Weekly Report for Week Ending June 15, 2000


 Exec. Comm. Agenda
Highlights
LSC
Administration
Hanford Observatory
Livingston Observatory
MIT
Caltech
Detector
40 Meter
TNI
LASTI
Data Analysis
LIGO II/Adv. R&D
Past Weekly Reports

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  June 19, 2000 will be:
 (Meeting time: 10:30 am Pacific Time)

Open meeting 10:30 - 11:30

  1. Announcements
  2. LSC Issues (Weiss)
  3. Comments on Weekly Report
  4. WBS 1 LIGO I Construction (Lindquist)
  5. WBS 2 LIGO Lab Operations
  6. WBS 3 and 4  Advanced R&D and LIGO II (Sanders)
Executive Committee only 11:30 - noon
 

Special Items:   PUBLICATIONS POLICY


Special Announcements:


Weekly Report Highlights

TNI mode cleaner locked successfully in vacuum.


LSC Issues (Weiss)


No report this week.


LIGO I Construction/LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)


WBS 1.2 LIGO Operations--Administration


LIGO Weekly Site Telecon (Jasnow)

The list of current actions revised to reflect actions assigned during the site telecon held on June 15, 2000 may be found at ACTION LIST.


PROPERTY MANAGEMENT (Chargois)

From: Ed Chargois <chargois_e@ligo.caltech.edu>

No report.


DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

From: the DCC <dcc@ligo.caltech.edu>

Web pages for the DCC give simple how-to's for document numbering, easy access to the latest on-line documents, and search capabilities for the DCC database. Take a look. . .

From: Cleveland Mak <mak_c@ligo.caltech.edu>

Linda is still comfortably resting at home.

 ACTIVITY HIGHLIGHTS

Press here to access the DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER WEB PAGE.


COST SCHEDULE CONTROL SYSTEMS (Cunningham, Brambila, Akutagawa, Kaufman)

From: Esther Cunningham <esther@ligo.caltech.edu>

Press here for ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY DATA.

From: "Brambila, Ruth" <Ruth.Brambila@caltech.edu>

From: Florence Kaufman <fkaufman@ligo.caltech.edu>

SUBCONTRACTS MANAGEMENT (Petrac, Jasnow)

From: irena@ligo.caltech.edu (Irena Petrac)

From: Ed Jasnow <jasnow@ligo.caltech.edu>

  • The issue of insurance coverage for tourists at the two LIGO sites has been raised, and is being investigated.  The Caltech policy covers a certain number of tourists to campus and off-campus sites, but it is not known if that number is large enough to cover all of the LIGO tourists.


  • Support (Wood)

    Irene Baldon

    Worked on preparing the paper work for six new trips taken recently or upcoming (six Payment Requests and four Advance Requests). There are approximately an additional 11 new trips in various stages pending completion of travel arrangements before the paper work can be completed.

    Our SURF Students have been arriving and have started to submit expenses for reimbursement. Riccardo DeSalvo had his students come in a week early to start working with him. And these students were housed off Campus using his account number.

    Completed 31 Expense Reports, some of which were extensive, involving 2-3 or more pages each. There are 21 Expense Reports still to be done. I'm not holding any completed Expense Reports which require a check from the Traveler before sending to Travel Audit to clear at the present time.

    Rita continues to try to fit some time for travel into her schedule. She has taken six Expense Reports to be done this past week and completed eight for final review.

    I haven't heard anything on the progress of LIGO obtaining Travel P-Cards.

    Prepared the Travel/Vacation Itinerary for the Week of June 12, 2000. Worked on several problem issues with Travel Audit.

    Rita Torres

    For I. Petrac investigated why several Attachments and reports did not appear on the MOU/LSC page, worked with B. Kratochwill to remedy this. Prepared FedEx to send MOU and Attachments to Stanford, and to CA State Dominguez Hills. Formatted report for GEO from their email submissions. Scanned several documents for web posting. Met with Irena and Barbara to discuss upcoming MOU and LSC activities. Also met with T. Frey et al. to discuss record-keeping for upcoming LSC work.

    For P. Lindquist distributed material for upcoming CCB. Input pages to new Visitor Program (LIGO-M000184-00-M).

