++++ Task List for the vent preparation ++++

  + Preparation of beam dumps (Jamie / Steve)

  + Health check of shadow sensor and measurement of the cross-coupling  (Steve)

  + Measurement of the arm Lengths and estimation of the required precision (Kiwamu)

  + Alignment of the Y green beam (Suresh)

  + Alignment of the incident beam axis (Jenne)

  + Measurement of the MC spot positions  (Suresh)

  + Loss measurement of the arm cavities (Kiwamu / volunteers)

 ++++ Task List for the post-vent activity ++++

  + 3f RFPDs (Koji / Rana)

  + EOM resonant circuit (Kiwamu)  

  + Sophistication of the LSC model (Yoichi)

  + DRMI commissioning (Keiko / Anamaria)

We set up the mixer based FD to check out its noise performance.

It is being acquired as C1:GCV-XARM_FINE_OUT_DAQ.

We have calibrated it by driving the frequency of the RF signal generator and putting the value into the GAIN field. We got 100 kHz / 5450 counts; the _OUT_DAQ channel is now being recorded in units of Hz. The cable length has been adjusted so that the full mixer output can swing 16 MHz peak-peak before turning over.

Also, we did a lot of cable cleanup around the IO rack. Kiwamu and Suresh's setups were somewhat dismantled. The whole area was too messy and too hacky to be allowed to survive. Our "temporary" setups have a way of becoming permanent holding places for barrels, adapters, duct tape, etc.

Today I finished setting up the server that will replace the c1vac1/2 machines. I put it on the martian network at the unassigned IP 192.168.113.72. I assigned it the hostname c1vac and added it to the DNS lookup tables on chiara.

I created a new targets directory on the network drive for the new machine: /cvs/cds/caltech/target/c1vac. After setting EPICS environment environment variables according to 13681 and copying over (and modifiying) the files from /cvs/cds/caltech/target/c1auxex as templates, I was able to start a modbusIOC server on the new machine. I was able to read and write (soft) channel values to the EPICS IOC from other machines on the martian network.

I scripted it as a systemd-managed process which automatically starts on boot and restarts after failure, just as it is set up on c1auxex.

Gautam and I are removing the prototype Acromag chassis from the 1x4 rack to make room for the new c1susuax hardware. I shut down and disabled the modbusPSL service running on c1auxex, which serves the PSL diagnostic channels hosted by this chassis. The service will need to be restarted and reenabled once the chassis has been reinstalled elsewhere.

The mode cleaner is locked and the air conditioning is full on. So the the air conditioning doesn't seem to be so important for the lock to hold.

About 30 minutes ago the mode cleaner fell out of lock and has since not been able to hold lock for more than a couple seconds.

I'm not sure what happened.  I was in the middle of taking measurements of the MC error point spectrum, which included adjusting the FAST gain.  I've put all the gains back to their nominal levels but no luck.  I'm not sure what else could have gone wrong.  Seismic noise looks relatively quiet. 

As it turned out, the setting of +26dB for the FSS Fast gain was making the NPRO PZT / Pockels cell crossover too unstable. This was the cause of the large ~30 kHz peak that Jamie was seeing in his spectra (more to follow in the morning).

After recovering the locking, etc. by fiddling with the gains, we went about systematically setting all of the gains/offsets. Jamie's elog will show all of the various spectra with different FSS gains.

For offset setting, this was the procedure:

1. We want the MC servo board to have zero voltage on its MCL and MCF outputs (aka MC_SLOW_MON and MC_FAST_MON) with the Boosts ON, so we switched ON the 40:4000 and the 2 Super Boosts and put the VCO gain into its nominal +25 dB setting. This saturates the outputs and makes them impossible to use as readbacks so you have to be careful. Get the outputs close to zero as you turn on each boost. Finally, you will see that +/- 1mV of input offset (aka MC_REFL_OFFSET) will flip the FAST output between +/- 10V. This is the right setting.
2. With the MC board adjusted to send 0 V into the FSS error point, adjust the FSS input offset (with the Common and Fast gains at the nominal values) so that the FAST output voltage goes to +5.5 V. This is the middle of the range for the high voltage driver which drives the NPRO.

3. Let the MC lock and go through the UP script. When the MCL comes on with the integrator, the FAST voltage will shift from +5.5 V to something else. Use the following line: ezcaservo -r C1:PSL-FSS_FAST -g -1 -s 5.5 C1:SUS-MC2_MCL_OFFSET, to automatically tune the MCL offset.

    

   That's all. I have left the FSS common gain at +10.5 and the Fast gain at +23.5. These seem to be close to the optimum. Jamie will have more tuning tomorrow.
    
   I have also changed the 'mcup' script to set the MCL offset and set the FSS Slow setpoint to shoot for +5.5 V of FSS_FAST.
    
   MC_REFL_OFFSET = +1.176 V
   MC2_MCL_OFFSET = +47.8 counts
   FSS_INOFFSET   = -0.85 V

 I used our procedure from this entry to set the IMC board offset as well as the FSS board offset.

I found this afternoon that the MC was having trouble locking: the PC path was railing as soon as the boost was engaged. Could be that there's some misalignment on the PSL which has led to some RAM having to be canceled by this new offset. Let's see if its stable for awhile.

