Weekly Report for Week Ending January 25, 2001

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  January 29, 2001 will be:

 CANCELLED DUE TO NSF REVIEW

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights

Late news from LLO, the Michelson locks!

And the LHO 2K locks better and better in full recycled configuration!

And a successful Mock Data Challenge!

LSC Issues (Weiss)

to: LSC executive committee
from: R. Weiss January 23, 2001
concerning: Notes from the LSC Executive committee phone call 01/19/2001

A new iteration of the Data Analysis White Paper will be made by a committee
consisting of Stuart Anderson, Al Lazzarini, Tom Nash, Keith Riles, Alan
Weinstein and Alan Wiseman (chair). The White Paper needs
to articulate a long and short range scientific program and the needs of the field
for the future. One of the suggestions made at the meeting is to remove the
work lists from the body of the paper. First meeting of the group is scheduled
for Jan 23.

The proposal to hold an election for the spokesperson and various
of the LSC committee chairs was discussed. The outcome of the discussion and
comments sent around prior to the meeting is that it would be best not to hold
an election for any position other than spokesperson. The committee chairs
are determined by the spokesperson in consultation with the nominations
committee. It is also the spokesperson's job to determine if committee chairs
want to continue. I will call all committee chairs to determine their situation
before the next LSC executive meeting. As to the election for Spokesperson, if the
nominations committee agrees, we will defer this for another year. The nominations
committee should report on their deliberations at the next LSC Council meeting.

Alan Wiseman reported on the changes in the organization of the software
coordination. A software change control board consisting of Stuart
Anderson, Jolien Creighton and John Zweizig will be constituted. The old
software coordination committee will become a software advisory committee to
the Software Coordinator. The members of the advisory committee are
Sam Finn, Maria-Alessandra Papa and Tom Prince. The CCB will deal primarily
with technical issues while the advisory group will monitor the mock data
challenges, oversee the activities of the CCB and advise the Software
Coordinator.

Meetings being held by the chairs of the upper limit groups have been going on
since the GWDAW meeting last December. The meetings are designed to establish
the common software and hardware requirements of the different upper limit
groups and guide the groups in developing their analysis proposals. Alan
Wiseman in discussions with Barry and members of the executive committee is
preparing some guidelines for the upper limit groups. The principal software
to be used by the upperlimit groups is the LDAS since this will give
practice with the system designed to do the LIGO data analysis. With the
first real coincidence runs now scheduled for September 2001, the conflict
between LDAS being ready and the needs of the upper limit groups has been
somewhat alleviated. The major function of the Laboratory will be to provide
a "clean" pipeline for the data.

The major purpose of the upper limit groups is to test the software and to
write preliminary upper limit papers. The results of the upper limit analyses
should become available in January or February of 2002 when the LIGO II proposal
is presented to the NSF and colloquia are held at the NSF.

A discussion of the types of issues to be brought to the CCB followed. Such
issues as changes in the Frame format, changes in the LAL standard and the
style of Data Tables in DB2 are examples. Daniel Sigg raised the question of
CCB hearings on internal operations software such as that used in
detector diagnostics and on line detector analysis. (I believe) it was decided
that such software does not come under LSC coordination being part of the
detector operations.

Gary Sanders gave a report on his trip to VIRGO to discuss coatings which then
resulted in much broader discussions concerning the collaboration between LIGO
and VIRGO. I cannot do justice to Gary's report but summarize the main points.

1) The coating facilities in Lyon look adequate to do the coatings for LIGO II.
Although there is no demonstrated record of accomplishment of uniformity,
low absorption and low scattering for very large optics, the hope is that the coating of the
VIRGO optics in 2002 will provide the needed experience. Lyon is a viable
option for LIGO II along with several others that are still being investigated.

2) If the coatings are done at Lyon they may constitute an investment in a
broader LIGO/VIRGO collaboration.

3) VIRGO is currently going through a major reorganization. The European
Gravitational - wave Observatory (EGO) is becoming the operational leg
of the VIRGO project with power of the purse and project management. A
subgroup of the EGO is the scientific effort represented by the old VIRGO
management of Brillet and Giazotto who have been given the task to pull together
the scientific program of EGO.

4) Brillet, Giazotto and the group at CNRS including Davier, Dupont and Giacobino are eager
to make more formal couplings to the LIGO project and are talking of operating
LIGO and VIRGO as a single observatory with a uniform publications policy.

5) Major questions raised are whether it is in the best interest of the field
to make bilateral agreement between LIGO/VIRGO. How to involve the LSC in the
collaboration. How the new initiatives intersect with the goals and activities
of GWIC.