    Last week Oracle would not accept certain Poetas. This week completed those now that the problem was fixed, most end dates have been corrected. Obtained several additional requisition numbers. Did site trip updates, the usual P-card activity. Did morning and afternoon mail for one day while C. Mak on vacation, arranged for three telecons on the same day, some travel documents.

    Dorothy Lloyd

    Processed requisitions, invoices and receiving on-line. For more detail see "Cost Schedule Control Systems" report by Esther Cunningham. Tracked and followed up on invoice problems. Monitored contract and blanket order funding levels and notified task managers when supplements were needed. Reviewed and recorded payments processed by Esther for the period of May 22 through June 9 on contract summary sheets and LIGO database. Continue to review "old" open purchase orders.

    Jim was out again this week on Jury Duty.

    Elizabeth K. Wood

    Caught up on employment issues.

    Worked on a visitors program revised budget.

    Met with the Wilson House people who will be moving over to the second floor of West Bridge and talked about their furniture and facility needs.

    Issued lots of keys. I will update the roster when I get a few minutes without the phone ringing.


    LIGO II (Frey)

    From: Thomas Frey <tfrey@ligo.caltech.edu>

    Progress Period from 6.9 to 6.15

    Accomplishments:

    Schedule: 6.16 to 6.23 Anticipated Challenges: Corrective Action:

    WBS 1.4.1.2   Project Controls (LIGO Construction)

    Reports (Lindquist)

    Material for the End of May Quarterly Report is requested by Friday, June 23.  "Strawman" budgets for LIGO I Operations and LIGO II Operations have been distributed.  Inputs are requested by Friday, June 30.

    Change Control/Contingency (Lindquist)

    The following change requests have been submitted:
     

    CR-990028 WBS 1.1.3 Beam Tube Enclosure Closeout F. Asiri
    CR-000005 WBS 1.2.1 Upgrade Pre-stabilized Laser S. Whitcomb
    CR-000006 WBS 1.2.1 Re-polish Core Optics Components S. Whitcomb
    CR-000007 WBS 1.2.2 Replacement of Optical Lever Lasers S. Whitcomb
    CR-000008 WBS 1.1.4 Cameras and Projection System at LIGO Livingston Observatory F. Asiri
    CR-000009 WBS 1.1.4 Cameras and Projection System at LIGO Hanford Observatory F Asiri
    CR-000010 WBS 1.2.2 Redesign Suspension Controllers S. Whitcomb
    CR-000011 WBS 1.2.2 VME Development System and Spares S. Whitcomb
    CR-000012 WBS 1.2.2 ASC/LSC Rework S. Whitcomb

    Copies of these change requests have been distributed to memebers of the LIGO Change Control Board (See LIGO-M000176-00-P).

    Press for the latest Contingency Needs Projection.


    COST SCHEDULE CONTROL SYSTEMS (Duncan, Akutagawa)

    From: Kris Duncan <kris@ligo.caltech.edu>

    From: Cindy Akutagawa <cindy@ligo.caltech.edu>

    SUBCONTRACTS MANAGEMENT (Petrac, Jasnow)

    From: Ed Jasnow <jasnow@acrux.ligo.caltech.edu>


    Quality/Safety (Tyler)

    >From: Bill Tyler <tyler@ligo.caltech.edu>

    No report this week.


    LIGO Hanford Observatory (LHO) Operations (Raab)


    No report received.


    LIGO Livingston Observatory (LLO) Operations (Coles)



     

    OPTICS: Failure of the RGA head on our bake oven has slowed the processing
    of COS components. We've taken the head off of our new small oven (disabling
    it) and the big oven is back on-line. CO installation has proceeded very
    smoothly this week. The MMT3 and Recycling Mirror have been installed and
    aligned. MMT-3's optical lever lost laser power and was replaced. Ken Mason
    has assembled the optical flat assembly and it will be installed today.
    Installation of the IO baffle will occur late today, or tomorrow. We also
    expect to have the BS installed and aligned by week's end. (Jonathan Kern)
     

    PSL: We are replacing the mirror mounts and periscopes on the PSL table with
    new stiffer mounts. (Joe Kovalik)

    Computers: We have received and are installing five new Gateway PCs and two
    new NEC PCs. These are both providing upgrades for staff
    users and providing extra machines for summer visitors and SURF students.
    (Tom Evans)
     

    Weather Stations: All stations now have the appropriate PEM instruments
    mounted and sending data to the CDS system. Since all collection software
    and hardware is working properly, all CDS weather data is now being
    collected. Weather stations still await appropriate
    landscaping before instruments that require ground mounting can
    be permanently installed. (Anthony Rizzi)


    MIT (Shoemaker)


    All activities covered elsewhere.