Having trouble again, starting around 1 hour ago. No one in the VEA. Adjusted the offset -seems to be OK again.

 I felt in my bones that the MC was in trouble so I came by and noticed that it hadn't locked for a couple hours. The FSS SLOW was at -1.6V, but putting it back to zero didn't fix things. I adjusted the FSS error point offset to +1 and that took the FSS_FAST off of the +10 V rail. Relocked and seems OK.

We need to plan to make the M Evans mod to the FSS box to make the PC drive less angry.

Last 40 days of MC Alignment trends  show that the recent MC WFS tuning / offseting worked out OK. MC REFL seems low and flat.

 I started mode matching of the beam going to IMC. The work is still going on.

According to Rana's calculation (see here), I put the first lens (f=200mm) in between two steering mirrors after PMC.

The distance from PMC to the first lens was adjusted by using a metal ruler.  So I believe the accuracy is something like 1mm.

I aligned the beam path going through the broadband EOM and the mode matching lenses.

  I could find the optimum position for the second lens  (f=-150mm) by sliding the position of the lens and measuring the mode after it.

But the optimum position looked a bit far from the EOM. It's off by about 3-4 inch from the designed position.

Somehow I feel that the beam before the second lens goes with a smaller divergence angle than that of designed.

So tomorrow I am going to restart the work from checking the mode before the second lens.

Maybe at first I should measure the mode without going through the EOM because it changes the waist position and makes the system not straightforward.

I have been working on the mode matching lenses which are sitting after the boradband EOM.

Last Friday I checked the mode profile after the first mode matching lens (f=-150mm). The measured mode was good.

According to the calculation done by ABCD software, the waist size is supposed to be 80.9 um after that lens.

The measured waists are 80.5 um for the vertical mode and 79.4 um for the horizontal mode.

The screenshot of the ABCD's result and the plot for the mode measurement are shown below.

I didn't  carefully check the mode after the last convex lens (f=200mm), but it must be already good because the beam looks having a long rayleigh range.

Now the beam is reflected back from MC1 and goes to the AP table since I coarsely aligned the beam axis to the MC.

/****  fitting result ****/

w0_v =  80.4615      +/- 0.1695 [um] 

w0_h =  79.4468      +/- 0.1889 [um]

z_v =  -0.115234        +/- 0.0005206  [m]

z_h =  -0.109722        +/- 0.0005753 [m]

We decided not to care about the mode after MMT1.

So far Koji, Alberto and I have measured the beam profile after MMT1,

but we are going to stop this measurement and go ahead to the next step i.e. putting MMT2

There are two reasons why we don't care about the profile after MMT1:

     (1) it is difficult to fit the measured data

     (2) The position of MMT1 is not critical for the mode matching to the IFO.

The details are below.

(1) difficulty in fitting the data

The precision of each measured point looked good enough, but the fitting result varies every measurement.

The below shows the data and their fitted curves. 

In the label, "h" and "v" stand for "horizontal" and "vertical" respectively.

The solid curves represent the fitting results, varying by each measurement.

In order to increase the reliability of the fitting, we had to take some more data at further distance.

But we couldn't do it, because the beam radius already becomes 3 mm even at 2 m away from MMT1 and at this point it starts to be clipped on the aperture of the beam scan.

Thus it is difficult to increase the reliability of the fitting. 

Once if we put MMT2 the beam should have a long Rayleigh range, it means we can measure the profile at further distance, and the fitting must be more reliable.

(2) positioning of MMTs

Actually the position of MMT1 is not so critical for the mode matching. 

The most important point is the separation distance of MMT1 and MMT2.

As written in Jenne's document, if we slide the positions of MMT1 and MMT2 while keeping their appropriate separation distance, the mode match overlap still stays above 99%

This is because the beam coming from MC3 is almost collimated (ZR~8m), so the position of MMTs doesn't so matter. 

To confirm it for the real case, I also computed the mode overlap while sliding the position of MMTs by using real data. The below is the computed result.

It is computed by using the measured profile after MC3 (see the past entry).

The overlap still stay above 99% when the distance from MC to MMT is between 1300 and 3000mm.

This result suggests to us putting MMT1 as we like.  

I improved the mode matching of the incident beam to the doubling crystal on the PSL table.

As a result it apparently got better (i.e. brighter green beam), but it's not the best because now the beam is a little too tightly focused on the crystal. 

I am going to work on it again someday after seeing the beat note signal.

- The measured waist sizes are

    41.94 [um] for vertical mode

   42.20 [um] for horizontal mode

while the optimum waist size is 50 um (see entry #3330).

The plot below shows the beam scan data which I took after improving the mode match.

The mode profile of the new input optics was measured.

Although the distance between each optic was not exactly the same as the design because of narrow space,

we measured the profile after the curved mirror (MMT1) that Jenne and Kevin put in the last week.

(interference from MMT1)

Below is a sketch of the current optical path inside of the chamber.

In the beginning of this measurement, the angle between the incident and the reflection on MMT1 (denoted as theta on the sketch) was relatively big (~40deg) although MMT1 was actually made for 0deg incident.

