ITF found in COMMISSIONING Mode and CARM_NULL_1F State with Input beam mode matching activity ongoing.
All times are UTC.
16:10 - 16:46 INJ: realignment of the beam with the BPC FF quadrant (Gosselin, Pagabbe, #69825).
17:06 ITF relocked to CARM_NULL_1F at first attempt with no actions needed by the operator.
17:55 North Arm put back in the alignment position of yesterday (#69820).
17:57 INJ: End of activity on INJ to ITF mismatch measurement (#69824).
ITF kept CARM_NULL_1F up to the end of the shift. At 20:55 I manually unlocked the ITF and set it to LOCKED_ARMS_IR.
ITF left in COMMISSIONING Mode and LOCKED_ARMS_IR State.

Guard tours:
- 20:35 

This afternoon we performed a measurement of the current input beam mode mismatch toward the arms. 
Following the usual procedure of the kick of the end mirrors and using the matlab code detailed in #68646

An additional idea was to do a measurement with CH ON and OFF to see if there is any difference the difference. 

First measurement : 13:29:13 UTC CH switch off. 
Unfortunately injection unlocked when we put the ITF in down. 
Analyze could start only at 13:31:00 UTC 

Measured mismatch  for WA : 2.5 %

The data from NA where not usable, there was quite a lot of misalignment.
We realized that it was most probably due to the work done yesterday evening.  
Paolo brought back North arm to its nominal condition. 

Second meausrement : Carm_null lasted only 6 min. 

Third measurement : CH ON, ITF unlocked after 18 min of carm null but we managed to do the kicks anyway. 
Analyze started at 14:57:10 UTC over 200 s

Measured mismatch WA : 1.9 % not that clean.... maybe due to some misalignment when ITF got unlocked.
Measured mismatch NA : 2.8 %

Fourth measurement : CH ON, best measurement so far (figures) 
Analyze starts at 15:45:30 UTC over 200 s

Measured mismatch WA : 2.1 %
Measured mismatch NA : 2.8 % 

Giving the relatively low mismatch and the work to come on TCS we decided not to tune it. 

At the end of the shift (17:55 UTC), Manuel brought the NA back to the alignment found yesterday evening.
 

The error signal of the BPC TY was around +40 urad and reached +60 urad when the interferometer is in carm_null and the BPC uses the arms cavities as reference. This is due to the work of yesterday 69820, the laser beam was moved w.r.t. the ITMs.

With 60 urad we reached the limit of the linearity zone of the quadrant and were limiting the possibility to keep on shifting the beam towards the ITF. Today from 16:20 to 16:40 utc, we slightly tilted horizontally the EIB_BPC_M5 mirror in front of the FF QPD. Now the TY signal is at -20 urad. We changed the TY setpoint to -20 urad in the BPC DSP board.

The injection system relocked properly after the intervention.

To be noted the FF QPD of the BPC can not be taken as an absolute reference of the beam we sent towards the ITF. Or better, the absolute reference has been moved by -60 urad in TY.

ITF found in locked arms IR.

At 6:00 UTC ITF in Maintenance mode, below the list of the acticitied communicated in control room:

• cleaning of the experimental areas;
• check of the HYMOS (Fabozzi);
• vacuum activities;
• TCS thermo camera references (operator);

All the maintenance activities concluded at 11:00 UTC.

The ITF was relocked in CARM_NULL at 12:53 UTC and then started the planned afternoon activity of input beam mode matching.

Figure 1. Compares the last lock of yesterday to a radom lock during O4. Clearly, the power in the arms was 37% higher last year, as the input power was higher. What is interesting is that the power of the sidebands last year stops evolving after 25 minutes, while currently it has a decreasing trend for 1h30. 

The current TCS actuators (DAS, CHROCC) act only on large scale deformation, but not on small scales like point absorbers. A point absorber creates a small scale defect (the point part), and a large scale defect (the tails of the point), but the small scale defect forms on a time scale of minutes, while on the 1h30 time scale it is the tails of the point absorber and the uniform absorption that are evolving. This should mean that the changes in sideband power that happen more than 30 minute after the lock acquisition should be in the spatial scales that the current TCS actuators can act on. In other words, there should exist a tuning of these actuators that keeps the sideband magnitude at 0.035 or higher, with the same beam and mirror position as the last lock of yesterday evening.

