Weekly Report for Week Ending October 5, 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  October 9, 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   Topics:
 

Special Items:


Special Announcements:


Weekly Report Highlights
 


LSC Issues (Weiss)


No report.


LIGO I Construction/LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)


WBS 1.2 LIGO Operations--Administration


LIGO Weekly Site Telecon (Lindquist)

A site teleconference was held on Thursday, October 5, 2000.

Next week the agenda will include a discussion of the model for the sites for 24-7 staffing to support operations.  Budgetary and safety implications will be discussed.  The meeting will be attended by LIGO and Caltech safety personnel.

We met on October 3rd to discuss the FY 2001 and FY2002 budget requests.  Several integration issues remain open:

The list of current actions revised to reflect open actions assigned through September 28, 2000 may be found at ACTION LIST.

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>
Packages Faxes
In 49 41
Out 32 33

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>

Working on the change order and setting up the file for Hytec, and Sydney Meshkov (new consultant contract) in addition to continuing to close FY99
POs.

Attended the meeting with the Washington State tax auditor along with Ed and am working on gathering data and invoices on the general use computers.

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>



Support (Wood)
 
Irene Baldon
·Twenty-eight (28) new trips were started and four (4) trips are pending final approval from the traveler before tickets can be issued.
·The P-Cards are working great.Everyone seems to be happy with it.The Expense Report to be used for P-Card trips is still being "worked on" and continues to be a problem for everyone, not just me but also by the travelers who have used it.Criselda and I are working to have the form improved and converted to FileMaker Pro which is much more user friendly.
·I prepared a few Advance Requests and Payment Requests using the old system due to various reasons which excluded them from the new system.Any trip that was started in the old system, or any canceled/postponed tickets being reused on a new trip, must be done using the old system.Again I can't tell you why.Travel Audit just wants it that way.

·Worked on, and completed twenty-six (26) Expense Reports.I have twenty-nine (29) outstanding reports at the present time.Rita Torres has taken six (6) reports to work on.

·Prepared the Travel/Vacation Itinerary for the Week of October 2, 2000.Performed normal recording and filing associated with Travel and Reimbursement.Worked on several problem issues with Travel Audit.Also performed miscellaneous duties as requested by various members ofthe LIGO Project here at Caltech as well as from members of the staffs of each of the two (2) sites.I continue to do MIT's travel to the sites for installation activities and also to assist them wherever possible. I also have experienced, in addition to network shutdowns, a problem with my computer going down for no apparent reason.Larry Wallace has been informed and he has called for repairs. 

Dorothy Lloyd

·Received billed amounts on-line, to close out and remove remaining encumbrances on old POs. Adjusted LIGO database accordingly.

·Managed to do some miscellaneous filing and continue to work on PO Log books.

·Processed the usual 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.

·Reviewed and recorded payments processed by Esther for the week of September 25, on contract summary sheets and LIGO database.

·Continue to monitor contract and blanket order funding levels and notified task managers when supplements are needed.

·Jim continues to do data entry in the LIGO database and help out in the DCC.

Rita Torres

·Formatted MOU, Attachment C & Z to Southern University and A&M College, Baton Rouge.Prepared to send via FedEx various MOU documents to the universities for signature: Syracuse, Carleton College, LA Tech, VIRGO, IAP.Formatted some of these (including Dominquez Hills) from email to conform to the established Frame format.Scanned signed documents for the LSC web page.Chased some errant information to update web posting.Final updates (minor edits) to LSC roster.

·Continued preparation of letters to IFB holders receiving IFB EJ-319, Staging Building & Renovations to Existing Building at LIGO Livingston.At the same time updated the bid holders list as new names were added.Did Amendment No. 1, and subsequent Amendment No. 2 to EJ-319.

·For P. Lindquist assembled Amendments to the Cooperative Agreement in preparation for review by LIGO management.Scanned these documents as well so that .pdf version will be available for planning the next document.

·For F. Asiri obtained copies of 3 sets (10pps/set) of drawings.Coordinated eye exams for three people, prepared a new form for these appointments.The new form bears address and directions to the new offices of Pasadena Eye Medical Group.

·Distributed to administrative personnel the overdue LIGO Personnel Roster.

·Re-input a requisition to correct some errors.For Detector group, helped make corrections to a technical paper.