At that time we found a spatially large interference imposed on the Gaussian beam at the beam scan. This is not good for mode measurement

This bad interference can be caused by an extra reflection from the back surface of MMT1 because the interference completely vanished by removing MMT1  .

In order to reduce the interference we decreased the angle theta as small as possible. Actually we made it less than 10deg which was our best due to narrow space. 

Now the interference got less and the spot looks better.

The picture below shows an example of the beam shape taken by using the beam scan.

Top panel represents the horizontal mode and bottom panel represents the vertical mode.

You can see some bumps caused by the interference on the horizontal mode, these bumps may lead to overestimation of the horizontal spot size .

(result)

 The above plot shows the result of the mode measurement.

 Here are the parameter obtained by fitting. The data is also attached as attachment:4

Just note that MMT1 has RoC of -5m (negative!). This means that it is a lens with f=-2.5 m,

I corrected the sketch of the new IOO. 

The sketch in the last entry was also replaced by the new one. 

http://nodus.ligo.caltech.edu:8080/40m/3029 

I checked the measured data of the mode profile which was taken on the last Tuesday.

For the vertical profile,

the plot shows a good agreement between the expected radius which is computed from the past measurement, and that measured on the last Tuesday.

However for the horizontal profile,

it looks like being overestimated. This disagreement may come from the interference imposed on the Gaussian spot as we've been worried. 

So I guess we should solve this issue before restarting this mode matching work.

 - The next step we should do are;

checking the effect of MMT1 on the shape of the beam spot by using a spare of MMT1

NOTE:

The expected curve in the attached figure were computed by using the fitted parameter listed on the entry 2984 .

In the calculation the MMT1 is placed at 1911mm away from MC3 as we measured.

And the focal length of MMT1 is set to be f=-2500mm.

 When / if you use the other MMT1 mirror, make sure to take note whether or not it says "SPARE" on it in pencil.  I don't remember if it's the other MMT1, or if it's one of the MMT2's that says this.  The mirror was baked, so it's okay to use in the vacuum, however it's the one which was dropped on the floor (just prior to baking), so any discrepancies measured using that optic may not be useful.  I don't know how strong the CVI coatings are to scratches resulting in being dropped from a ~1m height.  Bob and I didn't see any obvious big scratches that day, but that doesn't necessarily give it a clean bill of health. 

The optic labeled "SPARE" should NOT be used as the final one in the IFO.

For the record, we wanted to check whether the fringes on the beam spot were caused by SM2 (see diagram above). We tried two different mirrors for SM2,

The first was one of the flat, 45 degree ones that were already on the BS table. The last, which is the one currently in place, was inside the plastic box with the clean optics that Jenne left us .

The fringes were present in both cases.

 I measured again the mode profile of the beam going through the PPKTP crystal by using the beam scan.

The aimed beam waist is 50 um (as described in entry 2735),

and the measured profile had pretty good waist of w_x=51.36 +/- 0.0999 um and w_y=49.5 +/- 0.146 um 

The next things I have to do are - (1). re-optimization of the temperature of the crystal (2). measurement of the conversion efficiency

The attached figure is the result of the measurement. 

The mode profile of the green beam going through 40m cavity was measured.

According to the fitting the coupling efficiency to the cavity is 98.46%, but still the beam looks loosely focused.

This measurement has been done by using the oplev legs (entry #2957) to allow the beam to go through the 40m walkway.

With a beam scan set on a movable cabinet, I measured it along the 40m chamber.

Since the plot looks not so nice,  I am going to work on this measurement a little bit more after I improve the mode matching.

Here is the parameters from the fitting

I believe the error for the travel length was within 0.5 meter. The length was always measured by a tape measure.

A thing I found was that: spatial jittering of the beam gets bigger as the beam goes further. This is the main source of the error bar for the spot size. 

I tried to measure the beam profiles at the POP and POX ports as Koji mentioned in his entry (#6421).

However it turned out that the beam powers were too small to be measured with our beam scan at those ports.

So I will move on to measurements at the REFL port as Rana suggested because the laser power is much larger than that of POP and POX.

(If the data of the POP and POX beam profiles turn out to be very necessary, we will do the razor blade technique with a more sensitive photo diode)

For those who are interested in the actual data, I attache the actual data in zip file together with a python plot code.

The distance was set such that the 1st steering mirror (the one at the very left in the previous cartoon diagram #6445 ) in the REFL path is positioned at zero.

- - - Fitting results (chi-square fitting done by gnuplot):

All values are in unit of meter

# PRM (v) (Last tree points are excluded as the beam were clipped at the aperture of the beam scan)


w0          = 0.0015114        +/- 2.192e-05    (1.451%)
z0           = -4.46073         +/- 0.05605      (1.256%)

# PRM (h)

w0           = 0.00212796       +/- 1.287e-05    (0.6049%)
z0           = -2.53079         +/- 0.1688       (6.668%)

# ITM (v) (Last two points are excluded as the beam were clipped at the aperture of the beam scan)

w0           = 0.00190696       +/- 4.964e-05    (2.603%)
z0           = -8.09908         +/- 0.1525       (1.882%)

# ITM (h)

w0           = 0.0032539        +/- 4.602e-05    (1.414%)
z0           = -1.89484         +/- 1.524        (80.42%)

I am proposing a model name change.  Currently, we have an "ASS" model, but we do not have an "ASC" model. 

