in the afternoon I worked again in the NI. I left at 19.30 LT
Detector Operation (Operations Report)gherardini - 16:33 Wednesday 15 July 2026 (69363)
Print this reportOperator Report - Daily shiftBelow the list of the activities communicated in control room:
INJ: mode matching measurement and reduction. PAY: NI payload balancing, in progress. PAY: WI payload assembly.
AdV-DAQ (Calibration)vanhove - 15:57 Wednesday 15 July 2026 (69362)
Print this reportNCal Temperature offset tuning and rotor restarted
Between 11:00 and 13:00 utc, I tuned the offset of NCal temperature probes to have all of them at 22.5°C+-0.1°C when all rotors are off.
Then around 13:50, I switched all rotors ON to their default lines and closed the loops.
Details:
Strictly speaking we shoud tune the parameters inside /virgoData/VirgoOnline/SNEB_Fb.cfg and SWEB_Fb.cfg which set the parameters of the volts to temperature function.
But in good approximation, it is OK to modify the offset of the ADC to Volts conversion in /virgoData/VirgoOnline/SWEB_dbox_rack.cfg and /virgoData/VirgoOnline/SNEB_dbox_rack.cfg
For a 0.1V offset in these configurtation files we observe the following temperature changes in the sensor outputs:
Since the re-opening of the IB-PR valve and the lock of the IMC, the temperature of the SIB1 bench started to increase. This is a known effect which is due to the warming of the optics by the main beam and, when the PR is parked in a "bad position" (see for exemple here and here), also to the back reflected beam from the PR, that stops on some optics/bench part instead of an apposite beam dump.
After few months of non-lock, the position of the PR could have drifted. With Paolo, we tried to bring back the PR close to its last good position and look at the SIB2_B2 photodiode to asses the aligned position (see fig. 1). We found out that the vertical position was quite off, but even after replacing the PR_Y DoF we could see any signal on B2.
However, looking at the MIR and MAR DoFs of the PR (see fig. 1), we see that for the same MAR_TX position, MIR_TX was off by ~ 150urad. This is probably due to the PR which slid on the wires during some of the test done in May. The back reflected beam was then touching the surface of the bench its, rising up its temperature.
Once found the aligned position, we left the PR with the usual misalignment and stored its new position on the PR Metatron node.
Images attached to this report
Safety (Laser Safety)majorana - 13:56 Wednesday 15 July 2026 (69360)
Print this reportComment to NI vacuum chamber (69355)I left the NI vacuum chamber at 12:20
Starting from Saturday 11 july, the measured amplitudes of the 6 MHz and 56 MHz lines became noisy for an unknown reason. The 2 signals became noisy at the same time so we suspected a problem with the LNFS box that generates the two lines, while the 22MHz, generated on a different synthesizer (LNFS_2) doesn't show the same problem.
In order to test this hypothesis, on July 15 at 9:00 UTC, the two LNFS boxes were exchanged, and the rms on the measured signal amplitude returned to normal. The rms of the 22MHz signal amplitude remained unchanged, and did not increase after the intervention.
At this point, we don't know exactly what causes the signals to become noisy. A similar phenomenon has been already observed in the past, when the problem was associated to a temperature problem in the INJ IER. The temperature in IER rose by a few degrees and became more unstable since last month. This might be an explaination for the problem even if there is not a direct correlation observed at the moment.
The two LNFS boxes may be exchanged again in the future or swapped with one spare.
Since few week ago, after the intervention on INJ/ALS, the IMC longitudinal error signal shows a quite big offset (~ -1.8V), compared to the past( {-0.25, 0.1} ), visible as frequency to amplitude coupling on the INJ_PMC_TRA_DC_FMOD_COUPLING signal.
On Monday, we started to investigate the reason why this offset appeared. We first checked whether the choise of the 22Mhz frequency modulation, used to lock IMC cavity, could itself be the cause of the offset. As we see in fig. 1, we started by putting at zero the IMC_OFFSET and scanning the 22Mhz on the LNFS up to few kHz of frequency shift. This resulted only in very small variations of the coupling channel.
Thus, we moved to investigate the way the beam enter the IMC cavity by acting on the BPC (with IMC_ON on 0, i.e. the BPC using its DCQPDs). As a result (fig. 2), the changes on the beam alignment improved the inejction into the RFC (visible on RFC_TRA signal), without changing the offset on the IMC longitudinal error signal.