·Collected personal requests/money for issues of Sky & Telescope and Astronomy for LIGO enthusiasts.Passed these on to E. Wood.Did site trip updates and Pcard reconciliation.Chased documentation for a credit I was unaware took place.

Elizabeth K. Wood

·Prepared a proposal to the NSF for the 20001 Aspen Winter Conference on Gravitational Waves for Syd.And yes, it’s in TeX.It looks lovely.

·If you noticed any discrepancies in your vacation/sick leave on last week’s pay stub, rest assured it will be fixed on the next pay stub.(Now watch everyone frantically looking for their pay stubs to see if there was an error!)

·Attended a space survey meeting with PMA.No, my space survey meetings aren’t nearly as interesting as the astronomers.It was just a survey of the quantity of earth-bound space LIGO utilizes on campus and how we use it.

·Set up some last minute telecons using AT&T conference services.



Advanced LIGO (Frey, Petrac)

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

Progress Period from 9.29 to 10.5

Accomplishments:

Schedule 10.6 to 10.12: WBS 1.4.1.2   Project Controls (LIGO Construction)


Reports (Lindquist)

Change Control/Contingency (Lindquist)

The following Change Request has been submitted:
 

CR-000017 WBS 1.1.4 Design building for office space, laboratory space, and auditorium. Modify Staging building O. Matherny

Copies have been distributed via EMAIL and attached .pdf.

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>

Approval was granted by the NSF for the contract to pave the service roads at Hanford.   This contract will be to Inland Paving, Inc., for $215,000.

A pre-bid conference and job walk was held at Livingston for the new staging building.  Eight general contractors were represented.  The attendees were given an overview of the project, and then taken out to the building site itself.  Bids are still scheduled to be opened on Thursday, October 19.
 


LIGO Hanford Observatory (LHO) Operations (Raab)


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

No outstanding news this week. We are chasing a number of performance issues in the background of commissioning efforts and continuing to stage what we can for the 4K installation.
 


LIGO Livingston Observatory (LLO) Operations (Coles)



 

Vacuum: One of our two large backing pumps (which back the blowers) failed Wednesday during pumpdown of the LVEA. A detailed diagnosis has not yet been made, but some repair costs are certain. Evacuation continued with the remaining backing pump and is now being pumped with the turbo pump. Leak checking of the VE will begin as soon as pressure is suitable. (Sibley)

COC/SEI INSTALLATION: The vertex is closed and Allen began the pumpdown yesterday. We're spending this week doing housekeeping in the
LVEA. All 4 large cleanrooms are being moved to the backside of the beamtube, to clear the area for leak checking and cable pulling. We've
received new Optical Lever Lasers from MIT, and we'll replace those on MMT-3, the RM and BS. I'm going to leave the ITM OptLevs operating with
their original lasers, until we open each arm and acquire the beam at the ETMs. I want the leave the Vertex in good shape for the Commissioning Team,
so it looks like we may not make it to ETM-x until late next week. We received the spare bellows from LHO, as well as the 4 from HYTEC last week.
We cleaned on of the units which had been installed at HYTEC, and following a 48hr bake it passed. We'll clean the balance as time permits.
(Jonathan Kern)

CDS related: All field cables that go from 1X8 & 1X9 (ASC & LSC) to ISCT1, ISCT3 & ISCT4 have been fabricated. They will be installed after cleanup of IOT1.field cables that go from 1X8 & 1X9 (ASC & LSC) to ISCT1, ISCT3 & ISCT4 have been fabricated. They will be installed after cleanup of IOT1. (Rus Wooley)

GC: Added a cgi based search engine to our web server. Laura had been using a free service from hotbot.com but it frequently missed pages and would
come up with no results for searches. I think it is working great. Laura will be incorporating it into the LLO home page when she gets a
chance. There is a sample that you can try at http://abundance.ligo-la.caltech.edu/htdig/sample/search.html.
Received three quotes on an Exabyte tape robot for GC. We are looking at the Exabyte 220 with two mammoth tape drives. Tom, Christine, Larry and I
are discussing possible strategies for our GC servers to ensure limited downtime incase of a failure. We are debating on the best way to create redundancy in hardware, backups, etc. (Shannon Roddy)

CDS/LDAS: Assisted Rolf with a few tasks in the mass storage room. There is now a KVM switch on all of the computers in the CDS racks in the mass storage room with the exception of LLO1. Took care of a list of items for LDAS via Stuart's request. Still have some troubleshooting to do on one of
the LDAS linux machines. I suspect it has a bad hard drive. (Shannon Roddy)

Other: Approximately 20 students and faculty from the Univ. of New Orleans and from Loyola Univ. toured LIGO last Saturday.
 


