Special Items: NSF Review reprise, collaboration with Virgo on coatings and R&D, collaboration with ACIGA on the 80 meter facility at Gingin

Special Announcements:

LSC Issues (Weiss)

LIGO I Construction/LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

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. . .

Irene Baldon

On vacation.

Dorothy Lloyd

Processed the usual requisitions, invoices and receiving on-line. For more detail, see "Cost Schedule Control Systems" report by Esther Cunningham.
Tracked and followed up on invoice problems.
Reviewed and recorded payments processed by Esther the week of April 23, on contract summary sheets and in the LIGO database.
Continue to monitor contract and blanket order encumbrance and notify task managers when supplements are needed.
Continued work on PO Log book update for the period February through March.
Jim continues with data entry in the LIGO database and also help out in the travel and DCC areas.

Rita Torres

Did edits to Attachment 1 with EGO, also formatted draft minutes of kick-off meeting the High Precision. Formatted from email, the progress report from IUCCAA (India). Did letter to SIOM to send Attachment 2 for their signature, prepared FedEx. Did final edits to NTD contract, sent out for signature via FedEx.
Checking weekly for incoming LSC reports and plans, no reports this week. Obtained Oracle requisition numbers for: Faimond, for machining sapphire, GO/Wave Precision, change order No. 7, GPD Optoelectronics, and Hyspan, change order No. 1.
Took 1-1/2 days vacation, however still placed Pcard orders, and reconciled a few.

Elizabeth K. Wood

Took care of the NSF Staff and Reviewers during their annual inspection of LIGO. Many many many many thanks to Lisa and Larry for their help in setting up the wireless network in room 114 EB. It worked like a charm.
I have been dealing with travel-related issues while Irene is on vacation. Jim Covington has been doing travel reimbursements. Thanks Jim.

Advanced LIGO (Frey, Petrac)

We have established a partial schedule for the review of MRE cost estimates for selected systems over the next two months.

Still working with David Shoemaker to set up assignments for Advanced R&D Annual Report. We should be submitting this report (necessary to get FY 2001 Advanced R&D funding) over the next month or so.

I have distributed copies of these Change Requests and scheduled a Change Control Board Tuesday, May 8, 2001 at 9am PDT.

Note also that we have scheduled a Technical Review Board (TRB) on May 18th at 10:00am PDT to discuss design and placement aspects of the OSB II building at Hanford.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

LIGO Hanford Observatory (LHO) Operations (Raab)

LIGO Livingston Observatory (LLO) Operations (Coles)

OPTICS: (J. Kern) Cleaning and housekeeping in the LVEA and VEAs continues, in preparation for the vent which will follow E-4. We discovered a problem in the clean room over HAM 1; some of the fans made an loud noise when first powered and this is being investigated (thanks to Peter Saulson's sharp ears). The optics labs have had a thorough reorganization, and are ready for processing optics.

Control Room: (R. Riesen) Operators are continuing with tasks needed for the upcoming vent. Clean rooms have been placed over Ham1, Hams 2&3, BSC3, Ham 5 in the LVEA. The Y-end clean room is in place and the X-end clean room has yet to be positioned Dust monitors are now in place in clean rooms and operational in the LVEA. Operator training is continuing and special training is
underway for control room operations support for the E-4.

Input Optics: (S. Yoshida) Investigated if a Shack-Hartman wave front detector can be used to measure the wavefront of the input beam to the arms. If it is usable, it is possible to characterize the input beam at various location, and thereby possible to evaluate the mode matching to the arm resonators. The
Shack-Hartman wavefront detector we have is designed for 633 nm (He Ne
laser wavelength). So the question is whether or not it can be used for 1.06 micron (YAG wavelength). Tested the Shack-Hartman using the PSL beam
on the PSL table where the beam is well characterized. The measured radius
of curvature agreed with the expected value with +/-10%.

Found RF leakage at various locations in LVEA (24 MHz and 33 MHz, at
least). Photo detector (New focus 1811) on IOT table picks up the RF,
making impossible to evaluate the RFAM. We are looking into the source of
the leakage.

