Weekly Report for Week Ending December 14, 2000

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  December 18, 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)
• Field Change Orders/Contingency Liens/Change Requests
5. WBS 2 LIGO Lab Operations
• Administration (Lindquist)
• Sites (Raab, Coles, Shoemaker, Sanders)
• Detector (Whitcomb, Coyne)
• Campus Research Facilities (Weinstein (40 Meter), Libbrecht (TNI), Zucker(LASTI))
• Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)
6. WBS 3 and 4  Advanced R&D and LIGO II (Sanders)

Special Items:  PAC 9 and GWDAW reprise

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights

The TNI arm test cavity lock has been achieved!
 

LSC Issues (Weiss)

No report.

LIGO I Construction/LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

WBS 1.2 LIGO Operations--Administration

LIGO Weekly Site Telecon (Lindquist)

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

• Assisted the Detector Group (L. Jones) with the preparation of two Caltech Physical Plant Project Request for shipping crates . Account Number LIGO 00008 1.6.2 NSFLIGO.000002.
• Provided the a letter to Caltech Insurance Adjuster (D.Artura) referencing the reimbursement for the repaired of the damaged Ford Corsica At LLO for the sum of $3946.72 minus $200.00 deductible, these funds will be credited to the LIGO Account.
• Assisted the Detector Group (L.Jones) with the packing and shipping of the following Machined Part 4 Support Beams (D000360_2A) , 1 Bottom Plate (D000361-A) and 1 Top Plate (D000362-A) tp LLO att: R. Riesen expected delivery date 12-14-00 via UPS account Number LIGO. 00008 1.6.2 NSFLIGO.000002.

>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. . .
 

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• The audit process continues with the Hanford construction drawings.
• I finished a review of the 40-M science bulletin board  to check that all documents are numbered and available in the DCC electronically.  I began with the 40M Update board and, so far, out of the first 14 documents, only 4 were numbered and in the DCC.  All documents currently on the board have been numbered and entered into the database.  A meeting with Alan is next to let him know the numbers and the links that need to be updated.  This process will continue through all the bulletin boards.
• Christmas party planning culminated in the annual LIGO party.  Approximately 130-150 LIGO-ites, friends, and family came to the festivities and a good time was enjoyed by all (I hope. . .)!
• Worked through another large number of electronic documents.  Over 60 electronic documents were processed and transferred into the dcc directory and database.  This represents another hectic week of processing.
• The schedule for transitioning the DCC to Office 2000 was completed.

• Electronic documents continue to come in at a regular pace.  To help keep the process streamlined and timely for everyone:

• File naming should be based on the root part of the number plus the revision and without the Group ID.  Additionally, the file name should be in capitals, and the format extension in small letters.  Thus a document numbered as
• LIGO-G990025-00-D would have a file name of G990025-00.pdf

• All pertinent information needs to be on every document.  This includes:
• DCC number
• Author's name
• Date of document
• Title

• Duplicate submittals can be confusing as well as time consuming.  If you can't remember whether a document has been submitted to the DCC, you might check the docspublic directory to see if it resides there.  Or, feel free to give us a call so we may check for you.

• Progress continues on auditing of Hanford Construction drawings with no new problems to report.
• Assisted Fred and Linda in preparation of a contract (Livingston New Staging Bldg.) to be shipped out soon.
• Processed numerous electronic docs

Press here to access the DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER WEB PAGE.

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

Press here for ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY DATA.
 
 

Date	Incoming Invoices And Receivers	Wires	Large Contract Invoices
December 8, 2000	10	0	0
December 11, 2000	12	0	0
December 12, 2000	12	1	0
December 13, 2000	3	0	0
December 14, 2000	11	0	0
Totals	48	1	0

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

• No Report this week.