Since July 8, 2026, the WEB external humidity and temperature sensors of the wheater station are producing wrong data. First we did a restart of the VPM process BcMeteoWe (Detector s Environment Monitoring > Environment > BcMeteoWe) but it did not solve the issue. Then, today we went to WEB to check the console of the station, we looked at the cabling, disconnecting and reconnecting them, we also restarted the module. None of theese actions were usefull to restart the acquisition and no values of external temperature and humidity are read by the device, external pressure and wind parameters are correctly collected.
An inspection of the sensor placed on top of the building must be scheduled.
Images attached to this report
Safety (Laser Safety)majorana - 9:11 Wednesday 15 July 2026 (69355)
Print this reportNI vacuum chamberI am going to turn on the SLED of the Local Control @ NI
EM
Comments to this report:
majorana - 13:56 Wednesday 15 July 2026 (69360)
Print this reportI left the NI vacuum chamber at 12:20
majorana - 19:37 Wednesday 15 July 2026 (69365)
Print this report
in the afternoon I worked again in the NI. I left at 19.30 LT
AdV-PAY (Assembly Structure for Monolithic Payloads (NI,WI,NE,WE))majorana, pinto - 19:58 Tuesday 14 July 2026 (69353)
Print this reportComment to NI Payload in tower. Full disassembly WI Payload (69343)NI payload integrated. Left with the full load on the fibers. The Marionette is free but totally unbalanced. Tomorrow the activity of weight checks and balancing. Full availability of VAC and Clean Operation crews.
The swap to the emergency generator has been completed and a final test with a sequence ~30 sec ENEL interruption -> generator intervention -> ENEL back -> generator offload has been satisfactorily performed.
Electrical situation is then back to default one.
A longer term solution for having the 2nd generator (GE 2) being able to serve both "UPS Central Building + UPS Computing Room + IPS Central Building UTAs" and "IPS Central Building Chillers" is currently being planned (this solution is basically the first part of the generators parallelization that was already foreseen).
ITF found DOWN and in UPGRADING Mode. All times are UTC. Below the list of activities comunicated to the Control Room: 07:41 - 10:03 Works in TCS Room (Ciardelli). 07:48 - 11:06 PAY IN installation in vacuum chamber (Majorana, Puppo, Pinto, and Benedetti, #69345). 07:54 - 08:40 NI PAY & tower electrical checks (Gherardini, Ricci, and Zaza in the tower, while Dattilo outside the tower, #69344, #69347, #69348). Tower electrical checks successfull. The test of the backup generator has been performed twice in the afternoon (14:06, and 15:30), the IPS is now stable again and no other tests involving the shutting off of the IPS are needed. The setup of the Technical Building is back at the standard configuration using another generator #69351. The activity in the CEB Clean Room is proceeding.
Sub-system reports SBE SQB1: Recovered Vertical Position with Motor 3 rotating left, and Motor 4 rotating right. DMS TCS > Chillers: Shelved all DMS flags until the TCS AUX Lasers Cooling System will be installed.
Gherardini, Zaza - 10:53 Tuesday 14 July 2026 (69348)
Print this reportThis morning we checked the electrical continuity and insulation towards the metallic frame for the following cables: S1 and S2 (marionette coils); U1 (Ring Heater); U2 (Ring Heater motors); U3 (mirror coils for sensing and PT100 on marionette coil); V1 (mirror coils); V2 and V3 (marionette motors); Z2 (temperature probes on mirror coils and on ring heater).
We found one broken connection on the U2 cable: problem fixed.
majorana, pinto - 19:58 Tuesday 14 July 2026 (69353)
Print this reportNI payload integrated. Left with the full load on the fibers. The Marionette is free but totally unbalanced. Tomorrow the activity of weight checks and balancing. Full availability of VAC and Clean Operation crews.
Safety (General safety)lunghini - 13:07 Tuesday 14 July 2026 (69349)
Print this reportComment to PAY IN installation in vacuum chamber (69345)
Activity concluded at 11:06 UTC.
AdV-PAY (CP Support for NI and WI Monolithic Payloads)Gherardini, Zaza - 10:53 Tuesday 14 July 2026 (69348)
Print this reportComment to Payload assembly: WI payload full assembly, NI payload CP assembly (69343)This morning we checked the electrical continuity and insulation towards the metallic frame for the following cables: S1 and S2 (marionette coils); U1 (Ring Heater); U2 (Ring Heater motors); U3 (mirror coils for sensing and PT100 on marionette coil); V1 (mirror coils); V2 and V3 (marionette motors); Z2 (temperature probes on mirror coils and on ring heater).