Detector/Technical Support (Whitcomb, Coyne)


Installation& Commissioning: Hanford Livingston	Other Science/Engineering Activities: Design/Analysis/Fab Issues/Concerns

1.1 LHO INSTALLATION & COMMISSIONING

2km & Vertex Re-alignment

Dennis Coyne reporting

·Completed the OSEM replacement and re-alignment of the 2k ETM. The side standoff was found to be bent from the earthquake, but still bonded securely to the optic. The side OSEM was moved to the opposite side.

·The pitch angle for the ITMy,2k optic was found to be too far off after the vacuum bake. The guide rod and wire standoff have been removed and the optic will be re-hung and re-baked. We expect to install the ITM early next week. This is about a 1 week delay.

·A visual inspection of the 2k BS magnet/standoffs after the earthquake didn’t reveal any problems. The 2k BS OSEMs were removed recently and a pull test took one side magnet/standoff off (probably a consequence of the earthquake). We have decided to switch the OSEM to the other side and leave this optic without one side magnet. The resulting magnetic dipole moment imbalance may need to be corrected in the future, but does not warrant further delay to the commissioning.

·The 2k vertex re-alignment has begun; the x beam manifold has been vented and a spool piece near the cryo pump will be pulled in preparation for the first theodolite/autocollimator setup. If all goes well, we may finish by 5/14.

4-k Commissioning

Bill Kells

Aligning the 4k MC and MMT
checking for 4k vertex ifo exit beams
calibration of 4k PSL VCO
measurement of PSL frequency noise

DAQ upgrade

Rolf Bork

We intended to upgrade the DAQS to Solaris 8 and new reflected memory network links to accommodate DSC additions. We had to back off to the earlier configuration on Thursday of last week, as the Sun 450 frame builder did not appear to like the new driver for the reflected memory under Solaris 8. We want to go to Solaris 8, as it is supposed to be faster at NFS, which we will need to attach to the new LDAS disk system. I will try to work the problem back offline at Caltech and see if we can get it running properly. Right now, the new driver loads properly and works in test mode, but once we start firing interrupts at it at high speed, it panic crashes the Sun 450. I think what I would like to do is buy a new Sun E3 and get it running at Caltech. Then, we can just swap out for the 450 at LHO, and take the 450 back and work its problems offline.

LSC Upgrade

Rolf Bork

Upgraded the LSC software for LLO to incorporate the hi gain QPD switching. Unfortunately, LLO and LHO code had diverged because of the different hardware installations, which occurred during the commissioning of the LHO 2k. The code should just about be identical now, though this morning LLO called and said they were limited to 5 LSC test points before the system became too slow. I will need to look into this over the next couple of days. Along the lines of LSC performance, we are in the process of trying a couple of new ADC boards in hopes off getting better performance on data readouts. The present Pentek boards are limited in that we have to read one 16bit word at a time, at 1usec each read. We tried a new PMC based module, but it turned out that its FIFO is also only 16bit read and is actually slower readout than VME. We have a second VME module now under test, which is supposed to do DMA transfers, but appears rather complicated to program. It will probably be a few weeks before we get this unit running to the point were we can sweep it to see if the ADCs themselves meet our specifications. Also, representatives from Ixthos (manufactures of high performance DSP and servo components) are coming here next Thursday to discuss how they may be able to help out in ADC performance issues.

4K Digital Suspension Controllers

Jay Heefner, Rolf Bork

Spent last week and a half at LHO, with objective to install and test Digital Suspension Controls (DSC) in LVEA. As of Tuesday, the system appeared operational for all optics in LVEA (though not all are yet connected). Primary problem encountered was with ICS110B ADC boards in that the readouts would vary each time we reset the system, from no data, to data with a lot of glitches to zero, to proper readouts, all with the same code. Almost every time, they would however readout their internally generated sine waves properly in cal mode, which added to the confusion. As of Tuesday, they seem to come up properly now after many resets. Unfortunately, with their strange behavior, I'm not sure which code change finally got them to run consistently. There is a good synopsis in the elog.

