Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 07:22:31 -0400
To: Fred Raab <fjr@ligo-wa.caltech.edu>, rick@ligo.mit.edu, sigg@ligo.mit.edu,
        William Butler <butler_w@ligo-wa.caltech.edu>,
        David Ottaway <ottaway_d@ligo-wa.caltech.edu>,
        Doug Lormand <lormand_m@ligo-la.caltech.edu>,
        Joe Kovalik <kovalik_j@ligo-la.caltech.edu>,
        Szabolcs Marka <smarka@ligo.caltech.edu>, rana@ligo.mit.edu,
        Peter Saulson <saulson@physics.syr.edu>,
        Erik Katsavounidis <kats@ligo.mit.edu>,
        Mike Zucker <mike@ligo.mit.edu>, julien@ligo.mit.edu,
        kbayer@ligo.mit.edu, dhs@ligo.mit.edu,
        Rauha Rahkola <rrahkola@darkwing.uoregon.edu>,
        Thomas Frey <tfrey@ligo.caltech.edu>,
        Robert Schofield <rmss@conch.uoregon.edu>,
        Masahiro Ito <masahiro@moon.uoregon.edu>,
        Jim Brau <jimbrau@quest.uoregon.edu>,
        Lee Samuel Finn <finn@phys.psu.edu>
From: David Shoemaker <dhs@ligo.mit.edu>
Subject: Burst Detector Characterization (response needed)

Folks interested in Detector Characterization to help in the Upper Limit
Burst Search ---

It is time to form some teams to address specific characterization tasks.
My guess is that the best teams will consist of a few people at an
observatory and a few people at remote universities (which may include both
some code writers, and some people with a sense of the interferometer) thus
spreading out the work a bit but also giving the hands-on measurements that
are necessary.

We should concentrate for now on channels which are either PEM so
self-contained and operating at their target sensitivity, or possibly PSL
and IO monitors which are already working at close to the performance
requirements; spending a lot of time just now on e.g., km-cavity error
signals and their coupling to environmental disturbances, or just their
stationarity, would probably not tell us much, since the noise is so far
from where it will be by September.

We should try to find some things which will only require incremental
programming (if any) to be started, and also some projects that can't be
done quite yet but which will be exciting challenges to e.g., DMT trigger
writers.

Here are some pretty obvious suggestions of projects, meant both to get
some volunteers for these specific projects but also to stimulate other
subjects and volunteers:

Measurement of the calibration, average spectrum, the normal daily
variation of the spectrum, and a start on characterization of short-time
deviations (e.g., histograms) from the normal spectrum for

Seismometers
Accelerometers
Microphones
Magnetic fields
Power lines
Laser intensity
Mode Cleaner control and error signals

I'll make a rough proposal soon for the formats of data and how to organize
it; this will be probably both an interim solution, and a proposal for
something a bit more polished (like a web site at each observatory to make
a convenient interface). Suggestions welcome! It will certainly be an
iterative process.

Some of the efforts will continue to be manual, and some will develop into
DMT processes to periodically or continually measure quantities.

Please get back to me by Wednesday, April 18 with your interest -- in one
of the topics above, in a different topic/activity, or with better ideas on
how to proceed! But _do_ respond -- we need to determine who is able to
invest some time and energy in this effort. Silence will be understood as
disinterest or inability to free up time to participate. Please forward to
any others who I may have missed on my email list.

thanks in advance   David