Weekly Report for Week Ending July 27, 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  July 31, 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:


Special Announcements:


Weekly Report Highlights
 


LSC Issues (Weiss)


No report this week


LIGO I Construction/LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)


WBS 1.2 LIGO Operations--Administration


LIGO Weekly Site Telecon (Lindquist)


PROPERTY MANAGEMENT (Chargois)

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


DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

>From: Linda Turner - turner@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. . .

 ACTIVITY HIGHLIGHTS

From: Cleveland Mak <mak_c@ligo.caltech.edu>
 
In Out
Packages 44 12
Faxes 37 19

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>

  • No report this week.


  • Support (Wood)

    Rita Torres

    Dorothy Lloyd Irene Baldon Elizabeth K. Wood

    Advanced LIGO (Frey, Petrac)

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

    Progress Period from 7.21 to 7.27

    Accomplishments:

    Schedule: 7.28 to 8.3 Anticipated Challenges: Corrective Action: From: Irena Petrac <irena@ligo.caltech.edu>

    WBS 1.4.1.2   Project Controls (LIGO Construction)

    Reports (Lindquist)

    I have distributed a first draft budget for FY 2001 Operations and already received some comments that will be incorporated.  I have also started the text portions of the submittal for FY 2001 Continuing Operations.  Everything related to the proposals continues to be a month or so behind schedule.


    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).  Two change requests, those for cameras and projection systems are for information purposes only (they fall below the threshold for CCB review and approval) and will be entered into the budget baseline.

    We are scheduling a meeting of the LIGO Change Control Board, Tuesday, August 1, 2000 at 9:30 PDT in the Science Conference Room (SCR) to discuss these change requests.

    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@ligo.caltech.edu>

    No report this week.


    Quality/Safety (Tyler)

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



    LIGO Hanford Observatory (LHO) Operations (Raab)


    General Items:
    --------------
    (F. Raab)
     

    Today we have reviewed "lessons learned" from the fire at Hanford. Here is my synopsis:
     

            1. We were able to get emergency service people to let our key staff into the area during the emergency, but it would be helpful to ask emergency service people if some special ID should be carried by key staff.
            2. We needed a walk-through of buildings to ensure that everyone working on site knew that an evacuation order had been received. We are installing an intercom, so that an evacuation order or instructions could be communicated quickly site wide. We should also consider making the "crash phone" accessible from the control room. We need to "drill" on these systems to ensure they worek well.
            3. LIGO had one of the few water storage systems of high volume for many miles around. This water was used both to protect LIGO and to fight the fire in surrounding areas. The supply with recharging running was sufficient in this case. Nonetheless, it would be advisable to further increase water storage on the site.
            4. The firewater recharge system was started up by R. McCarthy to ensure that we did not run low; there should be a procedure for starting up this system so that other lab or fire personnel could do this in an emergency.
            5. The extensive rock works surrounding the lab facilities and the tumbleweed removal program played a huge role in saving the lab from harm. We should whether the analogous systems in Livingston would be equally effective given the variations in fire conditions likely in the terrain at that site.
            6. We did not shut down ventilation systems during the fire; it would have been beneficial to close the fresh air intakes in these high smoke conditions.
            7. Telephone systems sufficed for outgoing calls from the site, but key lab management could not be reached by phone for notification of the emergency and attempts to call into the emergency area did not go through. We should investigate if any special considerations should be given to radio or other emergency contact devices.
     

    I attended a meeting of the Port of Benton Commissioners that considered the selection of a proposal to mine gravel in North Richland (approx. 10 miles from the LIGO corner station). I had earlier sent comments to the commission explaining a concern by LIGO based on sensitivity to vibrations from the mining operation and I advised them of the potential impacts for Battelle's labs and other high-tech concerns. (Battelle personnel also attended the meeting.) At the meeting we requested that if the Port went forward with initiation of this mining activity that there be a mechanism whereby we (or Battelle) could obtain mitigation of adverse impacts to our operations. After some valuable discussion the Port determined that they would select a contractor based on the proposals that were reviewed and that they would begin negotiations of a contract to allow mining, but that the contract should include language that would require efforts to mitigate any adverse impacts on LIGO and Battelle from operations. The commission sentiment was that if adverse effects were found and could not be mitigated the Port would need to stop the operation. Battelle, LIGO and the contractor were urged to work together to identify by measurements or analysis any "show stoppers" during the several months that would be required for contracting and licensing. (Translation: it could be very expensive to uncover a huge problem later, so it is in everyone's interest to make a good effort to find any problem now.) The selected contractor was Eucon; ACME also submitted a proposal but scored lower in the evaluation. I will contact Commissioner Ben Bennet for guidance on how to proceed with contacts with Eucon while negotiations are in progress.
     

    The Kamiakin HS SST team started seismic field measurements in the vicinity of the ACME gravel mining operation in S. Richland to get some data on vibration levels and how they fall off with distance from the plant.
     

