Weekly Report for Week Ending July 12, 2001

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  July 16, 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

There was a teleconference on Thursday, July 12.  The following were among the items discussed:

• Laser Safety--the group responsible for preparing the procedures has been given an additional week to complete them. There are cost issues related to implementation. Doug Cook, Jonathan Kern, Bill Tyler, and Gary Sanders are scheduling a teleconference next week.
• It is time to iterate the Operating Budgets for FY 2002.
• The proposed schedule for processing the construction contract for the building at Hanford is: RFQ-August 14, Job Walk-August 28, Bid Opening-September 14 (Friday).
• It has been confirmed by the Caltech Insurance Adjuster in the Treasurer's Office that employees who are on LIGO business in their personal vehicles are covered by their own insurance company.  Ed Chargois has an action to check whether individuals who are on LIGO business in rental vehicles are covered under Caltech insurance.  This last question relates to whether we should continue to "waive" the extra insurance offered by the rental companies.

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

• Prepared a cover letter to Caltech's Insurance Adjuster (D. Artura) concerning  the Incident  that occurred at Baker, LA. on 6-28-01.
• Assisted the Technical Engineering Group (P. Russell) with the packing and shipping of an Oscilloscope to Photronics (Tony Foti) for repair and calibration. Account Number P182449.
• Assisted the Technical Engineering Group (R.Torres) with shipping of two (2) Rack Adapters to Kepco Inc (Lorena), Flushing, NY Account Number P182400.
• Assisted the Data Analysis Group (S. Anderson) with the packing and shipping of a Tape Robot System, SN# 00061048, valued at $18,459.80, to Cybernetic (T. Lee), at Yorktown, VA  for repair. Account Number P182484

>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

• Finished an article for LIGO's June newsletter.
• Began backing up C Drive files so Mike and Larry can completely reinstall the operating system and program files.
• Processed more than a dozen contractor invoices.
• Worked through numerous problem electronic submittals.  Sent e-mails to various authors requesting clarification, or new submittals.  Waiting for responses so the DCC/OUT directory can be totally cleaned out.
• Helped Ed Chargois redo his equipment checkout form.
• NOTE:  I will be away on vacation July 13 -20.  Cleveland, too, will be out of the office on July 20, so the DCC will be closed for that one Friday.

ACTIVITY

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>

• Working on two new change orders: C/O #9 to CSIRO and C/O #9 to Wave Precision.
• The advance payment of $45k for Shanghai was FX'd today.
• Prepared a preliminary draft of the TSEP contract including the spreadsheet detailing the LIGO Personnel.
• Finished closing all the FY 2000 PO's and forwarded them to be filed.  I'll begin closing the FY2001 PO's this week.

• Completed and posted the monthly Operations reports for June 2001 for FP2001 and FY2000 on the network.
• Submitted approximately 40 Cost Transfer Requests to move costs incurred by the Detector Group to the new Fabrication Accounts.
• Submitted requests to the Accounts Payable Department to correct the Expenditure Type on certain P-card transactions.
• Completed and provided Donna with the report for the Visitor Program for June 2001.  Identified certain travel expenditures that were not classified as Travel-Participant Support, we are in the process of requesting corrections for these items.
• Prepared a summary of the Construction Project showing balances available as of June 2001 for Data Analysis Group, Detector, Livingston Building, and Hanford Building, and Unallocated Contingency.

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

• WavePrecision Inc.: CO No. 09, for polishing of fused silica substrates in support of mechanical Q measurement/Advanced LIGO R&D, was released to Purchasing.
• CSIRO: CO No. 09, adding a study aimed at correcting refractive index inhomogeneity in sapphire substrates in support of Advanced LIGO R&D, was released to Purchasing.
• Galli&Morelli: CO No. 15, adding funds to cover charges for deliveries to date, was processed to purchasing.

• It has been confirmed by the Caltech Insurance Adjuster in the Treasurer's Office that employees who are on LIGO business in their personal vehicles are covered by their own insurance company.  Ed Chargois has an action to check whether individuals who are on LIGO business in rental vehicles are covered under Caltech insurance.  This last question relates to whether we should continue to "waive" the extra insurance offered by the rental companies..