The stability and the duration of the lock in CARM NULL 1f has been studied for different positions of the resonant beam on the ITMs. Four conditions will be analysed in this entry:

gps0=1474616480 --- standard working point. Lock acquired yesterday morning, before the beginning of the attivity. Unlock after 40 minutes, while the sidebands were low and the stability degradated.

gps1=1474622079 --- the lock has been acquired with WI shifted upwards by ~ 2mm. The same shift was tested on friday during a lock, but this time the shift was performed before the lock. During this lock, the shift was increased by 1 mm more.

gps2=1474633548 --- lock acquistion in the same condition as gps1 (WI 2mm up). During the lock, an offset has been applied to the dither signal NI_Y in loop, imposing a different alignment of the cavity optical axes. In this way, the spot on both the ITMs has been shifted downwards. The amount of this shift was much larger than the one performed by the physical displacement of WI (~ 6 mm). The effect on the sidebands was much more evident, but the carrier's power has dropped a bit, likely because of the mismatch between the input beam the the optical axes.

gps3=1474651865 --- the input beam has been shifted vertically before the lock, by a combination of PR translation and BPC-SIB1 rotation. We did only 3-4 mm, because doing more would have brought BCP sensing too close to the end of the range. The lock has been acquired in this misaligned condition, then the alignment has been recovered applying a corresponding offset to NI_Y (lower than the one operated in the previous lock). The carrier was higher than before, but not at its maximum level. The sidebands were lower than before, but the lock was stable enough, it lasted almost 2 hours and the unlock was due to a glitch of NI inverted pendulum.

In the attached figures the comparison of consecutive locks is shown: fig1 gps0 vs gps1; fig2 gps1 vs gps2; fig3 gps2 vs gps3. Carrier, sidebands and vertical position of the spot on WI (dither signal) are taken into account. The first plot in the grid shows the action performed during the lock.

The commissioning activity in CARM_NULL_1F went on through the afternoon until 19:00 UTC (Pinto, Ruggi, Spinicelli)

After ITF unlocked the last time at 19:17 UTC, I left it in LOCKED_ARMS_IR for the night

The broadband noise injection has been done also on NI MIR coils. The mechanical response of each coil (fig 1) is very similar to the one obtained for WI.

The mechanical response of WI mirror actuated by each coil has been measured at CARM NULL. A broadband noise has been injected, able to provide a measurement up to 800 Hz (fig 1). The results are quite similar and no unexpected structure is visible. The structures at 150 Hz and 200 Hz are due to notches in DARM control filter. At 491 Hz the measurement is bad because of the injected line. The conclusion is that the three magnets are correctly glued to WI mirror.

Figure 1, with the longer locks and fast relocks afterwards, it becomes apparent that the sideband gain in CITF is higher on the second relock after the mirrors where heated by the YAG. This is a relatively clear indication that the CH is delivering less power than the YAG that is absorbed by the mirrors. The 10% (0.4V) step on PR CHROCC, should be corresponding to 4m of change in effective PRC radius of curvature, and that should be also equivalent to about 4mW of YAG or CH absorption.

The green power in the west building has been increasing, while the green power in the west building has been decreasing. Both shows a day/night cycle, so probably this is due to change in the temperature in the building, changing the alignment into the infrared to green non linear crystal, or of some other parts of the green generation in the end buildings.

ITF found locked in CARM_NULL_1F in COMMISSIONING mode and morning acivity still ongoing.

planned activity:
Etalon controler change (Mantovani Bersanetti). It went on without major problems till 19:30 UTC.

ITF left locked in LOCKED_ARMS_IR.

Today we have relocked after the ALS issue has been solved.

The only parameter that has been adjusted was the gain of DARM (step 3/3 from 0.018 to 0.014)

After this the NI measurement has been performed (see TCS entry). After this work we had to reduce the gain of DIFFp ty @ Carm null from 14 to 10.

Then we have raised the WI mirror of 2mm, see Figure 1. Analysis to be done and shift to be continued on Monday.

After this the modifications on the Etalon loop have been performed. Namely the DC correction at mid dynamics and the removal of the initial slow controller. 

The behavior will be monitored this weekend.

During previous attempts to perform measurements with HWS-DET, a spurious beam was affecting the HWS reference after the unlock, making the measurement difficult to interpret, as a faint spot appeared on the HWS image (see Fig. 1).

After several attempts to identify the culprit, we tried keeping the NE aligned during the gentle unlock. This confirmed that the spurious beam was coming from the NE: in the CARM NULL 1F configuration, the beam reflected by the NE also reaches HWS-DET. By keeping the NE aligned during the gentle unlock, the problem disappeared.