All small optics are now under digital control and the mode cleaner has been locked. This includes the digitizing of the mode cleaner length servo signal.
The recycling mirror and Beam Splitter mirrors are under digital control. Digital control of the ITMs has been tested, but we are short a few Universal Dewhitiening boards and one XY220. These should be available in the next week.
ETMY controls have been installed, but we are short Univ. Dewhitening boards and XY220s. When they are received the system can be completed and tested.
The controls all appear to work as predicted, but more detailed measurements of performance need to be made.

Video Cameras

Mike Zucker

With Myron, configured and shipped the remaining H4k video cameras and lenses to LHO

1.2LLO INSTALLATION & COMMISSIONING

Commissioning

Rai Weiss reporting

The Q of the internal modes of the ITM and ETM have been measured with

one of the masses exhibiting a butterfly lowest frequency mode Q under

10000.

An attempt was made to lock the power recycled recombined Fabry-Perot

Michelson. The system did not lock but there were moments when both

cavities were in resonance and a power buildup over a single cavity

resonance of 15 was measured.

The computer world in Livingston is currently tenuous. It took a goodly

fraction of a week to recover from CDS computer disk crash that was

experienced last week. Furthermore, the site has had computer break-ins

into the web server, the file server, Decatur and Delaronde since the

beginning of April. We will need to take measures that reduce the risk but

still allow us to use computers in a reasonably facile way

Mode Matching

David Tanner reporting

Guido Mueller measured the beam size on the ETM structure when it hits the

first and the second time the end station. The ratio between these values

can in principle tell us the mode mismatch and we can calculate the

necessary changes in the position of MMT2. I tried to measure the beam

sizes by using a camera image of the spot on the suspension structure in

the end station. This picture was grabbed with a frame grabber and followed

by an analysis with the software from Spiricon should in principle tell us

at least the ratio. Unfortunately, these measurements are much more

difficult and much less

accurate than is necessary. In this case, the intensity was very low, but

as I will show you later, even with sufficient intensity, the results are

"funny".

Nevertheless, from the simple TV screen, we estimated that the ratio

between the two spots is around 1.5+/-0.2, in agreement with an earlier

measurement done by Joe Giamie and Mike Zucker (see ilog 01/03). They

measured for the first spot 68mm +/- 17mm and for the second spot 108mm +/-

22mm, for a ratio of 1.59. We later confirmed that the ratio and the size

of the beams in both arms look at least very similar.

A look into the calculation of the mode matching reveals that there is a

maximum in the ratio of the two spots. If the distance between MMT2 and

MMT3 is 44 mm to long, the ratio would be 1.567. A smaller and also a

larger deviation will again reduce that ratio.

Rana was able to lock one of the arm cavities on the Bullseye mode (see

ilog 03/17). The transmitted intensity was monitored and compared to the

transmitted intensity of the 00 mode. The result was

T_BE/T_00 = 6.45% +/- 0.7%. The error bars come directly from the

intensity measurement and does not include any possible systematic errors.

Possible systematic errors (tilt) would pump some power into the 10-mode,

but that would reduce the power in both symmetric modes and Rana said that

no tilt was visible, probably ruling out a large influence of tilt.

In any case, if we believe this ratio, we have to reduce the distance

between MMT2 and MMT3 by 2.25 cm +/- 0.15 cm. That should theoretically

bring the mode matching to 99.9%. The adjustment should probably be made to

the high site of this value, e.g., 2.31 cm shorter, because that fits much

better into the spot size ratio (although 2.25 cm is not to far off) and at

least from the models the mode matching gets even better that 99.9%.

Finally, the beam sizes at the bright port was measured when the beams were

reflected at the ITMx, ITMy and in a recombined Michelson configuration (no

arm cavities involved in any of these measurements). (See ilog 04/13 for

details.) ITMx: x-direction: 196 px (pixels), y-direction: 199 px. ITMy:

x-direction: 196 px, y-direction: 193 px. There was good agreement between

the two arms in all directions, suggesting a nice circular beam.