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

Rai Weis, Richard McCarthy
Pick off photopreamplifiers: The ITMY pickoff is now properly labelled and consists of a standard LSC RF preamp using both the DC and the RF outputs. The optical configuration has been improved with the removal of a splitter so that now there is about 20 microwatts incident on the detector. The Beam splitter pickoff uses a nufocus photodetector and preamp. The alignment of this detector is more dubious since there is so little light. Using a chopper and lock-in amplifier there is a signal of 30 nanovolts rms developed at the DC output of the detector when illuminated by the beam splitter pick off light.

Peter Shawhan, Michael Landry, Richard McCarthy, Bill Butler, Dave Ottaway, et. al.
Following the re-leveling of the mode cleaner (in order to reduce the effect of the 14.7 Hz suspension vertical bounce mode on frequency/length; reported last week), an iris was found to be clipping the input beam (at the top of the periscope at the exit from the PSL/IO table), so the MC was re-leveled. Following the leveling of the MC, the output of the mode cleaner was no longer aligned to the recycling cavity or the arms, and needed re-alignment, with the suspended steering mirrors. Although this was accomplished, the alignment still needs further work. In addition, the position of the input beam was also varied in an attempt to optimize the coupling to the MC. (details of the final leveling).

Dick Gustafson
60 Hz and related power noise investigations. (details)

Bill Kells, Matt Evans
Most effort on trying to understand LHO 2k locking situation. Spent a lot of time running Matt's e2e aquisition code, and iterating back and forth with Matt on aspects of the code.

Input Optics

Jay Heefner
2 WFS PDs for the 4km IO have been tuned to 33 MHz and are in the final stages of calibration. They should be ready for shipment next week.

Malik Rakhmanov
Performed an independent calculation of Hanford 4k mode-matching. The results agree with those of Dave Ottaway: the projected  waist is 1.63 mm at a distance 7.51 m away from the PMC in the new PSL layout.

David Tanner
The reworked top block for the last SOS was shipped to LHO this week, along with some additional dowel pins.

PSL

Peter King, Lee Cardenas
  • A pre-modecleaner is currently being fabricated in the PSL Lab for eventual deployment at LHO.
  • Lee has been measuring the beam parameters, free-space propagation and M-squared for the LHO spare laser SN #107b.  The relative intensity noise of the laser was measured.  The laser is within the Lightwave specification, except for a small region around 10-13 kHz where the noise is about twice the specification.  As I recall, all the lasers exhibit this characteristic.
  • see also comments below regarding delivery of a PSL for the LHO 4km interferometer
  • Acoustical Isolation for the 2km PSL Enclosure

    Tom Mahood, Gerardo Moreno and Mark Gunther
    The bulk of the planned acoustical insulation has been installed within the enclosure of the 2k PSL. Before and after spectrum analyses utilizing the microphone within the PSL show a marked decrease in sound levels above 200 Hz (see elog for plot). Lower frequencies tend to pass fairly easily through the foam. At this point, it hasn't been determined if a similar drop is being produced in the mode cleaner noise, but earlier studies have shown the mode cleaner does reflect ambient noise conditions, so a drop would be expected.

    RF Distribution System

    Rai Weiss, Rich Abbott, Dick Gustafson, Richard McCarthy
    A survey of the RF levels in the LVEA was conducted (details). There is of order .2-.5 Vpp of RF on much of the 2X7, 2X8 electronics (the Mode cleaner and RF Generation sites, the 26Mhz modulation frequency is the most offensive (more details). Rich Abbott is working with Dick Gustafson and Richard McCarthy to get a solution to the RF radiation problem associated with the RF distribution system.