    Caltech (Sanders)


    All activities covered elsewhere.


    Detector/Technical Support (Whitcomb, Coyne)



     

    Installation & Commissioning:
    Hanford
    Livingston
    Other Science/Engineering Activities:
    Design/Analysis/Fab
    Issues/Concerns
    See also the Installation web page

    1.1 LHO INSTALLATION & COMMISSIONING

    PSL Frequency Noise

    Nergis Mavalvala, Peter Fritschel, Stan Whitcomb, David Ottaway, Peter King
    We have measured a 10x lower  frequency noise from the PSL above 1 kHz. The most significant improvement came about by locking the reference cavity on the carrier resonance rather than the RF sidebands. It appears that the laser was locked to the reference cavity on a sideband since 06/06.  Although it is not clear why, it is
    likely that the phase was inadvertedly changed during investigation of glitching behavior observed in the laser output. We also made a few changes on the frequency stabilization servo card to extend the bandwidth of the loop to 400 kHz (was at 200 kHz). The open loop transfer function of the servo shows a levelling off in the gain around
    600-900 kHz.  The phase lag associated with the high voltage Pockels cell driver is higher than expected for unknown reasons.  Efforts are on-going to improve the performance of the Pockels cell driver.

    Mode Cleaner/IO

    Nergis Mavalvala, Peter Fritschel, Stan Whitcomb, David Ottaway
    We  switched all the steering mirror mounts on the IO input chain to reduce the level of acoustically driven mechanical resonances in the frequency noise spectrum. The beam was realigned into the MC, realigned and optimized some light levels on the IOT7 detection table. The wavefront sensing system was resurrected, loop gains were measured and the bandwidth of the WFS loops was extended to ~ 1 Hz (was 0.3 Hz). We have also done a low frequency (0.3 Hz) diagonalization of all three MC mirrors using optical levers. In some cases factors of 50 to 100 improvement was seen in the level of x-coupling from length drive to pitch angle. We have also measured the beam pointing fluctuations at the output of the MC and are now setting up for long term drift monitoring.

    Input Optics

    Dave Reitze
    The 2K IO mirror mount swap out was completed last night by Nergis and David O. They repositioned the mode matching lenses such that the input beam went through the aperture center,  re-zeroed the biasses on the input PZT mirrors, and re-aligned coarsely using the manual adjustment to reduce the effect of the crate crashing on the alignment of the input beam. We obtained a fringe visibility of greater than 95% on the MC.

    4k preparations: The SOS towers for the 4K were baked; Dan has designed a new in-vac target for aligning the back reflected light from the RM; Dan is revising the PSL table layout for the 4k IO to minimize the kinematic mounts.

    4 km Interferometer in-chamber installation

    Larry Jones, Betsy Weaver, et. al.
    Preparing for 4K IFO installation: inventorying parts, started bench assembly of ETM telescopes.

    LIGO-Trinet Seismic Stations

    Szabi Marka, Hugh Radkins, Corey Gray
    We are surveying the land for the Hanford seismic station with Hugh and Corey. Noise levels are smaller then at LLO, however, high winds seem to introduce excess low frequency noise relatively to no wind conditions. We had a successful meeting with Alan Rohay of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. We agreed to conduct a series of comparative tests in the seismically very quiet NIKE silo on seismometer noise, later in July. We also discussed the advantages to set up a real time EarthWorm system to broadcast seismic data besides the planned SEED distribution.

    ASC/LSC/SUS Electronics

    Jay Heefner, Rich Abbott

    1.2 LLO INSTALLATION & COMMISSIONING

    MC Commissioning

    Peter Saulson, Joe Kavolik
    Last week saw the end of the first intensive period of commissioning at LLO. Commissioning now takes a back seat to installation, until 25 July.