6) The general response of the LSC executive committee was positive to the
VIRGO overtures and urged that the details be explored. It was
suggested that the forthcoming LIGO/VIRGO network analysis meeting on Feb 11
actually try to incorporate the VIRGO project in the Engineering runs as a way
of developing confidence and generating useful techniques. Correlation of
PEM signals was considered an interesting and easy initial step. It should be
possible to make special arangements for VIRGO scientists to become involved in
the engineering data analysis by bringing their participation to the
executive committee as we have done for non-LSC people.
 

The next LSC executive committee meeting will be at 11 AM EDT Friday
February 16, 2001
 
 

LIGO I Construction/LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

WBS 1.2 LIGO Operations--Administration

LIGO Weekly Site Telecon (Lindquist)

The next site telecon is scheduled for Thursday, February 1, 2001.  The list of current actions revised to reflect open actions assigned through January 25, 2001 may be found at ACTION LIST.

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

• Nothing significant to report.

>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

• Review of the ASIS web page continues.
• Met with Gary and several staff members to discuss the DCC and electronic documentation for the project [current status and future plans -pel].
• Met with Garilynn who was able to capture a web page and links as a .pdf with Adobe Acrobat.  I provided her with a plug-in that enabled her to insert a LIGO number onto the .pdf for submittal to the DCC.  The process is quite simple and may provide a tool worth expanding within the project, especially with the proliferation of internal bulletin boards and their links being used for documents, quotes and interaction with contractors.
• Helped Ed Jasnow electronically imbed inserts, comments and annotations to a .pdf document.
• Prepared and made available electronically 25 drawings for RFP IPGS-511.  DCC numbers were added and all drawings were entered into the database and transferred to docspublic/D.
• Processed about 15 presentations from the PAC 9 meeting held in December.  These were added on-line and sent to Barbara for web posting.
• Discussed with Larry the logistics for providing support at the LSC in March for electronic documentation of all presentations.  We reviewed the software, hardware, and network support necessary to have presentations immediately handled and available on the web the following day.  Our goal is that most, if not all, presentations will be numbered, entered in the database, transferred electronically and posted on the web by the Monday following the LSC.
• Processed and distributed 1 DCN.

• processed large number of electronic docs, packaged and shipped RFP IPGS-511, completed editing of titles for Livingston Construction drawings, resumed auditing of Hanford Construction drawings.

Press here to access the DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER WEB PAGE.

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

Press here for ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY DATA.

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

• Finishing up Kratochwill and the extensions to the Siemens, and Boc contracts.  Have LasR Sheild, Pasadena Eye, Butler, Employment Services, and Sydney Meshkov to work on.  Need to set up the new file for Taylor Porter to transfer the balance.
• Good news on Praxair for LHO, the surcharges do not apply to LHO as the fixed price contract is in effect.  This was confirmed with Praxair after our alarm of receiving a second letter informing us of surcharges.
• Obtaining quotes on the generator for the LIGO Livingston Observatory.

• Submitted requests for new PTA's (account numbers) for the 4 new LDAS Fabricated Equipment Accounts.  The system now allows that account numbering can be designated by the requestor (within certain parameters) instead of the old system of assigning of numbers in numerical sequence.
• Submitted 7 Cost Transfer Requests to move costs related to A&E for new Livingston Building to the new PTA, which hopefully will relieve the Indirect Cost of currently $6500 assessed for this expenditure.
• Continued working with Ruth Brambila and Dorothy Lloyd for transfer of encumbrances to Fiscal Period 2001 Operations accounts.
• Provided requested information to Fred Asiri related to potential return of unused budget for Civil Construction to Contingency [See LIGO CR-010001 below -pel.]

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

• NYMA: CO No. 26, adding funds for estimated FY'01 level-of-support requirement, is in review. An agreement on adjusted FY'01 billing rates was reached.
• Butler: CO No. 16, adding funds for estimated FY'01 level-of-support requirement, was released to CIT Purchasing.
• Crystal Systems, Inc.: Proposal for 'large optics fabrication R&D phase, in support of Advanced LIGO, is under LIGO review.
• TAMA SAS: Advanced copies of contracts for the two TAMA SAS prototypes, signed by an authorized NAOJ representative, were received. Coordination with the Sponsored Research Office, to set up an appropriate account, was initiated. Hard copies of the contract documentation, to be co-signed by Caltech/LIGO Lab., are on the way. [Division Approval forms will also have to be prepared and submitted for review and approval -pel.]
• Univ. of Florida: Proposal for continuing collaboration of the Institute of Applied Physics at Nizhny Novgorod, was submitted.
• Advanced LIGO SEI Mechanical Structure: The solicitation was released to a number of  qualified companies.

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

• Research regarding the use of mechanical or electronic safeguards for the use of the lasers has been completed.  Discussions will continue with personnel who perform research with lasers to select the optimum method.