    In other news, people are busy prepping for WA4K installation.
     

    Optics:
    ---------------------
    (D. Cook)
     

    COC and COS staging and preparations are on going. We began processes the
    ETM-4k optics and assembing the structures. Betsy and Anna have been gluing
    magnet/standoff assemblies for both the IOO and COC optics. We have been
    dusting the cobwebs off the gluing fixtures for the wire standoffs and
    magnets. Betsy and Co are also continuing the pick-off telescope assembly.
    I made a mount to incorporate the "total station" theodolite on the
    balancing optic table. This will add to the accuracy of balancing as well
    as allowing us to measure the wedge angle of the Core optics. (works well
    for LLO). Machined components for adapting the ETMx transmission monitor.
    We should start installing light pipes over the PSL/IOO beam path along
    with dedicated beam dumps. This is in hopes of reducing the amount of
    scattered light from coming back into the main beam as well as damping out
    accoustic noises and air currents. I have been sorting through the optical
    lever components and listing missing parts that we will need here for the
    4k installation and will send a shopping list to MIT. I am working on a
    design to adapt our current core optic shipping carriers to use them for
    the new LIGO sapphire Core optics.
     


    LIGO Livingston Observatory (LLO) Operations (Coles)



     

    FACILITY: Barry Barish visited the LLO on July 25 and 26. He met with Key personnel and reviewed the on going activities at the site. Barry attended a meeting with the architect for the staging building and auditorium and participated in a conference call with the acoustics and special system specialist(N. Traylor). The layout and seating arrangement for the auditorium was reviewed and approved with comments. N. Traylor will provide a detail layout and specification for audio/visual system for the auditorium. John Desmond, the architect was directed to proceed with preparation of construction document for the staging and auditorium building.
    Erosion control contract is almost complete. Contractor is finishing a few minor change orders. He has submitted the cost estimate for slope stabilization along the borrow pit along the south arm.
    Received the revised proposal for lease of the storage building and forwarded it to Ed. He is in process of preparing the lease document for signature

    OPTICS/COC/SEI INSTALLATION: During COS installation we observed that ITM-y moving around quite a bit, ~150u-rad. As we could find no reason for this we elected to remove its Osems in situ and look for stowaway magnets. In the process, a magnet was bumped and dislodged necessitating the removal of the LOS. We will do this afternoon, and once in the lab remove all standoffs, guide rods and magnets. They must be replaced, and the optic balanced. We plan to get it in the oven this Saturday, permitting us reinstall it late next week. This will delay the completion of the COS installation until ITM-y is reinstalled. Mike Smith will tutor us before he departs this week, so that we can begin alignment of the ITM-y PO telescope as soon as the ITM is reinstalled. (Jonathan Kern)
     
    PSL:We glued together a new Pre Mode Cleaner and installed it. We can get 87% throughput with a 2 lens mode matching. We will continue to measure the performance of this new pre-mode cleaner. We also glued together a spare reference cavity with a PZT on one mirror.
    We will use this as an analyzer cavity to measure the frequency noise out of loop from the main reference cavity.(Joe Kovalik)
     


    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

    2km Commissioning

    David Shoemaker, Rai Weiss, Rana Adhikari
    Focussed on the fine-tuning of the LHO recycled and non-recycled michelson interferometer.
  • Diagonalized the ITMs to get good piston motion with minimal pitch and yaw
  • balanced the ITMx and ITMy actuators to obtain more pure differential and common mode motions
  • adjusted RF demodulation phase to optimize the separation of common and differential mode motions
  • Suspensions

    Janeen Romie
    Working procurement of new osem parts and design of new osem fixtures. Fixture for mounting boards was submitted to CES tuesday, 7/25. The short boards are here. The long boards have been delayed until 8/15. Five old heads went to LHO for cleaning and baking.

    Input Optics

    Dave Ottaway, et al.
    At LHO preparation is underway to commence the cleaning, gluing and the suspension  of the IOO 4K Optics. Optics preparation will begin today.

    Posts for in-vacuum Faraday isolator, a lens-holder-adapter, and a mirror mount standoff for the periscope were shipped this week to Hanford.

    David Tanner and Malik Rakhmanov will be at Hanford starting July 31 to continue the 4k installation

    Suspension Electronics

    Jay Heefner
    Justin Lopez has completed testing 3 SOS controller chassis (6 boards) and they will be shipped to LHO by 7/28 for installation in the portable suspension test stands used to support the LHO 4K optics installation.

    PSL

    Peter King
    A new integrated PSL/IO optical layout for the LHO 4k IFO is being worked out.  The currently implemented IO optical path is approximately 6m long, the one being worked on reduces this to 1.5m.  I am trying to see if the layout can actually be implemented on the table, given the way some items are mounted.  Once completed I would like to run the proposed optical path through the concerned parties.  In summary, the proposed path removes 6 or 8 mirror mounts and at least 1 lens.  Whether the scheme is practical or not is yet to be determined.