SUPPORT (Wood)

Advanced LIGO (Frey)

Progress Period from 07.06 to 07.12

Accomplishments:

• Weekly Advanced LIGO Project Controls meeting held Tuesday the 11th at 1pm.  Focus of the meeting was the second review of COC MRE Cost and Schedule.
• Advanced LIGO MRE Proposal (Highest Priority)
• Continuing the development of the Cost Estimate.
• Continue to pursue all other sub system schedules.
• Continued changes to the AOS cost and schedule per review meeting.
• Finished changes to the COC schedule per comments by GB and review meeting.
• Continued work on action items for SUS cost and schedule.
• Continue to process SEI data.
• The following is a summary of status by sub system:
1. COC - Second review was executed on July 11th.  Issued meeting minutes for comment.
2. PSL - All efforts are on hold pending Peter King's qualification of all costs and contingencies.  Last word is that we will schedule something for the end of July.
3. AOS - I am working with Mike Smith to complete his schedule changes and added cost sheets.  Action items for others are still outstanding.  Second review is tentatively scheduled for August 10th at 9am at LSCR.
4. IO - David Reitze and David Tanner have started effort on their action items.  Second Review is scheduled for August 24th at 9:35am at LSCR.
5. SUS - Second review is scheduled for July 17th at 12 noon at LSCR.
6. SEI - First review is scheduled for July 26th at 12 noon at LSCR.  Data processing and input will be completed by the 19th.
7. All other subsystems have yet to be scheduled for their first review.  These dates are pending per direction from Gary Sanders.
• Continue to update the TNI Schedule and incorporate any changes.
• Nothing new to report this week.
• Continue to update the LASTI Schedule and incorporate any changes.
• Nothing new to report this week.
• Project Plan for the 40-Meter Lab Upgrade continues.
• Completed changes to plan per Mike Smith for AOS.
• Updated the plan with progress as of 06.29.01 and  posted to site.
• Sent out update data requests for progress as of 07.13.01.
• Continue to test the Cost Book Tool.
• Updated meeting minutes per action items from Tuesday's meeting.
• Mapping and formatting of OPS cost data for input on hold pending additional changes to budget data per NSF.
• 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

• Out of the office July 20th and July 23rd through the 25th.  I can be reached by cell phone at 949-422-2846, pager 800-470-7089, or email at mailto:TLFrey@httib.com
• Next weekly Advanced LIGO Project Controls meeting scheduled for July 17th at 12pm at LSCR.  Focus of the meeting will be the SUS Second MRE Cost and Schedule Review.
• Advanced LIGO MRE Proposal (Highest Priority Task)
• Highest priority is the development of the Cost Estimate.
• Will continue to pursue all other sub system schedules.
• Schedule second review meeting for PSL.
• Continue input of changes to the AOS cost and schedule per review meeting.
• Continue input of changes to the IO schedule per comments of review meeting.
• Complete input of changes to the SUS schedule per comments of review meeting.
• Complete input of changes to the SEI schedule per comments of review meeting.
• Will import cost data and complete schedule integration.
• Will Continue to update the TNI Schedule and incorporate any changes.
• Will update the plan with progress as of 07.13.01 and  post to site by the 18th.
• Will Continue to update the LASTI Schedule and incorporate any changes.
• Will update the plan with progress as of 07.13.01 and  post to site by the 18th.
• Will continue updating the 40 meter schedule and incorporate any changes.
• Will update the plan with progress as of 07.13.01 and  post to site by the 18th.
• Cost Book Tool development continues.  (Highest Priority Task)
• Will continue ops cost data input.
• Will continue to work with BK importing data and developing reports.
• 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)

The end-of-May Quarterly Progress Report is due.  I am currently assembling and editing material submitted.

The following Change Request has been submitted:
 

Press for the latest Contingency Needs Projection.

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

• No report this week.

• I am gathering all the information for the monthly reports on the Advanced R&D accounts for June 2001. Since the Advanced R&D report has been put into a new format, I will no longer send out the details at a later date. Everything is put on the network at the same time.
• Florence Kaufman and I have decided to put all the reports into one place (for your convenience)... so they can be found at: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport
• I received the MIT TWONK (MITs cost allocation report) and invoice for the month of May, 2001 and submitted the data for payment.
• 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).

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

• Design of the new Hanford OSB East Building continues on schedule.  The architect/engineering firm, NTD Architects, presented its selection of finishes for the new building on Thursday, July 12.  It is expected that Invitation for Bids will be issued in August.
• A change order has been issued to Brunt Construction to add the elevator to the Livingston Staging Building now under construction.   This elevator was required to comply with the American Disability Act.  The cost for this addition was $107,000.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

The Livingston Safety Audit report has now been released and distributed to the participants.