Now the recombined Michelson: x-direction: 253 px, y-direction: 262 px a

difference of 25%! Why? Guido has two explanations:

"a) the radii of curvature of the two beams coming from ITMx and ITMy are

different, just by chance, and not the beam sizes. And they are different

by an amount I haven't been able to find with the mode matching models,

that just explains the recombined Michelson shape. I tried different

mismatches but couldn't find the numbers that would support this

explanation, but that doesn't mean that it does not exist. But still, that

is a very unique solution and I don't believe that we are sitting on such a

unique solution.

b) the camera and the spiricon software just stinks. We have about 4 times

more power on the camera in the recombined case compared to the single

measurements. That's enough to screw up everything."

2.0 Other Engineering and Scientific Activities

2.1 Design/Analysis/Fab

Modeling for the microseismic feedforward system:

Peter Fritschel

Using seismometer data that Robert Schofield took at LHO in April, I have

done some analysis to see how the seismometer signals might be processed

in the microseismic feedforward system. The problem here has been that the

seismometers give a good signal for the microseismic peak, but at

frequencies below 0.1 Hz they show lots of fluctuations which aren't

present in the long arm lengths; this needs to be filtered out (or

avoided) without spoiling the microseismic prediction signal. Robert took

some simultaneous data at the LHO Y end station with a standard Guralp

seismometer and a Streckheisen STS-2 seismometer. Summary of my findings:

1. At a time of low wind speed (~1 m/sec), the STS-2 signal can be

high-pass filtered in such a way as to limit its f<0.1 Hz noise to less

than ~0.5 micron pk, while preserving the phase at the microseismic peak

enough to allow a 5x suppression (no more) of the microseismic peak.

2. At a time of higher wind speed (~7 m/sec), there is much more f<0.1 Hz

signal present in the STS-2 (& Guralp), which does not correspond to actual

slab displacement (slab tilt is the current theory). Thus the filtering

applied above would not be sufficient, and this added wind (tilt?) noise

needs to be removed, or avoided, some other way.

3. The low-wind, f<0.1 Hz noise from the Guralp is about 10x higher than

from the STS-2. Thus the filtering applied in #1 would be insufficient;

the Guralps thus look to be useless for the microsiesmic suppression

system.

Optics Metrology

GariLynn Billingsley
Measurement of the uncoated SPETM08 is complete, it will be coated by REO along with 3 other SPETMs

LSC

Rich Abbott, Flavio Nocera, Mohana Mageswara

Flavio has designed a test device for use on timing boards and it is now in CAD.

Mohana finished testing and shipped the new Mode-cleaner board for use in the LHO 4k IFO.
Mohana finished the design of the Photodiode DC driver and sent to Peter Fritschel for the review and I will be starting the PCB board layout by end of this week.
Whitening filter and anti-aliasing boards have been stuffed and are in test phase in the back shop.
The clock driver board has been received and will be stuffed ASAP.
Rich is designing a new I&Q demodulator board for 2 omega use.
Submitted an ICALEPCS abstract.
Attended a workshop on low level digital RF controls.

PSL

Peter King, Lee Cardenas

Lee has completed the bake operation for the 40m Lab and LASTI PSL

components. All the RGA scans look good.

The person at Lightwave Electronics responsible for evaluating whether or

not a laser is worth repairing, apparently got into a fairly serious motor

cycle accident. Serious enough where no one at Lightwave knows when she/he

will return. Consequently I don't know when the two NPRO lasers that were

recently sent back will return. The 10-W laser recently returned a few

weeks ago has not been looked at yet. I have not been given an estimate

for that laser's return either.

The prototype intensity stabilization servo has been tested down in the PSL

Lab. If I remember correctly, the in-the-loop RIN was about

-155 dB/Sqrt[Hz] and the performance might be limited by the modified

PDA-55 photodetector that we were using. More tests are underway.

Rick Karwoski, Ben Abbott, Paul Russell, Sander Liu

Intensity stabilization. .
We have closed the loop around the PMC light through our prototype electronics. Thus far we have been able to achieve 155db RIN at the PMC photo-detector point in the 100 Hz region. Our suspicions are that we have reached the point where we are sitting on top of a combination diode shot-noise + instrument noise floor. We spent today knocking down the electronic noise floor.

