more detailed instructions needed....

I got around to actually try building the LSC and IFO models on megatron.  Turns out "ifo" can't be used as a model name and breaks when trying to build it.  Has something to do with the find and replace routines I have a feeling (ifo is used for the C1, H1, etc type replacements throughout the code).  If you change the model name to something like ifa, it builds fine though.  This does mean we need a new name for the ifo model.

Also learned the model likes to have the cdsIPCx memory locations terminated on the inputs if its being used in a input role (I.e. its bringing the channel into the model).  However when the same part is being used in an output role (i.e. its transmitting from the model to some other model), if you terminate the output side, it gives errors when you try to make.

Its using the C1.ipc file (in /cvs/cds/caltech/chans/ipc/) just fine.  If you have missing memory locations in the C1.ipc file (i.e. you forgot to define something) it gives a readable error message at compile time, which is good.  The file seems to be being parsed properly, so the era of writing "0x20fc" for block names is officially over.

Ottavia was moved this afternoon from the control room into the lab, adjacent to Mafalda in 1Y3 on the top shelf.  It has been connected to the camera hub, as well as the normal network.  Its cables are clearly labeled.  Note the camera hub cable should be plugged into the lower ethernet port. Brief tests indicate everything is connected and it can talk to the control room machines.

The space where Ottavia used to be is now temporarily available as a good place to setup a laptop, as there is keyboard, mouse, and an extra monitor available.  Hopefully this space may be filled in with a new workstation in the near future.

To check the UGF, I increased the gain of the PLL by 10 and looked at how much the error point got suppressed. The green trace apparently has a UGF of ~50 Hz and so the BLUE nominal one has ~5 Hz.

The second attachment shows the noise now corrected for the loop gain. IF the two signal generators are equally noisy, then you can divide the purple spectrum by sqrt(2) to get the noise of a single source.

The .xml file is saved as /users/rana/dtt/MarconiPhaseNoise_100504.xml

Koji and Zach

We improved the beam axis rotaion on the MC. We still have 3mrad to be corrected.
So far we lost the MC Trans spot on CCD as the beam is now hitting the flange of the window. We need to move the steering mirror.

To do next:

- MC2 spot is too much off. Adjust it.

- Rotate axis for 3mrad more.

- MC2 spot is too much off. Adjust it.

- Adjust Vertical spot position as a final touch.

Monday

- Incident beam had 7mrad rotation.

- Tried to rotate in-vac steering mirror (IM1) in CCW

- After the long struggle the beam from PSL table started to hit north-east side of IM1 mount.

- Moved the IM1. All of the beam (input beam, MC Trans, MC Refl) got moved. Chaotic.

- Recovered TEM00 resonance. MC Trans CCD image missing. The beam axis rotation was 8.5mrad.
  Even worse. Disappointed.

Tuesday

- We made a strategic plan after some deliberation.

- We returned to the initial alignment of Saturday only for yaw.
  Not at once, such that we don't miss the resonance.

- Adjusted SM2Y and IM1Y to get reasonable resonance. Then adjusted MC2/3 to have TEM00 lock.

- Measured the spot positions. The axis rotation was 4.8mrad.

- Moved the spot on IM1 by 7mm by rotating SM2Y in CCW - ((A) in the figure)

- Compensated the misalignment by IM1Y CCW. ((B) in the figure)
  Used a large sensor card with puch holes to see the spot distribution between the MC1 and MC3.

- Fine alignment by MC2/MC3. Lock to TEM00. The beam axis rotation was 3mrad.The beam axis translation was 3mm.

- This 3mm can be Compensated by IM1Y. But this can easily let the resonance lost.
  Put the sensor card between MC1/MC3 and compensated the misalignment by MC3 and MC1.

Note: You match the returned spot from the MC2 to the incident beam by moving the spot deviation by MC3,
the spot returns to the good position on MC1. But the angle of the returned beam is totally bad.
This angle deviation can be adjusted by MC1.

Note2: This step should be done for max 2mm (2mrad) at once. As 2mrad deviation induces the spot move on the MC2 by an inch.