The second draft of the LIGO Vehicle Usage Policy has been distributed for review.

Caltech and LIGO Safety and QA (Scislowicz, Zydowicz and Tyler) met to consider revisions of the LIGO laser safety eye examination requirements for LIGO personnel, students and visitors. Tyler will prepare a "draft" of the new requirements/policy for LIGO eye examinations.

The conference room projector installation work is expected to be completed in the next few weeks. The order for the remote cabling, preamps and wireless mouse hardware was placed. The vendor indicated that all of this material had been shipped to Caltech on the 11th of July.
A Service Request for Caltech electrician support will be initiated after all the material is received. The conference rooms will be scheduled for "down time" to complete the projector installations.
 

LIGO Hanford Observatory (LHO) Operations (Raab)

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

We are preparing to vent the 4K to repair input optics misalignments (see below)
and 2K commissioning proceeds. Lightwave is working on servicing the 4K PSL.
Hugh Radkins is anayzing earth tides in Livingston. Our teacher interns are busy
developing LIGO outreach materials. Paul Schwinberg, formerly at U of
Washington, will join the LHO staff on 7/16.

Controls:
---------
D. Barker

Investigating 4k LVEA Digital Suspension activities during the period Thursday
and Friday June 28th - 29th. System apparently shook all 4k LVEA optics for some
time during this time period. Reviewing code and trend data to try to
reconstruct events.

Completed reflective memory network installation for 4k Data Acquisition system.

Investigating 2k LVEA ADCU problems in both suspensions and PEM systems.

Software and disk installations on the new hanford1 continues. Installation of
improved security on all CDS gateway machines continues.

LIGO Livingston Observatory (LLO) Operations (Coles)

Detector: Optics and Installation:  Mike Smith assisted by LLO staff has completed the alignment of the Core Optic Components in the vertex, and is working with Rana and Sany to align the Mode Matching Telescope.  We just opened the West end (ETM-x) for inspection, OSEM replacement and realignment. Expectation is that we will complete the in-chamber work by week's end, and will be able to initiate closeout procedures early next week. (Jonathan Kern)
 
Electronics:  3 small optic controllers in the vertex and that at ETM-y were removed, had test points repaired and have been checked out and replaced.  RF survey of the LVEA ongoing. (Rus Wooley)
 
Computing:  Bell South has repaired our T1 line, and we are now back online. There was a lightning storm here last Friday, and a strike nearby caused damage to both the copper lines and the electronics connected to them, so several things had to be repaired or replaced. A network switch was also damage and has been identified and replaced. (Shannon Roddy, Tom Evans)
 
Operations:  Completed the particle shedding test on all the different type clean room garments we use. See the report T010079-00-D.pdf, "Comparisons of Particulate Matter Falling from Cleanroom Garb" filed in the DCC (Rich Riesen)
 
Outreach:  Steve McGuire led a tour of CAMD (a synchrotron research center near the the LSU campus) for our SURF students and interested staff Tuesday afternoon.  Today, Joe Kovalik is hosting a visit by CAMD staff at LLO.

Detector/Technical Support (Whitcomb, Coyne)

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

1.1 LHO INSTALLATION & COMMISSIONING

2km Commissioning

Some bugs in the LSC electronics were found en route locking the power recycled Michelson. We were, however, unable to lock the PRM, some offsets in the error signals still need to be understood. We did notice that the resonant spot in the PRM was decentered by about 5 cm in the horizontal direction on the beamsplitter. We have corrected the alignment of the input beam and further work on locking continues.

Luca Matone
On the 2k, we diagonalized the Core optics in the LVEA and set up the PRM.

Data for the 2k electronic characterization was taken. In particular, the whiteneing filter tf was measured and its noise floor. Also, the electronic tf including the AA, pentek and AI was measured, together with the time delay. Each digital filter was also measured.

4km Commissioning

The 4k large optics were also driven by the crazed DSC, but seem to be okay.

The 4 km 10 W laser is getting a tune-up from Lightwave.

