Weekly Report for Week Ending February 8, 2001

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  February 12, 2001 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:

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights
 
 

LSC Issues (Weiss)

no report

LIGO I Construction/LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

WBS 1.2 LIGO Operations--Administration

LIGO Weekly Site Telecon (Lindquist)

The next site telecon is scheduled for Thursday, February 15, 2001.  The list of current actions revised to reflect open actions assigned through February 8, 2001 may be found at ACTION LIST.

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

• Provided a cover letter, written estimate, Accident and Incident Investigation Report to Caltech's Insurance Administrator  concerning the accident that occurred on 12 December 2000  with the GSA Vehicle 2000 Ford Contour located at LIGO Livingston Observatory.
• Provided a cover letter, Statement of Fact,  and a copy of PC Connection Invoice/Bill of sale ($2870.00) to Caltech's Insurance Administrator for the missing Dell Laptop Computer (Serial Number AK8JPN-34625-MSE ) that was discovered missing prior to Dec. 22,2000.
• Assisted the Seismic Isolation Group (R. DeSalvo) with a Commercial Invoice, US Customs Documentation, and transportation for the Seismic Isolation System (TAMA-SAS Contract) being transported to the University Of Tokyo (Prof. Kimio Tsubono), scheduled arrival date February 16, 2001, Account number LIGO.00002-3-NSFLIGO.504800.
• Assisted Livingston (R. Riesen) with a Caltech Purchase Requisition to United Motor Freight  for transporting a 15' Beam Tube from Livingston to Hanford (O. Matherny).
• Assisted Livingston (R.Riesen) with a Caltech Purchase Requisition to United Motor Freight for transporting a BSC Support Roller System to (M.Zucker) MIT.

>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

• Participated in a teleconference with Larry Wallace, Bonnie, Jennifer, and Tom Evans regarding the upcoming LSC meeting in March.  With the LSC being held away from the site, a list of equipment and needs was identified to ensure that responsibility expectations could be met.
• Completed the design and vendor selection for the LIGO award/service plaque.
• Continued the process of outlining a system requirements document for the DCC.  A mission statement for the DCC and initial questions/considerations will be developed and passed along for additions by Phil and Barbara.  Once amended, the document will be distributed to a few for additional comments or changes.  The goal is to have a completed version by end of March in preparation for my attendance at the AIIM conference at the end of April.
• Processed and distributed two DCN's.

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>

• I am working on FY2001 internal mod transfers of Great Impressions, Qwest, Perkins Coie, U.S DOE, BOC, GPT, and Pegasus.  We have a few more left to do.  The majority have been moved, however, the last ones to remain are ones where we are waiting for invoices to be received to determine whether new billings are for FY2000 or FY2001.
• Working on a work order to JPL, Mid Columbia, and NYMA.
• Need to draft up an RFQ for the liquid nitrogen contract for LLO.
• Expecting to receive the last quote for the generator today.

• Finalized and posted reports for Operations for FY 2000 and FY 2001 as of end of January 2001.
• Attended meeting regarding NSF Operations Review at end of February.  Worked on preparing charts for the review.
• Worked with Liz Wood on correcting account classification for payroll Gregory Mendell.
• Assisted Dorothy Lloyd on account classifications of corrected University of Florida invoices.
• Prepared Cost Transfer Requests for payments to John Desmond to new Fabrication account.
• Prepared Fabrication account and new POETA request for new building at Hanford.
• Continued work on moving encumbrances from FY 2000 to FY 2001.

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

• TAMA-SAS: Documentation required to set up a grant for SAS technology demonstration at TAMA, was submitted to Sponsored Projects.
• Univ. of Florida: CO No.10, adding funds for LLO off-site support activity, was released to CIT Purchasing.
• FDC/NYMA: CO Nos. 26 and 27, incorporating FY'01 billing rates, were released by the Project Controls group.
• MCE: CO No.03, extending the contract period through Nov. 30, 01, was released to CIT Purchasing.
• SEI Mechanical Structure Prototype RFP: A number of qualified firms expressed interest to propose. Two RFP addenda, responding to questions received to date, were processed.

