Weekly Report for Week Ending November 30, 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  December 4, 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

All LLO in-vacuum components are installed and aligned!!


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, November 30, 2000.  The next site telecon is scheduled for Thursday, December 7, 2000.

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. . .
 

From: Cleveland Mak <mak_c@ligo.caltech.edu> A very large number of electronic documents, mainly drawings,  were processed.
 
 
 
Packages Faxes
In 73 63
Out 22 71

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.
 
 
Date Incoming Invoices And Receivers Wires Large Contract Invoices
November 17, 2000 11 0 0
November 20, 2000 8 0 2
November 21, 2000 5 0 0
November 22, 2000 4 0 0
November 27, 2000 15 0 1
November 28, 2000 8 0 0
November 29, 2000 18 0 0
November 30, 2000 5 0 0
Totals 74 0 3

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>


Support (Elizabeth Wood) <ewood@ligo.caltech.edu>

Rita Torres

Irene Baldon Dorothy Lloyd Elizabeth K. Wood

Advanced LIGO (Frey, Petrac)

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

Progress Period from 11.17 to 11.30

Accomplishments:

Schedule 12.1 to 12.7:
From: irena@ligo.caltech.edu (Irena Petrac)



WBS 1.4.1.2   Project Controls (LIGO Construction)



Reports (Lindquist)

Annual Report:  There will be an Annual Report due as of the end of November.  I will be requesting inputs from the usual bunch mid-December after the dust from the proposal has a chance to settle a bit.  I propose to keep this report moderate in size, about the size and complexity of a Quarterly Report, to minimize the burden.



Change Control/Contingency (Lindquist)

The following Change Requests have been submitted:
 

CR-000018 WBS 1.1.4 Curbing for Service Roads at Livingston G. Stapfer
CR-000019 WBS 1.2 Additional Lab Equipment D. Coyne

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>

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

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

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



LIGO Hanford Observatory (LHO) Operations (Raab)


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

Main commissioning activity is to get reliable locking of full interferometer with no damping in arms. We have Henrich Heitmann and Simon Mataguez visiting from VIRGO.
 

Seismic Systems
---------------------
H.Radkins, M.Guenther, G.Moreno
 

CAS:  The Coarse Actuation System is being tested on BSC2 now.  Rack
modification for air filtering is being planned for the 4 channel rack to
improve our air pressure budget.  The Database on the two channel rack is
being updated to allow start up on BSC1 preventing inadvertent disturbance
of BSC8.  The Coarse Flexure yawing problem is being studied as we have
exhausted the obvious corrections which have only yielded about %50
reduction of yaw.
 

Fine Actuation:  Stands are being built to hold the Fine stage PZT
controller racks.  The stands will put the units at a more convenient
height, shorten cable runs, and allow cleaning underneath.  The wheels are
in motion also to get the PZTs under command from the control room.
 

ISC
----
(H.Radkins, D.Cook, C.Gray, G.Moreno)
 

Optical Levers:  Modifications are being made to the Optical Lever Boxes to
accommodate the new LASER.  The Optical Lever Receivers are getting their
QPDs output increased whenever the EE shop can fit them in; we're about at
%50 completed now.
One box left to modify to get the orientation correct.
Examined beams of ITMy Optical Lever.  As suspected, the 30x beam expander
produces a beam too large not to be clipped by the 1.5" mirror at 45°.  At
the receiver though, the beam is not obviously clipped.  The real issue of
this problem is that any time the Transmission steering mirror is adjusted,
the calibration (pitch -vs- yaw) may change because the beam shape changes.
 More tests are needed.
 

Initial Alignment Monuments:  The End station monuments have been completed
and the LVEA monuments still need a couple days work.  Testing is ongoing
to determine the stability on the resilient floor under the surveying stands.
 
 

Optics:
-------
(D. Cook)
 

The 4-K COC suspensions are now complete with the exception of the BS. The
beam splitter is waiting for the next available vacuum bake oven opening,
followed by being re-suspended. All of the 4k suspensions are being stored
waiting for the OSEMs to arrive and be installed. We will then measure
each optic for its reflectivity and wedge angle. We are having the PAM
brackets modified to allow for the additional clearances needed for the new
shadow sensor configuration and will go into the vacuum bake oven Friday.
The PAM screws are currently in the vacuum bake oven.
 