Suspension tuning

1.2LLO INSTALLATION & COMMISSIONING

LLO VERTEX ALIGNMENT

ALIGNMENT OF BS, APS beam
A 500mw COS autocollimator (AC) was projected along the y-arm direction through the APS output port, and the HAM4 table was tilted in pitch and yaw by shifting weights on the table (7/6/01) in order to center the projected reticle pattern within the FOV of the APS port. Similarly, a 4W COS AC was projected along the x-arm direction, reflected from the BS mirror, through the APS output port, and the BS was aligned so that the x-arm AC reticle pattern was superimposed with the y-arm AC reticle pattern. A second (weaker ) reticle pattern  was observed adjacent to the bright reticle pattern in the FOV  at the APS port when the BS was aligned. In an attempt to eliminate the double image of the reticle pattern, HAM5 door was pulled for access to the Faraday isolator on HAM4 and the Faraday isolator was translated a small amount normal to the incident beam until the largest circular FOV was obtained (this represented the best alignment of the Faraday isolator). The double image did not disappear, and remained in the same relation to the primary image during the tilting and translation of the Faraday isolator. This indicated that the second image was not caused by internal reflections in the Faraday isolator. We verified that the reticle pattern traversed unimpeded through most of the APS optical train by viewing the pattern with a video camera by looking toward the projector placed sequentially after each optical element in the train up to the final steering mirror; we couldn't access the path after the final steering mirror. The second image appears to be due to reflections from the AR side of the steering mirrors on the HAM4 table.

The BS position on the BSC2 table was checked by sighting a 1mm dia vertical rod placed on the BS LOS structure at the beam centerline position with the y-arm theodolite; the BS LOS is positioned within 1.5 mm of the desired centerline position.

ITMX PO BEAM:
The ITMX PO beam reticle pattern was centered in the FOV of the output port by adjusting the ITMx POmirror. During this procedure, a second dimmer image was observed to the left of the bright reticle pattern. It was apparent that the second, dimmer reticle pattern was a reflection from the back surface of the steering mirror.

BS PO BEAM:
The BS PO beam reticle pattern was already centered in the FOV of the output port, and  the BS POmirror did not need adjustment.

ITMY PO BEAM:
The ITMyPO beam reticle pattern was centered in the FOV of the output port by adjusting the ITMy POmirror.

MMT3
The 4W COS AC in the y-arm was projected onto a target at the center of the MMT3 mirror and the center of the reticle pattern was approx. 5mm to the right and 5mm above the center of the MMT3.

MMT3 was aligned to project the reticle pattern onto the center of a target placed at the center of MMT2 within <0.5 mm.

2.0 OtherEngineering and Scientific Activities

2.1 Design/Analysis/Fab

Core Optics

REO has a new cleaning procedure and an improved clean room, free of dust. All cleaning is done under a class 100 flow bench that has an ionizing bar to take care of electrostatic charge during the cleaning. Dust has been completely eliminated which is great. The optics get soaked in hot Alconox and scrubbed while hot until the water sheets off the surface. They get rinsed very well and they allow the water to dry by itself. The fringes can bee seen while the water dries.  The DI water system is like ours and has a .2 micron filter; the water should be particle free. Because they do not have a dark field microscope I was not able to see that there are not microscopic particles. The substrates looked really clean and free of smears when inspected in a dark room under a high intensity lamp.

One problem that we encountered after the first pair of mirrors came out, was some coating flaking from the bevel of the optic. When the mirrors were re-polished, the bevels were not. When new coating got sprayed on the bevels some of it flaked. I thought that something like that may happen, however, when I mentioned to Dale, he did not share my concerns and was confident that the coating was going to adhere to the bevel without problems. Also, the parts fit on the coating fixtures a bit different because after the new polishing the bevels are smaller. It does not seem to have affected the actual mirror coating. The problem is confined to the bevel.

Tomorrow I will be meeting with the consultant that designed the new cleaning system for REO (the one used for the telecom parts and now idle) . He may have some suggestions on how to approach the cleaning for LIGO II parts.

Friday, the coating chamber will get calibrated for the AR coating.

Optical modeling

This is not unexpected, because I went through the notes by Robert Spero who had done similar calculations for Ligo using spherical mirrors. I used his curves to test my procedures in the case of a Gaussian beam, so I made some runs just with a view to a comparison with results obtained by a different method and shown in his ligo technical note.

I know how to disentangle the problem of diffraction losses and mismatch at the internal mirror when one mirror is titled; still I need to discuss this with Kip because my analytical calculations using perturbation theory techniques give an important factor 1/(4 sin^2(theta_guoy/2)) in front of the expression he got. It seems reasonable to me since for degenerate cavities (that is small shift phases between different modes) tilt has a more important impact than in non-degenerate cavities. This kind of problem doesn't emerge when geometrical optics approaches are used and this may explain the discrepancy between the FFT-code data and the predictions by Prof. Vyatchanin and Strigin regarding the losses caused by tilt.