- After all, what we get is

MC1H = -0.15 mm
MC1V = -0.33 mm
MC3H = +0.97 mm
MC3V = -0.33 mm

This corresponds to the axis rotation of 3mrad and the beam axis translation of 0.8mm (to north).

We've turned off the RC temperature stabilization and the lights will supply the quasi-random heat input to the table and the cavity. Alberto and Kiwamu will be turning the lights on and off at random times.

The attached plot is the spectrum of temperature fluctuations of the room and the vacuum can with no stabilization from this weekend. I think the rolloff above 10 mHz is kind of fake - I had the .SMOO parameter set to 0.99 for both of these channels. I've just now set the .SMOO to 0 for both channels, so we should now see the true ADC or sensor noise level. It should be ~1 mK/rHz.

Here's the (calibrated) transimpedance of the new REFL55 PD.

T(55.3) / T_(11.06) = 93 dB

Ben, Steve, and Koji

Ben came to the 40m and hooked up a cable to the main interlock service.
We have tested the interlock and confirmed it's working.

[Now the laser is approved to be used by persons who signed in the SOP.]

The RC, PMC, and MZ were unlocked during the interlock maneuver.
Now they are relocked.

Zach and Koji,

We finally aligned the incident beam enough close to the center of the all MC mirrors! Uraaaaah!

MC1H = -0.12mm
MC1V = -0.13mm
MC2H = -0.15mm
MC2V = +0.14mm
MC3H = -0.14mm
MC3V = -0.11mm

The aperture right before the vacuum window has been adjusted to the beam position. This will  ensure that any misalignment on the PSL table can have the correct angle to the mode cleaner as far as it does resonate to the cavity. (This is effectively true as the small angle change produces the large displacement on the PSL table.)

If we put an aperture at the reflection, it will be perfect.

Now we can remove the MZ setup and realign the beam to the mode cleaner!

Method:

- The beam axis rotation has been adjusted by the method that was used yesterday.

Differential: SM2Y and IM1Y

Common: SM2Y only

- We developped scripts to shift the MC2 spot without degrading the alignment.


/cvs/cds/caltech/users/zach/MCalign/MC2_spot/MC2_spot_up
/cvs/cds/caltech/users/zach/MCalign/MC2_spot/MC2_spot_down
/cvs/cds/caltech/users/zach/MCalign/MC2_spot/MC2_spot_left
/cvs/cds/caltech/users/zach/MCalign/MC2_spot/MC2_spot_right

These scripts must be upgraded to the slow servo by the SURF students.

- These are the record of the alignment and the actuator balances

C1:SUS-MC1_PIT_COMM   =  2.4005
C1:SUS-MC1_YAW_COMM   = -4.6246
C1:SUS-MC2_PIT_COMM   =  3.4603
C1:SUS-MC2_YAW_COMM   = -1.302
C1:SUS-MC3_PIT_COMM   = -0.8094
C1:SUS-MC3_YAW_COMM   = -6.7545
C1:SUS-MC1_ULPIT_GAIN =  0.989187
C1:SUS-MC1_ULYAW_GAIN =  0.987766
C1:SUS-MC2_ULPIT_GAIN =  0.985762
C1:SUS-MC2_ULYAW_GAIN =  1.01311
C1:SUS-MC3_ULPIT_GAIN =  0.986771
C1:SUS-MC3_ULYAW_GAIN =  0.990253


 I suggest "ITF" for the model name.

After munching analytical models, simulations, measurements of photodiodes I think I got a better grasp of what we want from them, and how to get it. For instance I now know that we need a transimpedance of about 5000 V/A if we want them to be shot noise limited for ~mW of light power.

Adding 2-omega and f1/f2 notch filters complicates the issue, forcing to make trade-offs in the choice of the components (i.e., the Q of the notches)

Here's a better improved design of the 11Mhz PD.

Today we met and we finally come up with a lot of cool, clever, brilliant, outstanding ideas to organize the lab.

You can find them on the Wiki page created for the occasion.

http://lhocds.ligo-wa.caltech.edu:8000/40m/40m_Internals/Lab_Organization

Enjoy!

Where are we going to put the tiki bar? The ice cream machine? I am disappointed in the details that appear to have been glossed over..

