I hadn't re-locked the DRMI after the work on the AS55 demod board. Tonight, I was able to recover the DRMI locking with the old settings.

The feature in the PRCL spectrum (uncalibrated, y-axis is cts/rtHz) at ~1.6kHz is mysterious, I wonder what that's about.

Wasted some time tonight futzing around with various settings because I couldn't catch a DRMI lock, thinking I may have to re-tune demod phases etc given that I've been mucking around the LSC rack a fair bit. But fortunately, the problem turned out to be that the correct feedforward filters were not enabled in the angular feedforward path (seems like these are not SDF monitored). Clue was that there was more angular motion of the POP spot on the CCD than I'm used to seeing, even in the PRMI carrier lock.

After fixing this, lock was acquired within seconds, and the locks are as robust as I remember them - I just broke one after ~20mins locked because I went into the lab. I've been putting off looking at this angular feedforward stuff and trying out some ideas rana suggested, seems like it can be really useful.

As part of the pre-lock work, I dither aligned arms, and then ran the PRCL/MICH dithers as well, following which I re-centered the ITM, PRM and BS Oplevspots onto their respective QPDs - they have not been centered for a couple of months now.

I'm now going to try and measure some other couplings like PSL RIN->MICH, Marconi phase noise->MICH etc.

I tried measuring the coupling of PSL intensity noise by driving some broadband noise bandpassed between 80-300Hz using the spare DAC channel at 1Y3 that I had set up for this purpose a couple of weeks ago (via a battery powered SR560 buffer set to low-noise operation mode because I'm not sure if the DAC output can drive a ~20m long cable). I was monitoring the MC2 TRANS QPD Sum channel spectrum while driving this broadband noise - the "nominal" spectrum isn't very clean, there are a bunch of notches from a 60Hz comb and a forest of peaks over a broad hump from 300Hz-1kHz (see Attachment #1).

I was able to increase the drive to the AOM till the RIN in the band being driven increased by ~10x, and saw no change in the MICH error signal spectrum [see Attachment #1] - during this measurement, the RFPD whitening was turned on for REFL11, REFL55 and AS55, and the ITM coil drivers were de-whitened, so as to get a MICH spectrum that is about as "low-noise" as I've gotten it so far.

I tried increasing the drive further, but at this point, started seeing frequent MC locklosses - I'm not convinced this is entirely correlated to my AOM activities, so I will try some more, but at the very least, this places an upper bound on the coupling from intensity noise to MICH.

why no oplev trace in the NB ?

also, this method would work better if we had a median averaging python PSD instead of mean averaging as in Welch's method.

The Oplev trace is missing for now, as I have not re-measured the A2L coupling since modifying the Oplev loop shape (specifically the low pass filter and overall gain) to allow engageing the coil de-whitening.

The averaging for the white noise TFs plotted is computed using median averaging - I have used a python transcription of Sujan's matlab code. I use scipy.signal.spectrogram to compute the fft bins (I've set some defaults like 8s fft length and a tukey window), and then take the median average using np.median(). I've also incorporated the ln(2) correction factor.

It seems like GwPy has some in-built capability to compute median (and indeed various other percentile) averages, but since we aren't using it, I just coded this up. 

Jamie pointed out that the compile and install instructions are different for c1dnn:

See also: https://nodus.ligo.caltech.edu:8081/40m/13383.

I think these build instructions have to be run on the c1lsc frontend - in the past, I have been able to compile and install models on any computer with the shared drive mounted (including the control room workstations), but I'm guessing that something has changed since the RCG upgrade. Jamie can correct me on this if I'm wrong.

Pianosa just crashed and ate my elog, along with all the DTT/Foton windows I had open, so more details tomorrow... This workstation has been crashing ~once a month for the last 6 months.

Summary:

Below ~100Hz, the hypothesis is that the BS oplev A2L contribution dominates the MICH displacement noise. I wanted to see if I could mitigate this my modifying the BS Oplev loop shape.

Details:

• Swept sine TF measurements suggested that the BS A2L contribution is between 10-100x that of the ITM A2L
• The Oplev loop shape for BS is different from ITMs - specifically, there is a Res-gain centered at ~3.3 Hz. The low frequency ~0.6Hz boost filter present in the ITM Oplev loops was disengaged for the BS Oplves.
• I turned off the BS OL loops and looked at error signal spectra - didn't seem that different from ITM OL error signals, so I decided to try turning off the res-gain and engage the 0.6Hz boost.
• This change also gave me much more phase at ~6Hz, which is roughly the UGF of the loop. So I put in another roll-off low pass filter with corner frequency 25Hz. 
• This worked okay - RMS went down by ~5x (which is even better than the original config), and although the performance between ~3 and 10Hz is slightly worse than with the old combination,this region isn't the dominant contribution to the RMS. PM at the upper UGF is ~30degrees in the new configuration. 
• I wanted to give DRMI locking a shot with the new OL loop - expectations were that the noise between 30-100Hz would improve, and perhaps the engaging of de-whitening filters on BS would also be easier given the more severe roll-off at high-frequencies.
• Attachment #1 shows the NB for tonights lock. All MICH optics had their coil drivers de-whitened, and all the LSC PDs were whitened for this measurement.
• I've edited the NB code to make the A2L calculation more straightforward, I now just make the coupling 1/f^2 and give the function a measured overall gain, so that this curve can now be easily added to all future NBs. I've also transcribed the matlab funciton used for parsing Foton files into python, this allows me to convert the DQ-ed OL error signals to control signals. Will update git with changes.

Remarks:

1. MICH noise has improved by ~2x between 40-80Hz.
2. Not sure what to make of the broad hump around 60Hz - scatter shelf?
3. There is still unexplained noise below 100Hz, the A2L estimate is considerably lower than the measured noise.
4. We are still more than an order of magnitude away from the estimated seismic noise floor at low frequencies (but getting closer!).

I've been banging my head against optimal loop shaping, with the OL loop as a test-case, without much success - as was the case with coating PSO, the magic is in smartly defining the cost function, but right now, my optimizer seems to be pushing most of the roots I'm making available for it to place to high frequencies. I've got a term in there that is supposed to guard against this, need to tweak further...

Attachment #2: Eye-fits of measured OL A2L coupling TFs to a 1/f^2 shape, with the gain being the parameter "fitted". I used these value, and the DQ-ed OL error signal in lock, to estimate the red curve labelled "A2L" in Attachment #1. The dots are the measurement, and the lines are the 1/f^2 estimates.