>From: Dave Beckett  <beckett@ligo.caltech.edu>

Activities

• The newsletter table of contents was established.  Articles have been requested from Stan Whitcomb, Fred Raab, Mark Coles, and Albert Lazzarini. Their titles:
• Second "First Lock" of the LIGO 2 km Interferometer - Stan
• LIGO Detects Moon! - Fred
• Short Michelson Lock - Mark
• Mock Data Challenge - Albert
• Also underway:  processing three existing news stories from the LLO home page into the newsletter format.
• Am also currently in the process of writing  the HTML code for the January newsletter.
• Met with Linda and Donna to create a plaque for retirements, milestones, service, etc. of LIGO staff.  Priced the elements and created several samples of possible themes and layouts for Donna to show to Barry.

Handled two image requests: 1) a collection of aerial views for the French scientific monthly, "La Recherche," and 2) a batch of vacuum equipment images for the publisher of the Institute of Physics journal Classical and Quantum Gravity.

Support (Wood)

Advanced LIGO (Frey, Petrac)

Progress Period from 01.19 to 01.25

Accomplishments:

• LIGO Project Controls meeting held this week on Monday at 2:30pm.  Focus of the meeting was material prep for NSF review.
• Proposal plan development for Advanced LIGO MRE continues.
• Prepared E sized schedule plots for use during the NSF meetings next week.
• Issued data requests for progress data as of 01.26.01 that are due Friday.
• Progress as of 01.19.01 was processed and posted.
• Review of cost and schedule data is Continuing.
• Continue to integrate the AOS schedule into Primavera and the Cost Book Tool.
• Started to integrate the COC schedule into Primavera and the Cost Book Tool.
• Have not received any data from Dave Reitze or Peter King.
• Initiated the development of the TNI work plan and schedule per Gary Sanders.
• Met with the TNI team and will begin schedule development next week when Eric Black acquires MS Project for the MAC.
• Project Plan for the 40-Meter Lab Upgrade continues.
• Issued data requests for progress data as of 01.26.01 that are due Friday.
• Progress as of 01.19.01 was processed and posted.
• Received comments and changes from Mike Smith related to the WBS and scope.  Started to incorporate those changes.
• Planning process for the LASTI project at MIT is in progress.
• Issued data requests for progress data as of 01.26.01 that are due Friday.
• Progress as of 01.19.01 was processed and posted.
• Changes are pending from David per his discussions with GEO regarding the acceleration of prototype noise testing.
• Continue to test the Cost Book Tool.
• Continue mapping and formatting of OPs cost data for input.
• Preparing data representing the most recent changes.
• Development of the Advanced LIGO Project Controls Guidebook continues.
• 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 February 12th from 1 to 2pm regarding the planning and control of the Advanced LIGO MRE 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 attend NSF review meetings as required.
• Will continue the effort of contacting each system leader to collect cost and schedule data.
• Will continue input of AOS to the cost book and schedule.
• Will continue input of COC to the cost book and schedule.
• Will Continue to develop the TNI Schedule.
• Will follow up with Eric Black to get started with the schedule development.
• Will Continue to update the LASTI Schedule with progress.
• Will post progress report by end of day Tuesday the 30th with progress as of 01.26.01.
• Will issue 26th week of status data to teams by the 30th.
• Will continue to update the Advanced LIGO / Ops Proposal Plans and incorporate any changes.
• Will post progress report by end of day Tuesday the 30th with progress as of 01.26.01.
• Will issue 26th week of status data to teams by the 30th.
• Will continue updating the 40 meter schedule and incorporate any changes.
• Will post progress report by end of day Tuesday the 30th with progress as of 01.26.01.
• Will issue 26th week of status data to teams by the 30th.
• Continue to test the Cost Book Tool.
• Cost Book Tool development continues.
• Will finish preparing data for BK.
• BK continues work on program adjustments to the cost book tool.
• Input of OPs cost data will continue.
• Will continue the development of the Advanced LIGO Project Web Site.
• Will continue the development of the Advanced LIGO Project Controls Guide Book.

WBS 1.4.1.2   Project Controls (LIGO Construction)

Nothing to Report.

The following Change Requests have been submitted:
 

Change Request CR-010001 will return approximately $240,000 to Contingency for budget unused in Civil Construction (WBS 1.1.4).  The remaining budget includes $200,000 in account 5D522 to cover A&E costs at Hanford (per approved Change Request CR-000017) plus $2,000,000 in account 5D532 to cover the Storage and Staging building in Livingston (per CR-000020) and the  remaining A&E work.  The analysis is based on Actual Costs through the end of December 2000.  The amount returned to Contingency is somewhat below previously advertised amounts because costs in excess of $200,000 were booked during December for the paving of the roads along the Beam Tube in Hanford, and these outstanding commitments had not been properly factored into our thinking.

Florence has inquired of Finance as to whether there are any Construction amounts still hanging around in the Retention accounts.  They have not yet responded.  While we do not expect there to be any significant retention amounts (other than for currently active subcontracts), it is possible that there might be additional favorable adjustments to these accounts.