    ETMY Cleaning & Alignment Check

    Dick Gustafson, David Ottaway
    After opening gate valves, locked and aligned y-arm cavity to optimize transmission on QPDY. FMY was also trimmed, because of possible change in direction of the input beam due to the MC leveling. The pitch bias on ETMY (about 1/4 of previous value) indicates success in tweaking the PAMs. When the cavity was resonating, one point scatterer was still evident when viewing the optic face from the spool camera, possibly a point defect in the coating. Otherwise the optic looked clean, but a final determination will have to wait until the full interferometer can be locked and we get higher power in the arm.

    Core Optics Support (COS)

    Mike Smith, Lee Cardenas
  • 4k Faraday Isolator is being re-checked to improve the extinction and transmissivity characteristics.
  • A HAM2/3 Beam Dump assembly was delivered to CIT .
  • Received small baked parts from LHO, from which Lee will be able to put together the remaining (8) steering mirror mounts for the Telescope optical trains for the 4km interferometer.
  • Photon Calibrator

    Matt Smith, Doug Cook
    The machine shop making the photon calibrator support pier painted them last week with poor results; they will be repainted.  Helped Doug Cook relocate the mounting holes for the photon calibrator on the optical lever tables.  At the time of the optical lever table installation, the tolerance for their location was quite loose, which was acceptable.  I relocated the positions for them to match up with the table locations.

    LIGO-TriNet

    Szabi Marka
    The first phase of LHO seismic vault construction was finished. The fiberglass structure is buried, the floor and the seismic pier is in place. The next step is to install the lightning protection. (Thanks to Otto and his crew.)

    1.2 LLO INSTALLATION & COMMISSIONING

    MC Commissioning

    Peter Saulson, Joe Kavalik, Dave Reitze, Sany Yoshida, Haisheng Rong, Rich Riesen, Joe Giaime, et. al.
    Last Thursday (28 Sept) IOT1 was moved back into position. The periscopes were modified to allow the MC beams, which now exit in slightly different positions and angles, to be brought down to the table. The optics were aligned, and the mode cleaner was locked (in air.)
  • On Friday 29 Sept, the length of the mode cleaner was measured (details). The length was almost 700 microns away from the intended length (correcting for the index of the air.) MC2 was moved to adjust the length, and also to reduce its yaw misalignment. A second iteration was required on Monday 2 Oct, finally achieving the intended length to closer than 100 microns (details). The method to check the MC length (details in LLO e-log)  was to lock in p-pol, sweep the 24.5 MHz res. sideband EOM and look for the dip in the reflected light. After a few iterations of measuring and moving (correcting for the index of refraction in air), we got: L_mc = 12.23997 m +/- 50 um (target was 12.240 m). We discovered that the HAM table should be in *final* configuration when making the measurement. We checked the difference in res. freq. with the MC2 baffle in place and moved by ~ 20" toward the center of the HAM; led to a difference of ~ 300 Hz, qualitatively consistent in sign with the change in the suspension point of the optic. (more details)
  • Cavity visibility in air looks pretty good; the reflected light drops to 0.07 of incident power on resonance (no measure of T yet).
  • Rich Riesen and Sany rechecked the RFAM of the 24.5 MHz EOM after re-alignment to reoptimize mode matching to the MC.  The measured RFAM was in a range of 2.47e-5 ~ 3.35e-5 over a half day (sampled at random intervals).  A data logger is being set up to monitor constantly. (more details)
  • The vacuum system has now been buttoned up, and pump down has started. An in-vacuum check of the length is planned first, to be followed by a resumption of regular commissioning tasks.

    ASC

    Jay Heefner
    2 WFS PDs have been tuned to 61 MHz and are in the final stages of calibration. They should be shipped next week.

    LSC

    Jay Heefner
    25 elliptic filters have been received from Frequency Devices and have been installed on Anti-Image boards. The boards have been tested and will be shipped to LLO for installation in the LSC system.

    Anti-aliasing Filter

    Sander Liu, Paul Russell
    Built and tested one LEMO version chassis. Paul  shipped the unit to LLO on Tuesday.

    2.0 Other Engineering and Scientific Activities

    2.1 Design/Analysis/Fab

    Optical Lever Laser Replacement

    Mike Zucker
    The first shipment of new high-reliability optical lever sources (thermally regulated fibercoupled diode lasers) has arrived at Livingston. These will be phased in initially at the LLO end stations. A sample will also be tested at MIT. Assuming performance is acceptable, retrofitting of remaining LLO and LHO2k installations will be done as opportunities present to preserve fiducial references as much as possible. The LHO 4k will be initially equipped with the new lasers.