The ASS is currently using ~17 of 60 available microseconds per cycle.  So, we have some cpu overhead available to put more stuff on that cpu. Like, say, ASC stuff.

So, my proposal is that we change the ASS model name to "ASC", and put all of the ASS-y things in a top_names block, so we retain the current channel names.  The IOO top_names block that is in the current ASS model (which is there to send signals to the LSC DAC for the input tip tilts, even though the names need to be IOO) should obviously stay on the top level, so that things in there retain their names.

Then, I can make a new top_names sub-block for ASC-like things, such as the new POP QPD. 

Inside the ASC block (in the ASC model), I'm currently thinking something simple will do..... QPD inputs, going to a matrix, which outputs to the filter banks in the "length" degree of freedom basis (PRCL, SRCL, etc), then another matrix, going to the ASC suspension paths. 

So, for example, the POP QPD pitch would go to the PRCL_PIT filter bank, and then on to the PRM_ASCPIT path in the SUS screen.

Or, in another example case, IPPOS yaw would go to an input pointing filter bank, then on to TT1's yaw slider.

EDIT:  After a few minutes of thinking, I think I also want triggering, and perhaps filter bank triggering, in the ASC model.  One of the reasons Koji has been pushing for the new automation system is that when the PRC fell out of lock, the ASC path would kick the PRM until Koji ran a down script.  Triggering will fix this issue, and it's the kind of thing that needs to happen quickly, so may not really be appropriate for the Guardian anyway.

Sounds good.
Or we just stuff any angle control things in to Angular Stabilization System without changing the model name.
The process name itself is not a big deal.

We fitted shutter and ringdown functions to the ringdown data. It is not perfectly clear how the power change due to the shutter is handed over to the power change due to ringdown. The fit suggests that the ringdown starts at a later time, but this does not necessarily make sense. It could be that the slow power decrease when the shutter starts clipping the TEM00 beam is followed by the cavity, but then the power decrease becomes too fast when the shutter reaches the optical axis and the ringdown takes over. Also, the next measurement should be taken with adjusted DC offset.

You cannot use the digital system for this. You hook up a scope to the transmitted light as well as the incoming light (after the MC, perhaps at IP_POS). Then you acquire the data from both places simultaneously using an ethernet equipped scope. The step response of the PDs used for this has to be calibrated separately.

The "dataviewer" script was still setting the server to fb40m on nodus. I modified it to fb, so that this is the default when you enter "dataviewer" or "dv".

[Jenne / Kiwamu]

 Last night we modified the locking scripts, that were called from C1IFO_CONFIGURE.adl, to adapt them to the new "PRCL" and "SRCL" convention.

So far they work fine and quitted dumping some error messages about inexistence of these channel names.

  P.S. The locking scripts have been summarized on the 40m wiki

I hooked up the 4395 to the MC servo board test out (TP2A) and looked at the spectrum using our new SPAG4395.py script. We noticed a huge peak at ~3.8 MHz and correctly guessed that it was due to the beat between the MC modulation frequency 29.5 MHz and 3*f1 (~33 MHz).

So we tuned the Marconi for the main mod. from 11065910 to 11066099 Hz and saw the beat note disappear (to within the 1 Hz tuning precision of our Marconi).

New MC length tuning method! Alert the LA Times!

My conjecture is that this temperature dependent mismatch between the modulation frequency (f1) and the MC length  is what leads sometimes to our nasty saturating PC DRIVE signal. TBD.

Based on the measured modulation profiles, the depth of each modulation was estimated.
Least square sum minimization of the relative error was used for the cost function.
-8th, -12th~-14th, n=>7th are not included in the estimation for the nominal case.
-7th~-9th, -11th~-15th, n=>7th are not included in the estimation for the 3f reduced case.

Nominal modulation

m_f1 = 0.194
m_f2 = 0.234
theta_f1f2 = 41.35deg
m_IMC = 0.00153

3f reduced modulation

m_f1 = 0.191
m_f2 = 0.0579
theta_f1f2 = 180deg
m_IMC = 0.00149

(Sorry! There is no error bars. The data have too few statistics...)

I reset the modulation frequency to 11065910 Hz (#5530). It had been at 11065399 Hz probably since the power shut down.

In an effor to see if I could narrow down the cause of the 100kHz ringing seen in the reflected PD signal, I tried a few things.

1. Changed the PD - there was a PDA 255 sitting on the PSL table by the RefCav. Since it wasn't being used, I swapped the PD I was using with this. Unfortunately, this did not solve the problem.
2. Used a different channel on the oscilloscope - ringing persisted
3. Changed BNC cable running from PD to oscilloscope - ringing persisted
4. Checked the spectrum of the PD under dark and steady illumination conditions for any features at 100kHz, saw nothing (as expected) 

I was working under the hypothesis that the ringing was due to some impedance mismatch between the PD output and the oscilloscope, and 4 above supports this. However, most documents I can find online, for example this one, recommend connecting the PD output via 50ohm BNC to a scope with input impedance 50ohms to avoid ringing, which is what I have done. But perhaps I am missing something.