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

• Praxair is imposing substantial surcharges on the delivery of liquid nitrogen to Hanford.  These are being caused by volatile energy prices affecting the gas industry.

Support (Wood)

Advanced LIGO (Frey, Petrac)

Progress Period from 02.02 to 02.08

Accomplishments:

• Out of office on Wednesday and Thursday the 7th and 8th.
• LIGO Project Controls meeting not held this week due to meetings as Aspen.
• Prepared sample reports and different WBS levels as requested by Gary.
• Work with Phil preparing cost data for NSF review at Hanford.
• Prepared budget data report as requested by Phil Lindquist.
• Proposal plan development for Advanced LIGO MRE.
• On Hold pending internal review.
• Initiated the development of the TNI work plan and schedule per Gary Sanders.
• Meeting schedule with Eric Black for 2.12.
• Project Plan for the 40-Meter Lab Upgrade continues.
• On hold pending internal review.
• Planning process for the LASTI project at MIT is in progress.
• On hold pending internal review.
• 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.
• Will prepare budget presentation data as needed for NSF review at the end of February.
• Advanced LIGO Proposal
• All effort on hold pending internal review.
• Will Continue to develop the TNI Schedule.
• Meeting scheduled with Eric Black on February 12th at 9am.
• Will Continue to update the LASTI Schedule with progress.
• All effort on hold pending internal review.
• Will continue updating the 40 meter schedule and incorporate any changes.
• All effort on hold pending internal review.
• Continue to test the Cost Book Tool.
• Cost Book Tool development continues.
• Will complete data changes for BK.
• Will continue ops cost data input as soon as BK is ready.
• 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)

Working on material for the NSF Review scheduled at the end of the month in Hanford.

The following Change Requests have been submitted:
 

Press for the latest Contingency Needs Projection.

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

• Completed first draft of the December 2000 CSSR Report.  I received the last of the  task manger's reporting of the earned value and finished the calculations for the reports. I plan to distribute the final draft tomorrow, February 9, 2000.
• Continued with construction contract/work package close out.
• Completed the reconciliation of the December 2000 actual cost and commitment data.

• The monthly reports (Allocation of Actual Costs for Construction and Advanced R&D) for periods ending January 2001 have been put on the network. E-mail has been sent to the Task Managers noting the location of the files.
• I am working on gathering the details for the monthly reports on the Construction and Advanced R&D accounts for January 2001. I will email them to the Task managers as soon as I have completed them.
• I received the MIT invoice and TWONK report for the month of December 2000 and I have compiled the data and given the information to Esther for payment.
• I continue to reviewed 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

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

• Barry Barish has concurred with the review committee's selection of NTD Architects as the A/E for the Hanford Support Building.  NTD has been notified of their selection, and a package is now being prepared for review and approval by the NSF.  The estimated cost for the A/E services is $190,000.

• No report this week; see Operations Section above.

LIGO Hanford Observatory (LHO) Operations (Raab)

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

4K Installation
---------------
(D. Cook)

The 4K installation is proceeding close to its schedule. A few set backs as
usual. The MMT3 optic and RM optic are in and aligned. The IOO group has
started to place their components into HAM1 and aligning the beam from the
PSL table. BSC3 elevation was set and the ITMx is ready to install. The CAS
newly installed software seems to have a couple of glitches that caused a
work around in setting the elevation. We are having to share temporary
controllers and satellite boxes as the permanent ones are not available as
yet which is not a problem until we start the COS alignment. Some COS
components have also been placed where parallel tasks have allowed. The BS
coordinates need to be reviewed as we have some conflicting numbers. LOS
and SOS suspensions are being processed with the new OSEMs and are keeping
pace with installations. Thanks to a large group of participants things are
going well.
 