    Optical Metrology

    GariLynn Billingsley, Helena Armandula
    The Beamsplitter is mounted in the 45 degree incidence configuration.  We have one set of data, but it is suspect because the sag ramped continually throughout the set. We are waiting for another window of opportunity to take more data.  The lab temperature has been unstable this week, apparently due to large variations in chilled water pressure.

    PSL

    Peter King, Rick Karwoski
  • I have been working on a model for the modified current shunt in Simulink.  Thus far the pole-zero fit to the magnitude is okay but the calculated phase does not match the measurement obtained in the lab.  A loaner 10 MHz FFT dynamic signal analyzer arrived, which allows us to make measurements just that little bit further than what the Stanford SR785 FFT allows.  I hope to include the results from 100 kHz to 1 MHz in the model to try and get a better picture of the intensity stabilization.
  • The LHO spare laser, SN #107b, arrived on campus and was installed on the PSL Lab optical table.  SN #110 was shipped back to Lightwave Electronics for repair.  The rotary encoder for the laser power supply was replaced, following a failure that occurred some time ago.
  • Two current shunts, from lasers SN #109 and #107b, have been modified to include the high wattage resistor.
  • The paperwork for ordering the LASTI PSL phase modulators has been submitted. The costs to date incurred for fabrication of the 40m Lab PSL and LASTI PSL were submitted to Alan Weinstein.
  • We are currently formulating a plan to deliver a laser (light source) to Hanford, MIT and the 40m Lab to enable early IO installation activities and prior to delivery of a coplete PSL system.   Work is in process in the following areas.  We are:
  • Generating a listing of all OTS and custom components which make up the PSL
  • Assessing the parts situation for the custom modules
  • Making a determination of workload and resource requirements to build and test individual modules and assemble the PSL.
  • Making preliminary scheduling estimates
  • LSC Electronics

    Rich Abbott, Mohana Mageswaran, Flavio Nocero, Mike Zucker, Nergis Mavalvala, Peter Fritschel
  • The LSC group met at MIT for a status review and technical fact finding (in the wake of Dale's departure).
  • Prepared a prioritized list of  items and distributed the work among Rich, Todd, Mohana, and Flavio.
  • Set dates to support LSC commissioning activities at LLO: Rich, Jay and Flavio will be at LLO during the week of 23 Oct.
  • In the process of ordering parts for the Photo-detectors to use in the  LLO LSC.  Boards will be ready for the 23 Oct. installation and commissioning trip.
  • Finishing up the MC Servo re-design, and will be doing the PCB board layout end of this week.
  • Modulated OSEM Design

    Jay Heefner, Ben Abbott, Lori Robison
    The sample and hold noise subtration circuit is in final stages of testing, currently coupled to the bandpass circuit that Lori made, and noise testing to be
    finalized today.

    <<D. Coyne>> Jay et. al. expect to recommend one of the 3 circuit design concepts tested to date in about 1 week. We will then hold a techncial review before embarking on a final design and production.

    New OSEM Heads

    Janeen Romie
  • Surmet has not completed the heat treatment and UltraC-EC coating run yet on the Macor heads (which have been reworked to have larger radii on edges).
  • Placed an order for 2 IFOs-worth of alumina heads with Progressive Technology. They quoted the best price and delivery (of about 5 weeks.)
  • Digital Suspensions

    Jay Heefner
  • The schematics for the LOS coil driver are 80% complete and long lead parts have been ordered. Board layout should begin by the end of the week.
  • SOS dewhitening and coil driver designs are on hold for comments. Hopefully designs will be resumed by next week.
  • Data Monitoring Tool

    John Zweizig
    This week I worked more on the new PSL monitor and discovered and tracked down a few bugs in the process. My PSL monitor right now is looking very much like a generic device monitor, although much still needs finishing. It performs (or will perform) the few basic operations we decided would be useful for characterizing and monitoring the PSL, i.e.
  • Collect spectra. Optionally compare the spectra to a known good spectrum, or store it to the metadatabase.
  • Watch the RMS of specific frequency bands, write it to a trend file, and optionally generate triggers if the the goes above or below specified limits or increases by a specified absolute or fractional amount.
  • Look for glitches. Trend the number of glitches found in one second intervals, and optionally save a data snippet around the glitch.
  • All control parameters (channels, limits, time-spans, etc) are specified in a configuration file which can be changed easily as needed. Although the real power of the DMT comes in being able to tailor a monitor to look at specific properties of a given piece of equipments in unique ways, the generic operations used in this prototype monitor will likely be applicable to other parts of the LIGO apparatus.