Press for the latest Contingency Needs Projection.

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

• Completed and distributed November 2000 responsibility assignment matrix (RAM).
• Continued with December 2000 CSSR. Distributed earned value worksheets to task managers and began calculations of open work packages.
• Received December 2000 actual cost and commitment data and began reconciliation of CIT and LIGO data.
• Continued with construction contract/work package close out.

• I completed the details for the monthly reports on the Construction and Advanced R&D accounts for December 2000 and emailed them to the Task managers.
• I received the MIT invoice and TWONK (cost allocation) report for the month of December, and I am compiling  the data for payment. [A change order must be prepared to move budgets to the new FY 2001 accounts. -pel]
• I continue to review the open encumbrances on the Construction and Advanced R&D accounts to see if the requested removals have been made. I will continue to review these accounts weekly until all encumbrances have been removed (Remember, I can only get these errors corrected if the Task Managers point them out to me).

 

 
 
 
 
 

The financial reports on the web provide supporting detail.
http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport
http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~finance

http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/

http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/

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

• Otto Matherny, Fred Asiri, and Ed Jasnow visited the last of the A/E candidates for the Hanford Support Building.  The committee plans to convene this week and make a recommendation before the end of January.
• Construction is beginning on the Livingston Staging Building, with the contractor performing work on the existing warehouse building.
• The second draft of the memo to the NSF requesting approval for Phase I of the LDAS procurement has been completed.  We are still awaiting receipt of all quotations for the entire Phase I complement.

• No report this week; see Operations Section above.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

• No report this week.

LIGO Hanford Observatory (LHO) Operations (Raab)

NO REPORT RECEIVED THIS WEEK.

LIGO Livingston Observatory (LLO) Operations (Coles)

Late news: We have successfully locked the vertex Michelson using the LSC controls. On Thursday, we opened the gate valve on the X-arm and are now working on the lock of a 4 km long arm as a Fabry-Perot cavity. We see nice fringes, but have lots of work to do to understand the situation and tune appropriately.

LLO high-power lab work: Set up of the high-power lab at the X-end station at LLO progressed this week. (Previous work there was stopped due to the ceiling leak, which is now fixed.)The optical table was moved from the receiving area to the enclosed area inside the room. Currently the table is sitting on the custom-made carts. Its original legs are slightly damaged and are being prepared for shipment to the manufacturer.The 10W laser was set up on the table. At the moment it is not operating. Standard actions have been taken to meet the LIGO laser safety requirements necessary for operation of this laser (warning light was installed, a laser curtain is in place, SOP is submitted, etc.) Optical components from Thorlabs, New Focus, and CVI have been received and made ready for installation in the high-power lab. (Sany Yoshida)

General Computing, LDAS, and CDS computing: Almost ready to transfer web services to our new server. This will require changing dns entries. Will be ordering the GC AIT2 tape library Thursday so it can be here for the engineering run. We will move the GC EX-220 tape library off of decatur to another machine so that the GC backups can be performed on a different machine. Testing 802.11b networking is in progress here in three laptops. This will be usefull for conferences etc. Installed replacement ram into linuxbox1. Will install RH 6.2. Shannon installed the tape library hardware over the previous weekend. He will install the software this week or this weekend. Diagnosing a possible memory leak on London (cds to gc gateway). After a few weeks of uptime London runs out of swap space. (Shannon Roddy -
Tom Evans)

Other: We have two new employees at LLO, Ken Watts and Joe Langdale. Both began work as Operations Specialists within the last two weeks. Cheithan Paramesawaya has also returned to work following the renewal of his practical training certificate. Students from three fifth grade classes at Episcopal School of Baton Rouge journeyed to LIGO on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday for science lessons on the properties of light. Special thanks to Peter King for being Mr. Wizard for one of the classes!
 

Detector/Technical Support (Whitcomb, Coyne)

Seealso the daily electronic logs for the installation and commissioningactivities:
HanfordDetector Log
LivingstonDetector Log

1.1 LHO INSTALLATION & COMMISSIONING

2km Commissioning

We have begun work on commissioning a wavefront sensor at the reflectionport and are now working with Rolf on upgrades/fixes to the LSC and ASC digital control systems to remedy some bugs that were observed during the lock acquisition activities above.

Rolf Bork
Working on tracking down cause of NSPOB signal jump when LSC test pointsare selected.  They had reported other TP problems in both LSC and ASC,but those disappeared on reset of the test point manager.  I've addeddiagnostic code to the LSC front end such that it reports all Excitation/Testpoints that it thinks are selected and reports these back to an operatordisplay.

Continue to have problems with lscMonitor task (which provides LSC readouts to operator displays) randomly crashing on floating point exceptions (FPE).  Barker and I are working to add FPE handlers to determine cause and prevent code from locking up.