    1.2 LLO INSTALLATION & COMMISSIONING

    Input  Optics

    Sany Yoshida, Haisheng Rong, Malik Rakhmanov
    This week Sany, Malik and Haisheng continued preparing IO in-vacuum installation and alignment.

    During the MC alignment, MC2 was found to be out of balance more than the SUS controller could compensate for. We removed MC2 from the HAM and rebalanced it in the vacuum-prep lab to a balance angle less than 0.5 mrad. It's now being vacuum baked and is scheduled to be released on 7/28. Along with this optic, five 2" mirrors for the SOS optical levers, glass baffles for MC1 and 2, and a glass beam dump are in the same bake load.

    We found that electrostatic charge on the mirror could cause the balance angle changes at various stages of the installation. A compact electrostatic fieldmeter and tester for measuring static charge potentials and testing ionizing devices have been located (thanks to Helena) and are being ordered to study and eventually solve this problem.

    Mark Barton, et. al. discovered MC1 controller's pitch invert does not work. Russ is working on it.

    Core Optics Support (COS)

    Ken Mailand, Mike Smith, et. al.
    No report recieved.

    PSL

    Peter King
    Fabrication of a new pre-modecleaner for LLO has been completed. The new PMC and its new mounting base has been installed on the PSL table. The single mode-matching lens has been replaced by a pair of mode-matching lenses.  At present the PMC visibility (1 - locked / unlocked) is 86%.  Some more alignment tweaking will be tried.

    LSC/ASC Electronincs

    Jay Heefner
  • We have completed testing of all boards for the LLO ASC controls. They will be shipped by 7/28.
  • Jay is producing the drawings and cross connect lists for the one arm test system controls.
  • Suspensions

    Mark Barton
    I've been working at LLO with Josh Smith to further develop the suspension controller tuning procedure. We did a fair bit of debugging on various optics to find one that worked reliably enough to use. MC1 had OSEMs plugged in wrongly inside the chamber (which we fixed) and non- functional invert switches on the controller display. SM1 had non- functional gain sliders on the controller display. ETMx and ETMy had missing controllers. We ended up going back to MC3. This had been tuned earlier but needed to be redone following the upgrade of its controller. We have taken some data with all five OSEM sensors and all four controller monitor signals and are analysing it to double check that the input gains suggested by the software really do diagonalize the physical monitor signals.

    LLO Passcal Seismic Array

    Szabi, Keisha Williams (SURF)
    The cross section of a typical vault is shown at :
    http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~smarka/Passcal_1_0.pdf
    The effect of shallow underground installation on temperature stability is well illustrated by:
    http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~smarka/Vault_Temp.pdf
    The test vault is very similar to the one on the drawing but lacks the internal structure, which will strongly improve performance.

    2.0 Other Engineering and Scientific Activities

    2.1 Design/Analysis/Fab

    PSL

    Peter King
    Quotations for the fabrication and delivery of the reference cavity vacuum chamber and vibration isolation stack should be in by week's end. The quotation from REO for a reference cavity has come in, with the cost increasing by $600 since the last time reference cavities were purchased (about a year ago).

    The 40m Lab PSL optical layout is still being worked on, with the aim of minimizing the optical paths.

    ISC fab

    Matt Smith
    Finished the subassembly work and kitting of the two ETM transmission monitor assembly and shipped them to Hanford.  They are due to arrive on Friday.

    Placed the order for 6 (six) support piers for the photon calibrator. It is only a 2-3 week lead time(other vendors were 8 weeks).  I received three no bids for the enclosure part of the assembly, so I have to rethink how I am going to enclose the assembly.

    Supplied Doug Cook with the mounting hole locations for the Photon Calibrator.

    COC Metrology

    GariLynn Billingsley, Michael Hrynevych
    ETMs 1 and 2 were shipped to Hanford 7-21.

    4ITM04 is 2/3 through the measurement process in the metrology lab.  The temperature is holding well even through this hot weather.

    Linda Turner is in the process of putting all of the COC data packages on line.  What a huge chore, thanks Linda!!

    LSC Electronics

    Dale Ouimette, Mohana Mageswaram, Flavio Nocera
    We have circulated a block diagram of the Mode Cleaner Servo upgrade and received lots of helpful input. Mohana is incorporating the changes into the block diagram and will recirculate it before she starts a detailed design. Dale is modeling circuit configurations to meet the noise requirements. Some progress has been made on the photodiode redesign and DC driver circuit. Paul has almost completed the schematic for the rack mount Differential Driver/Receiver. He has ordered and received a sample of the 1U high chassis that he will use. Flavio has completed testing of the GPS Clock Driver and Fanout boards except for the VME address testing which Dale will complete this week.