    Tester for EO Shutter Controller

    Sander Liu
    In the process of building a stand alone tester to facilitate trouble shooting the controller in the field.

    Global Diagnostics

    Daniel Sigg
    Investigated frame performance issues, in particular, how fast one can read a single channel from a series of frames. A memo can be found at T000108-00. Bottom line: Managing frames at the one second level turns out to be a severe bottleneck.

    2.2 Issues Concerns

    nothing new



    40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)




    Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)


    No report.


    LASTI (Zucker)


    LASTI (Mason, Smith, Shoemaker, Kruzel, MacInnis, Zucker)
    ----------------------------------------------------------
    Moving/logistics:
    Last of the moving for a while (we hope) will be done tomorrow with
    shipment of the spare BSC downtube and stack leg elements to LLO.  ABC
    Services cleaning crew has almost finished top-to-bottom scrubbing of
    the high bay and we should be back in booty mode tomorrow. It's still
    too crowded in there, but everything left is slated for
    installation in the next few weeks.
     

    Having carefully set up and tested a new gantry hoist for handling the
    HAM doors, Corey Gray alerted us that the door weight listed on PSI
    drawings was low by 35%.  A bigger hoist is on its way.
     
     

    Cleanrooms:
    Our #1 HAM cleanroom (right arm) is operational.  The #2 HAM cleanroom
    (left arm) is getting new curtains and electrical hookup but these are
    on track to arrive before they are needed.
     

    HAM SEI installation:
    External piers have been placed on the HAM's with exception of one
    which had an unusual bolt hole (turns out it intersected an empty
    electrical conduit which terminates somewhere in Singapore).  The hole
    has been plugged and the anchoring should be finished tomorrow.  Hugh
    Radkins will be out Tuesday to begin fine alignment and internal SEI
    installation with us.  Corey Gray will also join us the following
    week.  We are looking forward to learning the great secrets of the Old
    Masters.
     

    Vacuum envelope:
    MZ is doing some last minute tweaks on the vacuum system
    to try and speed up cycling time for bellows leak checks.
     
     


    Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)



     Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

    Simulation and Modeling (Yamamoto)

    Lock Acquisition

    Matt has been working to improve the algorithm of the lock acquisition.
    Luca has introduced alignment noises to mirrors, and compared with
    the PRM+one arm lock experiment with different misalignment angle
    of the end test mass. The simulation could reproduce the characteristics
    of the cavity state as a function of the misalignment.
    Biplab continued his work to study the effect of the misalignment on the
    time of the lock acquisition.

    Bill Kells has compared with simulation of the LHO 2K model with his
    40m results (with proper parameter change) and found a qualitative
    agreement. (The phenomenon was, when PRM was locked with ETM
    misaligned and then the ETM is moved back to be aligned, 40m did
    not kick PRM out of lock, but 2k IFO does.)

    Noise model

    Biplab is working to generated the noise curve of the in lock state
    LIGO IFO, which includes the seismic, thermal and shot noises.

    Optics simulation

    Hiro and Biplab worked on the improvements of the implementation
    of the field and optics. The problem of the field calculation when there
    is a curvature mismatch has been pursued further, and found the
    origin. This will be included in the code soon. The direct effect of this
    problem is that the fields in PRM cannot be properly calculated.
    So far, the main focus of the Han2K simulation was length related issues
    and they are not affected.

    Simulation engine code improvements (DAngelis)

    The matrix class has been improved in several ways and the Hanford
    2K IFO simulation code is running several 10% faster. The last change
    seems to have introduced problems, and it is being debugged. Once this
    bug is fixed, the code change will be included in the official e2e code, and
    a new faster simulation code will be released.

    GUI -Alfi (Maros, Sears)

    The change of the code for the graphics rendering seems to be working.
    Several glitches introduced by this code change have been reported
    and are being tried to be solved. Other changes making the entire
    code more robust have been discussed and going on.