We are modifying the 4k optical lever transmission enclosures to
accommodate the new lasers. Tooling is being made up to assist with the 4k
installation and alignment. The installation procedures still need some
updating as yet. We are in hopes of have most of the COC, COS and IAS
components for the entire 4k installation ready prior to venting the system.
 
 

Controls:
---------
(D. Barker)
 

Building the 4k PSL EPICS VME controls system. Also building 4k 1X5 ADCU
system for accelerometer acquisition.
 

Updated all LHO EPICS databases with the PINI fix to remove the
save/restore "stuck button" bug. I will do the same at LLO.
 

CDS bug list is being reviewed and ported over the GNATS system.
 

Cybernetics tape robot has returned from repair and is being installed
as a framebuilder trend data backup service.
 

EDCU CPU freeze-up bug still exists, but is occuring less frequently. I
have installed a VME reset card in the DAQ controller crate and wrote
software to automatically reset the DAQ when the EDCU is no longer
available.
 

New web EPICS service is now online on
http://blue.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/perl/epics.pl  This acquires over 4000
channels of epics data for realtime viewing. Channel selection is either
via pattern matching, sub-system selection or "medm" look and feel. In
addition, an hourly trend service using the autoburt hourly backup
snapshot data files is available (outputs as comma delimited text file).
 

Due to large amounts of data being generated by analysis tools,
hanford1's disks have been filling up. I have moved applications around
and have establish disk quotas for user accounts.
 


LIGO Livingston Observatory (LLO) Operations (Coles)



 

Detector Installation: We have the mode cleaner locking reliably again. The output beam however has changed and we are not sure why. It is being monitored now, but is not showing any steady drift in position. The internal Q's of the mode cleaner mirrors were remeasured. MC3 has a split resonance at 28 kHz with one peak showing a much lower Q than the other . This is being checked. (Joe Kovalik)

OPTICS/COC/SEI INSTALLATION: The realignment of ETM-y and the Y-end Arm Cavity Baffle has been completed. The baffle's position was marked and it was then removed and stored in the manifold. This is an LLO milestone; all of our in-vacuum components are installed and aligned!! We've received the new OptLev lasers and replaced those which had failed. All CO Optical Levers are enabled and their signals are in the Control Room. Laser Safety boots are installed site wide, with the exception of the ISC tables at HAMs 1, 3 and 4. Our next task is the coarse alignment of the Michelson. Even with the MC alignment problems, we're seeing reflected beams from both ITMs using a video camera at the darkport. Joe Kovalik assisted Gary Traylor, Joe Hanson and myself in installing and cabling cameras to view MMT 1, 2 and 3 as well as the RM yesterday. (Jonathan Kern)

We have installed cameras looking into viewports and then run temporary cables into the video inputs to the mass storage room. We can now see MMT1, MMT2, MMT3 , RM and the anti-sym. port in the control room. This will allow us to align the Michelson from the control room.

We are also trying to have more of the activity managed through the control room. This is imperative as LLO is now becoming too large to have one component changed without affecting another.

A comparison test was conducted involving the Facilities Monitoring System's relative humidity monitors and a Kahn-Cermet hygrometer due to the
fact FMS RH readouts appeared to be higher than anticipated. The results have been given to Gerry Stapfer for disposition.
FMS RH monitor Kahn-Cermet hydrometer:
X-end 63.6% 38.0%
Y-end 47.1% 35.0%
LVEA 49.0% 32.0%
The Power System Inc. RH transmitters were in-factory calibrated before installation, the Kahn-Cermet hygrometer had been calibrated earlier this
year. (Rich Riesen)

Computing: We are working on the installation of our tape robot, and trying to put it on a machine where it can be reached from either the GC or CDS network.We have received the parts for our upgrade of the web and e-mail server, and are installing them and preparing for the change. We are working on preparations for the conference which will be here in two weeks.We are setting up a new workstation and modeling software for a new engineer. (Shannon Roddy, Tom Evans)
 


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


Nergis Mavavala, Rai Weiss, Mike Landry, Bill Kells, Stan whitcomb
We have been working on getting the lock acquisition code ready for another attempt at full interferometer locking. The changes since the last such run that we hope will help
a) improved handling of saturations by the coil drivers
b) feedback of common-mode signal to laser frequency
c) lower gains on transmission QPDs to avoid saturation when power builds up
d) 3x3 matrix inversion in Matt's code

We also spent some time resolving a discrepancy between the ETM actuator calibrations done before and during the E2 runs. We found the E2 calibrations to be correct, but discovered en route that the AS_I sensor signal form the two arm cavities were different by about 80%. After accounting for differences in drive strengths of the two ITMs and about 30% difference in the alignment/mode matching of the two cavities, we are still looking for a 30% difference between the discriminant from the two arms. We also found that the AS_I signal from the Yarm responded in a peculiar way to adjustment of the RF phase: the phase shift that minimzed the cavity error signal in AS_Q was at least 50 degrees away from the phase that maximized the cavity error signal in AS_I. The Xarm behaved much better, the minimum (maximum) for AS_Q (AS_I) occured at the same phase. These effects are being investigated further.

Rolf Bork
Completed requested changes to LSC software (add anti-whitening/dewhitening digital filters and lock input matrix copy to op input matrix).  Addition of 30 second order section (SOS) iir filters only increased LSC processing time by 3-4 usec.  The total number of SOS filters in the LSC code is now up to 95.  Plan to visit LHO 12/7 thru 12/13 for further LSC testing.

Bill Kells
Reved up the latest e2e model versions now resident at Caltech, in prep for the next full ifo locking sudies at LHO.

E2 Run

Mike Landry, Luca Matone
We wrote a summary of the procedure used to bootstrap the calibration for the ETMs during the E2 run.

John Zweizig
This week I have started preparations for a rerun of the E2 data through all trigger generating monitors to get a complete and consistent set of triggers. I have modified the shared memory partition code to add a partition-wide parameter that forces all consumers to receive all data. This will insure that all monitors in the rerun will receive all the (reduced data set) frames. About 5-6 monitors have been submitted for inclusion in the rerun including monitors of lock acquisition/loss, servo peaking, seismic rms, glitch detection, and data consistency. One or two remain in the pipeline. I have also been modifying the trigger manager to selectively enable/disable writing of triggers. This will be used to prevent logging of triggers in the meta-database during development and debugging of the monitors.

Szabi Marka, Akiteru Takamori, Daniel Sigg
The raw data files for the DAQ timing (based on the RAMP/TRIG) monitors are available from the E2 homepage (http://blue.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/engrun/E2/Results/EtoE_Timing/).

DAQ

Rolf Bork
Working on necessary changes to DAQ controller code to allow >3000 EPICS channels to be acquired at 16Hz.  The problem is that for each signal acquired, ~100bytes of descriptor data must be passed to the DAQ Framebuilder and EDCU on request, while still continuing to pass data at >10MBytes/sec.  This has been done with individual parameter writes but must be changed to DMA

RF Distribution

Rich Abbott
Preparing to ship a retrofitted frequency distribution system to LHO to cure the issues of RF leakage due to impedance problems.

PSL

Peter King
The mounting block for the 4k PSL pre-modecleaner (PMC) should be back from the physics workshop tomorrow.  This allows a small time to do a systems check.  The block and PMC should be shipped out by the end of this week.

I have been checking some queries asked about the "wirelist" sent to LHO for fabrication of the PSL rack cross-connects.  Questions concerning the wirelist, used during the fabrication of 2X7, related to the wiring for the RF photodetectors and VCO.  Said connections were retro-fitted in the field to the cross-connect, so the construction wirelist did not indicate these connections.  A small change was made to accommodate the new-style of LSC RF photodetector.

Input Optics

David Ottaway, Betsy Weaver, Corey Gray
  • Dave and Betsy performed an inspection of the MC optics to be used in LHO 4K and selected the best ones for installation
  • Corey and Dave are beginning work laying out the IO components on the PSL table.
  • LIGO-TriNet

    Szabi Marka, Akiteru Takamori, Mark Lubinski, Richard McCarthy
    The full station equipment (including power) is up and running at its temporary location. Data is recorded and ,as soon as we fix a port/security problem, the data will be beamed to TriNet at CIT. The station is registered with USGS. They allocated a brand new network code for LIGO (LI) and our station codes are LTH/LTL, which stand for LIGO-TriNet Hanford/Livingstone. These codes are unique in space and time, which allows easy identification. We are testing the first draft of the document T000131-00-H, which explains how to download data from the datalogger using its web server. If you are interested and would like to test the document please contact Szabi at smarka@ligo.caltech.edu.

    1.2 LLO INSTALLATION & COMMISSIONING

    Commissioning

    Peter Saulson
    Warren Johnson and Sany Yoshida have nearly completed the survey of the Q's of the rigid body modes of the IOO optics. MC2 stands alone as an optic with all 3 modes having low Q (all below 1000 at low amplitude.) MMT2's pitch mode also has low Q. Other optics mostly get a clean bill of health. The two LOS mirrors tested showed low Q (not much more than 1000) for the POS mode; we are checking the hypothesis that this may simply be recoil damping from the low Q stack.

    Alignment of the optics downstream from the MC is now our highest priority. We have encountered some problems. Controllers for many of these optics seem to be switching autonomously into a state where the optics are not damped and where the MEDM screens do not function properly. There was also an unexplained shift in the alignment of the mode cleaner, of an amount large enough to force us to redo the alignment of the MMT.

    Input Optics

    Dave Reitze, Sanny Yoshida, Warren Johnson, etc
  • Quad cell monitor monitor set up on IOT1 to log trend data of MC transmitted beam; we saw some evidence that the pointing out of the MC changed.  Thus far, there is no evidence of monotonic shifts, just cyclic behavior.  Data is uncalibrated, but the shifts seem to be less to much less than a beam diameter.
  • ALignment of the Michelson is underway; temporary cameras have been installed to look at the faces of all of the MMT optics, the RM and the APS port.  Fringes have been observed from the overlap of both arms!  (THe large optics (BS in particular) are undergoing controller repairs, so we weren't able to stabilize the beams).
  • Investigations have begun into the spurious excitations of the large optics.  We are correlating optical lever data, coil sensor data, accelerometer data, and conlog data on state changes to determine what the cause of the excitation/lack of damping is.
  • ASC

    Jay Heefner
    8 WFS PDs are being stuffed and tested. These should complete the LLO and LHO 4K installations.

    2.0 Other Engineering and Scientific Activities

    2.1 Design/Analysis/Fab

    Optical Metrology

    GariLynn Billingsley
    A first draft of a measurement procedure for metrology was published as LIGO-T000129-00-D.  The document is intended as a procedural aid for those who already have some familiarity with the CIT metrology lab.  The document currently resides in DCC OUT.

    PSL

    Peter King
    A new PMC is in the process of being fabricated.  This PMC has a new bandwidth, that should provide sufficient filtering of the intensity noise out at 25 MHz.  Fabrication is expected to be completed by tomorrow evening.

    For the past few weeks I've been trying to sort out a design for a low-noise, high power photodetector for use in the intensity stabilization servo.  At present I have a rough schematic of a circuit, with components, that I wanted to get some advice from Rich on, just in case the scheme was lacking.

    Rick Karwoski, Paul Russell
    Pre-mode Cleaner stuff...

  • We have completed bench testing the three pre-mode cleaner circuit boards.
  • The photo-diode and frequency reference modules have been shipped to LHO.
  • We are holding the PMC servo boards temporarily for additional tests and review of critical circuit areas.  It will be shipped tomorrow.
  • Frequency Stabilization...
  • Parts Kitting is in process for the frequency stabilization modules.
  • RF Photo diode module testing has begun
  • General...
  • We continue to tidy up fix discrepancies on the documentation relating to the boards and cross connect wiring
  • ISC

    Rich Abbott, Flavio Nocera
    Ordering of parts has been continuing for known needed LSC items.  The mode-cleaner servo board is being tested with no major flaws to date.  It is out goal to have the board ready for test at LHO during the week of December 8th as per conversation with Peter F.  Design of output 14.7 Hz notch filter is complete, Flavio is now in layout and parts acquisition stage.

    Mohana Mageswaran
    I am testing my new MC Servo Board.

    COS

    Ken Mailand
    This week I have been sending pdf drawings of the existing COS details and assemblies to the DCC.

    Modulated OSEM Design

    Jay Heefner
  • Stabilized oscillator schematics are complete and board layout should be complete by 12/1. Modules should be ready for test at LHO in mid Dec.
  • Supressed carrier boards are due back next week. They will be held in reserve.
  • New OSEM Heads

    Janeen Romie
    Peter has found a prospective plater in Colorado. Their test run with zirconium nitride, using their substrate impregnation process, on a number of  production alumina heads was fairly successful except for a flaky oxide-like coating. I'm visiting them tomorrow to review their process and the second set of test parts. Progressive Technology is sending them the small heads with the assumption that this process will be performed on them on Thursday and Friday after my approval. Most of the long heads have been delivered to CIT and MIT. Working with Doug Cook on PAM screws and brackets.

    Nilesh from Surmet has reported a problem that his subcontractor is having with the surface finish of their parts. He reports that with the current set-up a 16 surface finish is not possible. We will have a telecon later this week to work out solutions to this.

    Peter Fritschel
    Myron and I have begun to screen the LEDs and PDs to be used in the new osem heads. We have seen a fair amount of variability in the LED ouput beam direction, which leads to variability in the PD photocurrent; some errors can be overcome by non-parallel positioning of the LED/PD boards, but we may just have to reject some LEDs that have larger beam offsets.

    Digital Suspensions

    Jay Heefner
  • 8 LOS Coil driver chassis and boards are assembled with the exception of the HV caps. They are due in the next week.
  • 8 LOS Bias modules are assembled with the exception of the HV caps.
  • SOS dewhitening schematics are complete and out for review. Board layout should begin next week as other tasks permit.
  • 2.2 Issues Concerns

    nothing new


    40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)


    December 1, 2000

    November 24, 2000



    Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)


    Since our last report we have constructed and installed all the necessary
    hardware for the second and last of our test cavities.  We repaired our
    last OSEM controller and can now damp all seven suspended optics
    simultaneously.
     

    We also installed all of the remaining mounts and mirrors inside the
    chamber and began aligning them, and we rebalanced the seismic isolation
    stack to accommodate the added weight of the new hardware.
     

    We have completed the electronics necessary for locking our laser/mode
    cleaner system.  (The mode cleaner is locked to the laser at low
    frequencies, and the laser is locked to the mode cleaner at high
    frequencies.)  These electronics replace a string of SR560 preamps and
    passive filters that we had been using.  Initial tests indicate that the
    new module is functioning properly, but a conclusive test will have to wait
    until we have closed the chamber.
     

    Many thanks once again to Jay Heefner, Shaun Rahimi, and Lori Robison for
    all their help.  Their efforts has been invaluable for both our active damping
    and our mode cleaner servo electronics!
     


    LASTI (Zucker)


    LASTI (Zucker, Mason, Kruzel, Smith, MacInnis, Shoemaker)
    ----------------------------------------------------------
    Ed K. is finishing up the drilling and concrete roughening for
    the BSC piers this week.  We will bring in a cleaning crew next
    week to clean up before we go back and finish HAM21 internal
    seismic installation.
     

    Ken M. has been working on design ideas for the BSC cleanroom.
     

    Mike Z. has been tweaking the vacuum system so we can try some
    enhancements (second backing pump etc.) on the next bellows
    leak check.


    Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)



     
     

    Simulation and Modeling (Yamamoto)

    * e2e physics

    Biplab worked on noise curve generation. He is introducing violin modes.
    He is also studying the lock-acquisition with misalignments using new
    improved version of Han2k model.

    He is writing a draft of E2E's first paper.

    A new version of modeler/modeler_freq has been released and is installed
    at CIT. A tarball is available from the e2e home page. This version is
    necessary to simulate the latest Han2k model, which uses the latest LSC
    servo.

    * Simulation code

    Two efforts started toward the implementation of threads in the simulation
    engine. One is a generic parallelization scheme in the primitive module
    level, and the other is case-by-case works in specific part of the code.

    (1) genetic - Matt wrote a exectuteNode class, which takes care of the
    data flow connection. In adlib, each module will create and talk to an
    executeNote object. Tavio is working to write a testbed using this class
    and his thread-safe queue class with a simple input. This testbed will be
    used, not only to validate these queues, but will be used to develop
    algorithms to optimize the use of threads.

    (2) specific - Matt wrote a generic thread-wrapper object, Runnable, which
    automate many of the tedius things to do with threds. Hiro used that to
    make "printing action" to be executed in a separate thread. Hiro is now
    working to parallelize the michelson summation cavity so that all
    sidebands are simulated in separate threads. (The discussion about this
    motivated Matt to write Runnable class.) Right now, this primitive is the
    heaviest, and only one heavy module, and this parallelization will be most
    effective right now. In the long run, when more heavy modules come, the
    first parellelization is more important.

    * ALFI (GUI)

    Ed and Bruce worked hard to stabilize alfi and new version has been
    released. It has been installed at CIT, and other sites can download a
    tarball from e2e home page.

    The priority of the features requested were discussed. First all items
    which do not take much time will be resolved. Then, multiple item
    selection, group move and copy will be worked on. Following that is to
    implement a node point. The direction marks on lines is defered to be
    discussed after the next wxWindow is incoporated in alfi.

    LIGO Data Analysis System

  • Software Systems (Blackburn)

  •  

     

    The major modifications presently occurring within the dataConditionAPI
    to implement and use a new Unified Data Type (UDT) are proceeding at an
    increasingly progressive rate. Several of the previous algorithms have
    been ported over and testing programs updated. There have been a few
    little problems associated with the changes to the build scripts that
    have caused nightly builds of the LDAS to fail. These bugs are fixed as
    soon as they are identified. But the change to support a UDT are clearly
    not isolated to the dataConditionAPI to an optimal level.

    Work has also begun on the supporting functionality to convert LDAS
    ILWD data types used throughout LDAS for data communications into the
    UDT Scalar<> and Sequence<> classes. Work on converting UDTs into the
    LDAS ILWD will begin next week.

    The LDAS automated C++ documentation construction based on the new
    perceps is now nearly complete. A few pages are failing to be generated
    properly and fixes are expected in the next week or two.

    In the wrapperAPI development there have been several problems to show
    up over the past week. The error handling between MPI master and slaves
    had to be modified again to better handle the possibility for the slaves
    to run away when errors occur. The second major problem is still open
    and involves a lost socket communication of messages between the mpiAPI
    and the wrapperAPI. The problem appears not to be in the mpiAPI but in
    the wrapperAPI based on the ability for the mpiAPI to successfully
    perform socket communications with other applications. A possible work-
    around that is being considered is to reverse which API act as server
    and which acts as client.

    A problem with the mpiAPI confusing log messages associated with the
    wrapperAPI with its own internal log messages is being fixed. This did
    not show up until the partial communications between the two APIs was
    established to test the code.

    All of the dataConditionAPI Mock-Data-Challenge tests have now been
    cleaned up and brought in line with the documentation. This resulted
    in about a 60 percent reduction in the number of tests being performed.
    Two of the tests are now failing with the whole suite of tests are run
    together but pass when the tests are run individually. It is thought
    that the FFTW plans are using up memory (sort of acting as a memory
    leak) and reducing the available memory when the whole suite of test
    scripts are run together. The results from the running of these test
    scripts are now being verified.

     
  • Hardware Systems (Anderson)

  • no report this week
  • Data Analysis Activities
  • Charlton:

    * As reported in the meeting this morning, this week worked on statistics
    of the FCT in bins near the chirp bin. Have looked at the distribution
    of sqrt(SNR) for a chirp + noise where the chirp is fixed but new Gaussian
    noise is chosen for each trial. SNR in each bin by dividing the power of
    the FCT'd sequence in the bin by the pre-calculated noise floor in the bin
    (in an earlier report I described how the noise floor is calculated).
    In the bin where the chirp should be concentrated the
    sqrt(SNR) distribution can be fitted to a Ricean - I need to work out
    exactly what the expected parameters should be based on the chirp and
    noise distribution, and verify that the observed and expected are the
    same.

    The other bins looked at were 1 bin away in each direction:

          *        *        *
          *   (chirp bin)   *
          *        *        *

    The bins immediately to the left and right of the chirp bin should have
    little or no power from the chirp and so should be Rayleigh, which they
    appear to be. The bins above and below are Ricean with a smaller
    noncentrality as we would expect.