The accelerometer power supply / preamp board has been OFF because of exciting new accelerometer measurements.  It's now on, so watch out and make sure to turn it back off before plugging / unplugging accelerometers.

I added a noise model of the SR560 to the LISO opamp.lib. This assumes you're using it in G=100, low-noise mode. The voltage noise is correct, but I had to guess on the current noise because I didn't measure it before. Lame.

This can be compared with the noise that we measure when locking it down...

i tried to commit something this afternoon and got the following error message:

Command: Commit 
Adding: C:\Caltech\Documents\40m-svn\nodus\frank 
Error: Commit failed (details follow): 
Error: Server sent unexpected return value (405 Method Not Allowed) in response to  
Error: MKCOL request for '/svn/!svn/wrk/d2523f8e-eda2-d847-b8e5-59c020170cec/trunk/frank' 
Finished!:  

anyone had this before? what's wrong?

For reasons unknown, the seismic spectra posted above Rosalba has been wrong since ~January when it was first posted.  The noise that we were claiming was waaaay lower than is really possible.

Rana and I checked the calibrations, and the numbers in DTT for the Ranger and the Guralp are correct (it's unknown what was being used at the time of the bad plot) - Cal for the Guralp is 3.8e-9 m/s, and for the Ranger is 1.77e-9 m/s.

Something is funny with the accelerometer calibration.  Hopefully Kevin's investigation will sort it out.  Their calibration used to be 1.2e-7 m/s^2 , but it was changed to be 7e-7 m/s^2 to match the noise level of the accelerometers with the seismometers at ~10Hz. We need to go through the calibration carefully and figure out why this is!

Posted above Rosalba for easy reference, and attached below, is the new seismic spectra.  The black trace is when the Ranger's mass is locked down, and the teal circle markers indicate the Guralp Spec-Sheet Noise Floor.

** Rana says> the y-axis in Jenne's plot is (m/s)/sqrt(Hz). The Guralp has a velocity readout bandwidth of 0.03-40 Hz, so we would have to modify the calibration to make it right in those frequencies. I believe the Ranger cal has the correct poles in it. The huge rise at low frequencies is because of the 1/f noise of the SR560.

 This should be better. It should also have larger resonance width.

How much is the width?

I'm currently working on a set of scripts which will be able to parse a "template" mdl file, replacing certain key words, with other key words, and save it to a new .mdl file.

For example  you pass it the "template" file of scx.mdl file (suspension controller ETMX), and the keyword ETMX, followed by an output list of scy.mdl ETMY,  bs.mdl BS, itmx.mdl  ITMX, itmy.mdl ITMY, prm.mdl PRM, srm.mdl SRM.  It produces these new files, with the keyword replaced, and a few other minor tweaks to get the new file to work (gds_node, specific_cpu, etc).  You can then do a couple of copy paste actions to produce a combined sus.mdl file with all the BS, ITM, PRM, SRM controls (there might be a way to handle this better so it automatically merges into a single file, but I'd have to do something fancy with the positioning of the modules - something to look into).

I also have plans for a script which gets passed a mdl file, and updates the C1.ipc file, by adding any new channels and incrementing the ipcNum appropriately.  So when you make a change you want to propagate to all the suspensions, you run the two scripts, and have an already up to date copy of memory locations - no additional typing required.

Similar scripts could be written for the DAQ screens as well, so as to have all the suspension screens look the same after changing one set.

 The transfer function phase drops by 180 degrees in about 2MHz. Is that a good way to measure the width?

To measure the width of a resonance, the standard method is to state the center frequency and the Q. Use the definition of Q from the Wikipedia.

As far as how much phase is OK, you should use the method that we discussed - think about the full closed loop system and try to write down how many things are effected by there being a phase slope around the modulation frequency. You should be able to calculate how this effects the error signal, noise, the loop shape, etc. Then consider what this RFPD will be used for and come up with some requirements.

[Koji, Kiwamu]

The Mach-Zehnder on the PSL table was removed.

A path for 166 MHz modulation in the Mach-Zehnder (MZ) was completely removed, the setup for another path remains the same as before.

Also the photo detector and the CCD for the PMC transmittion were moved to behind the PZT mirror of PMC. 

Before removing them, we put an aperture in front of the PD for MC REFL so that we can recover the alignment toward MC by using the aperture.