    LDAS Software (Blackburn)

    Much of the week was spent testing and debugging the current version
    of LDAS in preparation for a big push of the software to the sites.
    We have been testing the software much harder, using larger data sets
    to identify problem areas in the code. A bug in the ilwd writer was
    resolved last week and this week the same bug was traced to exist in
    the ilwd reader. It is actually a bug in the standard library's
    ostrstream class. A replace named ldas_ostrstream was written this
    week which does not have the problem found in the GNU source.

    Development of new testing scripts also begain this week. The current
    scripts produce large amounts of data that are timely to analyze. We
    will be implementing statistical summaries on top of these data results
    which will allow us to more quickly recongnize problems and then using
    the full result set, discern the location of QA and performance problems.

    Another big fix the the system this week involved tracking down a bug
    in the generic threaded function wrapper which was causing all exceptions
    thrown in the C++ layer of threaded functions to be lost. This has now
    been fixed tested.

    The LDAS hardware system at Livingston was upgraded this week to be
    identical to Hanford. A new set of database tables were added at the
    end of this hardware upgrade so that the metadataAPI which will be
    part of the next push of LDAS to the sites will be compatable with the
    table design at Hanford and CIT.

    The problem tracking system reports a 35% decrease in the standing
    number of open problem reports. This is concurrent with a rapid set of
    new problem reports being opened and closed during the extensive testing
    phase we are currently in as we prepare this next release.

    At the weekly MPI working group meeting, status reports show that the
    new wrapperAPI, mpiAPI and dynamic shared object development are all
    on track with the current schedule.

    Several prototype Unified Data Type classes were distributed to the
    dataConditionAPI working group this week. There is some concern that
    the implementation is starting to lead the way over the intended set
    of requirements. Sam Finn has requested that everyone identify design
    criticisms with the requirements and not the prototypes. This is a
    totally reasonable request given that the flexibility of C++ has not
    been demonstrated to stand in the way of any requirement issues.

    LDAS  Hardware

    no report

    Computing (Wallace)

    MIT:
    Working on getting the disk system setup on the SUN 450. Hopefully, received the
    Solaris 8 disks they have been waiting for.

    Livingston:
    (Shannon Roddy)
    -Added a cgi based search engine to our web server.  Laura had been using
    a free service from hotbot.com but it frequently missed pages and would
    come up with no results for searches.  I think it is working great.
    Laura will be incorporating it into the LLO home page when she gets a
    chance.  There is a sample that you can try at
    http://abundance.ligo-la.caltech.edu/htdig/sample/search.html.
    -Received three quotes on an Exabyte tape robot for GC.  We are looking at the
    Exabyte 220 with two mammoth tape drives.  Tom, Christine, Larry and I
    are discussing possible strategies for our GC servers to ensure limited
    downtime in-case of a failure.  We are debating on the best way to create
    redundancy in hardware, backups, etc.

    Hanford:
    Nothing to report (check Hanford report).

    CIT:
    (Sam)
    -Helped deal with problems with the new dell laptop. It was DOA and has been
    replaced. Installed software on it.
    -Helped install autocad2000 on a couple computers
    -Installed a new hard drive
    -Worked on cleaning up my office and started classes
     

    Lisa

    - set up printing for Janeen Romie
    - did monthly backups
    - Rich Abbott's laptop has been very unstable.  I've done everything except
    rebuild it from scratch.  I ran Norton, reinstalled Eudora, updated IE,
    uninstalled VB, changed the subnet.  I'm hoping it's stable now.
    - Spent some hours trying to get fvwm running under Solaris 8.  The NIS+ server
    pushes out some global configuration files that it seems to be unhappy with.
    However, just removing the automount for those files does not fix the problem.
    Instead, it disables it completely.
    - Started putting together a web site to collect up information about the
    Cadence installation here at Caltech.  As I become aware of user problems I will
    add them to the web page so other users can see them.
    - Moved a 200mhz pc to be used to run a piece of engineering equipment in Wilson
    backhouse.
    - Completely cleaned out and organized our cable closet.
    - Created a group in NIS+ for the klab cadence users.  This allows me to give
    them permissions to edit their setup script(s) which resides on the cadence
    disk.