We will resume closed-loop tests tomorrow with the objective of picking up another 10 db or so in the 100 Hz area. If successful we move on to the next step: We will simulate the Mode-Cleaner and include it in our tests.

PSL Custom Boards
Sander has finished testing one 80 MHz VCO (S/N BL2002) board. In the process of repairing and testing the second one (S/N BL2003). The completed boards will then be integrated with the power electronics, assembled and tested at Lauritsen.

Photo-Detector issues An order for 50 C30642 units has been placed. The lead-time is nominally 4-6 weeks. We will be receiving bits and pieces of the order from the vendor.

AC OSEMs

Jay Heefner

The new stabilized oscillator boards are being stuffed and should be ready for test by next week. They will be tested when Jay returns from the UK on May 18.

SUS Diagonalization

Mark Barton

This week I've been making preparations for a trip to LHO to do suspension controller tuning (the week of 5/7). I've also been reviewing the suspension control design with a view to doing a frequency dependent tuning.

SOS Fabrication

David Tanner

The UF machine shop is engaged in the manufacture of 6 additional small

optics suspensions. The parts that hold OSEMs will be sent out for wire EDM

of the OSEM holes soon. We anticipate completion of these suspensions in

about a month.

DMT

John Zweizig

This week I worked to make the triggers more visible and more easily

controlled by the operators. To this end, I wrote a couple pages of

documentation that will be available on the web, added an automatically

generated web page listing the most recent 100 triggers, and modified the

trigger manager status page to give more information about the monitors

generating the triggers..

2.1 Issues

Discharge Phenomenon?

Dennis Coyne

During pumpdown of the 4k IO Dave Ottaway observed that the OSEM sensor signals started shifting levels at about 200 torr in stepwise fashion and non-monotonic fashion. The resulting changes in OSEM level is consistent with a shift in small optic alignment of on the order of 0.5 mrad. This may be a discharge phenomenon. This has not been observed previously for the small optics. The large optics have always been turned off (blind) during the pump down due to the moderately high coil voltage and concern for discharge at low pressure. For the ETMx,2k pump down, the coil voltage was turned down to ~30v and the sensor signals recorded. The OSEM signals for this optic also showed anomalous behavior at about 200 torr (elog entry pending). We are looking into this effect and its implications.

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

This week we focused on the Mode Cleaner lock. By reproducing the
setup of this summer, we were able to lock the laser to the Mode-Cleaner
but with a lower bandwidth (~40 kHz). The goal is to reach a unity gain
frequency (UGF) of 80-100kHz so as to increase the gain and reach the
desired frequency stabilization of 30mHz/rHz @ 100 Hz.

Presently, the filtering for the control consists of a string of
pre-amplifiers and passive filters, acting on both the Mode-Cleaner back
mirror and the laser's pzt actuator. It turns out that the pre-amplifiers
and the new laser that we are using add enough phase delay to prevent us
from having a stable and robust lock with UGF greater than 50 kHz. We
noticed that for each pre-amplifier that we added in the chain, we would
add 20 deg of phase delay @ 100 kHz. Once we discovered this, we
eliminated all but one pre-amplifier and we were able to push the UGF up
to ~70 kHz with a phase margin of ~40 deg.

With the present setup, we have an effective gain Geff (defined as
Geff=Gpzt/(1+Gmc), where Gpzt is the overall transfer function of the pzt
path and Gmc is the one for the Mode Cleaner path) of

dnu_res = 60 Hz/rHz / 600 = 100 mHz/rHz @ 100 Hz
dnu_res = 10 Hz/rHz / 80 = 125 mHz/rHz @ 1 kHz

a factor of 3 above the requirement (T000077). The presence of 2 boosts,
integrating up to 10 kHz, will guarantee the control's performance to
spec.

The next 2 steps consist of shifting the crossover frequency to a lower
frequency (presently it is at ~40Hz) and modify our NIM module to
reproduce the present control setup.