After the removal we tried to re-align the EOM which imposes the sideband of 29MHz for MC.

We eventually got good alignment of 97% transmissivity at the EOM ( the power of the incident beam is 1.193W and trans was 1.160W )

And then we aligned the beam going to MC by guiding the reflected beam to the aperture we put. This was done by using the steering mirrors on the periscope on the corner of the PSL table.

Now MC got locked and is successfully resonating with TEM00.

As per Steve's request I checked the MC incident power as a function of time.

The output is negative: the lower voltage, the higher power.

Before I put the attenuator the incident power was 1.1W. It appear as -5V.

Now the output is -0.1V. This corresponds to 22mW.

After the MZ-removal work:

- I found that the input steering (IM1) was right handed. This was different from the CAD layout. This was the main reason why the MC trans was kicked by the mount.
- Removed the mount from the post and converted it to a keft handed.
- Align IM1 so that we can get TEM00 lock. Align IM1 further.

- After the IM1 was optimized for the TEM00, move the periscope mirrors to have best alignment.

- Checked the beam spot positions. They looks quite good (MC2 is not the matter now).

C1:SUS-MC1_ULPIT_GAIN = 0.998053
C1:SUS-MC1_ULYAW_GAIN = 0.992942
C1:SUS-MC2_ULPIT_GAIN = 1.00856
C1:SUS-MC2_ULYAW_GAIN = 1.04443
C1:SUS-MC3_ULPIT_GAIN = 0.99868
C1:SUS-MC3_ULYAW_GAIN = 1.00041

On Friday, I deleted a bunch of filters from the c1susvme2 optics' screens (MC1,2,3 + SRM) so as to reduce the CPU load and keep it from going bonkers.

This first plot shows the CPU trend over the last 40 days and 40 nights. As you can see the CPU_LOAD has dropped by 1 us since I did the deleting.

In the second plot (on the right) you can see the same trend but over 400 days and nights. Of course, we hope that we throw this away soon, but until then it will be nice to have the suspensions be working more often.

The measured transimpedance of the latest POY11 PD matches my model very well up to 100 MHz. But at about ~216MHz I have a resonance that I can't really explain.

 The following is a simplified illustration of the resonant circuit:

Perhaps my model misses that resonance because it doesn't include stray capacitances.

While I was tinkering with it, i noticed a couple of things:

- the frequency of that  oscillation changes by grasping with finger the last inductor of the circuit (the 55n above); that is adding inductance

- the RF probe of the scope clearly shows me the oscillation only after the 0.1u series capacitor

- adding a small capacitor in parallel to the feedback resistor of the output amplifier increases the frequency of the oscilaltion

So I finished writing a script which takes an .ipc file (the one which defines channel names and numbers for use with the RCG code generator),  parses it, checks for duplicate channel names and ipcNums, and then parses and .mdl file looking for channel names, and outputs a new .ipc file with all the new channels added (without modifying existing channels). 

The script is written in python, and for the moment can be found in /home/controls/advLigoRTS/src/epics/simLink/parse_mdl.py

I still need to add all the nice command line interface stuff, but the basic core works.   And already found an error in my previous .ipc file, where I used the channel number 21 twice, apparently.

Right now its hard coded to read in C1.ipc and spy.mdl, and outputs to H1.ipc, but I should have that fixed tonight.

Where did you get the 55nH based notch from? I don't remember anything like that from the other LSC PD schematics. This is certainly a bad idea. You should remove it and put the notch back over by the other notch.

 Why is it a bad idea?

You mean putting both the 2-omega and the 55MHz notches next to each other right after the photodiode?

Kiwamu and Kevin measured the beam profile of the green laser by the south arm ETM.

The following measurements were made with 1.984A injection current and 39.65°C laser crystal temperature.

Two vertical scans (one up and one down) were taken with a razor blocking light entering a photodiode with the razor 7.2cm from the center of the lens. This data was fit to

b + a*erf(sqrt(2)*(x-x0)/w) with the following results:

scan down: w = (0.908 ± 0.030)mm  chi^2 = 3.8

scan up:      w = (0.853 ± 0.025)mm   chi^2 = 2.9

giving a weighted value of w = (0.876 ± 0.019)mm at this distance.