• Completed and posted Operations report for November.
• Working with Dot and Ruth to transfer encumbrances to the new numbers for the ten month Fiscal Period ending September 30, 2001.
• Worked with Federal Accounting on required Budget Alignments for Construction accounts, so that Sponsored Research can bill the NSF.  The Oracle system does not permit billing where the budget entered in Oracle for a project number exceeds the costs recorded for that project number.
• Continued working with Federal Accounting to make sure that the budgets in Oracle agree with the NSF awards for Construction, Operations, R&D and Visitor Programs.  Currently the Budgets in Oracle for the Construction Accounts is less than the Award amount by approximately $480,000.
• Submitted Cost Transfer Requests for the University of Florida contract.  $126,553 previously charged to a construction account are to be reclassified to various operations accounts.

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

• Univ. of Florida: CO No. 10, adding FY'01 funding for continuing commissioning and operations support at LLO is pending M. Coles' concurrence/approval.
• NYMA: Proposal for FY'01 rate increases and continuing support (D. Beckett, L. Cardenas and L. Turner) was received and is in review by the Project Controls and Detector Groups.

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

• Discussions were held on Thursday, December 14, concerning impacts on operator's procedures as a result of the Engineering Run held at Hanford, and the laser safety incident at Livingston earlier this month. Results of these discussions will be announced at a later date.

Dorothy Lloyd

• Began updating PO Log (9/4-12/4, 174 POs and change orders).
• 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 December 4, on contract summary sheets and LIGO database.
• Continue to monitor contract and blanket order funding levels and notify task managers when supplements are needed.
• Jim continues to do data entry in the LIGO database and help out in the DCC.

• Ten (10) new trips were started and I have five (5) trips pending final approval before tickets can be issued.  These trips required Advance Checks to be written as well as hotel and car authorization forms to be filled out and Faxed to the appropriate location.
• Worked with a few travelers who had questions or needed further clarification on using or reconciling their new P-Cards.  For the most part those having cards seem to be doing fine and find the cards a convenience. Reconciled twenty (20) items on my P-Card this week.  Several items were difficult to track down since the vendor's 3rd level information was sketchy at best.
• Worked on and completed ten (10) Expense Reports.  I have forty-three (43) Expense Reports to work on.  The new Expense Report that I sent out a couple of weeks ago is not being used by most of our Travelers.  Everyone who is using this form seems to be adjusting to it quite nicely.  I continue to make myself available for any assistance they may need.
• Due to bad whether through the country this week, two (2) days of my time were greatly taken up by travelers needing assistance due to canceled or delayed flights.  Fortunately I only had one (1) traveler trapped overnight due to an ice storm in Dallas.  Flights, hotel and car rental reservations had to be changed or switched.
• Prepared the Travel/Vacation Itinerary for the Week of December 11, 2000.  Performed normal recording and filing associated with Travel and Reimbursement.  Worked on several problem issues with Travel Audit in addition to the above listed issues.  Also performed miscellaneous duties as requested by various members of the 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.

• Was out sick for several hours this week.
• Tallied MOU documents I have scanned, chased those not on web page.  Did change order No. 10 to University of FL.  FedEx for their signature Attachments C and D, University of FL.
• Organizing incoming letters of recommendation for R. DeSalvo, in communication with the attorney facilitating residency business.
• Ongoing activity: The usual chase for details associated with Pcard purchases in order to reconcile.  Prepared for E. Chargois a summary of purchases using credit card for the Bridge Development lab.  Activities for the lab set up are ongoing.

• Spent most of the week sorting out immigration issues, including visas and hiring of non-U.S. citizens.  If nothing else, it has been most interesting.  Also discovered that it is indeed possible for a terminated employee to show up on the payroll again.
• Gathered together some information for the PMA division office regarding the furnishing of room 254 WB.
• Don’t forget that Friday December 22, Monday December 25, Tuesday December 26, and Monday January 1 are all institute holidays.