LASTI (Zucker)

LASTI (MacInnis, LaLiberte, Miller, Mason, Rollins, Harry,
Mittleman, Shoemaker, Zucker)
-------------------------------------------
Cleanrooms: Cleanroom for HAM19 is complete and operational. Custom
BSC cleanroom, catwalks and "cartridge installation" annex structures
were inspected by Ken Mason yesterday at the vendor and approved for
shipment; unfortunately the paint wasn't dry, so installation has been
delayed until Monday 5/7. We have hired professional riggers to bring
the structure in and erect it; the construction is quite heavy since it
must double as a person-rated work platform.

Seismic installation: The remaining HAM19 seismic supports were staged
for installation and a parts inventory completed. BSC fixtures were
cleaned and staged for upcoming support installation. We are overdue
for fine alignment of the BSC piers, plan to take this on next week
after the cleanroom is in.

Side experiments: To make way for the BSC cleanroom, the former "Stiff
Prototype" (active LIGO II seismic isolator) was moved away from the
BSC area on Hillman rollers. It will be dismantled next week for
shipment to Stanford; a custom crate has been ordered to pack it in.
The empty chamber will then be reinstalled in a new location to accept
installation of the GEO quad pendulum prototype, scheduled to arrive
third week of June with Norna Robertson and Callum Torrie.

CDS/electronics: The completed SOS rack crossconnect and eurocard
modules arrived from LLO. We did a fit check of the relay racks in the
lab and decided the previously agreed rack location (outside of right
arm) was not workable; it interfered with staging space for the quad
pendulum assembly and SEI/SUS cartridge installation. We're now
exploring the idea of breaking up the four racks into two bays on the
inside of the left arm. This would also give shorter runs for the PSL
and IO electronics and simplifies the cable trays.

Vacuum system: We need to relocate our pumping and
instrumentation station 10 meters down the right arm to make more
clearance near the BSC. Tentative plan is to complete this before the
BSC bellows leakcheck (sched. first week of June).

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Dual Recycling summation cavity
-------------------------------
(Hiro) Studied possibilities to simulate a dual recycling configurations
for the Advanced LIGO and 40m. For 40m, the best is to use primitive
modules, and for the Advanced LIGO, we need to develop a special module
(summation cavity of the dual recycling Michelson). The use of Power
Recycling module for the dual recycling configuration for either case
does not buy us anything.

Pre Stabilised Laser
--------------------
(Biplab) Did calculations on non-uniformities in photo-detector responses
and noise in PSL. Had discussions with Rick Savage.

Code development
----------------
(Andrea) Getting ready to include the Frame output in the e2e.
(Hiro) Low level coding of the simulation engine, including the symbolic
constant handling.

Alfi
----
(Ed Maros) Investigated why fully qualified paths sometimes appear in
box files.
(Bruce) Continuing work on implementation of connection junctions.

(Vicere') I have essentially completed a small C library based on
the Framelib to be used to easily generate frames from user code or from
given files. It is written on the same lines of the frame builder
simulation contained in the Siesta code, and therefore can be
used also to produce frames from the e2e simulation.
It is written on top of the Framelib and not the framecpp
because I wanted something to be possibly used also in absence
of a C++ compiler, for instance to give MDC people a easy way
to produce frames at home.
It remains to be tested with data that Patrick Brady shall send
me at the end of this week.

Most of the week was spent working on the dataPipeline command needed to
support the next release of LDAS and needed to carry out most of the next
MDC on May 15th. The dataPipeline is being tested in sections since it
involves many steps in many APIs. The biggest success so far has been the
successful sending of metadata generated in a LSC provided search code to
the LDAS DB2 database. Also of significance is the ability of the data
conditioning to provide the correctly formatted data needed by the search
codes.

There were several minor modifications to the database table designs this
week. These were needed to support the MDC. There is a data column for
statistical data which was discovered to need double precision reals and
this is now supported.

The wrapperAPI is now being built using the LAM standard C++ exception
handling. This took quite a bit of debugging work do to a requirement that
the LAL and LALwrapper libraries be compiled with the -fexception option
was needed and not part of the standard build for these codes. Those
responsible for these codes have been notified of the needed change for
LAL and LALwrapper when using the new LAM package with the pre 0.0.17
release version of the wrapperAPI.