    Joe Kovalik has installed several more of the improved optics mounts on the PSL.

    ASC

    Jay Heefner

    Core Optics Installation

    Ken Mason, Jonathan Kern, Gary Traylor, Joe Hanson, Harry Overmeyer, Rich Riesen
    The MMT3 and Recycling Mirror has been installed and aligned in Livingston. The optical lever lost laser power for the MMT3 optic and was replaced. The optical flat assembly has been assembled and will be installed thursday (for use in aligning the beamsplitter).

    Core Optics Support (COS) Assembly

    Lee Cardenas, Ken Mailand, Joe Hansen, Mike Smith, et. al.

    ETM Transmission Monitors

    Matt Smith
    Received from Livingston the two old versions of the ETM Transmission Monitor Assembly.  I am retrofitting them into the new version.  The two riser blocks need to be reworked.  We will rework them in our shop at MIT.  The new versions should be ready to ship back to Livingston by the early part of next week.

    2.0 Other Engineering and Scientific Activities

    2.1 Design/Analysis/Fab

    40 m Support

    Jay Heefner
    Schematics for the vacuum controls have been sent out for review and should be ready for rack a system wiring to begion early next week.

    IAS

    Ken Mason
    The IAS Initial Alignment document T970151-C-D has been revised to include the 4K Livingston optic alignment.

    ISCT1

    Matt Smith
    I finished the assembly drawings for the 4K ISCT1 table assembly.  This is the last of the 4K tables that needed to be redone.  After the four drawings are reviewed by Peter F. and Mike Z. they will be released to the DCC.

    COC Metrology

    GariLynn Billingsley, Michael Hrynevych
    There was a very successful visit to General Optics concerning the metrology of the SPETMs which they are re-polishing.  A repeatable setup was found which would provide very close correlation with the LIGO metrology.  This was done using a pathfinder piece which has been measured at HDOS, NIST, CSIRO and LIGO.  The pathfinder piece remains at GO during the sell off to provide a cross check.

    The three flat test is complete.  The temperature has undergone some shifts this week, but we are transitioning to a setup for measuring ETMs, so temperature has not negatively impacted the ETM delivery schedule.

    COC Coating Development

    Helena Armandula
    General Optics will coat 4 substrates to LIGO specs.on a "best effort basis". Two substrates are fused silica and two are sapphire (C and M axis). Delivery date for the coated substrates from MLD is July 28th.

    OSEM Head Re-Design

    Janeen Romie
    Working procurement of new OSEM parts. Prepared for design review 6/15.

    Seismic Fine Actuator Control Electronics

    Sander Liu
    Released schematics (D000108 and D000109) of both antialiasing filter boards to DCC

    Diagnostics test tool

    Daniel Sigg
    Continuing working on the DMT Viewer program. The DMT query interface (both GUI and network) has been finished. Work on the save/restore function has started (from and to LIGO light weight).

    Sander Liu
    Global Diagnostic System - Helped Fred lay out the printed circuit board.

    Data Monitoring Tool (DMT)

    John Zweizig
    Continued to debug and verify new versions of the DMT software and to install components submitted by LSC collaborators.

    2.2 Issues Concerns

    no new issues

    40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)




    Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)



            This week we locked our mode cleaner under vacuum, with the polarization
    in the final configuration and the finesse at 5000.  Acquisition was
    prompt, and the lock was robust.  We now feel that we have enough
    information to go on and install the test cavities.  Preliminary
    calculations indicate that a lock-acquisition servo will be challenging to
    build but not impossible.
     

            We were able to acquire lock in our mode cleaner, with a finesse of 5000,
    two different ways.  We were able to simply lock directly, but we were also
    able to lock in the p-polarization state, with a finesse of 500, and then
    rotate the polarization to bring the finesse up to 5000 adiabatically.
     


    LASTI (Zucker)



    LASTI (Zucker, Shoemaker, Kruzel)
    ---------------------------------
    Vacuum/infrastructure:  Continued monitoring of vacuum performance.
    Ordered special high-flow hydrocarbon absorber, desiccant and HEPA
    filter modules for air backfill.  Ordered process control relay card
    for Granville gauge controller to implement additional layer of
    failsafe on turbo gate valve.
     