Core Optics

COS

1.2LLO INSTALLATION & COMMISSIONING

Commissioning

2) Preparations have been completed (Thursday noon) to open the x arm gate valves and attempt to lock the 4km cavity.

A 3 x 10^-4 torr liter/sec leak opened up on the y arm beam tube in the mid building gate valve annulus pumping system. The leak was opened during the time workmen were removing scaffolding in the mid building. The leak wasopened for about a day and deposited about 3/4 of a torr liter of water inthe 4 km tube, an insignificant amount relative to the 400 torr liters allowed. The leak was discovered in the pressure record. The next day it was found and repaired.

David Shoemaker
Worked on diagonalization of the core optics suspension controllers at LLO. Mostly was useful to get the setup in place and to help Warren and Szabidig into the question; I think it takes a few iterations and some more alignment of optical levers to get a useful number, but they have been working on it.

PSL

The alignment of the frequency shifting acousto-optic modulator was tweaked, along with the alignment into the reference cavity in order to improve things a little.  This was done to increase the light onto the RF photodetector in order to get more gain the frequency stabilization servo as the laserpower is decaying.

Joe Kovalik and I made measurements of the in-the-loop and out-of-loop PSL frequency noise.  The measurements are on entered on the ilog for 01/22/01.

2.0 OtherEngineering and Scientific Activities

2.1 Design/Analysis/Fab

Optical Metrology

Optics Modelling

LSC

We are preparing a test to further improve the RF susceptibility issues associated with the RFPD and to find ways to reduce any remaining leakage from the frequency distribution system.

PSL

Rick Karwoski, Paul Russell,Ben Abbott

• All Frequency Stabilization/ all PMC servo modules currently reside in Hanford
• Remaining electronics: Temperature controller & RF Summer will be ready for shipment today.
• Work has resumed on the Intensity servo.

New OSEM Heads

• Rapid Prototyping has 120 heads for a second metallization. Theyhave completed the first batch, which I will receive tomorrow. They willhold the second batch until we can examine the first. Hopefully, they willnot need a second laser part marking because the original marking is stillvisible.
• Orbit Technologies has completed acid etching another 70 heads. Twenty will go to Surmet for metallization.
• Progressive Technology reports that the next round of alumina heads will be ready for shipment on 1/31.

Digital Suspensions

Jay Heefner

• Rack layout and system wiring diagrams are 95% complete for the LVEA LOS controls. Cross connect and cable lists will be generated and sent to Richard by 1/26.
• Rack layout for LVEA SOS controls are started and system wiring diagrams should be complete by 1/30.
• End station drawings will be started next week and should be complete by 2/2.
• The software and hardware should be ready for a test on an end station optic within the next month.

GDS

DMT

Data Acquisition

2.2 IssuesConcerns

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

• Mike Smith is finalizing his optomechanical layout of the 40m IFO. He has integrated it with the building and electrical plant, and has checked the dimensions, distances to walls, locations of racks and optical tables, etc. He has acoustical enclosures on all tables, tube enclosures for beams, and cable trays in all the right places. He will talk with Peter King about the layout of PSL equipment on the PSL table.
• We talked about the IO optics. We need three Pockels cells in series; one for the input mode cleaner control, and two for the dual-recycled IFO control. These may or may not need mode-matching telescopes to get the beam into each device. Mike will check.
• The beam must be steered from the IO into the input mode cleaner, and from the MMT into the IFO. Stan gave us a tutorial on how that is done in LIGO I. The upshot is that we will need servos on two in-air PZT steering mirrors from the IO into the mode cleaner, and two more, in vacuum, from the MMT into the IFO.
• Mike will begin the process of enumerating (a) all in-vacuum optical equipment; (b) all optical-quality port windows; (c) all electrical feedthroughs.
• Larry Jones has made some measurements of as-is dimensions of the existing vacuum system and the building walls, as a check of Mike's integrated layout.
• Larry is managing the shipment of vacuum parts for the output optic chamber and mode cleaner to/from Allied and LLO for cleaning and testing.
• Larry reports that The 29" door for the mode cleaner will arrive late (Feb 15) from A&N.
• Dennis Ugolini and Guillaume Michel continue to monitor the STACIS isolators; the same two (of 12) register faults. One is broken and will be replaced (replacement expected next week), the other probably just needs its gain turned down. They turned it down on Thursday, and we'll see if it faults again. We should probably revisit the gain settings on all of the isolators, and remeasure their transfer function; a summer student project?
• Rick Karwoski reports that that H4K PSL boards are all done, and they are working on intensity sablization, documentation, and the 40m and LASTI PSL boards.
• Dennis and Steve Vass have prepared our 5 ion pumps to be sent to Varian for regeneration (removing the heavy magnets and taking care that they don't go near each other).
• Lisa Bogue promises us an ethernet card for the sun that we will use as a gateway; then we can begin configuring the computers in a "final" network topology.
• Garilynn and Tom Frey report that the three mode cleaner mirrors can't be ready before winter, because we don't know where to send them for coating. We sure hope the problem of an available coating shop is solved soon!!