Moreover, the ringdown in reflection actually supplies two of the five variables needed to apply the MIT method of loss estimation. I suppose we could fit the parameter "m4" from the ringdown in transmission, and then use this fitted value on the ringdown in reflection to see where the reflected power settles (i.e. the parameter "m3" as per the MIT paper). I will try analyzing the data on this basis.

I also measured the power levels at each of the PDs, these should allow us to calibrate the PD voltage outputs to power in Watts. All readings were taken with the Ophir power meter, with the filter removed, and the IMC locked.

These observations of the OSEMs  were taken while taking transfer functions of oplev YAW at excitation amplitude 0.1

 Atm1,  C1:SUS-ETMX_SENSOR_SIDE cross coupling

Atm2,   C1:SUS-ITMX_SENSOR_LL   not excitable

Atm3-4,   BS and PRM  insensitive

Good OSEM list: ITMY, ETMY and SRM

Increased gain and SNR in PMC LO monitor circuit.

1. R20: 499 -> 50k Ohms (increases gain by 100)
2. Used Marconi to drive the LO input and readout C1:PSL-PMC_LODET
3. Fit this function and loaded it into the psl.db file. The old Kalmus way used LOGE, but I wanted to use log10, so I did. The sensor is only useful in a narrow band. Since the signal is so low at low levels, I just fit to the highest 4 points because I was too lazy to do proper weighting. Do as I say, not as I do.

Plot with data and fit attached.

** N.B.: in order to update the calibration without rebooting, I used the following command: z write C1:PSL-PMC_LOCALC.CALC "2.235*LOG(B)+12.265". This allows us to update EPICS CALC records without rebooting the IOC.

On Friday evening we checked out a few more things, somewhat overlapping with previous tests. All tests done with PRMI on carrier lock (REFL11_I -> PRC, AS55_Q-> MICH):

• check that PRC drive appropriately minimizes in REFL55_Q. I:Q ratio is ~100:1; good enough.
• put sine waves around 311 and 333 Hz into PRCL and MICH at the LSC output matrix using awggui and LSC osc. not able to adjust LSC/OSC output matrix to minimize the MICH drive in REFL_I.
• measured the TF from BS & PRM LSC drive to the REFL55_I/Q outputs. very nearly the same audio frequency phase, so the problem is NOT in the electronics || mechanical transfer functions of the suspensions.

Further questions:

1. is this something pathological in the PRMI carrier lock? we should check by locking on sidebands to REFL55 and REFL165 and repeat tests.
2. Can it be a severe mode mismatch from IMC output to PRMI mode? the cavity should be stable with the flipped folding mirrors, but maybe something strange happening. How do we measure the mode-matching to the PRC quantitatively?
3. huge RAM is ruled out by Gautam's test of looking at REFL demod signals: dark offset vs. offset with a single bounce off of PRM (with ITMs mis-aligned)
4. if there is a large (optical) offset in the AS55_Q lock point, how big would it have to be to mess up the REFL phase so much?
5. what is going on with the REFL55 whitening/AA electronics?

unrelated note: Donatella the Workstation was ~3 minutes ahead of the FE machines (you can look at the C0:TIM-PACIFIC_STRING on many of the MEDM screens for a rough simulacrum). When the workstation time is so far off, DTT doesn't work right (has errors like test timed out, or other blah blah). I installed NTP on donatella and started the service per SL7 rules. Since we want to migrate all the workstations to Debian (following the party line), lets not futz with this too much.

gautam, 1 Mar 1600: In case I'm being dumb, I attach the screen grab comparing dark offset to the single bounce off PRM, to estimate the RAM contribution. The other signals are there just to show that the ITMs are sufficiently misaligned. The PRCL PDH fringe is usually ~12000 cts in REFL11, ~5000cts in REFL55, and so the RAM offset is <0.1% of the horn-to-horn PDH fringe.

P.S. I know generally PNGs in the elog are frowned upon. But with so many points, the vector PDF export by NDS (i) is several megabytes in size and (ii) excruciatingly slow. I'm proposing a decimation filter for the export function of ndscope - but until then, I claim plotting with "rasterized=True" and saving to PDF and exporting to PNG are equivalent, since both yield a rasterized graphic.