The first measurement performed with this new configuration corresponds to the folder 20260925T1556. The HWS acquisition started at 13:56 UTC, after the ITF had been in CARM NULL for about 5 minutes. The ITF was then brought to gentle unlock while keeping the NE aligned.

To determine the position of the TM center in exactly the same alignment configuration, a second HWS-DET acquisition was performed after the gentle unlock, without changing the alignment of the mirrors. After approximately 30 minutes, a new reference image was acquired and the measurement was started (20260925T1635). At 14:40 UTC (WF 10), the NI CH was switched ON to identify the mirror center. The CH signature appeared approximately at the same position as in the NI single-bounce configuration (see Fig. 2).

Looking at the data acquired during the gentle unlock (20260925T1556), no clear feature is visible in the HWS maps if piston and tilt are not removed. After removing piston and tilt, however, a PA-like feature becomes visible in the lower part of the map (see Fig. 3).

In Fig. 3, the image on the left shows the PA-like feature about 5 minutes after the unlock (inside the black circle). The image on the right shows the HWS map acquired about 20 minutes later. At this time, a broader OPL variation due to the average absorption of the YAG beam is visible, overlapping with the localized PA feature.

Comparing its position with the mirror center identified in Fig. 2, the PA-like feature appears to be relatively close to the center of the mirror. However, its signature in the HWS map is rather faint, as it becomes visible only after removing piston and tilt.

The problem encountered yesterday and this morning with the ALS lock appears to have come from my misinterpretation of one of the ALS locking thresholds, combined with a slow drift in the green power reflected at the end buildings.

We adjusted the values in the ALS_WEB ini file accordingly, and the lock became stable again.

ITF found in locked arms IR.

The morning was spent to fix a problem on the ALS which prevented to lock the CITF.

Once fixed the ITF was locked in CARM_NULL_1F at 13:03 UTC.

SUSP

SR ID found open at the beginning of the shift;  properly closed.

After performing an analysis of the WI thermocamera images (see #69785), a similar analysis for the NI was done.

• Reference Image: The analysis utilizes the thermal image containing the mirror outline and the identified point absorber location (marked at pixel coordinates [X, Y] = [310, 199]), see Fig. 1.
• Geometric Reconstruction: The mirror boundary (D = 35 cm) was fitted to extract the center in pixel coordinates, yielding C = [346, 204].
• Perspective Correction: Taking into account the viewport entrance angle of 18.2 degrees from the left (along the decreasing columns axis), the horizontal axis pixel scale is corrected for perspective compression.

Geometric Mapping:

• X-Axis (Columns): The mirror center is located at column 346, whereas the point absorber is at column 310. This places the point absorber to the left of the center (an offset of -36 pixels in the image, corresponding to approximately -5.7 cm in physical space).
• Y-Axis (Rows): The mirror center is located at row 204, whereas the point absorber is at row 199. This places the point absorber slightly above the center (an offset of -5 pixels in the image, corresponding to approximately -0.8 cm in physical space).
• Radial Distance: The total estimated physical distance of the point absorber from the mirror center is approximately 5.8 cm.

Figs. 2 and 3 display the MATLAB output, showing a differential temperature of approximately 0.52 degrees for the point absorber (calculating by subtracting the image of the mirror in CARM_NULL and the image with the ITF in DOWN status). No other strong PA has been spotted. 

The position of the PA from the HWS-INJ measurement was evaluated.

Figure 1 shows the position of the OPL maximum as a function of the wavefront number. Figure 2 shows an example of the HWS map, where both the PA position and the mirror center, previously identified using the RH/CH, are indicated.

The PA position relative to the mirror center is:

X_PA = [14 +/- 1] mm
Y_PA = [4 +/- 1] mm

This result is not consistent with LMA and the thermal camera image. In particular, according to the HWS measurement, the PA is displaced from the mirror center mainly along the horizontal direction, and not in the vertical one

One possible explanation is a change in the SLED beam position on the mirror between the two configurations used for the measurements: the PA position was evaluated at CARM NULL, while the mirror center was identified in WI single bounce . In Fig. 3, the pink curve (04/09/2026) represents the position of the main mirrors in the WI single-bounce configuration when we performed the measurement to identify the mirror center, while the blue curves correspond to 18/09/2026 and show the mirror behavior during the gentle unlock performed for the PA measurement. It is difficult to assess whether these variations are sufficient to explain the disagreement with the thermal camera measurements.
To verify this hypothesis, both measurements (TM center identification and PA position) could be performed within the same acquisition run. The interferometer could first be locked at CARM NULL to measure the PA position, followed by a gentle unlock. After waiting about 1/2 hour, the CH could be switched on to identify the mirror center without changing the HWS acquisition reference.