LHO INTEGRATED LAYOUT DRAWINGS

PSL

REO have commenced coating of the curved mirror used in the pre-modecleaner (PMC).  These should be finished by week's end.

I have been trying to clean a set of old PMC mirrors.  After soaking in a hot Liquinox solution for the better part of 3 days, water still does not glide off the surface of the optic.

40m Lab & LASTI : I checked out a few problems related to the PMC and its alignment. Firstly the polarizer in the main beam was not properly aligned, resulting in the beam being distorted - the beam looked almost like two spots.  In addition it appeared that a quarter-waveplate was installed in front of the PMC RF photodetector thus not allowing the light level to be reduced.  As a result the photodetector output was heavily saturated.

A problem was noticed with the NPRO oscillator going into standby after operating for a period of approximately 30 minutes.  Suspecting that the NPRO went into a thermal shutdown, the valve controlling the cooling water to the master oscillator was opened up.  I have not heard of a recurrence of the problem since.  It is likely that the needle valve was gummed up with something from the water cooling hoses.

Rick Karwoski
LASTI Efforts: Slight postponement of PSL installation.  Our plans are now to visit MIT the week of July 29.

40m.: Efforts underway to improve robustness and extend bandwidth of the PMC servo.

ISS: Continuation of Circuit refinements.  We will be building a second set of electronics for the 4K @ LHO

Sander Liu
In the process of getting quote for a 19 inch half rack for building a VMEbus test set.

ISC

LSC

• Mohana has shipped one of the two MC servo cards to LHO and is in the process of finishing the other.
• All the requisite information has been sent to LLO in order to build the cross connects for the new MC servo installation.
• Rich has made travel plans to go to LLO on 6th to 11th August for MC installation.
• Flavio is building notch filters for the TNI and waiting for Rolf to come back in order to finish the timing boards.
• Rich is done with the CAD of the next generation osem test board and will send it for manufacture.

Data Acquisition

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

• PSL (King, Ugolini, Abbott, Vass):
• On Monday the PSL table and enclosure were shifted nine inches south to make room for the output optic chamber support beams. The reference cavity was removed to prevent damage to the suspension during the move; it was replaced and realigned the next morning.
• Ben, Dennis, and Andrea finally managed to optimize the PMC servo settings. With only 0.5 watts of power the PMC remained locked all day.
• There were about twenty discrepancies between the EPICS database and the actual wiring of the PSL rack. All of these differences have now been resolved, with only one wiring changed required, and Peter King and the BDL lab folks have been notified of the changes.
• The fast channels to the DAQ are now up and running.
• There is a tear in the insulation in the high voltage cable for the reference cavity ion pump, causing it to arc over and short itself. A new cable was ordered and should arrive at any time, and Peter assures us that the reference cavity can maintain its current pressure for up to a month without pumping.
• Several times on Tuesday the laser shut itself off due to overheating, sending the chiller into standby. Peter opened wide a needle valve in the laser to increase water flow, and the problem has not reoccurred.
• Vacuum envelope (Jones, Vass):
• With lots of help from our SURF army, we have now installed the output optics chamber and access connector, a new IOC chamber door, and the first four feet of our 12m mode cleaner beam tube (plus a T-section for a camera mount). The support beams for the OOC optical table should be installed and vacuum-sealed by the end of Thursday, and the remaining eight feet of the mode cleaner will go in next.
• Larry has received two different types of elastomer disks, which show a factor of two difference in hardness at 20% compression. However, when installed at the 40m at 50% compression, he cannot distinguish a difference between the two. After a month he will remove some of the disks to test resilience.
• Cabling (Larry Jones): The 1000-foot spool of polyimide-coated wire has arrived. This stuff is *thin*--the whole spool is only 1.5 pounds! Unfortunately the head of the wire braiding company has just gone in for surgery, so Larry's appointment with them is now set for next Wednesday. Meanwhile samples have been shipped overnight to two different stripping companies for quotes (or to see if their processes even work with such a thin sample).
• DAQ: One of the two ADC boards in our DAQ system is showing all zeroes in Dataviewer. My guess is that the location in memory has not been assigned correctly, but switching to what should be the correct setting does not alleviate the problem. We will have to ambush Rolf when he returns from vacation.
• SURF Progress:
• Tim has completed his calculations of the mode-matching throughout the reference cavity beam path. He is now comparing his results to reality with a beam scanner, and repeating the task for the PMC beam path.
• Now that the fast DAQ channels are working, Andrea will start analyzing the frequency noise in the frequency and PMC servo mixer outputs.
• Irena & Mihail are generating bursts in white noise, and measuring efficiency versus signal-to-noise of their excess power filter. Their analysis involves hundreds of Fourier transforms which run very slowly, and they are looking for a way to run FFTW in ROOT.
• While waiting for our weather station data logger to arrive, Victor is learning to use MEDM, Fourier transforms, and Matlab.
• Richard is measuring the transfer function of the 40m with E2E, and learning how Pound-Drever locking works.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