    Peter Fritschel
    Worked with Dale on the re-design of the mode cleaner length/frequency controls electronics. Compared to the (much modified) existing servo, the new MC servo will have lower noise (so it doesn't compromise the frequency noise), wider bandwidth (so we can attain a larger unity-gain-frequency), and have more built-in features that we have come to desire (such as a gain stage resonant at the first stack frequency; differential inputs and outputs for interfacing to other systems). Some of the filters have also been modified, mostly to achieve a more stable crossover between the MC length and PSL frequency control paths.

    Modulated OSEM Design

    Jay Heefner
    We have recreated Rai's supressed carrier circuit at Caltech and are beginning to test it. Once tests are completed a full design of a satellite module using the circuit will be done.

    OSEM Actuator Characterization

    Peter Fritschel
    One of our summer undergraduates, Olivier D'Arcy, has been making a spatial map of the force coefficient of the coil-magnet transducers that we use on all of our suspended optics. An interesting result so far is that the maximum force coefficient along the coil axis varies from 16-17 mN/Amp for 4 magnets tested; this is significantly smaller than the 20 mN/Amp number that has been promulgated and been the basis of modeling/calculations. It also goes a long way to explaining the (35%) discrepancy between the measured response of the LHO 2km ITMx to a longitudinal drive signal and the expected response. Olivier will issue a full report on his measurements in 3-4 weeks.

    Digital Suspensions

    Jay Heefner
  • We have received the suspension photodiode whitening and interface boards for the digital suspension system. They are being stuffed and tested.
  • Jay and Rolf have completed the document that describes the digital LOS and SOS controls to be implemented on the LHO 4K. It will be released for review this week. Dennis would like to schedule a design review for some time next week or the week after.
  • Diagnostics test tool

    Daniel Sigg
    A new version of the diagnostics test tool has been installed at LHO including the following additional features:
  • swept sine points and amplitude envelopes can now be specified  by specifying and ascii file,
  • plot settings are now preserved between measurements,
  • plot settings are now saved to/restored from file,
  • plot settings can be assigned a name for later recall,
  • new import/export for ascii/binary and xml files,
  • possibility to define reference traces which are not deleted when a new measurement is started,
  • calibration corrections can now be applied to traces and physical units are automatically added to the axes,
  • an editor for calibration corrections was added, it can handle slope, offset, time delays, pole-zero transfer functions, units which are time derivatives (e.g., m->m/s) and spectral density unit scaling,
  • calibration records can be read from/written to file as xml, and
  • the data input has been made compatible with NDS protocol version 11.
  • DMT

    John Zweizig
    On July 14th I installed release 1.2 of the DMT software on the observatory DMT machines. The new version includes an enormous number of changes and bug fixes made since about last march as well as several contributions from LSC members and new versions of root (v2.25-00) and FrameCPP (ldas 0.0.11). Although the new versions root and FrameCPP have some incompatibilities with existing binaries (root has changed the parameter list of some functions and the new FrameCPP writes only format 4 frames) I decided that it was better to bite the bullet at this time rather than to spread the conversion over several releases. The result is that I spent a good part of last week working with DMT users to get back to where they were on July 13th and fixing newly found bugs.

    I also worked with Sergei Klimenko at LHO to install his Wavelet-based Line removal code into the DMT libraries and with Christine to install some free-ware (including root) on the LHO license server.

    Finally I updated the online documentation to describe a few features that were undocumented or inadequately documented.

    Modelling

    Bill Kells
    More work (simulations) on the 40m recycling "paper.
    Erika is back: beginning to talk gravy.

    2.2 Issues Concerns

    Optical Lever Lasers

    Mike Zucker, Ken Mason
    I just got the final quotation for the replacement lasers.  Based on our discussions last week they took an interesting tack on reliability by offering graduated pricing.  We are evaluating the options.


    40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)




    Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)



     

    Seiji Kawamura is visiting from Japan, and has been spending much of his
    time working with us on the TNI, which has been great.  Seiji helped us
    implement a substantially improved crossover in our mode cleaner lock,
    having the laser follow the mode cleaner at high frequencies and the mode
    cleaner follow the laser at low frequencies.  The mode cleaner now locks
    very well and is nearly in its final configuration.  Seiji also tried
    removing both our PSL and our broadband Pockels cell as an experiment in
    simplifying the interferometer.  The system seems to work quite well
    without them, although we haven't yet determined the noise performance of
    the different locking schemes.
     

    We have also been assembling our test cavities, with the goal of installing
    one of them while Seiji is here.  The physics shop finished our
    magnet-gluing jig, and we glued magnets and wire standoffs on one of the
    mirrors (an end test mass).  We have also been verifying and debugging our
    test-cavity OSEM controllers, and designing a satellite amplifier to go
    between our old-style controllers and our newer sensor-actuator heads.
     