Advanced LIGO (Frey, Petrac)

Accomplishments:

• Out sick Monday the 11th.
• Advanced LIGO Project Controls meeting - Not held this week due to PAC meetings at Livingston.
• Proposal plan development for Advanced LIGO and Operations continues.
• Issued data requests for progress data as of 12.15.00 that are due Friday.
• Progress as of 12.08.00 was processed and posted.
• Review of cost and schedule data is now ongoing.
• Data input into the cost book and schedule for AOS continues.
• Received data from David Reitze for IO and review in progress
• Project Plan for the 40-Meter Lab Upgrade continues.
• Issued data requests for progress data as of 12.15.00 that are due Friday.
• Updated the plan with progress as of 12.08.00.  Posted to site.
• Continuing to push for a CDS procurement schedule.
• Finished input of data for experiments and changes to AOS per Mike Smith..
• Planning process for the LASTI project at MIT is in progress.
• Issued data requests for progress data as of 12.15.00 that are due Friday.
• Progress as of 12.08.00 was processed and posted.
• Changes are pending from David per his discussions with GEO.
• Continue to test the Cost Book Tool.
• Development of the Advanced LIGO Project Controls Guidebook continues.  Continuing to write section on data dictionaries.
• Project Web Site for posting schedule and progress related data continues to be updated with the latest and greatest.
• See http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/index.html

• Next weekly meeting will be Monday afternoon December 18 from 1 to 2pm regarding the planning and control of the Advanced LIGO proposal development.
• Continue to pursue the planning and scheduling of the staging buildings currently being bid and designed for HLO and LLO.
• Advanced LIGO Proposal
• Will begin the effort of contacting each system leader to collect cost and schedule data.  Hope to begin importing schedules and cost ASAP. (AOS and IO ready for NSF review in January.)
• Will continue input of AOS and IO to the cost book and schedule.
• Will Continue to update the LASTI Schedule with progress.
• Will post progress report by end of day Tuesday with progress as of 12.15.00.
• Will issue 22nd week of status data to teams.
• Will continue to update the Advanced LIGO / Ops Proposal Plans and incorporate any changes.
• Will post progress report by end of day Tuesday with progress as of 12.15.00.
• Will issue 22nd week of status data to teams.
• Will continue updating the 40 meter schedule and incorporate any changes.
• Will post progress report by end of day Tuesday with progress as of 12.15.00.
• Will issue 22nd week of status data to teams.
• Will meet with Alan to review development of 40-Meter experiment tasks.
• Meeting scheduled for Wednesday December 20 at 2:00pm at LSCR.
• Continue to test the Cost Book Tool.  Have a meeting with Barbara K. to discuss the Cost Book and the Resource DB.
• Cost Book Tool development continues.  Will be importing data for Installation so that Dennis Coyne can proceed with estimating.
• Will continue the development of the Advanced LIGO Project Web Site.
• Will continue the development of the Advanced LIGO Project Controls Guide Book.  Finish section on data dictionaries and start on update process.

• Advanced LIGO/Core Optics Coating: The bid due date of Dec. 8 was extended through Dec. 22, 2000.

WBS 1.4.1.2   Project Controls (LIGO Construction)

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.

The following Change Requests have been submitted:
 

Press for the latest Contingency Needs Projection.

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

• Continued work on the November 2000 CSSR and annual NSF report.
• Continued with the reconciliation of the LIGO actual cost and commitment data to the CIT financial reports.
• Continued with construction contract close out.

• No Report this week.

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

• Gerry Stapfer, Fred Asiri, and Ed Jasnow will be presenting the contract for the Livingston Staging Building to the NSF in Arlington, Virginia, on Tuesday, December 19. It is essential that this contract be awarded in early January so that the heavy construction effort does not interfere with the commissioning of the detector.
• The review committee for selection of the architect/engineering firm for the Hanford Support Building convened on Wednesday, December 13. The committee discussed the six proposals submitted, and reduced the list down to three firms. They are Nils Finne Architects, Seattle, WA NTD Architects ,Glendora, CA, and SCM Consultants, Kennewick, WA. These three firms will be invited to make presentations to the committee around the middle of January.

• No report this week.  See subcontracts above.