I've incorporated the functionality to generate sub-budgets for the various grouped traces in the NBs (e.g. the "A2L" trace is really the quadrature sum of the A2L coupling from 6 different angular servos).

For now, I'm only doing this for the A2L coupling, and the AUX length loop coupling groups. But I've set up the machinery in such a way that doing so for more groups is easy.

Here are the sub-budget plots for last night's lock - for the OL plot, there are only 3 lines (instead of 6) because I group the PIT and YAW contributions in the function that pulls the data from the nds server, and don't ever store these data series individually. This should be rectified, because part of the point of making these sub-budgets is to see if there is a particularly bad offender in a given group.

I'll do a quick OL loop noise budget for the ITM loops tomorrow.

I also wonder if it is necessary to measure the Oplev A2L coupling from lock to lock? This coupling will be dependant on the spot position on the optic, and though I run the dither alignment servos to minimize REFL_DC, AS_DC, I don't have any intuition for how the offset from center of optic varies from lock to lock, and if this is at all significant. I've been using a number from a measurement made in May. Need to do some algebra...

Summary:

I wanted to recover the DRMI locking. Among other things, Jon mentioned that his mode spectroscopy can be done in the DRMI config. But I was foiled last night by a rogue waveplate in the AS beampath, and today evening, I noticed the resurfacing of this problem. Clearly, this is indicative of some issue in the analog whitening electronics, as the DC light level on the AS55 PD is consistent with previous measurements. Moreover, last time, the problem "fixed itself" so I don't know what exactly the problem was in the first place. I'll try doing the same test in the linked elog tomorrow. As a quick test, I cycled through the whitening gains (0-45dB) to see if it was some stuck ADC register, but that didn't fix the problem.

The problem seems to be with REFL55 only - I am able to lock the PRMI with carrier resonant without any issues, and the error signal levels are consistent with what I remember them being while the PRMI is swinging around. AS55 lives on the same whitening board and doesn't seem to suffer from the same probelms.

Decided to do the check tonight, but as Attachment #1 shows, no real red flags from the whitening gain side.

As it happened last time, the problem apparently fixed itself - somehow the act of me disconnecting the cables and reconnecting them seems to solve the problem, need to think about this.

Anyway, DRMI was locked a few times tonight. I got in a good long stretch where I ran some sensing lines and collected some data, analysis tomorrow. I am going to center the vertex oplevs as an alignment reference for now. A major source of lockloss seems to be angular instability - see for example this video grab of POP:

Could be due to noise injection from the noisy PRM Oplev HeNe, or just TT mirror angular motion (I couldn't get the PRC angular FF going tonight).

For some time now, I've been puzzled by the unreliability of the ASS_X dither alignment servo. Leaving the servo on, TRX often begins to decay to a lower value, and even after freezing the dither at the maximum TRX values, I can manually align the mirrors to increase TRX. We have suspected some kind of clipping in the TRX path that is responsible for this behaviour. Today I decided to investigate this a bit further. To have the arm locked and to inspect the beam, we have to change the locking trigger - TRX is what is normally used, but I misaligned the Y arm completely, and used AS110 as a trigger instead. There is some strangeness in the triggering topology, but this deserves a separate elog.

Once the arm was locked (and relocks using the AS110 trigger in the event of an unlock), I was able to trace the beampath on the EX table with an IR card. The TRX beam is rather large and weak, so it is hard to see, but as best as I can tell, the only real danger of clipping (or perhaps the beam is already clipped) is on the final steering mirror before the beam hits the (Thorlabs) PD. Steve/Pooja are working on getting a photo of this, and will upload it here shortly. Options to mitigate this:

1. Use the harmonic separator to steer the beam lower, and center it on the 1" steering mirror. However, this could possibly lead to clipping on some of the upstream lenses.
2. Raise the height of the 1" steering mirror by 0.25". However, this would require a custom 3/4" dia post height or some shims, which I am not sure is in line with our optomechanic mounting practises.
3. Use a 2" mirror instead of a 1" mirror.

The EX QPD has stopped working since the Acromag install. If it were working, we wouldn't have to rely on the alternate triggering with AS110 and instead just use the QPD as TRX, while we debug the Thorlabs PD path.

I opted for the quickest fix - I raised the height of the offending steering mirror using a 0.25" shim. In the long term, we can get a taller post machined. After raising the mirror height, I then checked the DC centering of the spot on the DC PD using a scope.

Looking at the performance of the X arm ASS, I no longer see the strange oscillatory behaviour I described in my previous post . Moreover, the TRX level was ~1 before be raising the steering mirror - but it is now ~1.2. So we were certainly losing some power.

Given the various changes to the IFO config since last Thursday when I was last able to lock the DRMI, I wanted to try once again tonight. However, I had no success. By my judgement, the alignment is fine as judged by looking at mode flashes on the cameras. However, despite following the usual alignment procedures, I did not get a single lock in tonight.

Perhaps we can use a flip mount on the BS that combines the PSL and AUX beams on the AS table, so we have the option of recovering the usual IFO config when we so desire - while Jon needs the SRC locked for his measurement, it would be nice to not have to figure out the correct demod phases etc each time there is a change in the optical setup of the AUX beam.

I worked a bit on recovering the DRMI locking again tonight. I decided to shutter the AUX laser on the PSL table at least until I figured out the correct locking settings. As has become customary now, there was a cable in the AS beampath (leading from the AS55 DC monitor to nothing, through the enclosure side panel, it is visible in Attachment #3 in this elog) which I only found after 30mins of futility - please try and remove all un-necessary cables and leave the AS beampath in a usable state after working on the AS table!  In the end, I got several short (~3mins) stretches in tonight, but never long enough to do the loop characterization I wanted to get in tonight, probably wrong gains in one or more of the loops. In the last 30 minutes, the IMC has been frequently losing lock, so I am quitting for now. The AUX laser remains shuttered.

[koji, gautam]

With Koji's help, I got repeatable and reliable DRMI locking going again tonight - this is with the AS path optics for the spectroscopy measurement in place, although the AUX laser remained shuttered tonight. Results + spectra tomorrow, but here's what I did:

• Initial alignment procedure was as usual - use arms+ASS to align ITMs, and then PRMI carrier+ASS to align PRM and BS.
• Found the appropriate gains and demod phases.
• Measured loop TFs - PRCL is a big mystery. Used these to finalize loop gains.
• Ran some sensing lines.
• Whitened DRMI PDs for a calibrated "low-noise" spectrum (although the coils were not de-whitened).