 The ITF lock recovery went on in the afternoon trying to have a stable CARM_NULL lock (#69804), actvity stopped at around 19:30UTC; we left the cavities locked on the infrared.

SUSP
at 15:11UTC the WI local controls opened by the guardian following the unlock, properly closed.

We obtained a reliable lock acquisition to reach CARM_NULL_1F with noticeable smoothness, but the locks achieved were nevertheless unstable and had an average life expectancy of a few minutes each.

We re-engaged COMMp, soft modes and diagonalization in the automation at CARM_NULL_1F.

The unlocks observed were different in nature and not easily explainable with loop instabilities. In particular, one of them was due to a glitch in the NI suspension that shot the F0 away by about a hundred microns (Fig.1).

We decided to decrease the CHRoCC voltage by another 10% before tomorrow's morning shift.

The reduced gain of PR_Y damper seems to be not enough, because the 11.6 Hz instability raised again during the latest lock in CARM NULL. I restored the old gain, three time larger than the one which has not worked.

ITF found in COMMISSIONING Mode and LOCKED_ARMS_IR State.
All times are UTC.
06:22 ITF in LOCKED_ARMS_BEAT_DRMI_1F State.
07:44 - 08:06 CLEAN OP: HYMO checks at WEB Clean Rooms (Menzione).
08:40 - 09:13 VAC: Vacuum pump intervention at NEB (Macchia, Pasqualetti).
10:51 SUSP: WE MAR loops opened by the guardian. Properly closed (Operator).
14:00 SUSP: WE MAR loops opened by the guardian again. Properly closed (Operator).

The shift was dedicated to the planned activity on CARM NULL locking / DAS adjustment, the ITF ulocked sveral times due to ALS, issue investigation in progress.
ITF left in COMMISSIONING Mode and LOCKING_ARMS_BEAT_DRMI_1F State.

After the ~10% increase of the ChRoCC voltage of Wednesday morning, the rest of the day was devoted to the relock and the characterization (ISC-wise) of the interferometer. The idea was to reproduce a configuration which is more similar to the one we were using during the run, i.e. with a lower sideband gain and possibly an improved stability of the interferometer. The 10% increase of the actuator's voltage did non correspond exactly to 10% in the working point, something less around 7.5% instead. To be confirmed if this is due to a slight non-linearity of the actuation or if the basal temperature needs to be subracted as a static offset (after which the 10% is present also in terms of working point).

From the lock acquisition point of view, we had to tune again several parameters in many steps. We could complete the recovery up to CARM_NULL_3F, with a half-baked recovery of the _1F one. Even in steps considered recovered, the lock could not last much. The sheer variation of the numbers differs from DoF to DoF, but we could see some patterns:

• demodulation phases and gains changed more in the DRMI and CARM_Null configurations than in the intermediate steps; differently from the standard, the changes in the intermediate steps of the CARM offset reduction phase were relatively small from one to the next one, while to lock the DRMI and to go to CARM offset zero the changes were bigger;
• alignment loops were quite impacted, while usually the angular sensors are less prone to changes than the longitudinal ones (MICH/SRCL being the worst among those); DIFFp in particular had to be changed a lot, both in phases and gains, the latter needing to be increased substantially;
• again on the alignment loops: demodulation phases for TX and TY were usually different from one another, and again this happened in particular for DIFFp. When we are in a stable configuration, the phases for the two DoFs are the same.

A different issue affected the SRC: much more than normal, while locking the DRMI SRCL would not lock properly, with the longitudinal correction rapidly diverging out of range (always in the negative direction) but the interferometer staying "locked" until going too much forward or killing the lock ourselves. This was seemingly unrelated to the SR initial alignment, which in principle never changed if not while pre-aligning the DRMI, as we didn't reach any step where a ASC loop could be engaged. The consequence, though, was for the SRM to occasionally resulting quite misaligned. We suspect some kind of kick and/or lenght-to-angle coupling (see Figure), but this needs some verification first. In at least one occasion, we could see a clear difference also between the global alignment in the later stages of the acquisition and the initial alignment of long cavities+beam.

Given the global outcome, we decided at the end of the shift to move again the ChRoCC, from +10% with respect to Tuesday to -10% (V_DAC = 4.28 -> 3.49 V).