    The photothermal experiment is going well also.  We have assembled the
    upgraded version, and we have both the pump beam and the probe beam
    resonating in the test cavity, with the laser locked to the cavity using
    the probe beam.  We are now in the process of hunting down noise sources.
     


    LASTI (Zucker)


    Mason:

    Seismic Isolation
    We have done an inventory of the seismic isolation parts currently in
    the LASTI lab. Basically we are missing all hardware (both in vacuum and
    out), The stack springs, seats, shims, scissor tables and translator
    assemblies.

    The first installation of a full HAM isolation with stack is sceduled to
    begin 9/11/00. Rich Reisen is shipping the LLO fixtures and will be
    supplying assistance with the assembly. In place of the scissor tables
    and translators we will be using dummies and adapters from the first
    installations in Hanford.
     

    Zucker:

    Working on text description of experiment plan proposal and control
    configuration diagrams for LASTI displacement measurement interferometer.

    Assisted Ken Mason with parts tracking and logistics for SEI
    installation staging.

    Shoemaker:

    Delivered second iteration of LASTI project plan to Tom Frey for
    incorporation in overall LIGO II development plan.


    Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)



     

    Simulation and Modeling

    LHO

    More on the work done last week by Biplab, Rick and Brad.
    They are looking into various noise sources of PSL using e2e.
    Noise sources included are:
    (1) shot noise, specially by the higher order mode (reference
          has very small TEM00 light reflected)
    (2) noise caused by the guoy phase change due to the
         longitudinal motion of the detector (waist size is
         very small and small longitudinal motion could cause
         larger effect than large size field)
    (3) finite aperture size of the detector which introduce
         noise coming from the higher order module due to
         the coupling of TEM00 and even higher order modes.

    Lock Acquisition

    A bug was found in the simulation code related to the misalignment
    of the mirror. This needs to be fixed to evaluate the effect of mirror
    misalignments on the locking procedure. Biplab is looking into it.

    Adlib

    Three new supports were added. One is a support of macro. Throughout
    the configuration, one can use a descriptive name, like armLength, in
    stead of numerical values. A file named e2eDB.dat is used to keep
    macro definitions, (name, value, unit and comment). System wide macro
    file containing major LIGO parameters will be provided, but the user
    can have his/her own in their directory, which can override the system
    wide definition.
    Second, anywhere numerical values are allowed, mathematical expression
    is allows, like 2*atan(L/z0), or sin(PI/3+eps), this makes it much
    easier to
    enter numbers and understand the meaning of it.
    Third, a new primitive group FUNC has been introduced. This primitive
    can be used to almost arbitrary math manipulations of multiple inputs
    to multiple outputs. Sometimes, simple math needs very complex module
    connections, but it is over now.

    Computing

    sargas, our main compute server, was very busy this week by many users'
    heavy
    use, and building the simulation engine and GUI program took so long.
    This makes development/debugging works very difficult, not to mention
    the
    simulation run itself. As a temporal solution, we are looking into using
    those
    ldas group computer (Pentium) which are not used now.

    LIGO Data Analysis System

  • Software Systems (Blackburn)

  • Kent reports that the LDAS software environment has been successfully built and installed and is operational (in its present state of development) at Penn State and Milwaukee.

    The development activities for the dataConditionAPI dominated the activities
    within the group this week. Next week is the Mock-Data-Challenge (MDC) for
    this subset of LDAS. We have successfully integrated the C++ code jointly
    authored by CIT, PSU, UTB, and ANU with TCL and created a dataConditionAPI
    LDAS API that is now running within the LDAS system here at CIT. Only a limited
    number of actions are fully supported at this time, but the plan is to have
    the full compliment of actions needed to support the MDC ready by start of
    business on Monday. Earlier problems with the datacon quad Pentium III box
    seem to have cleared up for undefined reasons by mid week. We will continue
    to watch this unit and keep the dataConditionAPI running prior to the MDC to
    assess any further Unix level problems. The dataConditionAPI MDC will begin
    Monday Morning with an 8:30AM kick-off meeting with the LDAS group.

    The wrapperAPI was successfully run on the small 16 CPU cluster here at CIT
    this week. It was only run with a very small CPU load on each slave. A bug
    was found which caused heavy loading of the slaves to fail during comunication
    of results back to the master. This problem is being fixed and we will re-
    test the wrapperAPI with heavier loading of slaves. Results of the first
    runs of the wrapperAPI on the beowulf showed several interesting things:
    The 333MHz dual pentium II nodes are 3x faster than a 700MHz dual pentium III
    unit recently purchased (this may be a linux kernel configuration issue). Also,
    the tests indicate that the wrapperAPI, even though it is performing at close
    to the expected rate on each slave is rapidly becoming communication bound when
    the load on each slave is a small as current code is supporting. Attempts to
    identify why the wrapperAPI is not running at UWM have not turned up any
    possible explanation. However, the wrapperAPI was successfully run on a unique
    platform other than the developer's environment this week. Efforts will now
    focus on removing the bugs which constrain the amount of loading of the slaves
    and reducing the comminication overhead for sending results back to the master.