The beam widths for the profile fits were measured with the beam scanner. The widths are measured as the full width at 13.5% of the maximum. Each measurement was averaged over 100 samples. The distance is measured from the back of the lens mount to the front face of the beam scanner.

This data was fit to w = sqrt(w0^2+lambda^2*(x-x0)^2/(pi*w0)^2) with lambda = 532nm with the following results:

For the vertical beam profile:

reduced chi^2 = 3.29

x0 = (-87   ± 1)    mm

w0 = (16.30 ± 0.14) µm

For the horizontal beam profile:

reduced chi^2 = 2.01

x0 = (-82   ± 1)    mm

w0 = (16.12 ± 0.10) µm

Note: These fits were done with the beam diameter instead of the beam radius. The correct fits to the beam radius are here: http://nodus.ligo.caltech.edu:8080/40m/2912

This IPC stuff looks really a nice improvement of CDS.

Please just maintain the wiki updated so that we can keep the latest procedures and scripts to build the models.

Hey, what a quick work!

But, wait...

1) The radius of the beam was measured by the razor blade.

2) The diameter of the beam (13.5% full-width) at each point was measured by Beam Scan. The one at z=~7cm was consistent with 1)

3) The data 2) was fitted by a function w = sqrt(w0^2+lambda^2*(x-x0)^2/(pi*w0)^2). This is defined for the radius, isn't it?

So the fitting must be recalculated with correct radius.
Make sure that you always use radius and write with a explicit word "radius" in the record.

 Here's a photo of the set-up used. The beam profile is measured relative to the f=-100mm lens.

1) What is c1asc doing?  What is ascaux used for?  What are the cables labeled "C1:ASC_QPD" in the 1X2 rack really going to?

2) Put the 4600 machine (megatron) in the 1Y3 (away from the analog electronics)  This can be used as an OAF/IO machine.  We need a dolphin fiber link from this machine to the IO chassis which will presumably be in 1Y1, 1Y2 (we do not currently have this fiber at the 40m, although I think Rolf said something about having one).

3) Merge the PSL and IOOVME crates in 1Y1/1Y2 to make room for the IO chassis.

4) Put the LSC and SUS machines into 1Y4 and/or 1Y5 along with the SUS IO chassis.  The dolphin switch would also go here.

5) Figure out space in 1X3 for the LSC chassis.  Most likely option is pulling asc or ascaux stuff, assuming its not really being used.

6) Are we going to move the OMC computer out from under the beam tube and into an actual rack?  If so, where?

Rolf will likely be back Friday, when we aim to start working on the "New" Y end and possibly the 1X3 rack for the LSC chassis.

For the vertical beam profile:

reduced chi^2 = 3.25

x0 = (-86 ± 1)mm

w0 = (46.01 ± 0.38)µm

For the horizontal beam profile:

reduced chi^2 = 2.05

x0 = (-81 ± 1)mm

w0 = (45.50 ± 0.28)µm

Just a little while ago, at 2330 UTC on 5/11, I swapped the phase noise setup to use another Marconi - this time its the 3rd one from the top beating with the 4th one from the top (2nd from the bottom).

After a little while, I swapped over to beat the 33 w/ the 199. I now have all the measurements. For the measurement of the last pair, I inserted BALUN 1:1 transformers on the outputs of both signal generators'.

This last pair appears to be the quietest of the 3 and also has less lines. The lines are mainly at high frequency and are harmonics of 120 Hz. Probably from the Sorensen switching supplies in the adjacent rack.

I double checked that the 10 MHz sync cable was NOT plugged in to any of these during this and that the front panel menu was set to use the internal frequency standard. In the closed loop case, the beat frequency between the 33/199 pair changes by less than ~0.01 Hz over minutes (as measured by calibrating the control signal).

Finally got the 3-cornered-hat measurement of the IFRs done. The result is attached.

s12, s23, & s31, are the beat signals between the 3 signal generators.

s1, s2, & s3 are the phase noise of the individual generators made by the following matlab calculation:

%% Do the hat
s1 = sqrt((s12.^2  + s31.^2 - s23.^2) / 2);
s2 = sqrt((s12.^2  + s23.^2 - s31.^2) / 2);
s3 = sqrt((s31.^2  + s23.^2 - s12.^2) / 2);

As you can see, there is now an estimate of the individual noises. We can do better by doing some fitting of the residuals.