There were some minor changes to the frameCPP library this week to support
development on the CDS framebuilder. The framebuilder is being updated to
support multi-frame and multi-second files.

The routine tests were preformed this week to verify performance and
functionality of the baseline LDAS infrastructure. The ILWD socket
tests and the frame to ILWD tests were normal. The database ingestion
tests are showing improved performance on the systems with the new T3
disk systems.

The main LDAS software server at Caltech has been replaced with a new
dual-processor Sun server running a 0.5TB RAID filesystem.

The Sun servers in the LDAS Test system have been upgraded to run mirrored
root filesystems so they will survive single internal disk drive failures.

The first of 7 LDAS disk racks has been successfully powered up via
an integrated rack-mount 220V UPS.

Integration of the dedicated administrative/security/backup server
in each LDAS system is proceeding well.

* Worked with Linqing on a memory allocation problem - the LAL wrapper
complains that a pointer is being freed twice. We changed some code around
to track the problem and it seems to be happening inside the FCT engine
itself rather than the wrapper object or LAL FCT interface. We're still
looking into this.

* Fixed some minor warnings and complaints that Jolien and Alan had about
the LAL FCT test code

MIT:
(Keith)
-Upgraded several old machines (2.8) for use as seats
for summer students etc...
-Installed SCSI cards for raid disk array
-Investigated plotter/printer troubles
-Priced new Sun hardware for various projects
-Priced out PC hardware for LDAS installation.

Livingston:
(Shannon & Tom)
-Preparing for the E4 run starting next week.
-Installing SUN equipment for LDAS setup.
-Working a couple of security issues.
-Setup new WEB server hardware and had DNS tables updated.
-Pricing out equipment for various computer/network related
projects.

Hanford:
(Christine)
-All GC Solaris systems have been upgraded to Solaris 8, except fortress
and rainier. Fortress will have to remain at Solaris 7 because of
drivers for the tape drive, disks, and network interface cards. Rainier
will be upgraded to Solaris 8 in two weeks.
-The new Sun Forte6 compilers are installed and seem to be working
properly.

CIT:
-Setup laptops and networking for the NSF review.
-Sorted through the old backup tapes so that I could start consolidating them
to AIT2.
-Currently working on multiple pc/laptop rebuilds.
-Worked with Larry on troubleshooting a network glitch on the 125 subnet. We
identified the problem (traffic from Luna) but have not yet found the root
cause.
-Usual round of support stuff.
-Did monthly backups.

(Barbara)
- Installed publications search tool and made a number of other changes to
the publications web pages and template. The url for the search tool is

and a link is in the
Documents section of the home page.
- Revived and installed the costbook reports. Made several other changes
to costbook home page and web forms.
- Formatted and installed the GC policy web pages. They are a work in
progress and still have to be reviewed before becoming official.
- Helped Rita generate a spreadsheet of LSC members.
- Began efforts on LDAS hardware block diagrams.
- I know you are on pins and needles waiting to hear the latest news about
my problems with the DCC's weekly compact/repair process. It is not
possible with WebBase to release a database for maintenance in a batch
process. This is distressing news. The options are (1) keep the batch job
but never cache web database connections thereby slowing web access or (2)
do the maintenance by hand.

(Larry)
-Worked on the setup/support for the NSF review with Lisa and Liz.
The wireless lan with the DHCP worked well and most of the board members
expressed their thanks for the setup.
-Tracked down a few purchase issues for the LDAS group. Obtained a few more
quotes and passed a few things over to Bill T. to work on.
-Worked a couple of network issues. Most were simple fixes, the difficult
one to figure out is a problem with luna.
-Interviewed a couple of students to work for the summer. Also, working in
getting a couple of interviews setup for a PC admin. person.
-Worked/working a number of security related issues.