    A test script which starts each LDAS API up and measures CPU and memory
    utilization has successfully be tested on a single workstation. It will now
    be upgraded to allow remote startup of APIs and logging of results in a
    standard format which will allow the next generation of the script to
    automatically compare current test results to previous results and in an
    even later version, to be able to produce trend results for these API tests.

    LDAS staff also worked on the new CDS DAQs system installation at Hanford and
    added a new frame reader to the NDS which supports the latest version of the
    C++ Frame I/O library (FrameCPP).

    Another area of focus this past week has been on improving the build process
    for LDAS software. Attempts to build the system at outside facilities have
    resulted in lots of feedback and identification of subtle issues which have
    tremendous impact on the successful build of the software elsewhere. A new
    link has been added to the LDAS webpages which is slowly beginning to
    capture all the information necessary to successfully build ldas software.

     
  • Hardware Systems (Anderson)

  •  

     

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

    In preparation for MDC:
    Installed new ftp daemon on ldas-dev.
    Added and stabilized an external ethernet interface for datacon.
    Added mdc account to datacon.

    Reconfigured procurement gnats:
    Turned off default view access.
    Added suspended state.
    Added lazz to notify list.
    Correcting bug which is forcing unintended changes upon any editing.

    Reconfigured ldas gnats:
    to provide Peter and Isaac edit capabilities.
    Creating testing category.

    Dropped new/re-dropped Cat 5 cables to and reorganized other aspects of
    the Millikan machine room.

    Installing apache on the new ldas.ligo-wa
    Installing mpich into ldcg.

    Upgraded:
    datacon with all applicable updates except kernel.
    linuxbox1 with all applicable updates which also created problems with
    sshd.

     
  • Data Analysis Activities
  • Jeff Edlund (FCT):
    This week I tested the new implementation of the Fast Chirp Transform
    (FCT) by confirming that each of the output rows had the same amount of
    power. I also improved the timing code that we use to test the speed of
    the implementation. Rick Jenet and I had a discussion about the FCT in
    which we discussed how to make the implementation easier to use for
    arbitrary phase functions.  We also discussed possible ways to parallelize
    the FCT algorithm.
     

    General Computing


    MIT:
    Received the new disk drive system.

    Livingston:
    Nothing to report.

    Hanford:
    (Christine)
    Continued installing new software on the license server.  Started
    organizing computers and hubs for the staging building for the LSC
    conference.  Set up two new PCs and ordered more PCs.

    CIT:
    (Sam)
    - Patched all the sun boxes that I could with the patch necessary for star
    office. This is in preparation for staroffice installation on the network.
    - Installed a new switch box. Installed the basic s/w on a couple of PC's.
    - Worked on documentation
    - Worked on minor pc problems
    - Worked on the purchase of various pieces of equipment for general user usage.

    (Barbara)
    - Continued working on the web forms for LSC documents.  Installed new
    forms and web pages on the public server.  Tweaked the Access forms and
    reports.  Updated the backup script. Spent time tracking down and fixing a
    bug that Norna Roberston reported.
    - Continued working on costbook reports, both the printed and web versions.
    - Made miscellaneous changes to the LDAS web site and LIGO site.

    (Lisa)
    -Did a flash prom updated on graffias (ultra2).  We know have an entry in our
    faq detailing how to do that.
    -Backups.  On our daily and weekly backups we can no longer fit everything on
    one tape.  I've been looking at the scripts running on rastaban.  At this point,
    I think our best solution is to split the backup across 2 tapes for the dailys.
    The weekly's would need to be scheduled off a different host -- probably mizar,
    until we can get the new tape robot on line.
    - Started the monthly backups this morning.  We have 5 drives going at full
    force.  I am testing out our new portable tape drive, so we will have 6 drives
    devoted to the monthly once I get it up.
    - Documented the monthly backup procedure.  I renamed the scripts to be more
    obvious.  I have a chart of what goes where.  I have not yet added comment lines
    to the scripts themselves or dropped a readme file in the directory, but I will
    as soon as I'm certain that everything has worked well.
    - Created some new accounts. I have a checklist now of what to do when creating
    a new account.
    - Got a quote from Cisco for the remote access router 3640.
    - Learned how to add users to the dial-up pool.