    (Barbara)
    - Finished up changes to LSC roster database and web pages for this cycle.
    The web pages are undergoing final review and will be posted as soon as
    they are approved.
    - Finishing up changes to Pubs database and Publications web pages.
    - Made a set of changes to LDAS web site.

    (Suresh)
    -I resolved the VLAN (virtual LAN) in ES 3810 Ethernet switch mapping to ELAN
    (emulated LAN) in ATM switch problem by reconfiguring it.
    -Measured direct port to port and port to port via ATM uplink data transfer
    speed in above mentioned switch. The average port to port speed was 92 Megabits
    per second whereas port to uplink was 80 Megabits per second. Omar helped me in
    this measurement.
    -Configured newly arrived ES 2810 ethernet switch. Also measured its port
    speed.

    (Larry)
    -Worked a number of procurement issues and working on a number of orders for new
    SUN equipment, PC's, video equipment and projectors. Working with the financial
    group to clear up some items for an audit they are preparing for. Worked with Ed
    C. on getting the projector installations started.
    -Working with Lisa on getting a number of the cabinets reorganized. This
    includes turning a number of old machines over to Caltech. A couple of the old
    Sparc 5's will be sent to Livingston for GC test work.
    -Resolved a number of hardware and software issues. One problem that has been
    getting in the way is the changing the operating environment in ways that cause
    other problems. Working on educating the users and modifying the base
    environment to where it will not be affected as much.
    -Still shuffling computers around and it looks like this will be going on for a
    couple more weeks.
    -Trying to spend a little more time working on issues with the Observatories.
    Trying to get the network (WAN) items back on track.


    LIGO II/Advanced R&D (Sanders)


    Stiff Active Isolation Two-stage Prototype
    Jamie, Rana

    Earlier this week, we were able to close all 12 loops on both stages with
    all 30 sensors.  With current non-optimized gains and sensor crossovers, we were
    able to achieve ground noise suppressions at the lower stage of roughly 56 dB
    vertical and 33-40 dB horizontal at 10 Hz, decreasing to only about 10 dB or
    less at 1 Hz.  Our next step will be to implement a collocation matrix for the
    lower stage.  When implemented in the upper stage, we were able to vastly
    improve low frequency noise.  We also plan to optimize the position
    sensor/geophone crossover filters in the lower stage.

    From: Janeen Hazel Romie <romie_j@ligo.caltech.edu>
    Working on Advanced LIGO schedule and costs for labor and materials.
    Working on 40m Upgrade recosting for labor and materials.
     

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

    We are in the process of verifying the strength tester.
    Bonded non cleaned substrates to test and compare with previous results.
    Made several bonds to be sheer tested in house and at an outside lab.
    "Loading" tests are still inconclusive.

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

    We are moving the meeting from Tuesday morning to Friday afternoon at
    2:00.
    Next meeting on Friday 6th of October.

    Frederick

    After extensive performance study chosen and bought Ansys,  will be good
    both for fine elements and thermal properties simulations of suspensions
    (ribbons, technofibers, etc.)

    ChenYang,
    studying electrostatic actuator.

    Eugene,
    Report on Peltier pumps.  Impossible to find any Peltier and Thompson
    coefficients at 4 Kelvin.  No know how on superconducting Peltier pumps.

    Riccardo, Carlo, Gianni, Akiteru
    Terminated suspension design, started production.  In order to save
    time, instead of making a TAMA suspension prototype and then the two
    final units, Carlo suggested to go directly to the production of the two
    units and then replace any part that was would need any change.  This
    approach is riskier but would be much faster and with luck even cheaper
    (two units instead of three and one machining cycle only).  Akiteru and
    Riccardo accepted, will shoot for four weeks production time.  Riccardo
    will delay going to Italy to take delivery of towers and Akiteru will
    also go to take delivery of both systems at the same time.

    Akiteru:, Virginio:
    Bringing the inertial damping feedback at lower frequencies.

    Alessandro
    Assembled 4 accelerometers, testing, possible shipment to Pasadena
    before the week end for Monday’s delivery.

    Riccardo, Frederick:
    After TAMA miniGAS springs, started first production for Kenji’s
    pre-test.

    Virginio, Akiteru:
    Waiting for answer from Singapore for DSP chips.  Purchase of rest of
    electronics on hold while waiting.
     


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