We found one broken connection on the U2 cable: problem fixed.
Majorana, Pinto will enter in the CEB Clean Rooms and in the NI tower since 08:00 LT. Puppo and Benedetti will enter only in the CEB Clean Rooms since 8:30 LT.
Comments to this report:
lunghini - 13:07 Tuesday 14 July 2026 (69349)
Print this report
Last week the motor of one of the 500 KVA diesel generator (GE 1) hosted in the Technical Building and serving the Central Building + Computing room on UPS and Central Building UTAs on IPS was identified as faulty.
Since it seems that motor repair could be lenghty the immediate solution being pursued at the moment is the renting of an emergency generator to be positioned in the vicinity of the TB that would replace the malfunctioning one and bringing back the standard situation.
This emergency generator has been already shipped onsite (See Fig. 1) and the electrical swap is currently foreseen for tomorrow, Tuesday June 14. The swap itself will not imply IPS interruptions but a test must be done on generator intervention so a ~30 sec ENEL interruption will be simulated.
The swap to the emergency generator has been completed and a final test with a sequence ~30 sec ENEL interruption -> generator intervention -> ENEL back -> generator offload has been satisfactorily performed.
Electrical situation is then back to default one.
A longer term solution for having the 2nd generator (GE 2) being able to serve both "UPS Central Building + UPS Computing Room + IPS Central Building UTAs" and "IPS Central Building Chillers" is currently being planned (this solution is basically the first part of the generators parallelization that was already foreseen).
Detector Operation (Operations Report)gherardini - 16:36 Monday 13 July 2026 (69339)
Print this reportOperator Report - Daily shiftBelow the list of the activities communicated in control room:
INJ: mode matching measurement and reduction, in progress. PAY: NI payload assembly, in progress.
AdV-PAY (NI and WI Payloads)majorana, pinto - 16:39 Saturday 11 July 2026 (69337)
Print this reportNI payload assembly operationOn 9 and 10 /7 we performed assembly works in central clean room. - Unfortunately due to logistics reasons (train delay) we started very late on Thursday (18.00). - Moreover we could not complete all the steps of the assembly because on Friday morning we realized that the CP mounts were assembled in the circular mount upside-down . The circular mount is mechanically symmetric excepted tor the position of the clamps to the horizontal shafts dedicated to its hooking to the cage. - In the afternoon of Friday due to logistics reasons it was not possible to tackle the problem, and we postponed the action to Monday morning. Eugenio will come to do the job.
The planning has been updated, notice that the suspension of WI mirror into the payload is foreseen by Tuesday evening. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bdeiGp0oN-vrfYkVavDI6cP8A_s3SUtA94C2hniH5JE/edit?gid=699595264#gid=699595264 \
ITF found DOWN and in UPGRADING Mode. All times are UTC. Below the activities comunicated to the Control Room: 07:32 - 10:49 NI payload assembly (Majorana, Pinto). 10:12 - 10:34 RFC Scan (Spinicelli from remote). 12:00 - 12:11 IMC Scan (De Rossi from remote). 12:26 - 12:55 Check of Newtonian Sensor at NEB (Tringali).
Images attached to this report
Monolithic Suspensions (Payload assembly and installation)travasso, chessa, piluso - 16:30 Friday 10 July 2026 (69336)
Print this reportComment to NI monolithic suspension (IM03) (69316)On Tuesday afternoon, while we were in the clean room in the central building to check the bonding of the NI anchors and add some HCB solution to improve the bonding, there were two power outages, the first lasting between 30 seconds and a minute and the second lasting about 5 minutes.
As soon as the power went out the first time and the ventilation system shut down, Piero Chessa and I immediately left the clean room to avoid causing any problems. When the power came back on, the ventilation system restarted, and we were trying to figure out what to do (again from outside the clean rooms) when the power went out a second time. After about 5 minutes, it came back on, but this time the ventilation system didn't restart. So we left the central building and went to the control room, where they reported no problems with the central building's ventilation system.
At this point, Davide Soldani was called, and we went with him to the central building where he had to manually restart the ventilation system. At this point, we decided to suspend all operations until the next morning to allow the clean rooms time to return to a stable state.