    Planning/strategic: DHS and MZ met with Joe Giaime to look over
    preliminary LIGO II seismic isolation plan developed by him and Gerry
    Stapfer.  We asked about possibly accelerating HAM stack introduction
    into LASTI (e.g., parallel fabrication of "lower design risk"
    components concurrent with alpha-testing of HAM prototype).  Schedule
    pressure arises from SUS testing and optical characterization testing
    which need the stacks in place early as infrastructure (in addition to
    the testing pressure from SEI itself).  We are still working the
    issue.


    Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)



     

    Simulation and Modeling


    >> Lock Acquisition

    Luca worked on the lock acquisition with angular degree of freedom.

    He ran e2e in the recycled michelson configuration and one of the
    sidebands locked, then I injected angular noise into the mirrors.
    He used either max modal mode <=1 , max modal mode <=3 with/without
    the cirvature mismatch calculation included. For one mirror having 0.1
    microrad @ 10 Hz, either max modal mode =1 or max modal mode =3
    yielded close results. (He is, however, a little puzzled by the DC
    powers I observe).

    He is ready to move to the complete LIGO configuration with Matt's
    acquisition of lock scheme with angular degress of freedom turned
    on.

    >> Biplab visited LLO last week.

    * At LLO, he gave a talk and demonstration of E2E
    * He discussed with Ed daw and Anthony Rizzi about e2E.
      He explained Matt+Luca's work on lock acquisition

    >> Simulation general

    * Biplab traced out bug that Luca was getting. Made a few
      test runs
    * Biplab is writing E2E paper.
    * Biplab is working on noise curve generation from E2E, seismic,
      thermal and shotnoise combined.
    * Hiro completed the conversion of the code to use stl, which shows
       speed gain of a few 10% to 100%.
    * digital_filter module is rewritten to use the same code as CDS and
       psiir.m by Peter Fritschel, which is based on SOS.

    LIGO Data Analysis System

    Kent/SW:
     

    The wrapperAPI was successful in loading a shared object library that
    was developed by the UWM team visiting this month. A couple of minor
    "pointer" bugs showed up that are bound to happen when you ask C++
    code to talk to C code but this has been sorted out and the code was
    able to load the shared object, execute its functions and carryout
    dynamic load balancing. This is a major success for the wrapperAPI
    group. The next step is to finish the communications layer between
    the mpiAPI and the wrapperAPI.

    The controlMonitorAPI now has support for monitoring processes on
    all computers within the LDAS system. It can continuously poll other
    remote processes and will soon have the ability to source and isolate
    individual processes.

    Peter Shawhan and John Zweizig organized a meeting which was attended by members of
    LDAS, GDS and Hanford to discuss data access models for graphical and
    higher level analysis packages, including a proposed pipeline analysis
    environment. The major actions from the meeting were to develop a set
    of conceptial designs outlining the roles of the common interface and
    protocols for these analysis packages while borrow from the model used
    in GUILD.

    A threaded version of LDAS data communications functions was successfully
    tested this week on the SUN platform. However, these threaded functions
    were found not to work with the dlmalloc package that LDAS has been using.
    We are now looking into ways to enhance dlmalloc to work with threads and
    also to be able to support threads under Linux where dlmalloc is the
    default memory management utility.

    About 80% of the memory leaks that were in the frameAPI have been tracked
    down and eliminated. They were found in the TCL layer and were associated
    with copies of ilwd data pushed into containers. However, more work is
    needed to clean up the remaining 20% level of leaks.

    Isaac Salzman, the new LDAS integration and system tester showed up this week. He will
    be working to standardize the testing paradigm for the large set of code
    now within LDAS.

    ----- Forwarded message from Omar Rashad (LDAS SysAdmin) -----

    Integrated new KVM switch so new servers are accessible for (re)installation.

    Cleaned up other wiring.

    Finished patching ups control software to latch off upon extended power failure.

    Reinstalled/upgraded DataConditioning server to Redhat 6.2.