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

This week we have continued characterizing our system.  We have calibrated
the fast input on one of the OSEM controllers, as connected to a test mass,
studied the PZT response of the laser, and repaired the fast input on a
second OSEM controller.  We have also instituted more clean-room practices
in preparation for opening the chamber, once the characterization is
complete.
 

Congratulations to Shanti for passing his candidacy exam!

LASTI (Zucker)

No progress this week. All on travel.

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Yamamoto)

* In order to reproduce large power fluctuations in Han2k locked
  states (as was shown by Bill Kells in his Monday talk), I tried
  two simulation runs (i) 3.4e-7 rad-rms ang. fluctuations in end
  mirrors keeping ang. fluctuations in central hall mirrors at a
  low level (of the order of 1e8 rad-rms) (ii) Just the reverse:
  large ang. fluctuations in central hall mirrors and low level
  of ang. fluctuations in end mirrors.
  Both cases achieve locked states of short durations with large
  power-fluctuations.
  [A value of 3.4e-7 rad-rms is consistent with what Daniel reported
  in Director's review Mar'00.]

* Putting large ang. fluctuations (3.4e-7 rad-rms) in ALL mirrors
  does not allow the system to go to stage 4.
  If one considers that angular fluctuations are at same level in all
  mirrors, the upper limit for achieving stage 4 is about 4e-8 rad-rms.
  By reducing ang. fluc. in recycling mirror to a lower level, thus
  reducing fluctuations in resonant sideband power in stage 2, one can
  raise this limit by a factor of about 2.
  Once in stage 4, not much of power-fluctuations (< 5%) are observed
  in all these cases.

* So, it seems either the central hall mirrors or the end mirrors
  (but NOT both) are having too much of fluctuations.
  Considering the fact that the control of only end mirrors using
  only one WFS at dark port [Ref: detector elog by Matt, Nergis 1/22]
  could reduce power fluc. and elongate the locked states, it seems
  the current state of Han2k is more like situation (i) described above.

* I considered modes up to order 1 only. I also ran with modes upto
  order 3 but that did not change the above results and guesses.

>> Mechanics model for advanced LIGO
(Virginio)

* The quad-pendulum model using MSE has been debug further.

* Including of the violin motion of the wires suspending the bottom
  mass is going on now.

* Future work plan will be discussed when Peter visits Caltech next week.

>> Parallelization of the simulation engine
(Tavio, Matt, Hiro)

* A final answer from SUN engineer came to confirm our observation that
  the delay of the order of 50 microseconds when switching to other
  threads is a harware/OS limitation and there is no way to reduce it.

* Various different methods to speed up the switching of tasks between
  thread have been tested, but we could not find any way to reduce the
  overhead.

* A systematic study of the overhead due to the thread and queuing
  mechanisms have been done for a various different inputs under different
  use of threads.

* The overhead due to the threading and queuing mechanism is, roughly
  speaking, constant overhead of 50-100 microseconds + 2.5 microseconds
  per node which will be pushed into and poped out of the queue.

* The testbed is close to be completed, and the develepment of the algorithm
  will follow.

>> ALFI
(Ed, Bruce)

* A new utility "boxjoiner" has been written to create one single box file
  out of a multiple box inputs. This is to make it easy to use server
  computers.

* Parameter windows is being updated and improved, including the support
  of included files.

* Automation of a new release of alfi is being pursued.

* Transition to the latest release of xwWindow is in progress. This is
  necessary to resolve a conflict of the latest SUN OS and the previous
  version of xwWindow.

LIGO Data Analysis System

Software Systems (Blackburn)

The MPI MDC officially ended on Friday with a resounding successful
completion mark from the leads (Patrick Brady of UWM and Kent Blackburn
of Caltech). A few minor tests which did not impact any later tests and
check pointed such as documentation and ilwd file read/write errors
need more work but all of the big tests involving the search for signals
in simulated data using an inspiral search engine and an excess power
search engine cast into wrapperAPI compatible dynamically loaded shared
objects were a total success. In fact, the code was left running all
weekend, applying 1000 templates per node on each of more than 1000
data segments with only two terminated jobs due to what we suspect is
a filesystem caching problem in combination with the wrong choice of
ssh shell options (which has now been corrected and tested). It was
a wonderful feeling seeing LDAS drive search codes on the development
Beowulf cluster so successfully. Everyone in the LDAS development team
should feel very proud! See: http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~lazz/MPIMDCPhotos/
See also the iLog log we have set up for the
MDCs: http://blue.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ilog/index.html

After the MDC, LDAS turned to formulating a new release of the software
which captures all the necessary changes that were identified during
the week and a half of MDC tests. This new release should be out in
about two weeks. New versions of the LAL and LALwrapper software will
also be released to include all the changes brought about by the MDC
as well as their regular compliment of code development.