As I have found before, it is significantly easier to get the locking going post 11pm - the wall Seis BLRMS don't look that much quieter at midnight compared to 10pm, but this might be a scaling issue. I'll do a quantitative assessment next time... Also, Foton takes between 25-45 secs to save an updated filter (timed twice today).

Attachment #1 shows the measured PRCL loop shape. The blue line is meant to be the "expected" loop shape. While the measured loop shape tracks the expectation down to ~100 Hz, I cannot explain the shape below it. I am also not sure what to make of the fact that there is high coherence down to 10 Hz fron IN2 to IN1, but no coherence between EXC/IN2. I confirmed that the low-frequency boost filters were ON during the measurement. I don't understand how a pendulum TF + the digital filters we used can account for the shape below 100Hz.

gautam 11pm: After discussing with Koji, I conclude that the low frequency loop shape is consistent with the excitation amplitude being insufficient below 100 Hz. Coherence is good between In1/In2 because they are the same signal effectively - what we need is coherence between In1 and EXC, which isn't plotted. It is still strange that Coherence between In2/EXC is ZERO....

don't use IN_1/IN_2: recall pizza meeting from a few weeks back: use IN1/EXC + Al-Gebra

I finally analyzed the sensing measurement I ran on Tuesday evening. Sensing responses for the DRMI DOFs seems consistent with what I measured in October 2017, although the relative phasing of the DoFs in the sensing PDs has changed significantly. For what it's worth, my Finesse simulation is here. 

Using the numbers from the sensing measurement, I calibrated the measured in-loop MICH spectrum from Tuesday night into free-running displacement noise. For convenience, I used the noise-budgeting utilities to make this plot, but I omitted all the technical noise curves as the coupling has probably changed and I did not measure these. The overall noise seems ~x3  higher everywhere from the best I had last year, but this is hardly surprising as I haven't optimized anything for low noise recently. To summarize:

• DRMI was locked using 1f error signals.
• MICH was controlled using AS55_Q.
• Main difference is that we have a little less (supposedly 10%) light on the AS55 PD now because of the AUX laser injection setup. But the AUX laser was shuttered.
• 1f LSC PDs (REFL11, REFL55 and AS55) had ADC whitening filters engaged in while this data was taken.
• ITM and BS coils were not de-whitened.

I will do a more thorough careful characterization and add in the technical noises in the coming days. The dominant uncertainty in the sensing matrix measurement, and hence this free-running noise spectrum, is that I haven't calibrated the actuators in a while.

For the first time after the whirlwind vent, I managed to lock the PRMI.

• First, I did POX/POY locking, dither aligned the arms to maximize TRX and TRY.
• Next, I misaligned the ETM and tested the Michelson locking
  • Since we've lost ~70% of power on the AS55 PD, I set the whitening gain for AS55 I and Q channels to +6dB (old value was 0dB).
  • worked alright. In this new config, the peak-to-peak Michelson fringe count is ~80 cts, while I reported ~60cts-pp a couple of months ago, so all seems good on that front.
  • But the config script in the IFOconfigure MEDM screen somehow doesn't set the AS55_Q ----> MICH_A element in the LSC input matrix anymore.
  • I edited the .snap file for this configuration to set the relevant matrix element EPICS channel to +1.0.
  • I also edited the overall loop gain for this configuration from +30 to +2 (for bright fringe, use -2 for dark fringe).
• Feeling adventerous, I decided to try PRMI in the carrier resonant tuning (to be clear, PRCL on REFL11_I, MICH on AS55_Q).
  • Finding the REFL spot on the camera took a while since the PRM has been macroscopically misaligned for the mode-scanning
  • Went out to the table and centered the REFL beam onto REFL11 and REFL55 PDs - didn't need much tweaking, which is a good sign, since we shouldn't have screwed anything up on the symmetric side by any of the vent activities.
  • Restored PRMI locking using the IFOconfigure MEDM screen - lock caught almost immediately.
  • Ran the dither alignment servos for MICH and PRCL - BS needed a bit of encouragement to make the dark spot dark, but POP has been pretty stable over ~15mins.
  • I didn't take any loop transfer functions, to do.

I don't have the energy to make a DRMI attempt tonight - but the signs are encouraging. I'd like to use the IFO in the next few days to try and recover DRMI locking. The main concern is that the optical path on the AS beam has changed by ~0.3m I estimate. So the demod phase for AS55 may need to be adjusted, but the change due to optical path length only should be ~10degrees so the DRMI locking with the old settings should still work. Perhaps we also want to scan the PRC and SRC with the phase information from the Trans/Refl transfer functions as well.

Don't want to jinx it, but the c1lsc FE models have been stable. Tomorrow, I'd like to re-enable c1cal, since it has some useful channels for NBing. Could c1daf/c1oaf which have significant amounts of custom C code be the culprits?

In preparation for attempting some DRMI locking, I did the following:

• Slow machine reboots for unresponsive c1psl, c1susaux and c1iscaux. The latter requried a manual burtrestore to recover the usual LSC PD whitening settings.
• Shuttered AUX laser (which was on Standby anyways) - we should really install a remotely controllable shutter for this on the AS table.
• Re-aligned PMC (half turn of knob in yaw, full turn in pitch) - IMC transmission 15,000cts ---> 15,600cts.
• Squished sat. box cables at ITMX and ETMX.

Not related to this work, but I turned the Agilent NA off since we aren't using it immediately.

After tweaking the AS55 demod phase, SRM alignment, triggering settings, I got a few brief DRMI locks in tonight, I'm calling it a success (though this isn't really robust yet). The main things to do now are:

• turn on all the boosts on the LSC loops - today I only managed to trigger the PRCL boost filters successfully without blowing up the lock.
• measure all 3 loops, tweak gain as necessary.
• Run some sensing lines, tune the demod phase.
• The SRCL triggering is strange to me - SRCL loop is currently triggered on POP22_I, but the 2f1 buildup in the symmetric side does not say anything about the linearity of the SRCL error signal? Or are we just hoping the SRM is in the correct place and engaging the servo? Anyway, this setting seems to work but perhaps once the locking is more robust the triggering can be fixed.
• do a quick NB - I expect the main change to be that the AS55_Q dark noise contribution would have gone up on account on the reduced amount of light at this port.

I think the main IFO characterization remaining to be done to determine the status of the IFO post vent is to measure the losses of the arm cavities. IMO, we will need to certainly fix the clipping at ETMY before we attempt some serious locking.

To facilitate Yuki's alignment of the EY green beam into the Yarm cavity, I have changed the LSC triggering and PowNorm settings to use only the reflected light from the cavity to do the locking of Arm Cavity length to PSL. Running the configure script should restore the usual TRY triggering settings. Also, the X arm optics were macroscopically misaligned in order to be able to lock in this configuration.

I finished installation of optics in the Y-end and recovered green locking. Current ALS-TRY_OUTPUT is about 0.25, which is lower than before. So I still continue the alignment of the beam. The simulation code was attached. (Sorry. The optic shown as QWP2 is NOT QWP. It's HWP.)

[ Yuki, Gautam, Steve ]

To align the green beam in Y-end these hardware were installed:

• PZT mirrors in Y-end table
• PZT driver in 1Y4 rack
• Anti-Imaging board in 1Y4 rack
• cables (DAC - AIboard - PZTdriver - PZT)
• high voltage supplier 

I made sure that DAC CH9~16 and cable to AI-board worked correctly. 

When we applied +100V to PZT driver and connected DAC, AI-board and PZT drive, the output voltage of the driver was not correct. I'll check it tomorrow.

I connected DAC - AIboard - PZTdriver - PZT mirrors and made sure the PZT mirrors were moving when changing the signal from DAC. Tomorrow I will prepare alignment servo with green beam for Y-arm.

I had some success today. I hope that the tweaks I made will allow working with the DRMI during the day as well, though it looks like the main limiting factor in lock duty cycle is angular stability of the PRC.

• Since there has been some change in the light levels / in vacuum optical paths, I decided to be a bit more systematic.
• Initial guess of locking gains / demod phases was what I had last year.
• Then I misaligned SRM, and locked PRMI, for the sideband resonant in the PRC (but still no arm cavities, and using 1f Refl error signals).
• Measured loop TFs, adjusted gains, re-enabled boosts.
• Brought the SRM back into the picture. Decided to trigger SRCL loop on AS110I rather than the existing POP22I (because why should 2f1 signal buildup carry information about SRCL?). New settings saved to the configure script. Reduced MICH gain to account for the SRC cavity gain.
• Re-measured loop TFs, re-adjusted gains. More analysis about the state of the loops tomorrow, but all loops have UGF ~100-120 Hz.
• Ran some sensing lines - need to check my sensing matrix making script, and once I get the matrix elements, I can correct the error signal demod phasing as necessary.

[Attachment #1]: Repeatable and reliable DRMI locks tonight, stability is mainly limited by angular glitches - I'm not sure yet if these are due to a suspect Oplev servo on the PRM, or if they're because of the tip-tilt PR2/PR3/SR2/SR3.

[Attachment #2]: A pass at measuring the TF from SRCL error point to MICH error point via control noise re-injection. I was trying to measure down to 40 Hz, but lost the lock, and am calling it for the night.

[Attachment #3]: Coherence between PRM oplev error point and beam spot motion on POP QPD.

Note that the MICH actuation is not necessarily optimally de-coupled by actuating on the PRM and SRM yet (i.e. the latter two elements of the LSC output matrix are not precisely tuned yet).

What is the correct way to make feedforward filters for this application? Swept-sine transfer function measurement? Or drive broadband noise at the SRCL error point and then do time-domain Wiener filter construction using SRCL error as the witness and MICH error as the target? Or some other technique? Does this even count as "feedforward" since the sensor is not truly "outside" the loop?

With the DRMI locked, I drove a line in MICH using the sensing matrix infrastructure. Then I looked at the error points of MICH, PRCL and SRCL. Initially, the sensing line oscillator output matrix for MICH was set to drive only the BS. Subsequently, I changed the --> PRM and --> SRM matrix elements until the line height in the PRCL and SRCL error signals was minimized (i.e. the change to PRCL and SRCL due to the BS moving, which is a geometric effect, is cancelled by applying the opposite actuation to the PRM/SRM respectively. Then I transferred these to the LSC output matrix (old numbers in brackets).

MICH--> PRM = -0.335 (-0.2655)

MICH--> SRM = -0.35 (+0.25)

I then measured the loop TFs - all 3 loops had UGFs around 100 Hz, coinciding with the peaks of the phase bubbles. I also ran some sensing lines and did a sensing matrix measurement, Attachment #1 - looks similar to what I have obtained in the past, although the relative angles between the DoFs makes no sense to me. I guess the AS55 demod phase can be tuned up a bit.

The demodulation was done offline - I mixed the time series of the actuator and sensor signals with a "local oscillator" cosine wave - but instead of using the entire 5 minute time series and low-passing the mixer output, I divvied up the data into 5 second chunks, windowed with a Tukey window, and have plotted the mean value of the resulting mixer output.

Unrelated to this work: I re-aligned the PMC on the PSL table, mostly in Pitch.

Summary:

I've been looking into the cross-coupling from the SRCL loop control point to the Michelson error point.

[Attachment #1] - Swept sine measurement of transfer function from SRCL_OUT_DQ to MICH_IN1_DQ. Details below.

[Attachment #2] - Attempt to measure time variation of coupling from SRCL control point to MICH error point. Details below.

[Attachment #3] - Histogram of the data in Attachment #2.

[Attachment #4] - Spectrogram of the duration in which data in #2 and #3 were collected, to investigate the occurrance of fast glitches.

Hypothesis: (so that people can correct me where I'm wrong - 40m tests are on DRMI so "MICH" in this discussion would be "DARM" when considering the sites)

• SRM motion creates noise in MICH.
• The SRM motion may be naively decomposed into two contributions -
  • Category #1: "sensing noise induced" motion, which comes about because of the SRCL control loop moving the SRM due to shot noise (or any other sensing noise) of the SRCL PDH photodiode, and
  • Category #2: all other SRM motion.
• We'd like to cancel the former contribution from DARM.
• The idea is to measure the transfer function from SRCL control point to the MICH error point. Knowing this, we can design a filter so that the SRCL control signal is filtered and summed in at the MICH error point to null the SRCL coupling to MICH.
• Caveats/questions:
  • Introducing this extra loop actually increases the coupling of the "all other" category of SRM motion to MICH. But the hypothesis is that the MICH noise at low frequencies, which is where this increased coupling is expected to matter, will be dominated by seismic/other noise contributions, and so we are not actually degrading the MICH sensitivity.
  • Knowing the nosie-budget for MICH and SRCL, can we AC couple the feedforward loop such that we are only doing stuff at frequencies where Category #1 is the dominant SRCL noise?

Measurement details and next steps:

Attachment #1

• This measurement was done using DTT swept sine.
• Plotted TF is from SRCL_OUT to MICH_IN, so the SRCL loop shape shouldn't matter.
• I expect the pendulum TF of the SRM to describe this shape - I've overlaid a 1/f^2 shape, it's not quite a fit, and I think the phase profile is due to a delay, but I didn't fit this.
• I had to average at each datapoint for ~10 seconds to get coherence >0.9.
• The whole measurement takes a few minutes.

Attachments #2 and #3

• With the DRMI locked, I drove a sine wave at 83.13 Hz at the SRCL error point using awggui.
• I ramped up the amplitude till I could see this line with an SNR of ~10 in the MICH error signal.
• Then I downloaded ~10mins of data, demodulated it digitally, and low-passed the mixer output.
• I had to use a pretty low corner frequency (0.1 Hz, second order butterworth) on the LPF, as otherwise, the data was too noisy.
• Even so, the observed variation seems too large - can the coupling really change by x100?
• The scatter is huge - part of the problem is that there are numerous glitches while the DRMI is locked.
• As discussed at the meeting today, I'll try another approach of doing multiple swept-sines and using Craig's TFplotter utility to see what scatter that yields.

Attachments #2

• Spectrogram generated with 1 second time strides, for the duration in which the 83 Hz line was driven.
• There are a couple of large fast glitches visible.

Summary:

• More DRMI characterization was done.
• I was working on trying to improve the stability of the DRMI locks as this is necessary for any serious characterization.
• Today I revived the PRC angular feedforward - this was a gamechanger, the DRMI locks were much more stable. It's probably worth spending some time improving the POP LSC/ASC sensing optics/electronics looking towards the full IFO locking.
• Quantitatively, the angular fluctuations as witnessed by the POP QPD is lowered by ~2x with the FF on compared to off [Attachment #1, references are with FF off, live traces are with FF on].
• The first DRMI lock I got is already running 15 mins, looking stable.
  • Update: Out of the ~1 hour i've tried DRMI locking tonight, >50 mins locked!
• I think the filters can be retrained and this performance improved, something to work on while we are vented.
• Ran sensing lines, measured loop TFs, analysis tomorrow, but I think the phasing of the 1f PDs is now okay.
  • MICH in AS55 Q, demod phase = -92deg, +6dB wht gain.
  • PRCL in REFL11 I, demod phase = +18 deg, +18dB wht gain.
  • SRCL in REFL55 I, demod phase = -175 deg, +18dB wht gain.
• Also repeated the line in SRCL-->witness in MICH test.
  • At least 10 minutes of data available, but I'm still collecting since the lock is holding.
  • This time I drove the line at ~124 Hz with awggui, since this is more a regime where we are sensing noise dominated.

Prep for this work:

• Reboots of c1psl, c1iool0, c1susaux.
• Removed AS port PD loss measurement PD.
• Initial alignment procedure as usual: single arms --> PRMI locked on carrier --> DRMI

I was trying to get some pics of the optics as a zeroth-level reference for the pre-vent loss with the single arms locked, but since our SL7 upgrade, the sensoray won't work anymore . I'll try fixing this during the daytime.

Attachment #1 is a block diagram depicting the pathway by which the vertex DOF control signals can couple into DARM (adapted from a similar diagram in Gabriele's Virgo note on the subject). I've also indicated some points where noise can couple into either loop. In general, there are sensing noises that couple in at the error point of the loop, and actuation noises that couple in at the control point. In this linear picture, each block represents a (possibly time varying) transfer function. So we can write out the node-to-node transfer functions and evaluate the various couplings.

The motivation is to see if we can first simulate with some realistic noise and time-varying couplings (and then possibly test on the realtime system) the effectiveness of the filter denoted by "FF" in canceling out the shot noise from the auxiliary loop being re-injected into the DARM loop via the DARM sensor. Does this look correct?

I wanted to set up an RTCDS model to understand this problem better. Attachment #1 is the simulink diagram of the signal flow. The idea will be to put in the appropriate filter shapes into the various filter blocks denoting the DARM and auxiliary DoF plants, controllers and actuators, and then use awggui / diaggui to inject some noises and see if in this idealized model I can achieve good subtraction. Then we can build up to applying a time varying cross coupling between DARM and the vertex DoF, and see how good the adaptive FF works. Still need to setup some MEDM screens to make working with the test system easier.

I figured c1omc would be the least invasive model to set this upon without risking losing any of our IR/green alignment references. Compile and install went smooth, see Attachment #2. The c1omc model was clocking 4us before, now it's using 7us.

Attachment #3 shows the top level of the OMC model, while Attachment #4 shows the MEDM screen.

* Note to self: when closing a loop inside the realtime model, there has to be a delay block somewhere in the loop, else a compilation error is thrown.

Disclaimer: This is almost certainly some user error on my part.

I've been trying to get this running for a couple of days, but am struggling to understand some behavior I've been seeing with DTT.

Test:

I wanted to measure some transfer functions in the simulated model I set up.

• To start with, I put a pendulum (f0 = 1Hz, Q=5) TF into one of the filter modules
• Isolated it from the other interconnections (by turning off the MEDM ON/OFF switches).
• Set up a DTT swept-sine measurement
  • EXC channel was C1:OMC-TST_AUX_A_EXC
  • Monitored channels were C1:OMC-TST_AUX_A_IN2 and C1:OMC-TST_AUX_A_OUT.
  • Transfer function being measured was C1:OMC-TST_AUX_A_OUT/C1:OMC-TST_AUX_A_IN2.
  • Coherence between the excitation and output were also monitored.
• Sweep parameters:
  • Measurement band was 0.1 - 900 Hz
  • Logarithmic, downward.
  • Excitation amplitude = 1ct, waveform = "Sine"

Unexplained behavior:

• The transfer function measurement fails with a "Synchronization error", at ~15 Hz.
  • I don't know what is special about this frequency, but it fails repeatedly at the same point in the measurement.
• Coherence is not 1 always
  • Why should the coherence deviate from 1 since everything is simulated? I think numerical noise would manifest when the gain of the filter is small (i.e. high frequencies for the pendulum), but the measurement and coherence seem fine down to a few tens of Hz.

To see if this is just a feature in the simulated model, I tried measuring the "plant" filter in the C1:LSC-PRCL filter bank (which is also just a pendulum TF), and run into the same error. I also tried running the DTT template on donatella (Ubuntu12) and pianosa (SL7), and get the same error, so this must be something I'm doing wrong with the way the measurement is being run / setup. I couldn't find any mention of similar problems in the SimPlant elogs I looked through, does anyone have an idea as to what's going on here?

* I can't get the "import" feature of DTT to work - I go through the GUI prompts to import an ASCII txt file exported from FOTON but nothing selectable shows up in DTT once the import dialog closes (which I presume means that the import was successful). Are we using an outdated version of DTT (GDS-2.15.1)?  But Attachment #1 shows the measured part of the pendulum TF, and is consistent with what is expected until the measurement terminates with a synchronization error.

the import problem is fixed - when importing, you have to give names to the two channels that define the TF you're importing (these can be arbitrary since the ASCII file doesn't have any channel name information). once i did that, the import works. you can see that while the measurement ran, the foton TF matches the DTT measured counterpart.

11 Dec 2pm: After discussing with Jamie and Gabriele, I also tried changing the # of points, start frequency etc, but run into the same error (though admittedly I only tried 4 combinations of these, so not exhaustive).

Several housekeeping tasks were carried out today in preparation for the Y-arm loss measurement.

1. The mess around the OMC rack was cleared a bit. The vertex laptop paola now lives there, instead of on the ITMY optical table.
2. Centering of beam on AS photodiodes on AS table (starting from the first optic in this path at the exit point from the vacuum), adjusted AS camera to bring the spot roughly to the center.
3. POX/POY locking was restored, GTRY/GTRX levels are healthy. TRY was centered on the Thorlabs PD by triggering the LSC lock on AS110.
4. Oplevs on all four TMs and BS were centered for post-vent alignment.
5. ETMY OL transfer function was checked since we have swapped the HeNe during the vent, 4.5 Hz UGF for both DoFs and ~30 deg phase margin. The calibration of the error point to urad needs to be double checked.
6. There are some huge 60 Hz harmonics in the TRY signal - hunting down the source of this. The one thing I can think of that was changed is that we plugged the c1auxey eurocrate into the ethernet powerstrip, I wonder if this created some kind of ground loop.
   • I checked the signal from the PD with a battery powered scope, no evidence of any 60 Hz in the time domain or scope FFT (Attachment #1, FFT in red and time domain signal in green can be seen).
   • Restored the power of c1auxey eurocrate to its original socket in the back of 1Y4 - harmonics still present --> points to the problem being in the whitening board / ADC electronics?
   • The harmonics only seem to show up when TRY > ~0.5
   • Some elog hunting revealed that this signal is being digitized through a modified D990399. So somehow the signal pollution is happening inside this board? Because from the output of this board, the signal is going straight into the ADC.
   • To confirm, I will temporarily hijack another ADC channel and look at the spectrum. There is apparently some kind of daughter board (D040060), but how 60 Hz is coupling at this stage is unknown to me.
7. The ASS system for both arms still isn't working properly, to be investigated. The dirty TRY signal probably isn't helping the situation.

Rich came by the 40m to photocopy some pages from Hobbs, and saw me working on the 60 Hz hunting. As I suspected, the problem was being generated in the D040060. This board receives the photodiode signal single-ended, but has a different power ground than the photodiode (even though the PD is plugged into a power strip that claims to come from 1Y4). The mechanism is not entirely clear - the presence of these 60 Hz features seemed to be dependent on the light level on the TRY photodiode (i.e. they were absent when the PSL shutter is closed, and were more prominent when TRY was 0.9 rather than 0.5) but the PD certainly wasn't saturated - the DC signal was only ~100 mV when viewed on a scope. In any case, Rich suggested the simplest test would be to ground the BNC shield bringing TRY to the rack, to the local ground on the board, which I did using a crocodile clip. This did the trick, the TRY signal RMS is now dominated by the ~1 Hz seismic-driven variation.

 On a more pessimistic note - it looks like the elliptical reflector moving did not work, and the clipping in the Y arm persists . I am able to recover TRY~1 with the yaw offset on the ETM (which is still lower than the 1.06-1.07 Koji reported in Aug 2018, but I can believe that being down to the MC transmission being a few % lower at 15000cts rather than 15500), while the maximum I see without it is ~0.9. This is puzzling, because when the chamber was open, we saw that there was ~1.5" clearance between the edge of the reflector and the beam on an IR card. I suppose the input pointing could have been off by a small amount. So one of the primary vent objectives wasn't acheieved... But I will push ahead with the loss measurement.

Since we changed the HeNe, I updated the calibration factors, and accepted the changes in the SDF.

A more permanent fix than a crocodile clip was implemented. Should probably look to do this for the X end unit as well.

Now that the IMC is remaining locked for extended periods of time, the next problem to attack is the ASS dither alignment system. For a start, I decided to try and get the POX and POY locking working again, as we have not fully recovered the interferometer alignment after the most recent pumpdown. I spent a couple of hours tweaking the alignment of the arm cavity mirrors, BS, and TTs to try and recover the maximum possible TRX and TRY - however, my best efforts only yielded TRX~0.8, TRY~0.75. Moreover, the beam axis is such that the spot is significantly off in YAW on both ETMs, as evidenced by the camera views (also true but less obvious on the ITMs). However, trying to bring the beam back to the center of the optics yields TRY and TRX values lower than the above reported maxima. The EX green beam is currently unavailable to verify the arm cavity alignment because of my hijacking the EX NPROs PZT control for PLL investigations, but with the Y arm, I'm able to lock a TEM00 mode. Probably just needs more careful systematic alignment, but I'm not pursuing this tonight.

After a more systematic alignment effort, I was able to get the spots better centered on the optics (judged by eye from the analog camera views). TRY ~0.7, TRX~1.15. The X-arm dither alignment system seems to work out-of-the-box with the existing settings, I was able to run it and maximize the X-arm transmission.

Other work: I also cleaned up the area around MC2 a litte - laptop from on top of the vacuum chamber was removed and a rogue ethernet cable was also removed. The resulted in some misalignment of the IMC, which I corrected by manual alignment. Now the IMC is locked again with nominal transmission levels.

On the PSL table, I re-routed the RF output from the BeatMouth to the regular IR-ALS electronics chain (it was hijacked for PLL investigations). At EX, I disconnected the cable running from the LB1005 to the EX NPRO laser PZT (again was being used for PLL locking), and re-connected the output from the Green uPDH box to allow for some ALS tests to be done. I could then lock the EX green beam to the X-arm, and achieved GTRY ~ 0.35 using the ASX system. More to follow on ALS tests later today.

In preparation for the ASS debugging, I decided to check out the beam path on the EY table. In order to be able to do this, I had to setup the POY locking to trigger on AS110 instead of TRY (as is usual for this kind of debugging). Then I could poke an IR card in the beam path without destroying the lock.

There are two irides in the beam path immediately between the vacuum window and the harmonic separator that splits off the IR and green beams. I found that the beam was in fact getting clipped on both of them. It was also somewhat off center on a 2" beamsplitter that sends half of the light to the QPD (currently decommissioned). The purpose of these irides are (I think) to eliminate some ghost reflections of the green beam and also the Oplev beam. I opened up the irides until I felt that there wasn't any more clipping of the IR beam, but the appropriate ghost beams were still getting caught.

I also re-aligned the beam onto the TRY Thorlabs PD so as to better center it on the active area. In summary, the result of this work was that the TRY level went from ~0.6 to ~0.93. There may still be some scope for optimizing this - I tried running the Y-arm ASS scripts, and already, the loops don't run away any more. I'll do the systematic analysis of the servo anyways. But given that the IMC Trans lev el used to be ~15,500 counts and is now ~14,500 counts, I think ~7% drop in TRY level is in line with what we "expect" (assuming the pre-power-degradation TRY level was 1.000).

Note that these irides were installed (I think) by Yuki, and so cannot explain the ASS anomalies of July 2018 (i.e. it does not exonerate in-vacuum clipping of the beam, as Koji had already verified that the in-air path was clean back then).

The Y-arm ASS was tuned to be in a workable state. Basically, I followed Koji's recipe.

The SNR of the dither lines in the TRY and YARM control signals were checked - Attachment #1. The dither frequencies are marked with vertical dashed lines (can't figure out how to add 4 cursors in DTT so there's two in each row for a total of 4). A couple of days ago, when I was doing some preliminary checks, I found that the oscillator at 24.91 Hz caused a broadband increase in the TRY noise between DC and ~100 Hz. But today I saw no evidence of such behaviour. So I decided against changing the frequency.

The linearity of the demodulated error signals around the quadratic maxima of the TRY level was checked. I did not, however, investigate in detail the frequency-dependent offset Koji has reported in his elog. 

After this work, the TRY level is at 0.95. This is commensurate with the MC trans level being lower by ~7% relative to July 2018. Furthermore, the ASS servo is able to return to TRY~0.95 with a time-constant of ~5 seconds in response to misalignment of the cavity optics. After I investigate the X-arm ASS, I will reset the normalization for TRX and TRY.

Update 645pm: In the spirit of general IFO recovery, I re-centered the ITM and ETM oplev spots, and also the IR beam on the IPPOS QPD to mark the new input pointing alignment (the spot is slightly lower on the AS camera than what I remember). I then tweaked the XARM transmission to maximize it, and re-set the TransMon normalization. I edited the normalization script to comment out the normalizing of the TransMon QPD gains as the QPDs are in some kind of indeterminate state now. Attachment #2 shows the current status, you can also see the normalization being reset. LSC mode disabled for overnight.

Once the XARM ASS is also checked out, I propose moving back to locking the DRMI / PRFPMI configs. 

I tried to lock the Y arm cavity length to the PSL frequency using POY11_I as an error signal. Even though I think the cavity alignment is good (I see TRY flashes ~0.8), I am unable to achieve a lock. I checked the signal conditioning, and as far as I can tell, all the settings are correct, but there may be some settings that have not been re-assigned correct values. The other possibility is that something is not quite right with the new c1iscaux. The PDH error signal and arm cavity flashes all seem good though (see Attachment #1), so I'm not sure what obvious thing I'm missing.

To be continued...

Summary:

There is no visible PDH error signal on the POX11 channels. As a result, I am unable to lock the XARM length to the laser frequency. See Attachment #1 - the Y arm length is locked to the PSL frequency, and control is disabled for the XARM servo.

Details:

Now that several of the c1iscaux functionality tests have been completed, I wanted to push ahead with some locking. However, I was foiled at this early stage, for reasons as yet unknown. One possibility is that the

• I am able to see TRX cavity flashes >0.8, which suggest to me that the cavity is well aligned.
• Moreover, I am able to lock some (admittedly high TEM order) mode of the green laser, which further supports the above hypothesis.
• However, there are no visible PDH-like features in the POX11_I or POX11_Q channels.
• I checked that the cables from the output of the POX11 demod board are in fact going to the correct channels on WF1 (#5 and #6 respectively), and that the whitening gain for this channel is set to the nominal +30 dB.
• Next, I went to the POX table and looked for the POX IR beam. I couldn't see anything, but this beam is expected to be weak (of the order of 1 W * T_PRM * R_AR_ITM ~ 30 uW), which is probably not so easily visible.

Next steps:

• Look for the POX beam with an IR viewer.
• Confirm that everything is order on the LSC Demod board for POX 11 - maybe the LO isn't connected (somehow)?

I confirmed that there is light incident on the POX photodiode. So the problem must lie downstream in the demod / whitening / AA electronics. With the PRM aligned (i.e. PRFPMI config with all DoFs uncontrolled), I could see the flashing beam on an IR card. I could also see the spikes in DC power incident on the photodiode using the "DC Monitor" port on the photodiode head and an oscilloscope.

Update 245 pm: I confirmed that I could see a 11 MHz sine wave by connecting the POX11 RFPD output cable at the 1Y2 end to an oscilloscope. The amplitude of this signal was also changing, corresponding to the cavity fringing in and out of resonance. I couldn't, however, see any signal on the RFPDmon port, or the I/Q demodulated output ports. So as of now, the culprit seems to be something on the Demod board. Further investigations underway...

Update 315pm: I did the following checks:

1. Checked the LO signal level into a 50ohm input scope - it was ~720 mVpp, which was compatible with the LO level into the POY Demod board, so the LO signal level couldn't be to blame.
2. Connected an RF funcgen to the PD input of the demod board. Drove it at 11.066210 MHz, 50 mVpp, and saw a signal 400 cts-pp in the CDS system - so the demod + digitizaiton electronics also seemed fine.
3. #2, coupled with the fact I could see no signal at the RF-mon port of the demod board (even though there was a signal visible at the cable coming to 1Y2) suggested that the cable routing the POX11 PD output from the Heliax-breakout in 1Y2 to the demod board was busted - indeed this was the case!
4. Koji replaced the cable without changing its length, and now the XARM locks readily 👏 . I ran ASS and got TRX ~ 0.95. See Attachment #1. 

Summary:

The PRMI was locked with the carrier field resonant in the PRC 🙌. The lock is pretty stable (I only let it stay locked for ~10mins and then deliberately unlocked to see if I could readily re-lock, but it has stayed locked for the last ~20mins while I typed this up). See Attachment #1 for the DC power monitor StripTool for a short section of lock.

Details:

• This is the opposite of the config we'd want usually for locking the IFO, but it is a useful configuration for setting the alignment of the vertex optics, and also to train angular feedforward filters, so I decided to try it out.
• Some patient alignment work was required. I started with the single arm locks, maximized TRX/TRY with ASS, and then misaligned the ETMs and brought the PRM into alignment.
• The PRM Oplev spot was roughly centerd on its QPD once I judged I was getting decent PRMI cavity flashes on the POP camera. The PRMI Oplev servo needs some tuning, it is currently susceptible to oscillations in Pitch.
• The error signals used were: REFL11_I ---> PRCL and AS55_Q ---> MICH.
• The whitening gains were: REFL11 --> +18 dB, AS55 ---> +6 dB.
• Triggering was done using POPDC, this worked better for me than any of the RF signals (e.g. POP22/POP110). Trigger ON --> 200cts, Trigger OFF --> 100 cts.
• The DCPD whitening gains may not be set correctly - I think I remember POPDC being ~4000 cts in this configuration, but it may also be that we are not well centered on the POP photodiode.
• The dominant cause of the POP circulating power seems to be the usual angular instability ascribed to the TTs. The OAF model wasn't running tonight (and I didn't want to try starting it and have to do a full vertex FE reboot tonight) so I didn't get a chance to engage the angular FF.

Next (for LSC activities):

• PRMI locking with the sidebands resonant in the PRC.
• DRMI locking

I'm leaving the LSC mode off for tonight, but with the PRMI optics aligned and ETMs misaligned.

I measured the OLTF of both the PRM Oplev loops. Nothing odd sticks out as odd to me in this measurement - there seems to be ~40 degrees of phase margin and >10 dB gain margin for both loops, see Attachment #1. I didn't measure down to the second UGF at ~0.2 Hz (the Oplev loops are AC coupled), so there could be something funky going on there. The problem still persists - if I misalign and realign the PRM using the ifoalign scripts, the automatic engagement of Oplev loops causes the loop to oscillate. Could be that the script doesn't wait for long enough for the alignment transient to die out.

Update 1230pm: Indeed, this was due to the integrator transient. It dies away after a couple of seconds.

Summary:

I was able to lock the FPMI. The lock was quite stable. However, the fluctuations in the ASDC power suggest that it will be difficult to make a DC measurement of the contrast defect in this configuration. This problem can be circumvented in part by some electronics tuning. However, the alignment jitter couples some HOM light which is an independent effect. Can this be a good testbed for the proposed AS WFS system? 

Details:

• First, the arm cavities were locked and TRX/TRY were maximized using ASS.
• Next, AS55_Q-->MICH_A (MICH-->BS) matrix element was set to 1 in the LSC input (output) matrix. The trigger was set to always on.
• AS55 digital demod phase was -37 degrees.
• I was then able to increase the gain on the MICH servo and turn on some integrators without any problem.
• Some guesswork had to be done to get the correct sign. Final servo gain used was -0.8. 

I didn't do any serious budgeting yet - need to think about / do some modeling on how this configuration can be made useful.

wonder if its possible to do variable finesse locking

Gabriele mentioned that Virgo used arm trans PDH for this, but I guess we could possibly use POX/POY to start and bring in the PRM with 50% MICH trans

Summary:

There is an imbalance between the POX and POY detector outputs reported in the CDS system. Possibilities are (i) the POX PD has a uncoated glass window whereas POY does not or (ii) there is some problem in the elctronics.

Details:

1. Nominally, we run the POX/POY locking with +18dB whitening gain on POY and +30 dB on POX. This is a factor of 4 difference.
2. The DC levels reported in C1:LSC-POXDC_OUT and C1:LSC-POYDC_OUT differ by a factor of 10 (24 cts for POY vs 2.4 cts for POX with 0dB whitening gain). These channels come from the P2 connector on the back of the PD Interface board into the fast CDS system.
3. The levels reported by the Acromag system (which come out of the P1 connector) are 60mV for POY  vs 15 mV for POX.
4. I confirmed that this imbalance is not due to clipping on the POX photodiode - I tweaked the steering mirror and observed the plateau (I did not, however, look at the beam on the PD active area with an IR viewew which would be a more conclusive test).
5. I measured the power incident on either PD (using Ophir power meter, filter OFF). They were both ~10uW, as expected since the beam extraction for POY and POX are identical - a single HR mirror and the vacuum viewport.

Update 820pm: 

1. I checked that there is no glass window on the PD.
2. It is hard to see the beam on a viewer - but with the PRM aligned, I think I convinced myself that the beam is pretty well centered on the PD. 

So increasingly, it looks like the electronics are the source of the problem.

In preparation for some locking work tonight, I did the following at the POP in air table with the PRMI locked on carrier:

1. Raised the POP camera by ~5mm. The POP spot is now well centered on the CCD view.
2. Tweaked alignment onto the PDA10CF photodiode that serves as (i) POP22, (ii) POP110, and (iii) POP DC. In lock the POPDC level went from ~800 cts to ~1200 cts.
3. Moved the QPD that witnesses part of the POP beam such that the spot was centered on the photodiode. This may be useful for collecting some FF data or if we want to try feedback to stabilize the PRMI.

TBC...

After making sure the beams were hitting the 3f photodiodes on the "AP" table, I was able to lock the PRMI with the sidebands resonant inside the RC using 3f error signals. This would be the config we run in when trying to lock some more complicated configuration, such as the PRFPMI (i.e. start with the arms controlled by ALS, held off resonance). Tonight, I will try this (even though obviously I am not ready for the CARM transition step). The 3f lock is pretty robust, I was able to stay locked for minutes at a time and re-acquisition was also pretty quick. See Attachment #1. Not sure how significant it is, but I set the offsets to the 3f paths by averaging the REFL33_I and REFL33_Q signals when the PRMI was locked with the 1f error signals.

As usual, there's a lot of angular motion of the POP spot on the CCD monitor, but the lock seems to be able to ride it out.

Lock-settings (I modified the .snap file accordingly):

REFL33_I --> PRCL, loop gain = -0.019, Trigger on POP22, ON @ 20cts, OFF@0.5cts.

REFL33_Q --> MICH, loop gain = +1.4, Trigger on POP22, ON @ 20cts, OFF@0.5 cts.