    ----- End of forwarded message from Omar Rashad (LDAS SysAdmin) -----

    For Larry,
            8 Sun E450 servers have been successfully ordered for LDAS under a
    matching grant fund from Sun.

    For Stuart,
            Work on the LDAS procurement plan and scheduling of future LDAS
    installation, in particular, plan for development beowulf cluster at
    Caltech, and the migration of LDAS networks from ATM to Gigabit Ethernet.

    For Greg mendell (LHO):

    1)  Located the D1000 288 GB disk unit.  It is located in the mass
    storage room.

    2)  Located dark fiber running from the ATM switch in the mass storage
    room to the user room.

    3)  Located the shelving for the beowulf cluster.  It is in the staging
    building.  Apparently not all the correct pieces are here.  Christine
    Patton is taking care of this.  She is on vacation this week.  Will
    check with her on Monday to update progress on this.

    4)  Measured the mass storage room for the installation of the beowulf
    cluster.  There are 308.5'' from the right side of  LDAS rack 1 to the
    right wall (when facing the rack). But there are also two fire
    suppression tanks on the right wall that are 18'' in diameter.  So we
    need to allow clearance around
    them.  I sent Albert a diagram of the room.

    5)  Dave Barker says he will need a least a two week warning to clear
    out the CDS stuff to make room for beowulf.   And there is fire
    suppression equipment running in the floor (I think) that we have to
    find out about from the fire department before we can drill into the
    floor to mount the shelves.

    6)  I received a copy of a spreadsheet from Otto showing the amperage
    and HVAC needed for beowulf.
    He says he needs the TOTAL BTU/hr for the room.  Once he has this he
    will figure out what is needed to keep the room cool.   He says there is
    plenty of power for the PC's.  Dave Barker is working on the total
    BTU's.  I'll check with Dave, and make sure this is being taken care of.

    7)  Otto says it will be no problem to build bracing from the shelves to
    the wall once the shelves are in place.

    General Computing


    MIT:
    Ordered a SUN D1000 disk system.

    Livingston:
    Received and installing five new Gateway PCs and two new NEC PCs.
    These are both providing upgrades for staffusers and providing
    extra machines for summer visitors andSURF students.
     

    Hanford:
    Nothing to Report

    CIT:
    Barbara continued working on the costbook web forms.
    Installed TimeTarget on pherkab and set up backup job.
    Met with colleagues about upcoming changes to LSC web forms and about new
    roster database.
    Set up web pages on docuserv for General Computing. Even though the pages
    are under contstruction they will be put on-line Friday June 16th.
    Created/installed web page for Livingston facilities as-built drawings
    (279 drawings).
    Developed a template for LSC MOU history web pages.
    Caught up with web items received while on vacation, mostly LSC
    changes.

    Suresh made a full backup of cdssol9 (CDS daq control system) in order to
    upgrade to solaris 2.6 from 2.5.1.
    Installed secured shell version 1 in documentation server, docuserv.
    Set up couple of user accounts, mostly surf students.
    Got help from HP technician to replace some parts out of LaserJet 5000
    printer in third floor bridge.
    Working with Larry on updating information on the computing web pages.

    Lisa Bogue has been brought on-board to assist in the system
    administration area for General Computing.

    The large SUN equipment order for a number of workstations and lowend
    servers is now being placed. The equipment should be shipped directly to
    each location.

    ITS has changed the LIGO network connection on the CIT backbone from the
    Kellogg connection to Bridge with a redundant connection at Guggenheim.

    Each of the computer projectors should now have a shipping box for it.
    Caltech received theirs at the first of the week.

    Orders have been placed for a number of PC's to accommodate the SURF
    students and other visitors.

    There now exists a couple of additional laptops that can be checked out
    for travel. Larry W. has the information on the units.
     


    LIGO II/Advanced R&D (Sanders)


    Stiff isolation system (S. Richman, J. Rollins, J. Giaime)
     

    Jamie has completed a set of open-loop transfer function measurements from forcers to various sensors on the upper stage, and they immediately gave some insight on the low-frequency tilt seen in the horizontal loops.  By comparing the responses of the vertical sensors when driving with a horizontal actuator, we could see that the induced tilt seems to be caused by a spurious vertical force component from the actuator.  The effect is similar in all three horizontal actuators.  Applying a 15% correction with the nearly co-located vertical actuator reduces the tilt by more than an order of magnitude at 0.1 Hz.  This has allowed us for the first time to close a horizontal loop using a broadband seismometer.  The seismometer signal is blended with that from the corresponding position sensor at about 70 mHz.
     