I looked into this a bit more and crossed off some of the points Rana listed. In order to use REFL 55 as a sensor, I had to fix the frequent saturations seen in the MICH signals, at the nominal (flat) whitening gain of +18 dB. The light level on the REFL55 photodiode (13 mW), its transimpedance (400 ohm), and this +18dB (~ x8) gain, cannot explain signal saturation (0.7A/W * 400 V/A * 8 ~ 2.2kV/W, and the PRCL PDH fringe should be ~1 MW/m, so the PDH fringe across the 4nm linewidth of the PRC should only be a couple of volts). Could be some weird effect of the quad LT1125. Anyway, the fix that has worked in the past, and also this time, is detailed here. Note that the anomalously high noise of the REFL55_Q channel in particular remains a problem. After taking care of that, I did the following:

1. PRMI (ETMs misaligned) locking with sidebands resonant in the PRC was restored - REFL55_I was used for PRCL sensing and REFL55_Q was used for MICH sensing. The locks are acquired nearly instantaneously if the alignment is good, and they are pretty robust, see Attachment #1 (the lock losses were IMC related and not really any PRC/MICH problem).
2. Measured the loop OLTFs using the usual IN1/IN2 technique. The PRCL loop looks just fine, but the MICH loop UGF is very low apparently. I can't just raise the loop gain because of the feature at ~600 Hz. Not sure what the origin of this is, it isn't present in the analogous TF measurement when the PRMI is locked with carrier resonant (REFL11_I for PRCL sensing, AS55_Q for MICH sensing). I will post the loop breakdown later. 
3. Re-confirmed that the MICH-->PRCL coupling couldn't be nulled completely in this config either.
   • The effect is a geometric one - then 1 unit change in MICH causes a 1/sqrt(2) change in PRCL. 
   • The actual matrix element that best nulls a MICH drive in the PRCL error point is -0.34 (this has not changed from the PRMI resonant on carrier locking). Why should it be that we can't null this element, if the mechanical transfer functions (see next point) are okay?
4. Looked at the mechanical actuator TFs are again (since we forgot to save plots on Friday), by driving the BS and PRM with sine waves (311.1 Hz), one at a time, and looking at the response in REFL55_I and REFL55_Q. Some evidence of some funkiness here already. I can't find any configuration of digital demod phase that gives me a PRCL/MICH sensing ratio of ~100 in REFL55_I, and simultaneously, a MICH/PRCL sensing ratio of ~100 in REFL55_Q. The results are in Attachments #5. 
5. Drove single frequency lines in MICH and PRCL at 311.1 and 313.35 Hz respectively, for 5 minutes, and made the radar plots in Attachments #2 and #3. Long story short - even in the "nominal" configuration where the sidebands are resonant in the PRC and the carrier is rejected, there is poor separation in sensing. 
   • Attachments #2 is with the digital REFL55 demod phase set to 35 degrees - I thought this gave the best PRCL sensing in REFL55_I (eyeballed it roughly by looking at ndscope free-swinging PDH fringes).
   • But the test detailed in bullet #4, and Attachments #2 itself, suggested that PRCL was actually being sensed almost entirely in the Q phase signal.
   • So I changed the digital demod phase to -30 degrees (did a more quantitative estimate with free-swinging PDH fringes on ndscope, horn-to-horn voltages etc).
   • The same procedure of sine-wave-driving now yields Attachments #3. Indeed, now PRCL is sensed almost perfectly in REFL55_I, but the MICH signal is also nearly in REFL55_I. How can the lock be so robust if this is really true? 
6. Attachments #4 shows some relevant time domain signals in the PRMI lock with the sidebands resonant. 
   • REFL11_I hovers around 0 when REFL55_I is used to sense and lock PRCL - good. The m/ct calibration for REFL11_I and REFL55_I are different so this plot doesn't directly tell us how good the PRCL loop is based on the out-of-loop REFL11_I sensor.
   • ASDC is nearly 0, good.
   • POP22_I is ~200cts (and POP22_Q is nearly 0) - I didn't see any peak at the drive frequency when driving PRCL with a sine wave, so no linear coupling of PRCL to the f1 sideband buildup, which would suggest there is no PRCL offset.
   • Couldn't do the analogous test for AS110 as I removed that photodiode for the AS WFS - it is pretty simple to re-install it, but the ASDC level already doesn't suggest anything crazy here.

Rana also suggested checking if the digital demod phase that senses MICH in REFL55_Q changes from free-swinging Michelson (PRM misaligned), to PRMI aligned - we can quantify any macroscopic length mismatch in the PRC length using this measurement. I couldn't see any MICH signal in REFL55_Q with the PRM misaligned and the Michelson fringing. Could be that +18dB is insufficient whitening gain, but I ran out of time this afternoon, so I'll check later. But not sure if the double attenuation by the PRM makes this impossible.

Earlier this morning we thought things were looking pretty good.  IPPOS, IPANG, and the AS and REFL spots looked like they hadn't moved too much over the weekend.  Our plan was to do a quick check of things, check clearances, etc., tweak up the oplevs, and then close up.  This is when I made the ill-fated decisions to check the table levelling.

The BS table was slightly off so I moved one of the thick disk weights off of the other disk weight that it was sitting on, and on to the table next to it.  This seemed to improve things enough so I left it there.  ITMY didn't need any adjustment, and I move a couple smaller weights around on ITMX.  Meanwhile Jenne was adjusting the output PSL power back into it's nominal range (<100mW), and re-tweaking up the mode cleaner.

When we then looked at the vertex situation again it was far off in yaw.  This was clearly evident on PZT2, where the beam was no longer centered on the PZT2 mirror and was near the edge.  This was causing us to clip at the BS aperture.

We took some deep breaths and tried to figure out what we did that could have messed things up.