    (Larry)
    - It appears that most of the SUN equipment will start shipping the first of
    August. We are working on the logistics for all of the equipment that will have
    to be assembled and installed.
    - Working with Lisa on a number of projects including: Single mode fiber to
    Multimode converter installation at Wilson House, new backup scripts and
    procedures, installation of Cadence, getting a new modem pool unit to allow
    higher connection rates and allow a smother transition to digital services.
    - The licenses for Office 2000  have arrived but we are still waiting for media
    and reference material. Barbara and Larry will be doing some of the
    upgrades/installations but most will be done by Samantha.
    - Another virus has popped up, it infects word and excell documents. Basically
    it causes characters in the documents to no longer be visible on the screen. The
    latest virus-scan s/w does fix the problem documents.
    - Working a number of minor purchases and contracts.
    - Resolved a number of PC and SUN issues for different labs.
    - Still working budget issues.

    Bruce Sears:
    - Discussed latest on VRVS with Julian Bunn, contacted Harvey Newman, et al
              about setting up a demo of the system at HEP.
    --


    LIGO II/Advanced R&D (Sanders)


    Nergis Mavalvala
     

    We have begun revisiting the modal model, implementing the signal
    extraction mirror
    for alignment sensing for the LIGO 2 ifo (with Daniel).
     
     

    Peter King
    LIGO II PSL
    A second draft of the LIGO-II WBS Dictionary is being worked on.
    At present I'm having some difficulty, mentally at least, separating the
    parts of the PSL from the parts of the LIGO-II Laser given that the current
    PSL conceptual design calls for a laser pre-modecleaner
     

    Bill Kells
    Some considerations of LIGO II thermal/sapphire issues.
    Some consideration of the 40m (upgrade) configuration (optics).
     

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

    LIGO II coating activities:
    Received coated samples from GO.
    They experienced a deposition monitor failure during the run that caused the coating to peek at 1100.8 instead of 1064.
    They used Ta2O5 and Al2O3 as coating materials.
    The plan is to send the samples to Stanford to be characterized for absorption. The high transmission (500ppm +) restricts the ability to evaluate them at Caltech.
    Received coated samples from MLD. Jordan will look at them.
    Confirmed meetings with JM Mackowski (Virgo) and R. Lalezari (REO) to discuss their possible involvement with LIGO II coatings.

    From: Mike Zucker <mike@ligo.mit.edu>

    LIGO II ISC:

    Met with proposal ISC team to flesh out controls implementation
    features, and principally, differences with respect to direct LIGO I
    scaling of electronics and networking.  Discussion flushed out a need
    for converter, DSP and filter development activities, which were then
    added to the WBS.

    Reviewing (with P. Fritschel and others) the gamut of proposed DR/RSE
    modulation & sensing schemes presented by Mason, Delker, ANU etc. to
    develop an "envelope concept;" a superset which (by brute force) can
    very probably be made to work (though perhaps not elegantly or
    efficiently).  This can thus stand in (e.g., for costing and planning
    purposes) while the search for the best design continues.  Meanwhile we
    expect more progress in that search from the configuration meeting week
    after next (@ MIT) and the LSC meeting the following week (@ LHO).

    Also started discussing (with S. Richman and J. Giaime) the effect of
    likely residual RMS motion of SEI platforms upon various IFO degrees of
    freedom, to try and roughly bound loop gain requirements (loop gains in
    turn drive noise couplings for auxiliary degrees of freedom, a big
    discriminator between readout schemes).
     

    LIGO II AOP:

    Working (with R. Lawrence) on requirements basis for LIGO II adaptive
    optics compensation.
     

    From: Phil Willems <willems@ligo.caltech.edu>

    Fused silica fibers/ribbons:
    ----------------------------

    Experimented with a variety of torches in order to find one that is optimal for
    fused silica ribbon pulling.  None so far are ideal. (John Johnson, Phil
    Willems)

    Built and tested electrostatic driver for fiber Q tests.  Found many of the
    lowest-order modes of a test fiber using ESD and quad PD readout.  Built a
    mounting clamp for fiber Q tests. (Virginio Sannibale, Phil Willems)

    Hydroxy-catalysis bonding:
    --------------------------

    Received shipment of new fused silica substrates from GO for more bonding tests.
    Prepared two more bonds for a loading test. (Helena Armandula)
     

    From: Janeen Hazel <romie_j@ligo.caltech.edu>
    Suspensions - Thursday, July 27, 2000

    Working on LIGO II Proposal.

    From: "Ryan C. Lawrence" <rclawren@ligo.mit.edu>

    Active Thermal Compensation

    This week I put together a quick and dirty servo loop to intensity
    stabilize the CO2 laser.  With the now-steady beam, I've begun taking
    measurements of the impulse response of the test optic.  On the simulation
    side, I'm just about done finding the correcting OPD's (for a ring
    heater actuating on fused silica optics of various sizes) to be included
    in Melody.  I've got Phil working on a finite element model to find the
    bulk impulse response of an optic (thermoelastic effects, in particular).
    He's also working on improving the intensity stabilization of the CO2
    laser.  Dave is working on analyzing the ring heater data, and is now
    taking more data at higher heater power.