4k PSL Activities (T. Mahood and M. Guenther):
-------------------------------------------------
Upon completion of the assorted leg vibration investigations, the slightly wandering
4k optical table has been coaxed back to its rightful position and leveled.
Following that, the remaining optical and electronic components have been placed on
the table and are in the process of final alignment.  "Test point" bulkhead connectors
have been installed to allow for sampling of signals from various table components
when working at the table, without disturbing the sometimes delicate positioning of
the signal sources.
 

4k Reference Cavity (M. Guenther):
---------------------------------------
A new ion pump has been installed and activated on the 4k PSL reference cavity. An
RMA # has been obtained for the failed ion pump, and it will be returned for repair,
hopefully under warranty. The heater blanket has been installed on the reference
cavity, we expect the installation of temperature sensors and insulation to be
complete 2/9.
 

4k Pre-modecleaner Losses (M. Rakhmanov and R. Savage)
----------------------------------------------------
We have analyzed the 4k PSL PMC losses based on recent measurements.  Assuming all
three mirrors have equal losses, we estimate the losses per mirror to be about
1340 parts per million. This is costing us about 1.7 W of light. The output is just
over 6 W with 9 W input and 88% modematching.
 

Controls
--------
(D. Barker)
 

Returned 50GB RAID to Cybernetics for repair.
 

Working on EPICS problems with new Motorola 162-242 CPU boards.
Installed latest EPICS 3.13.3, working with VxWorks on latest BSP and
with EPICS Tech-Talk community for possible solution to this problem
 

LIGO Livingston Observatory (LLO) Operations (Coles)

OPTICS : Many observers have noted the asymmetry of the video image seen at the darkport since we first observed interference in the Michelson last December. This week we set forth to ascertain where the (apparent) beam clipping was occurring. An initial attempt to yaw MMT3 while looking at the darkport video camera seemed to improve the image, whilst moving it off the field. Our sense was that the clipping was occurring in the Faraday on Ham 1. Joe Kovalik decided to yaw SM1, and we unambiguously observed the clipping to diminish. We iterated SM1, and the beam alignment on ISCT-1 and 4. We then observed a circularly symmetric image at both the bright and dark ports. It is unfortunate that this clipping was discovered this month, because in moving SM1 we ruined the alignment of the input beam launched from MMT-3. It would have been wise to double check the alignment scheme attempted last year when ISCT-1 was moved into position. In as much as we were forced to perturb the telescope's pointing, we elected to recheck the beam position on the mode-matching telescope's mirrors. A Sony camera positioned above MMT-2 in HAM-2 permitted us to center the beam on MMT-2 by iterating between pointing positions when we saw the beam striking the structure to the left and right, above and below the optic. Last fall, we were unable to perform a similar test at MMT-3 because of the insensitivity of the Sony cameras, but now we have available a Watec camera and find that it has ample sensitivity to image the ~4" diameter beam at MMT-3. Not surprisingly, we found the beam to be well above center, by an amount that appears consistent with what we observed during those times when we had the X-arm locked last week. We centered the beam on MMT-3. We have spent several days this week reestablishing the mode matching telescope, as well as mode cleaner alignment. We are close to completing this task, but a catastrophic power outage this morning has hindered our work. (Kovalik/Giaime/Traylor/Kern)

OTHER: LLO experienced a major power disruption Thursday morning. This was a general outage that affected the surrounding region as least as far away as Denham Springs, the major population center 15 miles east. All systems were recovered by mid afternoon.

Augering and excavation for the staging building addition is now underway, creating a noisy seismic environment during the day which often makes it difficult to carry out commissioning work. We have begun to staff the control room on a regular basis on Saturdays to take advantage of the "quiet time" when there is no construction work on site.

Outreach: Students from two Livingston Parish Jr. High Schools (Plaquemine High School and Frost High School) spent a day at LIGO in the Job Shadow Program working with Bonnie and others in the Control Room and in the Front Office. Job Shadow is a program in the public school system in Louisiana to help students gain knowledge and
awareness about the working world and various careers.
 