Jenne noticed that we had moved slightly on the PSL QPDs, so she adjusted the PSL output pointing to re-aquire the previous pointing, and realigned the MC.  This had a very small positive affect, but not nearly enough to compensate for whatever happened.

We spent some more time trying to track down what might have changed, but were unable to come up with anything conclusive.  We then decided to see if we could recover things by just adjusting the PZT input steering mirrors.  We couldn't; recentering at PRM, BS, ITMY, and ETMY was moving us off of PR3.

Jenne suggested we look at the spot positions on the MMT mirrors.  I had checked MMT1 and it looked ok, but we hadn't looked at MMT2.  When we checked MMT2 we noticed that we were also off in yaw.  This made us consider the possibility that the BS table had twisted, most likely when I was securing the moved mass.  Sure enough, when I manually twisted BS table, by grabbing it with my hand, very little force would cause the input beam to walk much of the way across PZT2, more than accounting for the offset.  The effect was also very clearly hysteretic as well; I could twist the table a little and it would stay in the new position.

At this point we had fucked things up enough that we realized that we're basically going to have to walk through the whole alignment procedure again, for the third time this vent.  We were able to recover the PRM retro-reflection a bit, but the tip-tilts have drifted in pitch (likely again because of the table levelling).  So we're going to have to walk through the whole procedure systematically again.

Lessons learned:  Many things are MUCH more sensitive than I had been assuming.  The tip-tilts are of course ridiculous, in that lightly touching the top or bottom of the mirror mount will move it by quite a lot in pitch.  The tables are also much more sensitive than I had realized.  In particular, tightening screws can twist the table hystereticly by milliradians, which can of course completely loose the pointing.  We need to be a lot more careful.

Assuming the table hasn't moved too much we should be able to recover the alignment by just adjusting the PZTs and tweaking the pitch of the tip-tilts.  At least that's the hope.    No more touching the table.  No more leveling.  Hopefully we can get this mostly done tomorrow morning.

This is exactly why I added the higher order mode spacing, so you could calculate the g parameter.  For TEM order N = n + m with spacing f_N, the overall cavity g parameter should be:

g = (cos( (f_N/f_FSR) * (\pi/N) ))^2

The label on the previous plat should really be f_N/FSR, not \omega_{10,01}

BUT, arbcav does not currently handle arbitrary ABCD matrices for the mirrors, so it's going to be slightly less accurate for our more complex flipped mirrors.  The affect would be bigger for a flipped PR3 than for a flipped PR2, because of the larger incidence angle, so arbcav will be a little more correct for our flipped PR2 only case (see below).

This is not correct.  Multiplying the RoC by -N would be a very large change.  For an arbitrary ABCD matrix:

R_eff = -2 / C

When the incident angle in non-zero:

tangential: R_eff = R_eff / cos(\theta)
sagittal:   R_eff = R_eff * cos(\theta)

For flipped PR2, with small 1.5 degree incident angle and RoC of -706 at HR:

M_t = M_s = [1.0000, 0.0131; -0.0028, 1.0000]
R_eff = 705.9

For flipped PR3, with large 41 degree incident angle and RoC of -700 at HR:

M_t = [1.0000, 0; 0.0038, 1.0000]
M_s = [1.0000, 0; 0.0022, 1.0000]
R_eff = 592.4

The affect of the substrate is negligible for flipped PR2 but significant for flipped PR3.

The current half-PRC setup

OK, I have now completely reconciled my alamode and arbcav calculations.  I found a small bug in how I was calculating the ABCD matrix for non-flipped TTs that made a small difference.  I now get the exact same g parameter values with both with identical input parameters.

Sooooo, I have redone my alamode and arbcav calculations with these updated values.  Here are the resulting g parameters

So the sagittal values all agree pretty well, but the tangential measurement does not.  Maybe there is an actual astigmatism in one of the optics, not due to angle of incidence?

arbcav HOM plot:

 New razor beam dump installed to trap reflected beam of the input vacuum window.

 Here are some more plots and pictures about the end PDH locking with the green beam. 

-- DC reflection

 I expected that the fluctuation of the DC reflection had 1% from the resonant state to the anti-resonant state due to its very low finesse.

This values are calculated from the reflectivity of ETM measured by Mott before (see the wiki).

In my measurement I obtained  DC reflection of V_max=1.42 , V_min=1.30  at just after the PD.

These numbers correspond to 7.1% fluctuation. It's bigger than the expectation.

I am not sure about the reason, but it might happen by the angular motion of test masses (?)

--- time series

Here is a time series plot. It starts from openloop state (i.e. feedback disconnected).

At t=0 sec I connected a cable which goes to the laser pzt, so now the loop is closed.

You can see the DC reflection slightly decreased and stayed lower after the connection.

The bottom plot represents the feedback signal measured before a sum amp. which directly drives the pzt.

-- length fluctuation  

One of the important quantities in the green locking scheme is the length fluctuation of the cavity.

It gives us how much the frequency of the green beam can be stabilized by the cavity. And finally it will determine the difficulty of PLL with the PSL.

I measured a spectrum of the pzt driving voltage [V/Hz^1/2] and then converted it to a frequency spectrum [Hz/Hz^1/2].

I used the actuation efficiency of 1MHz/V for the calibration, this number is based on the past measurement.

