the 55 MHz lines have been replaced with the SBP-60.  Their respective characteristics are given below:

SBP-60 has lower insertion loss and higher return loss.  

This may however change the phase of I and Q in the demod boards and they will therefore need to be readjusted.  Currently the output power level of 55 MHz demod is at 2dBm, whereas it ought to be at 6dBm.   I have not yet corrected that.  Once that is completed Kiwamu will adjust the phases.

 I shifted the temperature sensor to a new location.  See the photograph below.  I noticed that the higher temperature is reached on the side where there are two RF Amps.  So it would be better to check the temperature of that  area and make sure that it remains well below 65 deg.  The operating maxium is 65deg C

Here is a picture of the new RF source layout.

And here is a photograph of it

[Steve, Suresh]

We started to clean up the RF cables (heliax and PD interface cables)  at the LSC rack.

We have pulled out all the RF cables from the small hole on the side-board close to floor.  Passing the cables through this hole makes some of the cables much too short for good strain relief.  So we removed the side panel on the vacuum tube side and are going to pass the cables into the rack from there at about waist height.  We now have plenty of cable lengths to tie them off to the rack at several points.

We have traced all the available Heliax cables and have attached blank tags to them.  We have allocated some cables to REFL11, REFL55 and AS55.  These are therefore back in working order.  We have also taken stock of the available PD interface cables.  They do not have consistent names on both ends of the cable and we will identify and label the ends tomorrow.

MC is locked.  The auto-locker works fine.

Handing over the system for night time interferometer work now.  Will continue with the cabling tomorrow.

Today after Steve and I finished the RF cabling work for the day, Kiwamu noticed that there were no RF signals to be seen.  The problem was traced to disconnected 11 and 55 MHz Demod lines from the RF source.  But reconnecting them did not restore the signals.  It turned out that one of the Heliax cables had a loose N-type connector at its end and it finally came off while we were tightening it into place.

We replaced the damaged heliax with another (we have two spare running from 1X2 IOO rack to the 1Y2 LSC rack.  The new cable is used to be the LO 33.  It seems to have a 1.5dB loss.  Have to check this again tomorrow.

In the mean time I noticed that the power output of the 55MHz Demod port of the source was less than about -12dB. So I opened the source to take a look and found that all the voltage stabilisers were supplying 15V.  Even those which were supposed to be supplying 24V.  This was traced to a mistake in wiring the external power supply.  The wires had been labeled wrongly and as a result the 18V input line was connected to 28V source and vice versa.

After fixing this problem I reassembled the source checked the power output on all the ports and found everything was functioning as expected.  However after installation once again the unit failed.  The blue light on the power supply was not lighting up when switched on.  Suspecting a power supply problem I opened the unit again and found that a weak solder joint on one of the RF amplifiers had come loose and had overloaded one of the 24V stabilisers.   We, found a spare and replaced it.  The unit has been reassembled and is functioning fine.  The output power levels are

11MHz Demod -- 6dBm

55MHz Demod -- 5.5 dBm

11MHz EOM --   24dBm

55MHz EOM -- 28dBm

The Marconi is serving as the 11MHz source.  The Wenzel 11MHz source is giving 13.3 dBm and is okay.  But it needs to be checked for its performance as it may have been exposed to higher than rated power supply levels.

The 29.5MHz source is giving 7dBm.  It is supposed to be giving 13dBm. 

The Laboratory DC power supplies currently used for both the RF source and Distribution boxes need to be replaced with rack mounted Sorensen power supplies available in the lab.

[Jamie, Koji, Suresh]

We replaced splitters in several demod boards as per the table given below:

While doing a rough check of the boards I noticed that the REFL11 demod board had no signal on the Q output.

Rana also advised that we must use the boards which have the piggy-back amplifiers on those signals which are most useful.  We referred to Alberto's thesis and chose POY55 (MICH and SRCL), REFL11(PRCL)  and AS55 (DARM) as the most useful signals.  We currently have these amps on AS11, REFL11 and AS55.  We need to convert either AS11 or REFL11 into a POY55.  Since we need to troubleshoot REFL11, I thought we might as well modify that and in the process also fix its Q output.  So I renamed AS11 as REFL11 and will convert the old REFL11 into POY55 tomorrow.

Power splitter of different types have different pin-outs.  The way we mount a splitter depends on which type we are using.   I will detail the mounting scheme in a separate elog tomorrow.

 I think we should leave them as is; the AS11 was made by taking into account the SB levels at the AS port and should not become REFL11. We should instead convert one of the old 25 or 33 MHz diodes into a POY55.

We have no plan to change the AS11 PD. I was referring to the AS11 Demod board which currently has the "Demodulator Preamp" circuit installed as a piggy back. In future I will append "_Demod" when I am referring to a demod board, to avoid confusion.

The Demod board with S. No. 022 (being used earlier as REFL11) has been modified.  It now has SCLF-65 as its input LP filter on the PD input line and a PQW-2-90 power splitter.  The unit functioning okay (I and Q signals are 90 deg apart.

The loss of Q output was traced to a possible loose solder joint and we now have both the I and Q signals after resoldering all components in the vicinity of U7 (Ref Schematic of D990511)

There is a strong oscillation around 350Hz present on I and Q signals of both REFL55_Demod and POY55_Demod.  Don't know the source. 

We have run out of power splitters to continue with the Demod board modification. We do not currently have an AS11_Demod board.  All the others are in place and ready for the I<->Q phase angle measurement.

In summary we now have the following Demod boards in place:

[ REFL11, POY11, REFL55, AS55, POY55, POY22, POY110]_Demod

I have posted the attached RF status update and 1Y2 rack layout to the svn.

We have Completed the hardware changes to the full set of 8 demod boards.  The last one completed today is AS11.  I have collected the info on all the demod boards available so far in the table below.  As we measure the actual phase and amplitude unbalance we will expand this table to include new info.

[Steve, Koji, Suresh]

   We shifted two Sorensen power supplies from the Auxiliary rack next to 1X2 to 1Y2.  And have installed them there (pic below).  The local ground reference was picked up from the racks ground reference.  A shielded cable with two twisted pairs was used to make a new power cable for the RF rack.  Since we are using three of the four conductors (+18,+28 and ground), one of them is not connected to anything.  This situation can be improved in a future iteration when, for example, we might wish to relocate the Sorensens to a different rack.

   We are still working on changing the power supply to the RF source.  Will complete this early next week

Key points of the power supply installation

• We followed the grounding configuration for KEPCO except for the signal ground connection
• AC power supply has been obtained from the local power strip. This also provides chassis earthing (for safety)
• The chassis is connected to the shieldin of the DC supply cable. The other end should be isolated.

• The low voltage side of Sorensen's DC outputs are connected in order to share the same reference  level.
• The ground level is provided from the cross connect. The cable is connected between the cross connect ground to the sorencen.
  Unlike the KEPCO case, this cable does not have the current return, but just is to define the voltage level of those Sorensens.

• New AC&DC cables have been nicely strain-relieved.