LIGO II/Advanced R&D (Sanders)

Silicate Bonding
Had difficulty bonding the 1/2" sapphire substrates to be used for cryogenic tests by R. DeSalvo.
The bonds showed prominent separation at the edges.
The sapphire substrates are not flat to the 1/10 wave requirement; they are only flat over 80% of the surface and have rolled edges.
(Verbally, I placed the order for 1/10 wave surface flatness; Crystal Systems' faxed quote indicated flatness only over 80% of the substrate surface; I overlooked it.)
I contacted Waveprecision and they will rework the parts for a reasonable price and delivery time (2 weeks ARO).
Before sending the parts to get reworked, I will be bonding some of these defective parts at Stanford with Sheila Rowan to see if we get the same results.

At Stanford I also will be assisting Sheila, by taking the coated LIGO optic from the chamber after "Q" measurements, and shipping it back to Caltech.

E2E model
David Tanner reporting
On a visit to Caltech, Malik worked on E2E modeling.
We wrote a code to model a dual recycling interferometer using
the summation technique. The code is urgently needed for the
design studies of the dual recycling 40m by Alan Weinstein.

Advanced LIGO Optical Analysis
Erika D'Ambrosio
I investigated the limit on the reliability of the FFT-code on very flat beams.
The motivation was a gain performance using "reshaped" mirrors, which
drop down the "thermoelastic noise".

I made several simulations in the last few days changing every time the spot of
the driving beam and the radius of curvature in order to match the shape of the
mirrors I was testing for the long arm cavities.

The recycling mirror was chosen also in accordance with the geometry of the
circulating field following the law of paraxial approximation for the
propagation. I started with ROC=316960m for the feeding beam and spot size
0.0924836m reducing both step by step. For many times I just had the program
crashed; sometimes there was an output which consisted in lists of NaN.
The FFT-code converges for ROC=62300m and spot size 0.0363968m. It takes a lot
and I had to increase the limit on the number of maximum iterations.

Peter King
40m Lab & LASTI
The vendor has finally agreed to replace the Motorola MV162-P242s for
MV162-PA242s, ie the ones that don't work for ones that do work. For some
reason I don't understand, the deal the Jay worked out for returning his
boards didn't carry over to the ones that I ordered.
The phase-correcting Pockels cell has been installed in the laser and the
optics train into the power amplifier re-aligned. At the moment the output
power of the laser is 11.5 W with the laser operating at a diode current of
20 A.
A set of cylindrical lenses to correct for the astigmatism in the 10-W
laser's output has been ordered. I have been chasing up some other
components that Alan asked me to look into.
With Ben, we requested an EPICS EPROM to be sent down by Dave Barker for a
Motorola IOC in the 40m Lab.

Peter King
LIGO II PSL
Benno and I have agreed to a revised edition of the PSL WBS
Dictionary. The WBS Dictionary basically says that LZH and the University
of Hannover are responsible for everything and that installation is a joint
task between the LIGO Lab and LZH/University of Hannover. Something that
was always going to be the case but wasn't explicitly spelt out.
Andreas Weidner, a visitor from Max Planck - Garching, is here
visiting to learn about the CDS design cycle. This is part of the Advanced
LIGO PSL collaboration.

CR-000018	WBS 1.1.4	Curbing for Service Roads at Livingston	G. Stapfer
CR-000019	WBS 1.2	Additional Lab Equipment	D. Coyne
CR-000020	WBS 1.1.4	Staging Building and Renovations to Existing Building--Livigston	F. Asiri
CR-010001	WBS 1.1.4	Return of Unused Construction Budget to Contingency for Civil Construction	F. Asiri
CR-010002	WBS 1.2.1.1.6-7	Return of Unused Construction Budget to Contingency for ISC Design	S. Whitcomb
CR-010003	WBS 1.2.1.1.9	Return of Unused Construction Budget to Contingency for Detector Systems Engineering	S. Whitcomb
CR-010004	WBS 1.2.3.1	Return of Unused Construction Budget to Contingency for Physics Environment Monitoring	S. Whitcpomb

Exec. Comm. Agenda	Highlights	LSC	Administration	Hanford Observatory
Livingston Observatory	MIT	Caltech	Detector	40 Meter
TNI	LASTI	Data Analysis	LIGO II/Adv. R&D	Past Weekly Reports

	Packages	Faxes
In	42	35
Out	18	31

Weekly Report for Week Ending May 3, 2001

Special Announcements: