Weekly Report for Week Ending February 3, 2000



 Project Control Meeting Agenda  Highlights  Hanford Observatory     Livingston Observatory     Detector  Project Office    System/Data Analysis    Administrative  Past Weekly Reports

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  February 7, 2000 will be:
 (Meeting time: 10:30 am Pacific Time)

Open meeting 10:30 - 11:30

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

Special Items:


Special Announcements:


Weekly Report Highlights
 
 


LIGO Hanford Observatory (LHO) Operations


Announcements:
--------------
(F. Raab)

David Ottoway arrived from Adelaide and has begun his postdoctoral appoint-
ment at LHO this week. He will be learning all the ins and outs of the
input optics, so he can take over responsibility for this system when
Haisheng leaves for Louisiana at the end of April.

Thanks to Alex Ivanov, Daniel Sigg and John Zweizig for coming promptly to
our aid with a capability for writing data to Fortress' disk prior to the
21-hr overwriting of the disk space used by the data acquisition system.
This will greatly soothe the nerves of those working on the commissioning
task.

Bake Oven:
----------
(K. Ryan)

LHO Vacuum Bake Oven Load #74, consisting of numerous LHO ETM Telescope and
LLO ETM Beam Dump parts, was released over the weekend.  LLO'sparts were
shipped out FedX on Monday.

Load #75, consisting of elliptical baffle glass, faraday isolator mount,
forks, washers and bolts, is vacuum baking and is scheduled for an expedited
(no elevated temperature scan) release this Friday.

I will propose to Helena that mention of the issue of the solubility of Latex
gloves in Acetone be included in the next revision of LIGO-E960022.

Optics:
---------------------
(B. Weaver)

This week, amongst the usual lab, liasion, and operator duties,
I have been working on revisions of my Q measurement documents.
In addition to the table of resonant modes and their Q values measured
thus far (of optics at LHO) I have posted some of their corresponding
ringdown plots at:

http://www.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/~bweaver/

Seismic Systems:
----------------------
(C. Gray & H. Radkins)

HAM2:  Chamber "closed up"--completing SEI work.

HAM4:  Stack and 500lb payload were installed.  Optics Table was leveled
(via positioning of the weights on Table) and overall elevation was set.
Chamber is now closed-up--completing SEI work.

HAM1:  Stack and 500lb payload were installed; Kapton cables were tested
and installed as well.  Optics Table level and elevation adjustments were
made.  (chamber should be closed up today).

*HAM3:  Last 4k HAM chamber awaiting SEI work--will finish off after BSC3
(below).

BSC3:  Next chamber slated for Stack installation.  Dome is currently being
prepped for removal.

PEM:  H. Radkins was troubleshooting accelerometers in the LVEA with M.
Lubinski and J. Myers--we are verifying that the correct cables are
connected to the right channels.

Computing:
----------
(C. Patton)

Started installing ssh1 on all Unix workstations on site, currently only
rainier has both ssh1 and ssh2 all others are running only ssh2.  There
are still quite a few off-site users who only have access to ssh1 and
ssh1 is not compatible with ssh2.

Continued network security maintenance, did the usual backups, helped
with several printer and PC problems, and kept the GC accounting paper
work up to date.

Controls/Data:
--------------
(D. Barker)

Moved ASC front end systems for end test mass from MY to MX to support
one arm tests in the X arm.

Created centralized alarm manager, which starts the Hanford alarm
handlers and shows the alarm configuration and log files.

Implemented BURT backups for X one arm tests. Added BURT confirmation
screens and snapshot file display facility, accessible from the Hanford
site map.

Supporting channel by channel testing of DAQ. Chasing boot up problems
of DAQ. Supporting CDS LLO installation.

Controls and Operation
(C. Patton)

Completed the summary display of Annulus Ion Pumps.

Completed the Instrument Air Pressure monitors.

Rebooted all vacuum systems to load new software.

Continued investigation of problem with MX cryopump auto fill not
responding properly.

Helped setup new PC in Control Room.

Physics Environmental Monitoring:
---------------------------------
(M. Lubinski)
 


LIGO Livingston Observatory (LLO) Operations



 

OPTICS: Installation of ETM-y is occurring this week. At writing, the optic
has been coarsely positioned as well as the ETM telescope. It has proceed
more slowly than we'd like; the periscope we're using has a small aperture
necessitating that we change alignment setup for the different instruments
we're using. The corner station remains in Laser Hazard, and I'll transition
the Y-end this afternoon for the COS alignment laser. The labs are getting
very busy with the various tasks disparate groups require. A reminder to all
visitors that you need to submit a work permit BEFORE beginning your tasks
when you visit. (Jonathan Kern)

PSL: Nothing to report

IO Optics: (1)  We continued alignment of optics in HAM1. We found that the
beam was misaligned after the periscope top mirror, while the beam was
aligned well on the PSL table. (The beam went through the two last irises on
the PSL table but was misaligned by a couple of cm at the first mode cleaner
mirror on HAM1). This indicates that the periscope top mirror mounted on a
PZT-driven mount has moved. It is most likely that this mirror was
misaligned when the power was down on Monday (We turned off the power to put
an emergency shut off button). Because of the hysteresis of the PZT, the
absolute position of the mirror at the same command voltage can change after
power down. according to the manual, the hysteresis can be as much as 15% of
the command motion. It will be an idea to place a pair of irises after the
PZT-driven mirror (somewhere between the PZT mirror and HAM1 entrance
window).
(2) Helped large optics group to set PAM screws to a large optic, adjust
OSEMs position, damp the optic, and measure resonance frequencies.
(3) Measured the beam pointing fluctuation of the PSL beam by a quad sensor
at 53" behind the periscope bottom mirror. The results (peak-to-peak in
microns) are as follows.  horizontal : ~30 um (@~1 Hz), ~20 um (@~10 Hz)
vertical : ~25 um (@~1 Hz), ~15 um (@~10 Hz)
(Sany)

CDS: DC power supply for dust monitor at MSR has been installed.
  Three breakout boxes in Lab area are installed and chained
  together with two pair cables. Software program has been installed
  and tested. Data from dust monitor at MSR will be on line
  after testing the new DC power supply performance.
- Start working on the EPICS code to read in data from FMCS files.  (Juilien
Svoboda)

1.) Suspension controls at the south end station are complete and tested.
2.) Laser safety shutdown has a new keyed switch which will allow reset by
only those who have been assigned a key.
3.) Installation of the accelerometer cables is underway. Both end stations
are complete and the LVEA will be complete next week.
4.) Installation of the IO is ongoing. Some work is still on hold because of
the ongoing work inside HAM1. (Rusyl Wooley)

Rolf and I installed reflective memory card at West and station and
configured processor and GPS card and ADC card. (A. Rizzi)

Bake Out: The RGA for the bake analysis has been calibrated an is now
performing properly. A defective cable was again the source of most of the
problem. The bake of BT y-1 began on Monday. The tube is now at 105c and all
is going well.(Allen Sibley)
 

Computers: We have re-ordered a PC to be used for AutoCad programs. The
original
order was lost in the Oracle confusion.

We have been working on some PC maintenance problems.(Tom Evans)

Bake Oven:

We have finished baking the beamsplitter LOS. We are now through
with all of the LOSs.

We are preparing for two loads of optics w/magnets.(Tom Evans)

IOO:
Dave R., Haisen R. and I aligned the steering mirror and the
MC1and MC2 to get beam into Ham 2 near MC3.(A. Rizzi)

Seismic Analysis with GRASP:
Tom Evans, Hortensia Valdes and I successfully configured a few
of the LSU bewoelf sytem of LYNUX computers and I was able to
get GRASP to run using 7 computers as slaves; work in progress
to get other computers on line and button interface up cleanly.
Work begining to setup data taking capability at West end station (A. Rizzi)

Weather Station
most parts of weather station recieved.(A.Rizzi)

LSC modeling
Completed first cut of block diagrams of Common mode and
differential mode servo loops for ADC
 


WBS 1.2, 1.3    Detector Group



----------------------------------------------
Interferometer Sensing and Control -- M Zucker
(WBS 1.2.1.1.6, 1.2.1.1.7)
----------------------------------------------
Last week's report:
ISC installation/commissioning (Zucker for group)
---------------------------------------------
At LHO last week MZ worked with Weiss, Coyne, Gonzalez,
Cook, McCarthy and others on several lines:
- Opened the X1 beamtube Thursday night & determined that the
readjustment of the in-vacuo PAM magnets on ETMx (Shoemaker et al,
previous week) had been successful at bringing the electrical biases
required for successful alignment of that cavity within range. Also
checked out and repaired ETMx optical lever.
- Found that the 2k BS optical lever laser had died. This is the third
failure (# NOTE:since then an additional one, FMy, also died, making
four). Ken Mason has taken the lead in developing a response to this
serious reliability problem and is actively consulting with the
manufacturers. In parallel we are also revising our RFQ to try and
develop alternate vendors. Cost impact is currently unknown; we are
avoiding schedule impact in the near term by cannibalizing Hanford 4k
units.
- Helped Rick Savage and Peter King diagnose an intermittent problem
with the PSL fast EOM driver (bad HV power supply) which had previously
held up locking experiments.
- Locked Y arm Friday night. Longest locked
stretch was 5 minutes; hampered by an alignment/locking interaction,
either length --> pitch coupling or an OSEM stray light effect.
Both now under investigation. Length --> pitch should have been
minimized by previous diagonalization experiments; there may have
been a physical change, or an operator continuity
error by which these results
were not properly incorporated.
- During locked stretches, observed scatter from the beam spot on
ITMy. From prior sensitivity characterization of the video camera used, it
was possible to estimate a lower bound for the scattering BRDF of
the core optic. Better-calibrated measurements are in progress
but the results are certainly not alarming. Through calculations
peformed by R. Weiss this test appears to place a better
limit than in-process profilometer testing of the COC substrates
on microroughness over the 30-100 micron transverse length scale regime.
ISC fabrication/installation (MZ for Matt Smith, Ken Mason, Myron MacInnis)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Matt & Myron finished a revision to the ETM transmission monitor video
assembly based on what we learned from the 2k ETMy. Coincidentally the
optics for this rev. arrived at about the same time. A first article
was rushed out last night to LHO to equip the 2k ETMx, since locking
experiments are moving to the X arm today. The second unit is on its
way to LLO for the ETM installation there.
Ken, Matt and Myron have also been busy preparing other tooling and
checking calculations for the ETM installation next week at LLO.

ISC controls implementation (MZ for Fritschel & Mavalvala)
----------------------------------------------------------
Dale Ouimette and Nergis M. are at MIT to work with MZ and PF
on the detailed LSC electronics implementation.
Boston weather delayed the meeting by one day, but good progress is
being made and we should be able to get the most critical
issues resolved in the two remaining days.
Updates for this week:
---------------------------
Last word from LLO is that ETM installation alignment is going well.
A second meeting at MIT with Dale Ouimette has been scheduled
for 2/16 and 2/17.
No report from the IFO commissioning crew/1-arm test.
 

-------------------------------------------
Lasers and Optics -- J. Camp
(1.2.1.1.2, 1.2.1.1.3, 1.2.1.1.4,1.2.1.1.5)
--------------------------------------------
Prestabilized Laser -- Peter King
--------------------------------------------
- Electronics for locking the pre-modecleaner have been checked out and are
functional. The pre-modecleaner in the PSL Lab has been locked.
- Testing of a high voltage PZT pre-modecleaner for LLO is underway. The
pre-modecleaner has been locked. Random inspections of the PZT's travel
do not reveal any extra modes in the output of the pre-modecleaner because
of any misalignment caused by the PZT.
Once testing of the high voltage PZT pre-modecleaner is complete it
will be shipped to LLO. A low voltage PZT pre-modecleaner will be
re-installed in the PSL Lab in order to facilitate testing of the optical
configuration reported previously.
- The PSL in the PSL Lab has been intensity stabilized prior to injection
into the pre-modecleaner. No measureable affect was noticed on the error
point of the pre-modecleaner servo.
 

Input/Output Optics -- Dave Reitze, UF
-----------------------------------------
LHO 2K
NO significant activity to report.
LLO 4k (Sany Yoshida, Haisheng Rong, Dave Reitze, Joe Giaime)
-established the correct pitch/yaw orientations for the MC alignment
control mirrors. Both mirrors have pitch on channel 1 and yaw on channel
2. Axes are aligned to better than a few degrees. A temporary PZT
controller is now biasing both PZTs at 50V, the midpoint of the bias
range.
-installed DCL MC injection mirrors in HAM 1.
-aligned PSL beam through SM1 using new SOS alignment targets (which
worked pretty well).
-aligned MC mirrors 1,2,3 such that fringes are visible on the
output beam after SM1 when the MC mirrors are damped (flashing is visible
in the cavity). It's not perfect, but given the beam drift problems, it
wasn't worth going much further. It should suffice to the point where the
pitch yaw biases on MC1,2,3 can be tweaked to establish good alignment.
We had to adjust the PAM screws a bit on MC2 and MC1 to get the pitch
angles correct. Spots are centered on the mirrors to a few mm or better.
 

Core Optics Procurement and Metrology -- GariLynn Billingsley
-------------------------------------------------------------
Nothing new in core optics or metrology.
 

Core Optics Support -- Michael Smith
------------------------------------
Mike is on travel at LLO.

--------------------------
Isolation Group -- M. Fine
--------------------------

Seismic Design (Mike Fine)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nothing significant to report.
Suspension -- (Janeen Hazel/Mark Barton/Mike Fine)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Report from Janeen:
-Helena and I are at LLO. We finished work on the ETMy and readied it for
installation. It is now in the chamber.
-We balanced the ETMx yesterday. It will go in the oven tomorrow. Guide rods
and wire standoffs are glued onto the ITMy, BS and ITMx. We will be
processing them here this and next week.
 

---------------------------------------------------------
Detector Systems Engineering -- D. Shoemaker/D Coyne
(WBS 1.2.1.1.9)
---------------------------------------------------------

Global Diagnostics System
(Daniel Sigg, John Zweizig)
This week I worked on defining and implementing a first
draft of a designer frame writer to run on fortress. Since the
fortress machine was swapped with the "stone" DMT machine
it has had two 70-gigabyte raid arrays which can be used for
temporary storage of data samples.
The current version of the designer data set writer doesn't yet
perform any preprocessing of the data (filtering, triggering,
decimation, etc), but does allow the user to select any
appropriate subset of the data channels, and writes them to
one or many time-stamped files.
Fortress is also equipped with a tape robot that can be used to
record the frame files for archival or distribution to other sites.
The software which came with the tape robot failed to install
because it doesn't support Solaris 2.7 (yet). However, even
without the software we were able to manually feed tapes into
the first drive and read and write to it. Measured throughput
rates (using UNIX tar command on large files): ~3MB/s write
and ~4MB/s read (tape capacity 35GB uncompressed).
With the help of Alex a stand-alone version of the network
data server code was installed on fortress. This code can be
setup to look at all frame files stored in a single directory.
This allows the control room tools (data viewer and diagnostics
test tool) to run with saved frame files.
Currently, we are working on making this process transparent
to the user by adding an NDS setup option to the diagnostics
launch pad.
This week I worked on debugging and improving several
components of the DMT software, notably the Frame writing tools.
I also started to incorporate the fast frame reader class Alex added
to FrameCPP into the DMT access functions. This should greatly
speed up the data access for monitor processes and allow many
more processes to run concurrently.
An export function has been added to the diagnostics test tool.
We are now able to write reduced frames, to read them back with
data viewer and the diagnostics test tool, and to store them on
tape when no longer needed.
 

-----------------------------------------
Control and Data System -- R. Bork
(WBS 1.2.2)
-------------------------------------------

LSC CDS: (Dale)
=========================
I spent a few days at MIT last week where Mike, Peter, Nergis and I did
some serious brain storming to fill in some of the remaining gaps in the
LSC requirements and design issues. It went very well and we are meeting
again in two weeks for another iteration. At CIT I spent most of my time
keeping fabrication, production and testing running. We had a request
from LHO to modify one of the LSC Notch Filter boards by retuning it to
6.752KHz. This was done for the first two stages of serial number 4. It
took some iterating to get minimum phase shift at 1 KHz and minimum gain
bump at ~4KHz. The result is
Notch at 6.752 KHz = -50dB per stage
Gain bump at 4.2KHz = 5dB per stage
Phase at 1KHz = -5 degrees per stage
The third and fourth stages are still tuned to 9.48KHz and 14.5KHz
respectively. Will ship today (Thursday). The LSC Whitening filter is
progressing. It looks like it may have to split into two PC boards
because of the number of components and connectors.
GPS Timing System: (Dale)
=========================
We have 7 GPS Clock Drivers that are 95% tested. (VME bus testing left
to do)
We have 3 GPS Clock Drivers that are waiting for a part to arrive.
We are about to go for fab of more Clock Fanout modules.
Suspension (Jay)
=============================
- Preliminary analysis of one of the failed FMY controllers shows that
the
internal high voltage power supply traces have been vaporized. The cause
of this
failure is still under investigation and is the failure mode for the
second
controller.
- 5 prototypes of the coherent detection satellite amp are being stuffed
in
hopes that they can be tested at LHO in late Feb or early March.
ASC (Jay)
============================
- Rev B boards of the WFS whitening and interface boards are being
stuffed for
LHO. These boards fix the polarity flip problem previously discovered.
- 13 more Optical lever PD amps have been stuffed and tested.
LLO IO Controls (Jay)
============================
- The software and wiring for rack 1X4 is 90% installed and tested. Jay
is
returning to LLO on Feb 21 to complete the installation and test the IO
controls.
LLO installation (Rolf)
==================
- Most of the GDS equipment has been installed. The gigabit ethernet
hub, however, arrived DOA.
- Installed Sun Workshop compilers, but Sigg is having problems with
them. Plan to put latest Solaris patches in and try reloading.
- Updated data acquisition system drawings to as builts and will submit
to DCC. The latest copies of CDS drawings for LLO are now kept in a
binder in the control room.
- Installing data acquisition crate in Y arm end station. This may not
be complete before I leave tomorrow, but I will be back Jan. 22. We
still need the anti aliasing chassis to complete the data acq.
installation. The second unit arrived today and the remainder should
arrive before I come back.
- Software has been loaded for the IO controls and tested, along with
suspension control software for the end stations. Y arm unit has been
tested and X arm will be tested on next visit.
- In process of updating Sun machines to Solaris7.
ASC (Rolf)
=========
- In line VME software has been split into two parts: VME/realtime
specific and servo filter code. This was done at request of Hiro and
Daniel to allow the filter code to be put into the end to end model.
This code has been forwarded to them.
PSL
************
1. Continued the effort to get the "old PSL" put back into shape. The
premodecleaner servo is now running (largely due to the efforts of Peter
King).
2. Received a package of changes from Hanford. It has details of the
changes to the PSL DAQ card.
3. Finishing construction on two more VCO's for measurement and
installation.
LSC/ASC Frequency Distribution
************
1. Finished prototype of RF bandpass filter to reject out of band
sources
of AM in the EOM AM stabilization portion of the circuitry. These
changes
are to be included in the now complete circuit board that I am ready to
send to the board house.
2. Chassis design is complete and out for quote.
Seismic advisory committee
************
1. Attended the first meeting after reviewing the volumes of written
documentation.
2. Toured the physics high bay area to see the prototype seismic
isolation
setup.
 


WBS 1.4    Project Office


From: Syd Meshkov <syd@ligo.caltech.edu>

1. Constructed a quasi-complete preliminary program for the Aspen Winter
Conference on Gravitational Waves and their Detection. The members of the
Organizing/Program Committee have been and continue to be a  tremendous
help. Also dealt with numerous inquiries about application and
registration, as well as housing.We currently have about 55 registrants.
 

2. Worked on LSC Matters, such as plans for new MOUs, revisions to active
Attachments, and achieving a workable, useful roster of LSC Members and
their coordinates. Many thanks are due Irena Petrac, Rita Torres, Donna
Tomlinson, Barbara Kratochwill and Elizabeth Wood for their efforts in
producing this roster.

3. Reviewed an NSF Proposal.

4. Dealt with an inquiry about the Visitors Program
 

 WBS 1.4.1.2   Project Controls



Reports (Lindquist) Change Control/Contingency (Lindquist)

The following change requests have been submitted:
 

CR-990028 WBS 1.1.3 Beam Tube Enclosure Closeout F. Asiri
CR-990029 WBS 1.1.4 Fencing Road at Livingston (Info Only) G. Stapfer

Press for the latest Contingency Needs Projection


LIGO Weekly Site Telecon (Jasnow)

A site telecon was held on on Thursday, February 3, 2000.  The list of current actions assigned may be found at ACTION LIST.


PROPERTY MANAGEMENT (Chargois)

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

Assisted the Detector Group with the packaging and shipping of seven (7) crates of consisting of Arm Cavity Baffle Glass Support Assembly, approximately 1400 lbs. to Allied Engineering and Production (S. Jones) for cleaning in preparation for shipping to the two LIGO Facilities.  Account Number LIGO.5F500 LIGO CALTECH 2.5 NSF LIGO. 5F5000.

Assisted the Optics Engineer (H. Armandula ) with the shipping of  one (1) 4ITM Mirror, serial number 4ITM03-C, and one (1) Beamsplitter, serial number BSO2, to the LLO (J. Kern) delivery confirmed. Account Number P96930.

Assisted the Detector Group (P. King) with the shipping of a misdirected Laser, a Chiller, and two (2) rolls of Hoses to LHO (R. Savage). Account Number LIGO.5F512 LIGO CALTECH 2. NSFLIGO 5F5000.

Assisted the System Administrator (L.Wallace) with the packing an shipping of a Gateway Computer serial number 3091930 to the LLO (T. Evans). Account number P97273.

Assisted the Detector Group with the packing and shipping of two (2) boxes of hardware, one to LLO (J. Kern) and one to LHO (B. Weaver), delivery confirmed.  Account Number  P96937.

Assisted the Detector Group (M. Fine) with the packing and shipping of  Seismic Springs to the LHO (C.Gray). Account Number P96916.


DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner)

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

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

ACTIVITY HIGHLIGHTS

From: Cleveland Mak <mak_c@ligo.caltech.edu> Press here to access the DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER WEB PAGE.


COST SCHEDULE CONTROL SYSTEMS (Duncan, Moore, Akutagawa, Kaufman)

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

Press here for ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY DATA.

From: Ruth Brambila

Currently working on the list given to me by Cindy for removing funds on certain POETA numbers.

Regarding the subcontract Award Letter, I have referred to my team leader, Jose Tiana, and am waiting to hear back from him.

Currently, have a lot of requests from my department relating to the audit we will be having in February.

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

From: Florence Kaufman <fkaufman@ligo.caltech.edu> From: Cindy Akutagawa <cindy@ligo.caltech.edu>
I am working on the monthly reports for January 2000.  I am still working with the Task Managers and Ruth to relieve the encumbrances on the construction accounts.
SUBCONTRACTS MANAGEMENT (Petrac, Jasnow)

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

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

No report this week.
 


WBS 1.4.3    Systems Engineering / Data Analysis and Computing



 
 

Systems Engineering

Release E960022-A of the Vacuum Compatibility, Cleaning and Procedures
specification has been released. It may be obtained from the Integration www
site off the internal LIGO Lab www pages,
http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~coyne/index.html

Simulation and Modeling

Hiro reprots:
On January 28th, we had a meeting discussing about the simulation
work for the lock acquisition process. Attendees to the telephone
conference are : Stan, Luca, Mike, Peter, Nergis, Matt, Hiro.

The agenda was

(1) If this work is along the line of LSC/ASC plan
(2) What are to be done and when
(3) Can this be a thesis topic of Matt Evans.
Answer to (1) and (3) are YES and YES, and Matt has chosen that as his
thesis topic. Luca Matone will work with Matt 50% of his time on the
simulation of the LSC.

Following this meeting, a small group meeting was held at CIT with
Matt, Luca, Biplab and Hiro attended. The plan of activity is as
follows.
(1) Lock Acuisition will be studied in three steps
     (a) evaluation of the baseline design
             Study the strategy set by Lisa and Brent using e2e, and
understand
             the performance semi-quantitatively, including the
evaluation of
             the effect of misalignment.
     (b) patch on the baseline design
             If it turns out that the baseline design does not offer a
good enough
             performance, try to find out a patch necessary to improve
the
             baseline design, which can be achieved without changing the

             strategy, no major hardware/software change.
     (c) re-design
             If (a) and (b) are not enough, a new design of the lock
acquisition
            strategy will be designed.
     (a) and hopefully (b) will be ready by July.

(2) Matt will go to MIT to discuss with Peter Fritschel to understand
the
     current implementation of LSC/ASC and to lay out the base strategy
     of LSC/ASC modeling.

(3) Luca will try to improve the 2K FP model and compare with the LHO 2K
FP
     data. This will bring the simulation more realistic, will validate
the model,
     and will be able to help the commissioning of 2K experiment.

(4) Hiro and Biplab will work improving the simulation engine so that
the full
      LIGO simulation can be done more reliably and faster.

(5) Hiro is also using Twiddle to generate transfer function of IFO
under
     various resonance conditions.

The priorities of the simulation code development have been altered
to focus more directly on the LHO 2K IFO locking research.

Alfi - GUI

Ed and Bruce has been working on the new version of alfi, alfi4. An
alpha
version of alfi4 will be released very soon. Main goal of this upgrade
is
to make it possible to handle more complex configurations easily.

GNATS - Bug tracking interface

Ed and Bruce have implemented GNATS for e2e in the e2e webpage. This
will be
the primary interface to report problems related to e2e.

LIGO Data Analysis System

[Kent Blackburn]

* (JKB) The 0.0.8 release of LDAS finally took place this week. It
        appears as though all the hard work and effort has resulted
        in a reasonably stable software version from which to stage
        our next set of software features and functionality.

* (JKB) There are still quite a few known problems with the software
        and the LDAS problem tracking system based on GNU's GNATS
        package has been tremendously helpful at preventing these
        bugs and issues from falling off the table. In a typical day
        we will have an opening of 5 to 10 new reports and a nearly
        equal number of reports being closed out. There is a residual
        of approximately 15 un-closed bug reports that have accumulated
        since the system was implemented about a week and a half ago
        and a total number approximately 50 of reportsf filed in the
        same time.

* (JKB) This week has seen an increased amount of email concerning the
        frame specification as LIGO takes steps to bring the framecpp
        library into conformance with specifications. Lots of little
        issues overlooked by the committees members are showing up in
        the early implementation phases. One of the new structures in
        the spec that will be of immediate use to LIGO is the FrTable
        structure which will greatly clean up the recording of slow
        data by the framebuilder.

* (JKB) The group was also represented in meetings with the LSC this
        week in efforts to develop mock-data-challenges that are well
        organized and syncronized with activities in LDAS and the LSC.

* (JKB) The joint task of developing the dataConditioningAPI with LSC
        support from UTB, ANU and PSU continued this week. Software is
        now beginning to appear in the CVS repository which captures
        many of the algorithm requirements for this API.

* (JKB) Albert and Kent reviewed computer area over in SRL as a candidate
        area for some of LDAS servers and beowulf cluster. The area if
        made available would well suit the needs of LDAS.
AL NOTE: I issued a memorandum to Barry and Gary with a specific
proposal for making the move.

* (JKB) The MPI coding requirements continued this week with several
        well defined requirements for the wrapperAPI and mpiAPI command
        line parameters being passed on to the staff for implementation.
        The format for the ILWD passed from the dataConditioningAPI to
        the wrapperAPI was better defined and parsers for casting these
        ILWD data objects into MPI::Datatypes can now be developed.

[Masha Barnes]

* (MB) MPI:
       - Wrote abstract base class representing an ILWD element
         in MPI.
       - Implemented parsing of all command line arguments for
         the wrapperAPI as specified in requirements.
       - Learning about MPI error handling.

[ Edward Maros ]

* (EFM) Finished changes for the 0.0.8 build of the ldas software.

* (EFM) Enabled Object space to send arrays of basic data types.

* (EFM) Increased performance on large arrays of lstrings.

* (EFM) Reworked Object Space's Makefile.am files to enable building
          in a directory other than the source.

[ Phil Ehrens ]

 *(PSE) Continued system testing of LDAS release 0.0.8
        on Hanford and Livingston based LDAS system
        hardware.

 *(PSE) Resumed work on the mpi API tcl module.

 *(PSE) Investigated methods for automated handling of
        dead links in LDAS web pages.

 *(PSE) Wrote test cases suitable for running under
        "make check" for testing ilwd data type support,
        data socket communication between API's running
        on a common host, and loadability of shared objects.

 *(PSE) Updated documentation for user commands.

[Alex Ivanov]

* (AI) changed the frame builder to fix several issues related to mini-NDS

* (AI) implemented FrameCPP::FrTable structure

* (AI) tested new FrTable strcture

AL NOTE: Once the new framecpp library is availalbe, we will have
to develop a plan on how to migrate it onto the observatory realtime systems.
Old style frames will not be readbale by the new library and vice-versa (the
old library will remain to be available).

[Mary Lei]

* (ML)  Ran scripts to test data sockets with all types of ilwd
        elements to verify that data socket transmission is
        consistent between 2 machines. Also ran test to check
        transmission rate on same machine verifying Phil's
        results that it is slower on same machine.

* (ML)  Completed tcl changes for insertion of multi-table ilwds
        in the tcl layer; will need to revise when dbEasy
        provides the dynamic casting function to access the
        uniqueId container as a container and not an element.
        cvs to repository.

* (ML)  Updated column comment to remarks in sql and populated
        cit metaserver database with ilwd data using metadata API
        so linked with DB2 6.1.

* (ML)  Tested getMetaData with ilwd as output; validated getMetaData
        results against input ilwd to check data integrity.

* (ML)  Did more system test with getMetaData ligolw output; modified
        metadata tcl to do bg data send in the main interp rather
        than slave; able to send 5 jobs of 100 rows each to ligolw
        and get xml documents, but processing is slow due to the
        data socket transmission.

* (ML)  Tested descMetaData user command; found some foreign keys missing
        at cit_1 database at cit metaserver; deneb cit_1 database running
        5.2 has all the foreign keys.  Also tested sending output of
        descMetaData to ligolwAPI.

*    Stuart Anderson:

        Attended meeting with Sun Microsystems to plan a bid by Sun for
the LIGO mass storage system. Finalized and sent the the proposed guidelines
for reviewing LSC data analysis proposals from the interim Software Coordinate
Committee to the LSC chair for final approval. Added additional ftp access to
the current LIGO data archive at CACR.

* Walid Majid:
-----------

I am trying to quantify the non-stationarity of the GW channel for the 40m
run. I am determining what will be a reasonable duration over which we can
carry out a match filter analysis with a given template. Continue to build
a modular library of tools in C which I have found very reusable.

Participated in another telcon with an LSC team interested in carrying out
a coincidence analysis of the 40m and Tama data. Set up a web page and
mailing list for the group and released some code I had written for the
group to use for exploring the data. I will coordinate with Sam Finn to
come up with a proposed pipeline to carry out the analysis.

I have started running a more deeper search for accreting X-ray pulsars
in the LMC. The current algorithm will employ a more tunable parameter
space. The current search will look for objects upto to 250 Hz, with a
minimum characteristic time scale of 1000 years or a maximum frequency
derivative of 4.0e-9 Hz/s.

General Computing

MIT:
Nothing to report.

Livingston:
We have re-ordered a PC to be used for AutoCad programs. The original
order was lost in the Oracle confusion.
We have been working on some PC maintenance problems.
Larry tracked down a order for a GPS unit and found that it had just been put
into the system.

Hanford:

Started installing ssh1 on all Unix workstations on site, currently only
rainier has both ssh1 and ssh2 all others are running only ssh2.  There
are still quite a few off-site users who only have access to ssh1 and
ssh1 is not compatible with ssh2.

Continued network security maintenance, did the usual backups, helped
with several printer and PC problems, and kept the GC accounting paper
work up to date.

CIT:
Barbara took the Colwell segment of the inauguration tapes to Straightline for
re-editting.  We will have blips in the editted tapes because the
camera-person didn't put a few seconds of blank tape at the beginning of
some of the reels.  He or she was changing tapes in the middle of a talk
and trying not to loose any footage.  So there isn't any "take-up" or
leader for the tape player and we lose about 7 seconds of footage on each
of the affected tapes.  The Digital Media Center is re-coding the Nov 12
clips for LAN viewing using new variable bitrate encoding software.
Took the Nov 11 videotapes to Alta Video Productions in Pasadena; they were
recommended by Caltech's audio-visual services.  Their rates are more
reasonable and they appear to be a smaller shop that tries harder.  The
editted tapes should be ready today or tomorrow.
Installed the LSC roster web pages.  Wrote VB scripts to generate the html
for the roster pages from Rita's database.  Also generated lists of names
and  email addresses for Larry to create email distribution lists.  Added a
field to the application to note LSC Council members.
Began work to point the internal web search tool at the DCC database.  The
Access changes are ready.  Now I'm working on SQL changes to the web forms.
Help Linda prepare a cheat sheet on document locations and URLs.  Wrote a
script to move some M documents (LSC MOU's and attachments) from the
internal M directory to the public M directory.
Investigated a problem with the web forms to Reserve a Document Number.  On
Friday Linda reserved a document number using the Access forms. It seems
that the next sequence number table was not updated at that time.  So the
next person to reserve a number got a duplicate document number error
message.   Linda has suspected that transactions are being dropped
sproadically; this appears to be our first documented case.

Suresh installed GPIB driver software in one of the Sun machine in Optics Lab
to
be able to display oscilloscope displays using Labview. The driver could not be
installed in solaris 2.6 and solaris 7. This was correctly installed on solaris
2.5.1.
Worked with Larry on last saturday to make necessary preparation to switch
over to new sirius. We encountered some minor problems with NIS+ initialization
and hope to resolve in coming weekend. Installed new UPS unit.
Working with Larry on voice and video communication using PCs over the
internet.
Finished routine monthly backup of LIGO servers.
Exploring the network management features of HP Openview. I found great deal
of information out of it. It graphically represents LIGO network as well as ATM
nework. This enables us to poll various Management Information Base (MIB)
parameters.
Provided support services to users.

Samantha worked a couple of virus issues.

Larry worked a number of procurement issues. Presently, getting a new set of
quotes on PC's since the price has dropped. Down to the last maintenance
contract with FORE/Marconi. This should be worked out by the end of next week.
Tested the sirius upgrade and found a number of issues. Most have been resolved
which should allow us to do the upgrade this weekend. Also, worked on a set of
procedures to follow on the upgrade. It will affect the users in that they will
need to re-sync their password with the NIS+ data base. IDEAS master series 5
will no longer be available, it has been upgraded to IDEAS master series 7.
Helped a number of people load and fix s/w on their pc's via telephone. This
includes playing phone tag with the Oracle support people in trying to get some
minor issues taken care of with them.
With the help of Suresh we took a first cut at re-organizing the racks in the
computer room. The extra space is needed for the new servers and backup server
units. This also included adding a new video switch and UPS unit. Two more
servers to install and that should wrap up the rack arrangment.
Working on setting up an area for the NT servers. This includes the Amaldi,
video stream, DCC and Primavera servers. Working with Barbara on the video
stream server so it can be put on-line in the near future.
Received notice that the computer projectors should ship today. So by next week
everyone should have a projector. The order for the pc's should go out this
week
and the carts next week.
Initial testing for computer conferencing has worked out. Some difficulty with
video but shared applications, chat and the white board functions have worked
from PC to PC and SUN to PC. We have a lot more testing to do before we will be
able to recommend anything.
Assisted in resolving a number of issues on user applications.
 


WBS 1.4.4.1    Administrative Group


Dorothy Lloyd

Still out due to Eddie's surgery, however, Dorothy has been coming in at night to do a few hours of work.

Irene Baldon

Worked on preparing the paper work for 30 new trips taken recently or upcoming (30 Payment Requests and 12 Advance Requests There are approximately an additional 13 new trips in various stages pending completion of travel arrangements before the paper work can be completed. Also worked on an unusually high number of problem issues which required a good portion of my time.

Completed 25 Expense Reports, some of which were extensive, involving 2-3 or more pages each. Some of these reports were still not taped or completed by the Traveler, and required additional time for completion. Worked additionally on a number of problem issues associated with these which required a good portion of my time.

There are 26 Expense Reports still to be done. I'm holding 5 completed Expense Reports which require a check from the Traveler before sending to Travel Audit to clear. Veronica helped me out this week by completing 2 Expense Reports. Thanks Veronica.

I have not seen any significant change in the time lag for receiving checks. They still continue to hold checks in Disbursement Audit for up to an additional week after the check has been issued. This additional lag adds significantly to the lag that already occurs in Travel Audit/Accounting. I have started receiving T numbers. We'll have to see how long this lasts this time.

Performed normal recording and filing associated with Travel and Reimbursement.

Prepared the Travel/Vacation Itinerary for the Week of January 31, 2000.

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 assist them wherever possible.

Rita Torres

Was out of the office 1 day for jury duty, and 1/2 day for medical appointment.

For I. Petrac did change order No. 8 to University of Florida, obtained an Oracle requisition number. Formatted text from vendor to include with Galli & Morelli package, change order No. 8, going to NSF for approval. Input a few corrections to LSC database.

Site trips updates on the web. Ongoing P-card purchases, reconciling, and chasing after details. Filled in as needed to process requisitions in D. Lloyd's absence. A bit more update to PO log for D. Lloyd, doing as time permits.

Elizabeth K. Wood

Got the advertisement ready for the Tri-Cities Herald for the two Hanford jobs.

Dealt with some personnel issues.

Continued the ongoing investigation into FastLane in advance of working on impending proposals.

Purchased Visio and have been experimenting with it.

The guys from BBC radio wrote back. They wanted photos of the sites to put in their national newspapers so Dave Beckett and I rounded up a herd of the best of LIGOland. I haven't heard anything from them about the radio broadcast yet, however.
 


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