This week we vented and opened our vacuum chamber and realigned both arm
cavities. Last week we were able to lock all three cavities (the mode
cleaner, the north arm, and the south arm) simultaneously, but the arm
cavities would only lock to high-order modes. On Monday we opened the
chamber, realigned the cavities, closed up, and began pumping back out. By
Tuesday afternoon the chamber was down to the 10^-5 torr regime, and we were
able to lock all three cavities in their respective TEM00 modes. Both
acquisition frequency and hold times are greatly improved over last week's
results, with all three cavities routinely staying locked for 5 minutes or
more. One remaining problem is that the locks tend to oscillate around 800Hz
to 1kHz, making noise floor measurements problematic.
 

Nevertheless, on Tuesday night we were able to get a "one-armed" sensitivity
curve. Sometimes the arm cavities will lock without exhibiting these ~1kHz
resonances, and on one of these occasions we took a spectrum of the North
cavity's error signal. (The South cavity was not locked.) During this lock
we sent a calibration signal into the broadband Pockels cell after the mode
cleaner, and from the resulting peak in our error signal we are able to do a
preliminary calibration of the instrument. We observed a flat noise floor
from about 5kHz to 15kHz that corresponds to a displacement sensitivity of
2.1x10^-17m/rHz, and we observed a series of peaks from 15kHz up to 100kHz
(or highest measurement frequency) that appear to correspond to mechanical
resonances. We also measured the open-loop transfer function of the
arm-cavity servo, near the unity-gain frequency, and were able to do an
alternate calibration by fitting our expected transfer function to this
curve. This second, and presumably independent, calibration yielded a noise
floor consistent with the first estimate.
 

Next we hope to stabilize the lock, by eliminating the ~1kHz resonances, and
to begin reducing our noise floor and increasing its bandwidth.

LASTI (Zucker)

LASTI (Harry, Mason, Mason, MacInnis, Miller, Mittleman,
Ottaway, Robertson, Rollins, Romie, Shoemaker, Torrie, Zucker):
 

Quad pendulum prototype: Some minor interference and tolerance issues
have required a fair bit of rework in the shop, but the end is in
sight.  Blade springs have been preloaded and the aluminum dummy masses
were temporarily suspended, with no serious surprises.
 

PSL: Optical table assembly is proceeding rapidly and we will begin
laser operations this week using an NPRO to stand in for the 10W MOPA
(still in repair queue at Lightwave).
 

SOS for test cavity: Continuing vacuum prep of test cavity
suspension parts.
 

Controls: Rick Karwoski and Peter King have made tentative plans
to come out from Caltech and complete the PSL controls installation
week after next. Still waiting on in-vacuum wiring harnesses
and satellite boxes.
 
 

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

End to End simulation ( B. Bhawal )
=====================
 

Mode Mismatch
-------------
(Biplab & Hiro) An exact equation for the elements of the amplitude
 transformation matrix due to change in basis (waist-size and/or distance
 to waist) of the Gaussian beam is derived.
 

Signal Generation
-----------------
(Kathy) Kathy has done most of the coding and suplementary caclulation for
the JAVA program to generate the signal coming compact binary sources. She
continues to implement the Supernovae signal. The output of this program
will be fed into e2e.
 

Simulation engine
-----------------
Hiro is imporving the code which will be released together with the
updated Han2k. Another care taken is that the code is modified to
make it compilable CACR machine.
 

Alfi
----
Discussions are going on for the design of the architecture and the
clarifying the scope of the new alfi. The alfi requirement and
implementation document will include these, as well the grammer of the
description of the simulation setup passed between alfi and the simulation
program. Meeting participants are Bruce, Ed, Hiro and Melody.
 

(Bruce) Completing initial design for the new version of Alfi and writing
 associated documents.
 

(Ed Maros)
 Continuing work on making alfi4 work smoother.
 

(Melody)
- Continuing on developing base classes which are known to be necessary
  for the new alfi.
 

(Hiro)
- Writing "alfi requirements and implementation document"
 
 

LDAS Software (K.Blackburn)
=============
 

The dataPipeline command has been extended to support retrieval of
spectra data from the database API for the data conditioning API.
Changes were made to the database API to support the retrieval process.
With the Internal Light Weight Data format finalized for the data being
transferred from the data base API to the data conditioning API, the
data conditioning API is being modified to read this data and convert it
into UDT types to be used within the data conditioning API.
 

Much effort has been put forth in understanding why the data
conditioning API crashes under Linux Redhat 7.1. After several more
fixes to the code which allowed for the running of the data
conditioning under Redhat 7.1 for brief periods of time, efforts shifted
to running the data conditioning API under Solaris because of its better
support for debugging threads. Running a static set of jobs continuously
under Solaris periodically caused the segmentation violation. Looking at
the core file gave insight to possible data corruption in multi-threaded
environment. Running the same test under Redhat 7.1 with just a single
thread never caused the segmentation violation.
 

Other APIs continue to be modified. The event and monitoring API has
been extended o support conversion of multiDimData to the frame AdcData.
The wrapper API is being enhanced to not terminate unexpectedly when
memory has been exhausted.
 

Testing this week focused mostly on MDC and dataPipeline tests at LHO.
By Wednesday night, all the MDC tests and several dataPipeline commands
ran. The dataPipeline commands were run prior to installing the
enhancements for retrieving the spectra from the database. New tests
will be done once the spectra functionality is verified to be working.
 
 

LDAS sys-admin weekly (S. Anderson)
=====================
 

MIT
---     Scheduled major LDAS installation work for July 18-20.
        Started base operating system installation on some of the LDAS
        machines.
 

LLO
---     Further investigation of BigBrother as a sys-admin monitoring and
        notification package.
 

LHO
---     Upgraded software to temporarily run LDAS at LHO as a development
        system to evaluate the suitability of upgrading the LDAS reference
        platform from RedHat6.2 to RedHat7.1 in conjunction with a change
        in the reference compiler from gcc-2.95.2 to gcc-2.95.3.
 

CIT
---     Continued evaluation of QFS filesystem.
        Operating system upgrades and tuning to help debug datacondAPI.
 
 

General Computing (L.Wallace)
=================
 

MIT:
-Some research on wireless setup for MIT (not done yet)
Ldas installation work
-Ordered Y cables to connect Intel machines to switch
-Ordered power strips for cluster
-Ordered 3 Intel machines for GC
 
 

Livingston:
(Shannon and Tom)
-Worked a number of problems because of the network outage caused by local
thunderstorms.
-Working on the installation of the second T1 line.
-Installing and upgrading software.
-Building a new data storage unit from scratch.
 

Hanford:
(Christine)
-Working on logistics to support the LSC meeting.
-Working a number of issues concerning the additional bandwidth needed
at Hanford. Working with Richard M. and Larry W.
 
 

CIT:
(Wendy)
- Finished inventorying computers in Bridge and Millikan with Mick
- Composed database of inventoried computers in Bridge and Millikan
- Booted up computers with Lisa and Mick after power outage
- Installed Printer Driver on computer
- Learned to and installed P-card software
- Copied installation CDs (SSH, utilities)
- Got Mathematica from ITS lab, installed in West Bridge subbasement
lab and on a computer in Lauritsen
- Inventoried subbasement of West Bridge
- Tested performance of various access points in Bridge and Millikan on
wireless cards
- Learned to configure access points
 

(Mike)
-Reloaded four PCs, this included hardware upgrade and full software
install.
-Laptop added additional hardware and software.
-Work on a PC with a hardware problem floppy drive was out.
-Worked on documentation for Inventory.
-Trouble shooting on web server corrupted OS. Multiple errors and could
not access admintools or windows explorer.
This looked like this server had to be reloaded but after a complete
two-hour shutdown enforced by school officials the server came up fine
^A'yes'.
We are planning a regular schedule to start rebooting our NTSRV's, just to
be safe to prevent this from happening again. Our uptime on this was about
six-months.
-Loaded Nt Server 4.0 as a stand alone for a backup server. Working on
setting this up to enable network client installs loading ghost images to
and from server.
-Had a problem with AutoCAD converting .DWG drawing to a .PDF after
discussing this with Larry he mentioned that we had to print to a file
using a postscript print driver, then convert to a .PDF document. This
seems to work just fine.
 