    From: Helena Armandula <ahelena@ligo.caltech.edu>

    COC Coating Development - General Optics will coat 4 substrates to LIGO specs.on a "best effort basis". Two substrates are fused silica and two are sapphire (C and M axis).
    Delivery date for the coated substrates from MLD is July 28th.

    From: Phil Willems <willems@ligo.caltech.edu>
    Fused silica fiber/ribbon research:
    -----------------------------------
     

    We have built and installed a suspension mount for violin mode Q tests.  The
    upper mass is ready and the lower mass is on order.  We are beginning to set up
    the optical sensor and will use it to test our electrostatic drive.
     

    Ribbon research is progressing nicely and we are commencing uniformity and
    strength tests.  (John Johnson, Phil Willems)
     

    Geppo Cagnoli of the U. of Glasgow and Phill Willems are working on final
    calculations of nonlinear thermoelasticity and are preparing a paper on the
    effect.
     

    Sapphire Q measurements:
    ------------------------
     

    The quality factor of the large LIGO sapphire is now at least 1.8e8.  (Phil
    Willems, John Johnson)
     

    Silicate bonding:
    -----------------
     

    We have evidence that the crystals that form in silicate bonds are potassium
    hydroxide, and Sheila Rowan at Stanford has found evidence that very extensive
    rinsing with DI water after cleaning prevents crystal growth.  We will verify
    this at Caltech and also test to see if bonds without crystals are different in
    strength.  We have finished the mount for the loaded bond experiment.  We are
    also making several bonds with non-superpolished samples to see if
    superpolishing is essential to bond strength.  The first of the Caltech bonds
    was broken at 250 kg of shear to the delight of all, especially Sheila, who
    tested her first bond this week. (Helena Armandula, Sheila Rowan, Phil Willems)

    From: Riccardo DeSalvo <desalvo@ligo.caltech.edu>

    We welcome  James that just joined SAS

    Akiteru
    Preparing IP characterization
    Found strange resonance on unloaded IP, need to understand

    Chenyang
    Starting characterizing TAMA LVDTs and actuators,
    Made coiler counter,
    Actuator report draft 2.

    Hareem
    Measured noise in Keithly DAQ boards
    Measured more Df/DT curves at different f.  Need to make more,  will
    take time.

    Alessandro
    Accelerometer r/o circuitry into production
    Studying geometries and metals for Vertical accelerometer.

    Giancarlo
    Finished optimization program to exactly design the profile of stress
    uniformized blades.

    Virginio
    Introducing improvements (from Virgo) on LVDT r/o cards, expecting x2-x5
    improvement in resolution
    Writing Elba paper

    Soy
    Coiled several LVDTs for creep measurement
    Blade measurements

    Lisa
    Setting up temperature stabilisation and monitoring systems for the
    creep hut

    Tatsuo, Kenji
    MGASFs tests:
    Tuned 2 mm MGASF filter down from 0.6 to 210 mHz, measured F/h, F/load
    curves, all OK, will tune to lower frequency before testing.  Load 65 Kg

    1.5 mm MGASF filter initially at 450 mHz.
    Proven that 30 Hz resonances of last week are ambiental,  they are not
    excited anymore by hammering on the prototypes.  First resonance on F1
    at 236 Hz.
    Safety/reference structure around IP has its first resonance at 27 Hz
    (without stiffeners!)
    Transfer functions and temperature characterisations next week.
     