RMS which is integrated down to 1Hz  is 1.6MHz.

This number is almost what I expected assuming the cavity swings with displacement of x ~< 1um.

-- flashing

A picture below is a ETMx CCD monitor.

One of the spot red circled in the picture blinks when it's unlocked. And once we get the lock the spot stays bright.

 Its OK, but the real number comes from measuring the time series of this in the daytime (not the spectrum). What we care about is the peak-peak value of the PZT feedback signal measured on a scope for ~30 seconds. You can save the scope trace as a PNG.

Summary

I've not really been able to make additional progress with the new 'fb1' DAQ.  It's still flaky as hell.  Therefore we're still using old 'fb'.

Issues

mx_stream

The mx_stream processes on the front ends initially run fine, connecting to the daqd and transferring data, with both DAQ-..._STATUS and FE-..._FB_NET_STATUS indicators green.  Then after about two minutes all the mx_stream processes on all the front ends die.  Monit eventually restarts them all, at which point they come up green for a while until the crash again ~2 minutes later.  This is essentially the same situation as reported previously.

In the daqd logs when the mx_streams die:

Aborted 2 send requests due to remote peer 00:30:48:be:11:5d (c1iscex:0) disconnected
Aborted 2 send requests due to remote peer 00:14:4f:40:64:25 (c1ioo:0) disconnected
Aborted 2 send requests due to remote peer 00:30:48:d6:11:17 (c1iscey:0) disconnected
Aborted 2 send requests due to remote peer 00:25:90:0d:75:bb (c1sus:0) disconnected
Aborted 1 send requests due to remote peer 00:30:48:bf:69:4f (c1lsc:0) disconnected
mx_wait failed in rcvr eid=000, reqn=176; wait did not complete; status code is Remote endpoint is closed
disconnected from the sender on endpoint 000
mx_wait failed in rcvr eid=000, reqn=177; wait did not complete; status code is Connectivity is broken between the source and the destination
disconnected from the sender on endpoint 000
mx_wait failed in rcvr eid=000, reqn=178; wait did not complete; status code is Connectivity is broken between the source and the destination
disconnected from the sender on endpoint 000
mx_wait failed in rcvr eid=000, reqn=179; wait did not complete; status code is Connectivity is broken between the source and the destination
disconnected from the sender on endpoint 000
mx_wait failed in rcvr eid=000, reqn=180; wait did not complete; status code is Connectivity is broken between the source and the destination
disconnected from the sender on endpoint 000
[Thu Oct  1 19:00:09 2015] GPS MISS dcu 39 (PEM); dcu_gps=1127786407 gps=1127786425

[Thu Oct  1 19:00:09 2015] GPS MISS dcu 39 (PEM); dcu_gps=1127786408 gps=1127786426

[Thu Oct  1 19:00:09 2015] GPS MISS dcu 39 (PEM); dcu_gps=1127786408 gps=1127786426

In the mx_stream logs:

controls@c1iscey ~ 0$ /opt/rtcds/caltech/c1/target/fb/mx_stream -r 0 -W 0 -w 0 -s 'c1x05 c1scy c1tst' -d fb1:0
mmapped address is 0x7f0df23a6000
mmapped address is 0x7f0dee3a6000
mmapped address is 0x7f0dea3a6000
send len = 263596
Connection Made
isendxxx failed with status Remote Endpoint Unreachable
disconnected from the sender

daqd

While the mx_stream processes are running daqd seems to write out data just fine.  At least for the full frames.  I manually verified that there is indeed data in the frames that are written.

Eventually, though, daqd itself crashes with the same error that we've been seeing:

main profiler warning: 0 empty blocks in the buffer

I'm not exactly sure what the crashes are coincident with, but it looks like they are also coincident with the writing out of the minute and/or second trend files.  It's unclear how it's related to the mx_stream crashes, if at all.  The mx_stream crashes happen every couple of minutes, whereas the daqd itself crashes much less frequently.

The new daqd can't handle EDCU files.  If an EDCU file is specified (e.g. C0EDCU.ini in our case), the daqd will segfault very soon after startup.  This was an issue with the current daqd on fb, but was "fixed" by moving where the EDCU file was specified in the master file.

Conclusion

There are a number of differences between the fb1 and fb configurations:

• newer OS (Debian 7 vs. ancient gentoo)
• newer advLigoRTS (trunk vs. 2.9.4)
• newer framecpp library installed from LSCSoft Debian repo (2.4.1-1+deb7u0 vs. 1.19.32-p1)

It's possible those differences could account for the problems (/opt/rtapps/epics incompatible with this Debian install, for instance).  Somehow I doubt it.  I wonder if all the weird network issues we've been seeing are somehow involved.  If the NFS mount of chiara is problematic for some reason that would affect everything that mounts it, which includes all the front ends and fb/fb1.

There are two things to try:

• Fix the weird network problem.  Try remove EVERYTHING from the network except for chiara, fb/fb1, and the front ends and see if that helps.
• Rebuild fb1 with Ubuntu and daqd as prescribed by Keith Thorne.

I just realized that when running fb1, if a single mx_stream dies they all die.