Detector/Technical Support (Whitcomb, Coyne)

DETECTOR

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

1.1 LHO INSTALLATION & COMMISSIONING

2km Commissioning

Before starting the work on the modecleaner servo, we were able to take a calibrated noise spectrum with the whitening filters engaged on the antisymmetric port photodiode.  The calibrated error signal and control signal for the arm length difference is shown in a  spectrum in the elog. Because of the servo, the correct estimator of the noise is to lake the higher of the green and blue curves at any given frequecy.  The dark noise in the photodetector/electronics is shown in the red curve.  The bect sensitivity (2 x 10e-16 m/rtHz) is a significant improvement over what we had in the E2 run last November.  The dominant noise below about 400 Hz is frequency noise (though as far as we can tell there is something else lurking just below the frequency noise), and should be helped by the servo change to the modecleaner described above.

Core Optics

The safety shutter for the PSL to vaccum chamber connection had fit problems and is being reworked.  Small optic suspension have been prepared for installation and the first one may be going in at this very moment.

So far we are almost exactly on schedule.

COS

E2 Investigations

1.2LLO INSTALLATION & COMMISSIONING

Commissioning

The most time consuming effort (still on going) is the realignment of the mode matching telescope and the mode cleaner to avoid the clipping of the beam at the symmetric and antisymmetric ports while still maintaining the alignment of the arm cavities.

To increase the dynamic range of the lock using the ITMX, the coil driver has been modified as it was at Hanford.

The optical lever damping servo for ETMX is currently being set up and an attempt is being made to install and use the Matt Evans acquisition code for the x arm locking.

The vibrations associated with construction of the new building at the site prohibit cavity locking during the day and most of the locking and diagnostic work is taking place at night.

2.0 OtherEngineering and Scientific Activities

2.1 Design/Analysis/Fab

Optical Metrology

Optics Modelling

Light is bounced back toward the recycling cavity because of the mismatch in the former case (so that more power exits from the asymmetric port or outside the recycling mirror) while the losses are so high in the latter case that inside all cavities (since they are coupled) the energy storage performance is corrupted though there is a sort of addition of these two effects so that in the recycling cavity the gain is less reduced than in the long arm cavity.

In order to link such results to a mathematical prediction I wrote a small Fortran code that evaluates the scalar product of the field maps inside the cavity after normalizing them. As it could be expected the squared value roughly coincides with how much gain survives if one mirror is tilted.
 

Example for reshaped mirrors:
|<u_tilt|u_notilt>|^2=1-0.00315           Gain_tilt/Gain_notilt=1-0.00345
Example for spherical mirrors:
|<psi_tilt|psi_notilt>|^2=1-1e-5           Gain_tilt/Gain_notilt=1-5.5e-6

ASC

Rolf Bork
Request from Rai and also LHO to add optical lever servos for end station test masses.  It is requested to be installed at LLO by this weekend, so this is my focus for the next day or two.

Report out of LHO that they are seeing 16Hz components on the ASC DAC outputs.  I still need to get more info on this before starting to track it down.

LSC

We are now building 16 new RFPD's for use at various frequencies.

Mode Cleaner Servo

PSL

Rick Karwoski, Paul Russell,Ben Abbott
Custom Card Situation:

New OSEM Heads

• Surmet's 20 ZrN coated (previously acid-etched) parts look good. The coating held up to two cleaning operations and has good slidability on the stainless holder. I have asked them for a quote for coating 200 heads and have sent the heads to them (a combination of new heads and acid etched heads) in anticipation of a satisfactory quote.
• Macro Metalics quoted for TiCr coating heads. They are testing their process on one new head and one acid etched head this week, for delivery here next week. They will addend the quote to include a polishing operation.
• We have submitted an RFQ to Macro Metalics and to Astro Pak for stripping ZrN parts. Neither have responded.
• Progressive Technology has shipped us all of the new alumina heads, including overage.
• Working on getting an RFQ out to a cable fabricator for pigtails by Friday. Preparing parts for this work.

Digital Suspensions

Jay Heefner

• All rack wiring and system drawings for the 4K LOS and SOS controls have been completed. Cross connect and cable pull lists have been sent to Richard for installation.
• LOS coil driver boards are in test. They should be complete by 2/16.
• SOS Anti-Image/Dewhitening boards are 75% stuffed and awaiting arrival of a few components that are due this week.
• The Optical lever PD interface baord should be back from the vendor by 2/12. They should then be stuffed and tested by 2/19.
• SOS coil driver boards are being stuffed and should be ready for test by 2/12.
• The delivery date for the 20 Penteks that we have on order has been slipped from the original 2/25 date due to Pentek's inability to obtain the ADCs. Right now we do not have a firm date for delivery. This means that we may not be able to test the ETMX controls at the end of Feb. as originally planned since we are completely out of modules. Rolf will talk to Stan.

Data Acaquisition

Hongyu is modifying dataviewer to create data groups by signal names, rather than using the group IDs given in the DAQ master configuration table.

GDS

Last week was spent ugrading the DTT at LLO and installing the reduced data set writer on decatur.

DMT

To provide a temporary remedy for this problem, I have written and debugged a new data accesser (Dacc) class. The new Dacc classe uses the DaqReader and DaqFrame classes in FrameCPP which read a single frame as a template and then quickly updates specified fields from subsequent files. With this new readout class the CPU usage of a typical monitor drops from >90% to about 15%!

This temporary solution has several properties that make it undesirable as a final solution (a) these classes do not support multi-frame files, (b) there is no way to verify that a given channel was actually updated, and (c) the classes will not work with compressed data.

Because of these faults, the faster access class can not be used offline. I have therefore added a new library directory which will be linked to by online programs only. The online library is now being used by most monitors and I am recompiling others as the sources become available. Clearly, this solution will have to be replaced in the near future with one that is appropriate for both online and offline purposes.

Data Acquisition

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

no report received

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

We have re-locked one suspended arm cavity, and are testing various servo
configurations.  We are measuring transfer functions for the components and
are building a detailed Simulink model of the servo.  Part of this effort
is aimed at eliminating a strong resonance at 21.5 Hz, which we suspect is
caused by a poor crossover.
 

The seismic isolation system appears to have a slow drift (over several
weeks), but fortunately the suspension controllers have enough dynamic
range to compensate for the misalignment this causes.  We have improved the
cavity throughput over our last lock by fine-tuning the alignment and the
servo parameters.
 

We have also begun construction of isolation transformers for reducing
ground-line noise.
 

LASTI (Zucker)

no report received

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

LIGO DATA ANALYSIS (LDAS)
 

LDAS SOFTWARE SYSTEM
 

(Kent Blackburn)
- The focus this week has been to generate a new release of LDAS which
  has full support for the MPI MDC as well as a working version of the
  dataConditionAPI with close to the full set of functions that were in
  place during the dataConditionAPI MDC. All of this is to be a precursor
  to another release of LDAS at the end of the month in support of the
  next engineering run (E3). New in the release will be a fully functional
  controlMonitorAPI and a greatly expanded frameAPI and frameCPP which are
  will now be used to generate LIGO frames with "Table of Contents" which
  can be used to in analysis software to improve data I/O speeds.
 

- The baseline requirements for the eventMonitorAPI have now been formally
  documented and included in the LIGO DCC. The LDAS software team will
  begin development of this API with a target delivery of the first half
  of March.
 

- The dataConditionAPI has really been on a roller-coaster ride for the
  past week with our development team working around the world (and around
  the clock) to recapture the original functionality based on the new
  Universal Data Type (UDT). The only remaining actions are linear
  filtering and resampling and these should be ready in one more of these
  "follow the setting Sun" work days. One other area of intense activity
  associated with the dataConditionAPI has be a set of enhancements and
  modifications to the MDC test scripts to support running of the tests
  on systems other than the LDAS-Development system. In addition some of
  the additional ingestion processing associated with the new UDT have
  added a set of new dataset naming conventions which had to be touched
  up to successfully run these scripts. These have been completed now and
  all that remains is to run the test scripts once the dataConditionAPI
  is conpleted.
 

- New instructions are being added to the LDAS webpages specific to the
  building and installation of the frameCPP library and the
controlMonitorAPI
  client. Separate tarballs will also be generated for these allowing for
  users of these sub-packages of LDAS to limit their downloads.
 

- There have been several problems identified with LDAS user command,
  especially with the returnprotocol options. These are being fixed in
  time for the new release. But the fixes will require some modifications
  to GUILD (the Graphical User Interface to the LIGO Database), which
  will also be added and tested for this next release.
 

- Only minor changes have been made in the wrapperAPI this week. Mostly
  to support the full description of event data to be generated by the
  underlying search algorithms prior to distribution to the soon to be
  developed eventMonitorAPI.
 

- Several C++ issues associated with dynamic memory allocation were
  identified in the ILWD code and code that is based or used the ILWD.
  The ILWD issues have now been fixed and all codes using this new code
  in each API have been brought in line with the correct usage.
 
 
 
 

LDAS HARDWARE SYSTEM
 

(Stuart Anderson)
- Linux (RedHat 7.1beta) has been successfully installed on the new LDAS
Beowulf
  test nodes (Intel P4 and AMD K7).
 

- The last 30x4GB of old disk drives reclaimed from the old CACR Paragon
  parallel computer by LDAS have now been decomissioned by LDAS to be
  further recycled to hold radio pulsar data.
 

- The LDAS Cybernetics AIT-2 robot at LHO has been shipped back to the
vendor to
  work on an intermittent problem before the upcoming E3 run.
 

- Solaris UFS logging has been enabled on all of the LDAS Sun computers at
LLO,
  which completes this upgrade for all LDAS Sun computers.
 

- Sun has identified the solution for an intermittent E450 reboot problem.
  A different graphics driver (TSIpgx) is being installed on all the
effected
  machines which where running a less reliable driver (TSIgfx). This is
fully
  expected to fix the problem and allow for reliable rebooting of these
machines.
 

- Solaris 8 maintenance update 3 is being applied to all LDAS Sun computers
  to allow investigation of the new "snapshot" functionality in the UFS
  filesystem, i.e., this should finally make it reliable to backup active
Solaris
  UFS filesystems. Furthermore, if it works as well as the canonical Network
  Appliance filesystem this may also allow the backing up of active LDAS
database
  systems and thereby increase the availability of LDAS.
 

- Larry Wallace will be managing the LDAS system at LLO during the E3 run.
 

- The large HP plotter (hpcolor0) is now working on the 6th floor of
Millikan
  at Caltech.
 
 

FAST CHIRP TRANSFORM (FCT)
 

(Philip Charlton)
- worked on code to test the numerical accuracy of Rick Jenet's FCT
  implementation (which uses approximations) compared to the slow, exact
  discrete chirp transform. The issues here are:
 

  - to verify that the approximate FCT implementation is accurate to
    within the analytically determined error bounds. A failure here
    may indicate a bug in the code. With a generic numerical accuracy
    test, it will be easier to spot errors (if any) in the code. For
    example, it may be the case that the FCT fails only for certain
    phase functions or numbers of dimensions - it's easier to check
    a large number of cases with this type of test.
 

  - to provide a means of checking changes to the FCT code over time.
    To verify changes, we need to check the results of FCT vs. DCT as
    above, but also have a set of results which we expect the FCT
    code to reproduce exactly. If a bug is introduced between code
    revisions it's likely to be picked up here.
 

END-TO-END SIMULATION (E2E)
 

PHYSICS STUDIES
(Hiro)
- worked on the in-lock state noise study. A software doing
  whitening and unwhitening has been completed and will be added to e2e
  as a primitive. This primitive generates a psd distribution of a given
  channel. The numerical accuracy issue was revisited. For LIGO I with
  the estimated thermal noise level, the artificial trick to be applied
  is to remove the low frequency seismic noise (flatten the noise spectrum
  below 1 Hz at 10^-9 m/sqrt(Hz)). This needs to be verified, but it is
  most likely that the in-lock state noise in the frequency range of
  interest is not affected by this artificial trick. If we need to
  simulate seismic noise further up, the pendulum and stack resonance at
  around 1 Hz will need to be artificially suppressed.
 