    From: Eric Gustafson <gustaf@fastloki.Stanford.EDU>
    Subject: Lasers and PSL minutes form June 1, 2000

    Lasers and PSL Telecon Agenda

    June 1, 2000

    8:00-8:25 AM California Time - Phone in Number (650) 723-2393
    Todd, Matthew, Gary, Peter King, Peter Fritschel, Jordan, Rick and Jim Mason

    5:00-5:25 PM California Time - Phone in Number (650) 723-2393

    Chairman Jordan Camp

    1.  Progress on setting requirements - Jim Mason
    Arm cavity mismatch determines both the coupling of the PSL frequency and amplitude noise to the main signal.  Calculation is largely done and Matlab code is done.  A document is in the works. Amplitude noise requirement is near 10^(-9)/rt(Hz).  50 ppm difference in arm losses more important than the input mirror transmittance.  This requirement is about the same as that set by the technical radiation pressure on the core optics.

    What about technical rad pressure in the mode cleaner?

    2.  Discussion of laser and PSL requirements - post MIT design summit - Peter Fritschel

    Laser power did not change much - sapphire (180W/125W) silica (120W/80W).  No sensing system selected yet but a possibility of a DC offset locking technique non sideband system or sidebands in the arms. DC readout technique and so we have easier to reach requirements at the RF frequency.  Laser amplitude noise driven by technical radiation noise and this would be the same in any system.  Stabilize beam to 30 milliamps then at 10 Hertz we are near the requirements. 3x10^(-9) at 30 Hz. Might set amplitude actuator requirements.

    For now we should continue to pursue the high frequency sideband noise calculations.

    3. Status of the letters of intent and outside vendors  - Gary and Jordan
    Deadline passes yesterday.  TRW, LZH and Lightwave have expressed interest.  Fiber Tek may be interested in the amplifier only, Continuum is a maybe we need to send a letter to Positive Light (Byer thinks no).

    LZH Hannover may want to do everything.  There are several different strategies depending on who is selected.

    Q_Peak - Responded but Not interested
    Coherent Technology - Responded but Not interested
    Coherent Inc. - No response - Irena is on them
    Schwartz - No response - Irena is on them
    Spectra Physics - ?
    Positive Light - No letter sent yet - Eric to get address to Irena

    Vendors have expressed a concern about a level playing field.  Jesper has not been in communication with TRW and Gary suggested that it would be a good idea for him to help them to understand LIGO's problems since both Lightwave and LZH are already up to speed.

    4.  Progress on the PSL conceptual design document  - Rick
    for now we have a LIGO 10 watt laser producing 20 watte and a laser premode cleaner andn two amplifier stages to 70 watts and then 180 watts and followed by a pre mode cleaner circ power about the same as LIGO I.  New draft out in a few weeks.

    5.  Progress on the 100 Watt amplifier  -  Todd, Shally and Karsten (AM)
                                  Peter and Jesper (PM)
    The approach is 10 watt LIGO laser and 2 zig gag amplifiers up to 100 watts.  Testing now as an oscillator at 100 watts.  Testing the diodes (700 watts) for the second amplifier should be done by the end of this month.  This leaves July and August to couple the beams through a pair of the 3:1 slabe to reach to 100 watts.  (30 watts for the first stage and 100 watts after the second).  Slabs are Brewster slabs for the summer and switch to the coated normal incidence next fall.

    Jespers group has completed diode testing and operating a medium power slab system.  They are on track for operating the high power injection locked system by the end of the summer.

    6.  Noise clipper - Matthew
    Lightwave noise clipper pump and signal resonant OPO gave 20 db noise suppression from 1 Hz to 70 MHz.  Equipment will be transferred to Stanford.  Working on understanding classical and quantum theory which will need to be extended because we will see pump depletion and estimating the ultimate performance.  Talked to Arbore and the discussions are becoming more concrete no equipment transferred.  Then will be optimizing the design theoretically.  The first experiments will be to reproduce the Lightwave result.

    7.  Upcoming Deadlines  - Gary Sanders
    We have a month to set up appointments with the Laser vendors.  Gary, Jordan and Eric will visit Lightwwave, TRW and LZH.

    Conceptual PSL document around the time of the LSC meeting so need to circulate the document about august 1, 2000. August 15-17 LSC meeting.

    Proposal must be out by November 2000.  Gary wrote outline and will get in touch with people about the writing.  PSL people not yet approached but will be soon.  Jordan and Rick will write the section and cost by Peter King and Rich Abbott.  On a web based tool!

    8.  Open discussions
    We ran out of time.
     
     


    For additional information about this report, contact sanders@ligo.caltech.edu