(Lisa)
- Have gotten Solstice Backup successfully autoloading and dumping
daily/weekly dumps.  This requires my old ufsdump scripts to be
completely disabled. If you use ufsdump with the cybernetics, you have to
power cycle the robot and reboot the server in order for Solstice Backup
to be able to control the scsi device without throwing up I/O errors.  Now
I need to test the restore.
- Ran ghost on Win2k laptop.  The ghost boot floppies don't seem to work
with win2k, but if you use a win98 boot floppy then load a ghost floppy it
works fine.
- Helped Wendy install Mathematica and Matlab on a couple of PCs
- Showed Mick, Wendy and Mike how to setup an orinoco access point.
- Replaced algol (ultra1 with ext. drive) with a blade 100.
- Did some benchmarks on our various wireless AP with Wendy.
- Began loading the new version of Cadence.
- Got in at 4am on Tuesday to shut the servers down for the building power
outage. There is just nowhere in Pasadena to get breakfast at 5am.  What's
up with that?
 

(Barbara)
- Completed and installed changes to Costbook Detail report printed
version.   Posted new versions on web page.  Started adding comments field
to web forms.
- Completed and installed changes to Publications web pages.  Now all are
generated dynamically from Pubs database.
- Completed and installed changes to LDAS Equipment web forms requested by
Ed Chargois.
- Developed and installed form for LSC meeting registration
- Posted transparencies from PAC meeting
- Made web site changes for LSC working groups, research bulletin boards
- Recovered from pc problems by restoring missing .dll file, prepared to
rebuild pherkab in case it didn't start up on Tuesday morning after the
power outage
- Helped restart servers after power outage and did some housekeeping with
accounts, files, passwords, etc.
- Helped Rita with web page and mapping to roster and LSC databases
- Fixed a bug Janeen found in the costbook web forms
 

(Mik)
-With Wendy, completed inventory Bridge basement, 2nd and 3rd floors, and
most of Millikan 6th floor
-With Lisa, learned to set up a modem pool account
-With Mike, diagnosed user problem with floppy drive, determining it is
most likely an error in the controller card
-With Lisa, removed one SPARC station(algol) from service, giving its IP
and host identity to another
-Assisted in bringing network back up after power-out: turned on hubs,
printers, etc.
-Loaded one PC, and ghosted an image onto USB portable hard
drive; currently attempting to fix a shutdown problem
-Assembled a computer cart
-With Wendy, inventoried computers in Bridge Optics Lab (058), and
installed Mathematica on two there
-Learned to configure ORiNOCO 1000 Wireless AP
 

(Bruce Sears)
- General maintenance on Ilog.
 

(Larry)
-Ordered memory upgrades for most of the computer systems on the 6th Floor
of Millikan. The memory has arrived. Mike and crew will start installing
them this week.
-Ordered a couple more PC's. These are upgrades for existing units. The NT
server units will also be getting upgraded in the next month or so.
-Spent a great deal of time dealing with the power take down to the
building.
There were a few minor glitches. The edge switches in Millikan needed to
be reset. The air-conditioning in the basement went out and it took most
of the day to get it back on-line. Fortunately, the existing unit in the
computer room was not affected and was able to handle the load.
The group as a whole spent time making sure equipment was shutoff before
the power outage and that things were brought backup after the power was
restored to the building.
-Went over the Orinoco setup along with everyone else. Ran into the same
problem with wireless setup as we did on setting up the unit with it being
hardwired.
The PC programming the Orinoco needs to be on the same sub-net as the
Orinoco unit.
-Spent time trying to find a vendor that still sales an outdated disk
drive. We need the unit for data recovery from a crashed PC but so far no
luck.
-Worked a couple security issues with Shannon.
-Worked a couple more LSC mtg. issues.
-Went over a number of procurement issues with Gina.
-Spent time with Liz trying to help her get a number of phone line issues
cleared up.
-Investigating a couple of e-mail issues.
-Finally, getting some responses from vendors to get a GIGE switch
installed.
-We had a number of people that received e-mail with viruses attached but
once again the virus-scan s/w had kept them out of trouble.
-The usual of setting up accounts and changing e-mail aliases.

LIGO II/Advanced R&D (Sanders)

no report

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