The real test will be to replace the noise one here with the good Wenzel oscillator and see how well we can estimate its noise. If the 11 MHz crystals don't show up, I can just try this with the 21.5 MHz one for the PSL.

We succeeded in getting the reflected green beam from both ITMY and ETMY.

After we did several things on the end table, we eventually could observe these reflections.

Now the spot size of the reflection from ITMY is still big ( more than 1 cm ), so tomorrow modematching to the 40m cavity is going to be improved by putting mode matching telescopes on right positions.

An important thing we found is that, the beam height of optics which directly guides the beam to the cavity should be 4.5 inch on the end table.

(what we did)

* Aidan, Kevin and Kiwamu set the beam to be linearly polarized by rotating a QWP in front of the Innolight. This was done by monitoring the power of the transmitted light from the polarizer attached on the input of the Faraday of 1064 nm. Note that the angle for QWP is 326.4 deg.

* We put some beam damps against the rejected beam from the Faraday

* To get a good isolation with the Faraday we at first rotated the polarization of the incident beam so to have a minimum transmission. And then we rotated the output polarizer until the transmission reaches a minimum. Eventually we got the transmission of less than 1mW, so now the Faraday should be working regardless of the polarization angle of the incident beam. As we predicted, the output polaerizer seems to be rotated 45 deg from that of the input.

* Rana, Koji and Kiwamu aligned the PPKTP crystal to maximize the power of 532 nm.  Now the incident power of 1064 nm is adjusted to 250mW and the output power for 532 nm is 0.77mW. Actually we can increase the laser power by rotating a HWP in front of the Faraday.

* We injected the green beam to the chamber and aligned the beam axis to the ETMY without the modematching lenses, while exciting the horizontal motion of the ETM with f=1Hz from awg. This excitation was very helpful because we could figure out which spot was the reflection from the ETM.

* Once we made the reflected beam going close to the path of the incident beam, we then put the modematching lenses and aligned the steering mirrors and lenses. At this time we could see the reflected beam was successfully kicked away by the Faraday of 532 nm.

* Koji went to ITMY chamber with a walkie-talkie and looked at the spot position. Then he told Rana and Kiwamu to go a right direction with the steering mirrors. At last we could see a green beam from ITM illuminating the ETM cage.

* We excited the ITMY with f=2Hz vertically and aligned the ITM from medm. Also we recovered a video monitor which was abandoned around ETMY chamber so that we could see the spot on the ETM via the monitor. Seeing that monitor we aligned the ITM and we obtained the reclection from the ITM at the end table.

* We also tried to match the mode by moving a lens with f=400mm, but we couldn't obtain a good spot size.

Strange. I thought the new result became twice of the first result. i.e. w0=32um or so.

Can you explain why the waist raidus is estimated to be three times of the last one?
Can you explain why the measured radius @~70mm is not 0.8mm, which you told us last time,
but is 0.6mm?

The measurements have been done at the outside of the Rayleigh range.
This means that the waist size is derived from the divergence angle

theta = lambda / (pi w0)

At the beginning you used diameter instead of radius. This means you used twice larger theta to determine w0.
So if that mistake is corrected, the result for w0 should be just twice of the previous wrong fit.

I could not understand this operation. Can you explain this a bit more?

It sounds different from the standard procedure to adjust the Faraday:

1) Get Max transmittion by rotating PBS_in and PBS_out.

2) Flip the Faraday 180 deg i.e. put the beam from the output port.

3) Rotate PBS_in to have the best isolation.

Zach and Koji

The old small MMT was removed and wrapped by Al foils.

The steering mirror IM2-IM4 were displaced and aligned.

The Faraday isolator block is moved and aligned.

The MC is realigned and resonatng TEM-00.

Now the MC has slightly miscentered beam on the mirrors owing to change of the stack leveling.
OSEMs are also in a strange state. We should check this later.

 Now I know why Rana was wearing his bright green pants yesterday. It is nice to see the green beam in the 40m IFO again. It calls for celebration!

I stopped AWG 1Hz drive of ITMYs (south-arm) I still see unblocked beams at the ETMYs table. We have plenty of cleaned razor beam traps to be used. Please block Faraday rejects etc

The procedure you wrote down as a standard is right.   I explain reasons why we didn't do such way. 

For our situation, we can rotate the polarization angle of the incident beam by using a HWP in front of the Faraday.  

This means we don't have to pay attention about the PBS_in because the rotation of either PBS_in or the HWP causes the same effect (i.e. variable transmission ). This is why we didn't carefully check the PBS_in, but did carefully with the HWP.

Normally we should take a maximum transmission according to a instruction paper from OFR, but we figured out it was difficult to find a maximum point. In fact looking at the change of the power with such big incident (~1W) was too hard to track, it only can change 4th significant digit ( corresponds to 1mW accuracy for high power incident ) in the monitor of the Ophir power meter. So we decided to go to a minimum point instead a maximum point, and around a minmum point we could resolve the power with accuracy of less than 1mW.

After obtaining the minimum by rotating the HWP, we adjusted the angle of PBS_out to have a minimum transmission.

And then we was going to flip the Faraday 180 deg for fine tuning, but we didn't. We found that once we remove the Faraday from the mount, the role angle of the Faraday is going to be screwed up because the mount can not control the role angle of the Faraday. This is why we didn't flip it.

??? I still don't understand. What principle are you rely on?

I could not understand why you rotated the HWP to the "minimum" transmission
and then minimized the transmission by rotating the output PBS. What is optimized by this action?

Probably there is some hidden assumption  which I still don't understand.
Something like: Better transmission gives best isolation, PBS has some leakage transmission
of the S-pol light, and so on.

Tell me what is the principle otherwise I don't accept that this adjustment is "to get a good isolation with the Faraday".

P.S. you could flip the faraday without removing it from the V-shaped mount. This does not roll the Faraday.

I modified the /etc/rc.d/rc.local file on megatron removing a bunch of the old test module names and added the new lsc and lsp modules, as well as a couple planned suspension models and plants, to shared memory so that they'll work.  Basically I'm trying to move forward into the era of working on the actual model we're going to use in the long term as opposed to continually tweaking "test" models.

The last line in the file is now: /usr/bin/setup_shmem.rtl lsc lsp spy scy spx scx sus sup&

I removed mdp mdc mon mem grc grp aaa tst tmt.

I modified /cvs/cds/caltech/target/fb and changed the line "set controller_dcu=10" to "set controller_dcu=13" (where 13 is the lsc dcu_id number).

I also changed the set gds_server line from having 10 and 11 to 13 and 14 (lsc and lsp).

The file /cvs/cds/caltech/fb/master was modified to use C1LSC.ini and C1LSP.ini, as well as tpchn_C2.par (LSC) and tpchn_C3.par (LSP)

testpoint.par in /cvs/cds/caltech/target/gds/param was modified to use C-node1 and C-node2 (1 less then the gds_node_id for lsc and lsp respectively).

Note all the values of gds_node_id, dcu_id, and so forth are recorded at http://lhocds.ligo-wa.caltech.edu:8000/40m/Electronics/Existing_RCG_DCUID_and_gds_ids

I started putting together the components that are coint to go inside the frequency generation box. Here's how it looked like:

The single component are going to be mounted on a board that is going to sit on the bottom of the box.

I'm thinking whether to mount the components on an isolating board (like they did in GEO), or on an aluminum board.

I emailed Hartmut to know more details about his motivations on making that choice.

The choice of 100 Ohm for the isolating resistor was mainly empirical. I started with 10, then 20 and 50 until I got a sufficient suppression of the resonance. Even just 10Ohm suppressed the resonance by several tens of dB.

In that way the gain of the loop didn't change. Before that, I was also able to kill the resonance by just increasing the loop gain from 10 to 17.  But, I didn't want to increase the closed-loop gain.

One thing that I tried, on Koji's suggestion, was to try to connect the RF output of the PD box to an RF amplifier to see whether shielding the output from the cable capacitance would make the resonance disappear: It did not work.