    From: GariLynn Billingsley <Billingsley_G@ligo.caltech.edu>

    There was a meeting at Veeco last week to discuss upgrades/options for the IR interferometer used in the Metrology lab.  Veeco will quote, by August 16 2000:
    1. Implementation of an external laser source, fiber coupled to the instrument
    2. Installation of a 10 bit or better digital IR camera.  A camera has not been identified, this may turn out to be a research project.
    3. Stepping the initial phase for averaging of multiple data sets.  Analysis indicates that data may be strongly dependent on initial phase, because of the non-sinusoidal fringes in the HR-HR cavity.
    4. Raising the resonant frequency of the pellicle by replacing it with a smaller aperture pellicle.  To completely eliminate the pellicle would require an entire re-design of the package.

    New systems (which include #1 already) cost ~180K

    Veeco was able to answer some questions about the sensitivity of their instruments to vibration. The following picture shows the sensitivity to vibration (out to 50 Hz) of a Veeco interferometer. The series are different phase unwrapping algorithms. Ours is the 12 frame (blue) The file is posted at:
    http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~gari/Supporting/VeecoVib.JPG
    This is not the same instruments as ours (though similar.) This is the work of Joanna Schmit at Veeco

    The second 15 cm x 8 cm piece of sapphire shipped to CSIRO for homogeneity measurement.
     

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

    Removal ongoing, IP mostly rebuilt.

    Welcoming Francesco.

    Chenyang
    Measuring Q factor of mirror actuator LC circuit in different way to
    offset effect of oscilloscope’s cable stray capacitance.
    Actuator’s report OK except for figure captions.
     

    Akiteru, Szabi
    Characterising TAMA IP, optimizing shaker
    Obtained 60 dB at low frequency, plateau at >=40 dB at high frequency
    (above 4to5 Hz). Non fully optimized counterweights and accelerometer
    transversal sensitivity may be limiting performance.
     

    Alessandro.
    Electropolishing of 5000 series aluminum OK on samples but not good in
    2000 series. Consequently the 4 accelerometers are being machined out of
    CuBe where electropolishing is much easier.  R/O Electronics proceeding
    OK.
     

    Hareem
    Measured Q of 50 at 170 mHz on GASFs, Q vs. Frequency curve almost
    ready.
    Thermal drift measurement setup almost rebuilt for further tests and
    bimetal blade compensator tests.
     

    Soy
    Assembled U.S. isolated stressable blade for US acoustic emission
    measurement.
    Verified isolation from external noises, debugging signal, preparing
    triggers optimised for high frequency US events.  DAQ through digital
    tektronics scope on HF and LF band contemporarily.  Francesco will
    assist on DAQ programme.
     

    Lisa
    Found some correlation between in oven/out of oven temperature.
    Breakdown in oven air re-circulation system repaired.  Starting
    measurement of LVDTs inside oven but Windows is unstable; possibly a
    virus?  Virginio prescribed reinstallation and purging of all junk
    programs.  Temperature DAQ new version, LVDT acquisition with Labview
    with Soy’s assistance.
     

    Susha
    Back in the dark with MGASF simulation, Francesco that discussed the
    problem with Giancarlo will help.
     

    Gilberto
    Delivered the 3+1 LVDT in+outside the oven.  A (different) LVDT broken
    needs rewinding.
    Some connection problems with R/O cables and electronics.
     

    James
    Reproduced Kenji’s 50+ db transfer function for 1.5 mm MGASF as before
    first visible resonance above 100 Hz, Blade’s internal resonance not
    transmitted to payload by blade’s symmetry.  Going for vertical to
    horizontal coupling studies.
    Soon will need single wire suspension to replace the present 3 garage
    spring geometry.
     

    Virginio
    Always spread thin.
    Not received yet VME crate, last missing part to complete second DSP
    acquisition chain.
     

    Brett, Virginio
    PCB for stepping motors debugging, ready for production of 20 boards end
    of week.
     

    Riccardo
    IP mechanics, stepping motor installation.
     

    Szabi
    Re-aligning LIGO IP after removal, investigating sources of small leg’s
    misalignements, mostly on the support plate or the base towers and in
    the flex joints themselves, not in the legs.
     

    From: Sam Richman <srichman@ligo.mit.edu>
    Stiff isolation system (Sam Richman, Shourov Chatterji, Wensheng Hua, Brian Lantz)
     

    The low-frequency tilt-horizontal coupling seen in the prototype is not (mainly) due to transverse forces from the actuators, as we had previously guessed.  It is the anistropic nature of the blade springs, together with the fact that flexures for horizontal compliance are mounted vertically offset from the blade tips by a significant amount, that causes a coupling to tilt when a stage moves horizontally.  Sam continues to work on controllers using the integrated sensors, and Shourov is testing the new cooler (temp. and otherwise) forcer drivers.  W. Hua and B. Lantz (Stanford) have been modeling tilt-hor. effects in the prototype.
     


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