- Various thermal noises are so far generated using digital filters. For
  each mirror with a set of quantities, like mass, a matlab code needs to
  be used to calculate zeros and poles. These calculations will be put
  into a new primitive so that the intermediate step can be skipped.
 

(Biplab)
- Running lock-acquisition codes for various levels of misalignments
  (results are statistics-dependent and so several long runs are needed).
  Working out some math to understand meaning of the limits obtained
  from results of runs.
 

- Preparing a draft for our work (Brad Zamft, Rick Savage, ...) on
  effects of higher order modes on the frequency sensor noise.
 

CLIENT-SERVER FRAMEWORK
(Tavio D'Angelis)
- I had been working for the most part of last week up until Monday writing
  a client and server program to automatically upload data files, submit a
  job, and then automatically download the files back to an Adlib user
  running a server on a remote location from CACR. This idea is now on hold
  given the present security needs discussed during a visit with a CACR
  representative. At present, either I can (i) Convert my server to work
  with SSL (secure sockets layer), (ii) Explore the automation via script
  files.
- Ed Maros and I will meet with Bevan Bennet early next week to come up
  with a plan that is acceptable to CACR.
 

ALFI:
(Ed Maros)
 - Patched Caltech version of modeler
 - Discussed issues with running modeler at CACR
 

(Bruce Sears)
 - Finished implementation of primitive parameter file editing via the
   parameter edit dialog.
 - Working on problem where derived nodes may already have connections
   to sink ports which are subsequently connected to in a later base
   node edit session. This needs to be disallowed.
 

LIGO General Computing

MIT:
Nothing to report.

Livingston:
- Ordered and received an additional laptop for general
  use at conferences.
- Working on preparations for the engineering run and
  the LSC meeting here next month.
- Recovering from a power outage.
 

Hanford:
(See Hanford site report)
 

CIT:
(Sam)
- BILL KELL's laptop.  What a pain it is. Some funky netscape error I have
  never seen, would not uninstall, would not install properly. Mail boxes
  would not work. Was a horrible pain.  Hopefully fixed now
- Dave Beckett's machine was not recognizing its CD ROM. I believe that I
  fixed that problem.
- Phil Williems off to Scotland. Hopefully with a fully functioning
  laptop. Also with one that be easily recoverable.
- I did some other stuff, but I am too tired to remember.
 

(Lisa)
- Successfully got the ISDN portion of the new modem pool on-line. We now
  have 2 phone lines on ISDN. My initial tests are showing connections
speeds
  of over 46,000bps. Larry and I still need to test the 800 number on the
  new modem pool before the switch takes place.
- Troubleshooting display issues with one of our laptops.
- Working on updating our IP records for the 115 subnet. I'll be finished
  with that today.
- The usual round of PC issues.
 

(Barbara)
- Made changes to the DCC system to support document folders.  A folder
  will be named with the document stem, e.g. G000183-00.  It will contain
  the pdf version of the document as well as any source files such as a
  PowerPoint file and any linked images or videos.  I need to coordinate
  with Linda on installation since some existing files have to be grouped
  into folders and some web pages have to be changed.
- Began to install the DCC report for Dave Shoemaker.
- Set up an account on pherkab for Irena Petrac and mapped a drive on her
  PC so she can see the LSC documents database and the Roster.
- Made some changes to the acknowledgment on the LDAS home page.
- Got a version of WebBase that runs on Windows ME.
 