LDAS will be working to incorporate a much more fully developed version
of the frameAPI and the frameCPP library in this next release which has
support for a none trivial set of features of the frame specification
which have not been exercised by the framebuilder or LDAS to date. This
includes support for complex data and strings, as well as processed data
and simulated data in frames.

The controlMonitorAPI continues to mature. Several issues of security
in the client component were identified and corrected this week. The
client is also now able to run outside the LDAS martian network. A
request has been made to enhance the temporary tapescript control
feature of the controlMonitorAPI in anticipation of the next engineering
run. There is also support now for monitoring the state of the LDAS
beowulf cluster.

The conversion to Unified Data Type classes continues in the
dataConditionAPI
this week. The window, psd and firLP classes are being focused on. Also the
ingestion of LDAS native ilwd data into UDT data has nearly been completed.
The reverse process taking UDT into ilwd is also being sorted out.

The LDAS database mock data challenge is still on hold pending Peter
Shawhan's
return from jury duty. It is expected to resume in earnest next week.

Over forty new problem reports were generated during last weeks MDC. Almost
all of these have now been analyzed or closed out. We have seen a tremendous
increase in the flux of problems through the problem tracking system with
the recent LDAS release and the MDC. It has been extremely valuable as a
tool for tracing software issues during such a dynamic phase in our code
development.

Hardware Systems (Anderson)

Continuing discussions with vendors for the first large LDAS hardware
procurement, which includes ~30TB of disk and the first beowulf clusters
at LHO and LLO.

Solaris UFS logging enabled on the main LDAS NFS/CVS/HTTP server and
the entire ldas-dev system.

Upgrade of the general computing network on the 6th floor of Millikan
to allow additional network connections in the large conference room.

Single mode fibre sent to LHO in anticipation of LDAS moving the bulk
of the servers from the mass storage room to the staging building.

Identification of additional floor space for LDAS at LLO that will
allow LDAS to expand beyond the currently allocated space in the
mass storage room.

Finished commissioning of the ldas-test system which is now generally
available for use as an LDAS system with: dataserver, metaserver, beowulf,
and 8 dual processor compute cluster nodes.

(Shannon/LLO)
Installed replacement ram into linuxbox1.  Will install RH 6.2
this evening or in the morning.
 Installed the tape library hardware over the weekend.  I
still have to install the software this week or this weekend.

(Larry/CIT)
Updated DNS and NIS+ tables for new LDAS name.
Spent a number of hours on the phone (mostly on hold) getting
quotes and configurations for the PC purchases.

Data Analysis Activities

LIGOtools now includes version 0.6 of LAL (the LIGO/LSC Algorithm
Library), as well as the FFTW package.  In addition, a bug was
fixed which had affected viewing of off-line data.

A.Vicere', 18-25 January 2001
- Meeting with A.Giazotto and G.Cella to work on the schedule for the
   next network analysis meeting
- Contacts with F.Ricci, responsible in VIRGO for the Grid project, to start
   common work on the definition of a "use case" for the LIGO-VIRGO
   participation to the USGrid-EUGrid collaboration.
- Contacts with F.Barone, responsible in VIRGO for the environmental
   monitoring, to understand which channels can be included in the
   reduced data set to be exchanged

Charlton:

Wrote up the derivation of the general FCT expression and error estimate.
Lingchin has taken over control of the code from Rick and next I'll
switch over to that code for my heirarchical search prototype and add more
tests to Rick's code to check numerical accuracy.

General Computing (Wallace)

Livingston:
(Shannon)
- Almost ready to transfer web services to our new server. This
will require changing dns entries.
- Will be ordering the GC AIT2 tape library this evening so it can
be here for the engineering run.
- We will move the GC EX-220 tape library off of decatur to another
machine so that the GC backups can be performed on a different machine.
- Testing 802.11b net networking here in three laptops.  This will
be useful for conferences etc.

Hanford:
(Christine)
- A read only copy of the LHO elogs is now available at
http://apex.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ilog/.  Everyone uses the username
"reader" and password "read-only".  Thanks to Bruce Sears for setting
this up.  The elog files are being copied from the CDS network to apex
daily.
- Last week I attended an Advanced PC Maintenance course.  I learned a few
good things about BIOS settings, using the Windows registry, optimizing
memory and CPU, and security features in Windows 98.
 

[Bruce Sears]
* (BS) Hanford Ilog Mirror:
        - LHO ilog mirror setup has been completed.  Actual updating
          of log files to this server is now up to the LHO systems people.