LIGO Hanford Observatory (LHO) Operations (Raab)

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

Work is continuing on a number of fronts, most of which are either unremarkable
or reported elsewhere. We had a meeting with Peter Fritschel, Rolf Bork, Dave
Barker, Dennis Coyne, Hugh Radkins and Fred Raab to discuss implementation of
tidal feedforward compensation and how it might interact with plans for possible
tidal feedback and for compensation of microseism. We agreed the tidal actuator
on the PSL did not interact with the microseism. An interesting question will be
whether feedforward alone might suffice for this actuator. Tidal and microseism
signals potentially interact at the SEI fine actuators. We resolved to separate
these two problems, because of great differences in signal sizes and signal time-
scales, using separate DACs to feed an analog summing point. Rolf and Dave favored
using an EPICs sandbox sequencer to provide the tidal signals for both PSL and
SEI. An analog lo-pass filter before the summing junction for the SEI fine actuator
should provide additional equipment safety on equipment reboots and will help with
noise suppression. Rick Savage and Hugh are working the PSL side of the problem,
Dave is working on the EPICs implementation, and Fred is continuing to work the
issues on the predictor code.

LIGO Livingston Observatory (LLO) Operations (Coles)

Hosted the PAC meeting, December 12-13, 2000.  Members of the PAC attended
programmatic sessions and presented status and proposal summaries.
 

OPTICS/COC/SEI INSTALLATION: Calibration of optical levers, and installation
of cameras and illuminators has consumed the bulk of our time this week. We
found an open OSEM driver coil on the BS, which explains the damping
difficulties we experienced last week. We've prepared a lab at the X-end for
the U of F hi-power laser, and have been helping set things up there. The
last 2 BSC bellows for LASTI have passed RGA, and Joe Hanson will be crating
and shipping them soon. Continuing to move the machine shop as opportunities
present themselves. (Jonathan Kern)
 

Operations/Control Room:  We have developed a protocol for tracking and
controlling commissioning activities. This includes informing the lead
operator of any changes to Epic settings or configurations.  This enables
coordinated work efforts with all parties being informed on other parallel
activities.  An LLO Operations I-log site has be established that will
include all pertinent control room activities. Control room staffing has
increased to accommodate extended work hours for
the LLO staff and visitors.  (Rich Riesen)
 

Administrative:  We have been working with our vendors which currently do
not accept Master Card. So far, we have added seven vendors to accept the
card.  Results probably will not become apparent until January-February
because we need to allow time for them to receive the equipment and
installed it.
To ensure better phone coverage for the 3100 extension, we have
re-programmed our telephone system to allow calls to roll over to the
control room if the front office does not answer. If the control room is
either busy or does not answer, then the calls will be forwarded to the main
voice-mail box. We have also set up our phone with a holiday greeting during
this season.
Have provided administrative assistance to PAC attendees as needed and made
sure everyone had plenty of good food to eat during the last couple of days.
(Bonnie Wascom)
 

Detector/Technical Support (Whitcomb, Coyne)

See also the daily electronic logs for the installation and commissioning activities:
Hanford Detector Log
Livingston Detector Log

1.1 LHO INSTALLATION & COMMISSIONING

2km Commissioning

Peter Fritschel, Matt Evans, Rolf Bork, Nergis Mavalvala, Dick Gustafson, Stan Whitcomb

Work on locking the full interferometer continues with moderate progress. We implemented optical lever based damping of the beamsplitter and the two fold mirrors, as had been done previously with the input test masses. This helped dramatically to stabilize the fluctuations in power buildup in the power recycling cavity, which in turn has allowed us to make better measurements on the system. We also moved the feedback for the power recycled michelson (PRM) from acting on the four test masses (moving the cavities as a whole) to acting on the fold mirrors, which also resulted in a more stable PRM lock.

We continue to have brief lock stretches of the full interferometer, with longer lock stretches for lower power buildup cases (we continue to exercise some control over the latter by clipping the beams with the gate valves). The largest buildup seen corresponds to a recycling gain of about 10, but lasting only ~1/10 second.

Bill Kells
Brought back a raft of lock stretches from last week at LHO.  Am trying to come to some insight as to their characteristic nature (with eye on improving the situation).
 