    Lazzarini:

    Tom P. and I have had a number of discussions on how the Fast Chirp Transform approach to matched filtering might be incorporated into a hierarchical search strategy. Basically this involves figuring out how to coarsen the  resolution along each of the axes of the multidimensional fft produced by the FCT. The straightforward approach of adding adjacent bins in the parameter space conjugate to the measurement parameter (e.g., freq. for time) does not really buy us anything since the full resolution fft is required. I have come up with an efficient way of doing this in 1d case, but extending it to nD is not obvious .... we are still working on the issue.

    Shawhan:

    Continued organizing the "LIGOtools" software distribution scheme,
    setting up the web pages, and installing the software at Caltech
    and LHO.  LIGOtools will be made available to the rest of the LSC
    soon, after a few more administrative details are worked out.
     

    General Computing


    MIT:
    Working on getting things setup for the ILOG system. Having some problems with
    the new disk drive.

    Livingston:
    (Tom E. & Shannon R.)
    -We are working on the installation of our tape robot, and
    trying to put it on a machine where it can be reached from
    either the GC or CDS network.
    -We have received the parts for our upgrade of the web and
    e-mail server, and are installing them and preparing for
    the change.
    -We are working on preparations for the conference which
    will be here in two weeks.
    -We are setting up a new workstation and modeling software
    for a new engineer.

    Hanford:
    Nothing to report.

    CIT:
    (Lisa)
    -Swapped out Bill Tyler's 90mhz pc for something a little better.
    -Working with Barbara on building an NT server to replace Antares.
    -After trying multiple cards, we finally got an sbus nic that would work in
    Luna. Luna is now a gateway on the 115, 113, and 125 subnets.  This solves the
    problems of epics broadcast channels on all subnets.  Kater is now officially
    decommissioned.
    -Replaced Janeen Romie's 2 external hard drives with 1 large one.  I also
    completely re-worked her sun pc card setup. In order to install office 2000 on
    the pc card, you have to have the ver. 1.3 drivers installed.  Also, the office
    2000 cd is not written in a sun-compatible format.  You have to mount the cd on
    a  pc and share it out then do a network install.
    -The new HP color scanner in the DCC had a bad Thanksgiving.  I'm still working
    with HP to figure out why.
    -Built a PC for a new guy.
    -Replaced Cindy's hard disk.  What's up with all the PCs this week anyway?

    (Samantha)
    -Working on school work and getting ready for finals.

    (Barbara)
    - Set up the DCC software on the new server for Linda to test.  Have yet to
    move TimeTarget and the "cron" jobs.  TimeTarget has a new licensing step
    and I'll have to contact the author.
    - Polished up the searchable web roster and moved it to the public server
    for review and testing.
    - Made some changes to the LDAS Equipment database and web forms for Albert.
    - Made a number of web site changes -- meetings, fellowships, accounts, etc.
    - Recovered Antares server from some mysterious outage on the Wednesday
    before Thanksgiving.   Helped Cleveland with several network errors that
    hang the DCC server.

    (Suresh)
    -Installed older revision of firmware (NMM 4.3.0) in ES 3810 workgroup switch
    which resolved ATM uplink connection problem. The existing Rev. B ATM module
    could not support the new switch firmware NMM 5.2.2. Tests will be conducted by
    connecting more ports with hosts to see the performance with respect to volume
    of traffic generated.
    -Finally made HP DesignJet 1055CM Plotter (hpplotter1) working with Autocad
    R14. Plotting from Sun workstations to this has no problem whatsoever. Now it's
    moved up to second floor and is on the production mode. The old plotter have
    been moved to Wilson House.
    -Rebooted all LIGO servers except few on last saturday.
    -Created another Permanent Virtual Circuit (PVC) to CACR on ATM switch.
    -Work with Larry to resolve some network glitches in Bridge third floor
    network boxes.
    -Created a new user account.