CIT:
(Lisa)
- Rebuilt 3 Ultra10's and 2 ultra1's with solaris 8.
- Recovered files off Bill Kells' laptop
- Am wrapping up the switch over to the new modem pool.  I would like to do that
on Monday.
- Went to Laser safety training.
- Worked with Larry on getting the tape robot tested for general backups.
- Ordered new software pkg. for backups.

(Sam)
-Fixed laptop
-Help dave beckett with a cd problem
-Helped Gina with a few PC issues.
-Looked at lori's computer
-Looked at florence's computer
looked at other stuff
didn't sleep
did homework
went to lab
did research
played basketball

(Barbara)
1. Worked on further changes to the CostBook
- reworked web forms, queries, calcs etc to look up the Location in the WBS
table rather than entering it on each of the forms.
- fixed the calculation for the G1-G4 items.
- reworked the Risk Override field so it can be 0% or a negative percent.
- added Location to the WBS add/edit forms.
- reworked the procedure for calculating the item amount to accommodate all
of the above changes.
I still have to develop forms for C and I as MIT resources and to
incorporate G6 somewhere.  And the cost code lookup has to be updated since
there will be only one cost code per WBS.

2. Worked on the web page for Data & Computing Groups contacts.  Had
problems figuring out how to capture the mail aliases file onto the LDAS
servers but Stuart came to my rescue.

3. Made web site changes for SURF, the data analysis white paper, meetings.

4. Attended DCC planning meeting.

5. Help Ed Chargois with some file maintenance.

(Suresh)
-Installed Autocad 2000i in two PCs of west bridge.
-Did some cabling work in Millikan 6th floor conference room.
-Installed some windows applications in a new PC to be used by Mike Smith.
-Created some e-mail aliases for LDAS group.

(Larry)
- Worked a number of PC issues. Most have been resolved and those that have
not have been turned over to other people.
Just as a note at this point we do not purchase CD players, speakers or any
other equipment for entertainment purposes. Many times those items are part
of the pkg. of the item being ordered so the people receiving that equipment
get lucky. Please, do not ask for support are special ordering of equipment
so you can play music on a computer.
When using someone else's computer please do not change the settings on the unit
and try to contact the main user before using their workstation.
Update your virus files. There are some new viruses out that really cause
problems. This includes those that are using Mac units.
- Placed a number of orders for equipment and now trying to track items down
that should have arrived. Hopefully, the UPS replacements will arrive before
the end of the month so we can swap the network UPS out the first of next month.
- Worked a few DCC issues with Linda.
- Assisted in taking care of a few Autocad problems.
- Installed tape robot and working on backup tests with Lisa.
 

LIGO II/Advanced R&D (Sanders)

From Helena:
 

Advanced LIGO Coatings
A visit to evaluate MLD's coating facilities in Oregon has been scheduled for tomorrow, Thursday 25th.

From: GariLynn Billingsley <Billingsley_G@ligo.caltech.edu>
Subject: Weekly Report - Billingsley
 

A draft polishing specification for a 25 cm sapphire substrate has been completed and circulated for comment.
 

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

Alessandro
Linear electronics, all parts now in, will be ready and shipped end of
the week.
 

Edwin, Tatsuo
Measured 11 mini-GAS springs for selection for the top mass of the
multiple pendulum.
Can tune at 1 Hz easily, the load spread is narrow enough, it will be
easy to chose matched quartets for each mass.
 

Virginio, Akiteru
Preparing top mass assembly, need masses for pre-tensioning the four
mini-GAS springs and keep them vertical.  Preparing wire clamps.
 

Akiteru
LVDT controls achieved on TAMA SAS, small low frequency oscillation at
10 mHz, need to optimize gain to avoid this instability which happens at
the switchover between the DC and the AC controls.  As soon as solved
will start the Accelerometer diagonalization.
 

Kenji
IP counterweight curves look good,  can move notch at will but, found a
pitfall. The wire suspended shaker, replacing the oil bearing, introduce
a frequency shift difficult to quantize.  Look for a way to renormalize
the measurement to optimize the counterweight.  Will try to measure and
subtract the wire suspension induced tilt, it should work.
Filter 0 tuned to bistability in order to introduce the control spring.
The filter  returns to stability with the control spring added K.  The
spring is magnetic and not compatible with the vertical  voice coil
magnet but received already SS replacement,  will install next.
Now can safely trim the other F0 blades.
 

Digital Electronics (IDED)
Digital cards assembled, under test, missing DAC chips now promised by
Analogue Devices by mid February
DME crates ready to ship
NIM crates due beginning February
 

Ric
Shipping crates in construction, will be ready during the week.  Blades
and coils either will be delivered  by Fed Ex today or Monday.  Shipment
clamps to be shipped tomorrow.
 

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