E2 Run

The remaining E2 data (one-arm running) will be run through the same set of monitors soon.

COS

RF Distribution

PSL

We (Mark G. & I) started the RGA unit on the pump station destined to pump the 4K Ref. Cavity chamber. So far, the sum of the elements (amu 16, 18, 40, 41,43, 53, 55, and 57 ) are below 1E-9 torrs.

I have completely flushed and cleaned the Neslab chiller for the 4k Laser. tomorrow will fill the chiller with new and fresh cooling (mixture of 20% Ethylene Glycol, and 80 % of Distilled water.  (1 gram/gal of water ) of Chloramine-T as an Algae inhibitor.

Input Optics

1.2 LLO INSTALLATION & COMMISSIONING

Commissioning

The optical levers seem to be in good shape, though the power may be low on one or two of them.  The ASC biases are working in the corner station.  All illuminaters are functioning and the camera feed are available in the control room. We need to re-verify the initial alignment relative to the ITMs, but we are not far from opening the gate valves.

#SEW# This is Peter Saulson's last week of sabbatical at LLO.  We should all give him a big thanks for his leadership in the LLO commissioning.  His successor will have big shoes to fill.

Fortunately, Rai Weiss has agreed to serve as commissioing director at LLO, starting immediately.  Rai will concentrate his travel on LLO and will be on site more than half time. I hope that everyone will give all possible help to Rai in this new role.

Jay Heefner
Various problems have been fixed in recent days The summary is as follows:

Input Optics

Initial measurements of dynamic RFAM were made; we demodulated the output of the New Focus 1811 PD (2 mW power) at the resonant side band frequency and looked for low frequency noise above shot noise in the 0-1 KHz range.  These measurements are ongoing, but preliminary data shows some resonances in the spectrum (34 Hz), but no significant noise above shot noise.

PSL

It was noticed that the pre-modecleaner (PMC) regularly dropped out of lock overnight.  Re-acquiring lock was not as easy as previously recalled.  A check of the PMC servo mixer output indicated that not enough RF was being applied.  The RF level was increased and this appears to have solved the problem of the PMC dropping out of lock.

The PSL generic DAQ card was modified to permit monitoring of the AC component of the PMC PZT voltage (above 0.1 Hz) after some consulting with RichA.

I spent some time trying to figure out the connections for the modecleaner generic DAQ card since it was mentioned that two of the channels were either noisy or saturated.  As it turned out, these channels were not connected.  A few wire wraps later, things were (hopefully) sorted out.  The signals now appear on the dataviewer okay.

2.0 Other Engineering and Scientific Activities

2.1 Design/Analysis/Fab

Optical Metrology

PSL

ISC

Rich Abbott, Flavio Nocera, Mohana Mageswaran
All daughter boards for the new modecleaner servo have been ordered.  We are working through the board trying to get the noise performance within specification.  All transfer functions are verified to be correct.  We are building additional timing boards and I&Q demodulator boards.  We have also been working towards understanding the recent issues with the RFPD's.

Modulated OSEM Design

New OSEM Heads

Mark Barton
This week I set up an experiment to check the thermal performance of the OSEMs in vacuum. I've been practicing on one of the old OSEMs, trying to replicate the results of Miyoki as a sanity check. I'm checking the heating effect of both the LED and the coil. I'll be ready to test the new design as soon as I get the ZnN coated prototype from Peter.

Digital Suspensions

GDS

A backup of the E2 data was done with the data stored on fortress. The backup was checked with a separate verify cycle. A set of tapes was assembled for MIT, another tape was sent to LSU. Greg's tape control software proved to be very useful.

More memory (+1GB) was orderer for all DMT machines.

Fantom (frame multiplexer software) can now access tar archives. This makes it possible to read backups from AIT-2 tapes without transferring the data to disk first. The next feature will be to interface the DMT shared memory partitions. All together, this will allow to run DMT monitor programs directly from tapes.

A couple of dtt bugs reported during the E2 run have been tracked down and fixed.

Data acquisition

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

• Report on building rehab, from Fred Asiri:
• The contractor is replacing tiles and flooring in the main (newly expanded) IFO hall (picture), the new entrance hall, and the South Annex. Steve Vass erected a wall of plastic sheeting around their work to protect the IFO equipment from dust. Should be done by the end of the week.
• Painter(s) will come on Friday, to paint and seal the concrete wall between the IFO hall and the CES machine shop.
• Electricians are still laying cable trays (picture). Should be done SOON!
• Lighted exit signs, laser warning signs, doorbells, etc, should be installed by the end of this week.
• The power conditioning transformers were received by the distributor, and we should get ours within 30 days.
• The roofers are ready to re-roof the 40m building and Annexes. They say that the work will take only 5 days, and are waiting for a 5 day period without rain (hay! how about right now!). Steve has covered everything in plastic.
• Larry Jones and Steve Vass have completed the installation of STACIS on all 4 test mass chambers, and they have re-measured the elevations and positions of all the support beams in the bellows, and have applied shims to all support beam slopes level to 0.5 mrad. The tilts of the chambers are ok, and any non-levelness of the optical tables can be taken out using counter weights. Steve Vass has plenty of those in the lab.
• Steve Vass has protected the connecters of all the STACIS pedestals against accidental kicks.
• Larry Jones is coordinating the cleaning and baking of 12 m mode cleaner hardware at Allied and LLO.
• The 12 m mode cleaner beam tube is 8" OD. This is barely enough room to fit the base of the triangular beam path, given how close one can position the two flat-mirror suspensions in the Input Optic Chamber (IOC). Mike Smith suggested that we make the beam tube 10" OD near the IOC. This means that 8" OD parts that have not yet been ordered will be specified as 10"OD. The only existing piece of hardware that requires modification is the 8" port on the IOC door. Larry and Steve will arrange for CES to re-machine that door port (or even better, order a whole new door, so we'll have a spare); Steve will clean and bake it in atmosphere. This is a major change, and it really relieves our worry about the MC beam clearance in the pipe.
• Optics and chambers layout, from Mike Smith:
• Mike is laying out the 12 m mode cleaner in Autocad, using detailed numbers from Steve.
• He has a new layout of the beam in the IFO, using the latest cavity lengths (with the signal recycling mirror in the same chamber as the beamsplitter and power recycling mirror). He's relocating the oplev beam paths to see every mirror.
• He is laying out a small, monolithic, non-suspended output mode cleaner (OMC) in the new output optic chamber, which requires a mode matching telescope and steering into the OMC, and then out to the ISC table. We need to know whether the OMC envisioned for Advanced LIGO for DC GW detection needs to be suspended (somehow).
• He has a design for a mode matching telescope (from input mode cleaner to IFO) using two reflecting mirrors (rather than transmissive lenses, to reduce scattered light in the beam). The two mirrors each turn the beam by (180-4.5) degrees. Using spherical mirrors introduces astigmatism, limiting mode matching in the horizontal plane to no better than 97%. Using off-axis paraboloids, he can completely eliminate this astigmatism; that's the way to go!
• Mike is working full time on the 40m optical layout; much more work to be done., including relocation of BSC3 output table, position of end chambers, size and location of end optical tables, detail of mode cleaner vacuum tube, relocation of IO table.
• Mike will add little motorized "flags" to top the beam, in front of the ITMs and the ETMs. This is very useful for alignment and commissioning. It does the job that they use 48" gate valves to do at H2K.
• After Mike is finished with a preliminary layout, we will assemble a list of in-vacuum parts for design or purchase, including all optics, controls, motors, cables, feedthroughs, etc.
• Rick Karwoski and Ben Abbott continues to build and test boards for the H4K PSL, with extras for 40m and LASTI. Still plan on beginning installation of basic light source in 40m lab in January. The PSL enclosure will be built around the PSL table as soon as we can revert to cleanroom conditions, hopefully in January.
• Ben Abbott is almost finished with all the wiring and cabling for all the vecuum control boxes.
• Ben and Dennis Ugolini expect that as soon as the vacuum envelope is ready, they can modify the EPICS database and begin testing the new vacuum control system with the real hardware. This is still a ways away, because (a) a couple of ion pumps have been removed to allow for the installation of stacis. Steve Vass is ordering hardware for repositioning these pumps. (b) The ion pumps have to be regenerated; Steve will get to that after all the building rehab work is done. (c) Ion pump gate valves must be installed. (d) The annulus vacuum lines have been partially disassembled to make room for stacis installation; they will have to be put back together. (e) Probably lots more stuff. Steve will develop a schedule.
• Steve Vass and Dennis Ugolini removed the recycling mirror (and suspension) from the 40m vacuum chamber on Thursday morning (picture and closeup). They will ship the mirror (magnets attached!) to Gregg Harry in Syracuse to tests of thermal noise from the coating.
• Dennis Ugolini is working on E2 seismic studies.
• Tom Frey has input the WBS for the 40m "experiment" into Primavera; see his web page.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