(Suresh)
- After noticing that machines connected to ports of a Fore 2810 switch in
  third floor west bridge unable to communicate through ATM uplink, it is
  replaced by a backup 3810 switch. The firmware in ATM uplink has been
  upgraded to latest version and kept it for the backup purpose.
- Worked with Omar and Larry to troubleshoot the ATM switch technical
  glitches and restored back to operation after rebooting it.
- Restored old files for Hiro from archive and mail Inbox files for Bill
  Kells.
- Put HP Designjet 650C plotter with the name hpcolor0 on the 115 subnet
  in the Millikan 6th floor conference room.
- Helped users fixing some account problems.
 

(Larry)
- Worked and working a number of procurement issues. Laptops, projectors,
  mounting hardware and a few other items. The UPS battery replacement
  finally arrived. We should make the swap sometime this month.
- Worked with Linda and others on some of the logistics for the LSC meeting.
- Fixed and had repaired a couple of the printers. One just had worn out
  parts and the other had some damage done to it from a paper jam. One
  problem was a small piece of paper blocking a sensor, which took a few
  days to discover.
- Cleaned up a few more accounts and working on getting more home accounts
  moved to a larger disk drive.
- Assisted a number of people on getting their modem connections going.
- Helped a few people on getting ssh working along with their outside
  connections. Mostly, getting the users educated on how to connect over
  the network.

LIGO II/Advanced R&D (Sanders)

From Peter King:
 

3.2 Advanced LIGO PSL
The schedule has been re-worked to largely conform to the structure
of the WBS. Currently the WBS Dictionary is undergoing a revision.
The VME backplane for the Eurocard cage being fabricated as part of the
LZH/University of Hannover collaboration has been ordered.
 

3.4 LASTI
CCD cameras have been ordered along with the VME printed circuit
backplanes.
 

From Rolf Bork:

40m and LASTI DAQ:
Sun stations, reflected memory, ADC modules and VME CPUs have arrived; still
waiting on disk drives and GPS receiver modules.

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

Six silicate bonded substrates were tension tested.
The results, better than the ones obtained before, are being analyzed.

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

We had no weekly meeting for two weeks, anycase everybody has been in
the synchrotron.
The two IP have been tuned, fixing the mechanical snafu of the
counterweights and the measurement problem by constraining the shaker on
one degree of freedom. The four filters have been tuned at nominal
frequencies and attached in the towers, and the top mass of the double
pendulum have been provided with its MGAS springs and attached to the
chain.  LVDTs magnetic actuators and motorized screws have been
installed as well.
The double pendulum and the control coils will be assembled in Japan.
After tuning the complete chain, the IP and filters have been hooked to
their transport latches and one tower has been bolted inside its
shipping crate and the crate assembled around it.  The second will be
bolted down on Monday and the shipment will be collected on Wednesday
morning and fly to Japan on Thursday.
The linear electronics and cablings are in house, are being tested and
will be shipped in the same crates.  The digital electronics is expected
in shortly but will travel separately.
The test IP continued to work with all LVDTs in loop and all
accelerometers now working properly after fixing some gain problems.
Akiteru expects to wrap it up by next week and fly in Japan to receive
and open the crates.
 

We found a problem of probably little importance for the present but
quite important in the future for the noise generation front.  Operating
the MGASF springs at very low frequencies and small excitation
amplitudes we observed some histeresis, obviously growing with the
square of the inverse of the frequency.
This is not expected to affect the performance of the attenuation but it
will produce some noise and will not be acceptable in a full scale
interferometer.
At higher frequency the effect was not visible and when it was observed
in an earlier prototype  with bolted blades the effect was attributed to
the bolting (the effect was strongly dependent on who bolted it down).
In the final filters with wedged clamps it was not observed for a stupid
technical reason and was a surprise to find it in the final one.  The
problem was rapidly traced to the softness of the stainless steel
clamps.  In future models we should use Maraging  (Or high hardness
inserts in the clamps) and possibly brazing.  Although not visible at
frequencies above an hertz, the effect is clamp related and likely
present in the GEO and Virgo blade clamps, probably even worse because
in there, there is clamping even at the tip of the blade downstream of
the attenuation factor.
 

The test IP continued to work with all LVDTs in loop and all
accelerometers now working properly after fixing some small range of the
position sensors problems.
 

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