    (Larry)
    -Worked a number of procurements. Mostly SUN issues. Purchased a few items
    (mostly disk drives) needed to get different computers back up and running.
    Running down a lot of paperwork.
    -Worked on the setups of the new Plotter with Suresh, Ken M. and others.
    -Working a number of modifications for disk configurations.
    -Received a new color printer for the DCC. It will handle B-size prints but any
    printing on it will have to go through the DCC since the unit will be dedicated
    for their use.
    -We had a few computers that were broken into and have fixed those problems but
    now we are checking other computers to make sure the holes have been plugged.
    These were computers being used in labs that had the problems and in the past
    we've left them alone so the users could do whatever they needed on them but we
    will have to change the builds of those units to make them more secure.


    LIGO II/Advanced R&D (Sanders)


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

    Assembled mounting hardware, electrostatic actuation, and optical
    readout for violin mode quality factor measurements; all seem to work
    okay.  Have begun welding together monolithic fused silica double
    suspension for violin mode tests. (Virginio Sannibale, Phil Willems)

    Silicate bonding research
    -------------------------
    Built finite-element model of silicate-bonded ear attachment in ANSYS
    and calculated stress distribution, showing large stress enhancement at
    edges, where bonds tend to fail.  Developed code to translate stress
    distribution model predictions into polariscope image predictions for
    comparison to experiment. (Frederic Seve)

    From Bill Kells:
     

    With the paper summarizing the results Jordan and I have prepared on birefringence effects in Sapphire mirrored cavities in final prep, there came up several final questions of interpretation. That is, for a given intrinsic HR coating birefringence, what would be the ultimate effect on a LIGO like ifo ? Turns out not so simple a question. So this got thrashed out

    Also continues work (with some simulations) of the effect on LIGO-II performance of distortions (eg thermal lensing) and mismatch. The focus is on how the Carrier is effected (the SB effect being previously well known). Have already reported on one facit of this. Now into the remainder.

    Keeping the FFT vs MELODY investigations going. Again there is slow but significant progress in this. We are getting some nice, meaningfull results, heading for a visit by R. Beausoleil early in 2001.

    From Jay Heefner:

    40 M and LASTI
    ===============================
    - Sun Ultra 60 ordered for 40 M and LASTI FrameBuilders.

    From Peter King:

    LIGO II PSL
    I have been working with Benno Willke on the LIGO II PSL schedule
    and costing. Trying to marry up the schedule that Benno presented at the
    recent meeting with Laser Zentrum Hannover (LZH) and the one that I have
    been working on for the proposal. The costing is near completion as
    currently I'm awaiting a quotation for pump diodes, pump diode power
    supplies and delivery fibers. By far and away, the big ticket item are the
    pump diodes and their associated long lead time.

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

    Another attempt was made to measure the homogeneity of the large Sapphire piece.  I'm not yet convinced that the data are correct, and so will apply another approach before I draw any conclusions.

    A piece of low water fused silica arrived from the Corning glass works.  This will be sent to Stanford for absorption testing.

    CSIRO reports that they have good control over the radius of curvature of the sapphire blank that they are polishing.  A spot check (mid-process) of the microroughness indicates that they are at about 0.2 nm.  This is for the side one polishing.  We have yet to negotiate a compensating polish on side 2.
     
     

    From: Virginio Sannibale <vsanni@ligo.caltech.edu>

    Riccardo Akiteru Szabi

     working on the earthquake safety structures
     for the SAS towers. Big tower bolted down  as Art (the
     Caltech safety officer ) suggested. He Suggested also
     to bolt  down the cabinets  to the floor.

    Frederique

     Drawings for the measurement of the quality factors
     of monolithic sapphire resonators finished.

     Working on the Creep Measure Facility. New 32 channels
     Acquisition board the under test. Thermostabilization box of
     the electronics almost ready.

    Virginio

     Submitted to the LIGO Editorial Board the paper: Performance
     of the First Prototype of Geometric Anti-spring Filter for
     Seismic Attenuation.

     Made some noise measurements of the ADC and DAC boards;
     very preliminary results shows ( oversampling factor of 20
     and a sampling frequency of 10kHz) a S/N ration of about 124dB
     for the ADC's @ low frequency.
     Found several peaks above 50Hz on the spectrum, higher than
     expected.

     Starting analyzing data of the inertial damping of the preliminary
     tests made with the Virgo accelerometers.

    Riccardo Akiteru

     Working in Lucca, Italy on the assembling and tunning of
     the TAMA-SAS towers.


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