TNI Weekly Report
(Eric Black, Luca Matone, Shanti Rao, Kevin Schulz, Ken Libbrecht, with
help from Seiji Kawamura)
 

TNI test cavity locked!
 

        We spent a considerable amount of time this week trying to get our
mode-cleaner to lock well, but without a great deal of success.  After
solving a few assembly problems (a wire brushing against one of the
mirrors, a bad electrical contact), we still could not achieve an
acceptable lock.  The symptoms included some unusual high-frequency
oscillations, and we suspect that the laser PZT is not functioning
properly.  We observed additional odd behavior when locking the laser to
our fixed-length reference cavity, which seems to support our hypothesis
that the laser is at fault.  The easiest way to check this is to swap in
another laser, and this will be done shortly.
        We also found a low-frequency oscillation in the mode cleaner lock that
goes away when the laser power is reduced, suggesting that scattered light
from the cavity may be getting into our OSEM sensors.  We need to nail down
our lock much better before we can investigate this problem further.
 

        Rather than swapping lasers right away, and having to realign the works,
we decided to first route around the mode cleaner cavity and try locking a
test cavity.  We expected lock acquisition might not be straightforward,
since the test cavity finesse is high (the mirrors were coated for
F=100000, and a quick measurement gave F>55000).  We first locked the laser
to a reference cavity, and tried locking the test cavity to the laser using
a broad-band Pockels cell to increase the servo bandwidth. This didn't work
for some rather uninteresting reasons.  First the electronic gain required
for the PC path was too high.  Also, we were using one power supply for the
laser PZT driver and the PC driver, and saturation of the PC driver tended
to push the reference cavity out of lock.
        Finally we tried to lock the test cavity and laser by actuating on the
laser PZT and the test mass, without a reference cavity and without the
Pockels cell.  This worked well.  The lock was robust and stable for at
least 10s of minutes at a time.  The system is still far from its final
configuration, but we are now fairly confident that lock acquisition for
the test cavities will not be a serious problem.
 

LASTI (Zucker)

No report received.

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

No report received. Must be the GWDAW meeting ?

LIGO II/Advanced R&D (Sanders)

From Bill Kells:

2. Going over some loose ends with Jordan on the work we have
done on Sapphire mirror birefringence. In particular it seems
that we have observed very much lower Rayleigh scatter in the
sapphire mirror we used than has previously been thought.

3. More work on getting the FFT code running revved up. Have executed
my first run on the new CACR supercomputer!
 
 

From Peter King

3.2 LASTI
The reference cavities for the LASTI PSL have arrived on campus.

3.3 40m Lab
The reference cavities for the 40m Lab PSL have arrived on campus. The
vacuum chambers should arrive some time next week.

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

The Core Optics Development plan has been circulated.  Until it finds a permanent home in the DCC, you can obtain a copy of LIGO- T000098-00-D at DCC\OUT\ or at http://ligo.caltech.edu/~gari/LIGOII/index.htm
 
 

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