Weekly Report for Week Ending July 19, 2001


 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

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  July 23, 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)
  5. WBS 2 LIGO Lab Operations
  6. WBS 3 and 4  Advanced R&D and LIGO II (Sanders)
Executive Committee only 11:30 - noon   Topics:  E6 Run options, FY2002 budget review, Cost/Schedule Status issues
 

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)

There was a teleconference on Thursday, July 19.  The following were among the items discussed:

The list of current actions revised to reflect the status of open actions assigned through July 19, 2001 may be found at ACTION LIST.

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT (Chargois)

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


DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

>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

>From: Cleveland Mak <mak_c@ligo.caltech.edu>

ACTIVITY

Packages Faxes
In 29 32
Out 10 48

Press here to access the DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER WEB PAGE.


COST SCHEDULE CONTROL SYSTEMS (Cunningham, Brambila, Kaufman)

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

Press here for ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY DATA.

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

From: Florence Kaufman <fkaufman@ligo.caltech.edu>

SUBCONTRACTS MANAGEMENT (Petrac, Jasnow)

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

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

SUPPORT (Wood)

 
Irene Baldon
  • Processed the paper work for twenty (20) new trips (including Advance Checks written and hotel/car rental authorizations filled out and FAXed to appropriate vendors in various locations).  I have twelve (12) trips in various stages of completion before ticketing and ten (10) trips ticketed waiting for completion of necessary paper work (Advance Checks, hotel and car rental).  Worked on several trips that were changed or modified and assisted several more travelers with questions regarding their existing or potential travel.
  • Jim Covington returned one (1) expense report and has six (6) of the original twenty-two (22) reports he has been working on.  I worked on four (4) that were problems and clarified a few more that Travel Audit or the traveler were having trouble with.  I completed thirteen (13) reports and there are thirty-six (36) reports to be done.  I'm holding one (1) report that needs a check.
  • Reconciled forty-six (46) items on my P-Card which required telephone calls to vendors who do not enter the traveler's name on their charges.  Assisted a few travelers with their reconciling and/or data entry.
  • Attended a couple of meetings regarding Travel and Travel P-Card Enhancement.  The new enhancement should be ready to test here at Caltech by mid-August.
  • Worked on the preparation and distribution of the Travel/Vacation Itinerary for July 17, 2001.  Performed normal recording and filing associated with Travel and Reimbursement.  Also performed miscellaneous duties as requested by various members of  the LIGO Project here at Caltech as well as from members of the staffs of each of the two (2) sites.   I continue to do MIT's travel to the sites for installation activities and also to assist them wherever possible.
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 weeks of July 9.
  • Continue to monitor contract and blanket order encumbrance and notify task managers when supplements are needed.
  • Jim continues with data entry in the LIGO database and supports Irene (travel) in the mornings and Linda and Cleveland (DCC) in the afternoons.
Rita Torres
  • Arranged for a few more eye exams.  A renewed agreement with Huntington Hospital Occupational Health Center is underway.  Most people will be sent there for baseline exams, instead of to Pasadena Eye Medical Group.  I've resurrected the Huntington form to use when we send people to that facility.
  • Working on updating the LIGO Personnel roster containing our home information.  Sent a reminder on 7/17 to non-respondents, also made calls, collecting that information now.
  • Reconciled Pcard charges after chasing down some documentation.  Reconciled a total of 21 this period.  Made several calls to a vendor to ensure items are shipped by 7/20 when they implement a 2-week plant shutdown.  Did site trip updates.
Elizabeth K. Wood
  • Attended an all-day meeting that included, among other things, a discussion of what do to about injuries incurred on the job and the resulting workman’s compensation issues.  At Caltech, the standard procedure is to call Tracey Saruwatari in the Disability and Leave department of Human Resources at x4577 as soon as possible.  If the injury results in hospitalization or, heaven forbid, death, Tracey needs to be notified within 8 hours.  At the sites, for such serious injuries, the office has a pager number [(818) 236-8965] that should be called as soon as possible.  If the pager number doesn’t work because the call is from out of state, Tracey suggested calling Caltech’s security office at (626) 395-3000 (that’s the off-campus security number) and security will call the pager number.  For other injuries not requiring hospitalization, please call Tracey at her office (626) 395-4577.
  • If you are a new father and want to spend time with the new arrival and the new mother, you should take vacation time, not sick leave.  This was emphasized at both the meeting on Wednesday and via phone calls to the Leave and Disability Unit in HR.  If you are expecting a new arrival, please let me know in advance rather than after the big event so I can work out better arrangements with the Leave folks.
  • It turns out that even non-U.S. citizens can be summoned for jury duty.  If that happens to you and you’re a non-citizen, let me know.  You can be summoned, but you can’t serve.
  • The on-going quest to find mysterious phone charges being billed against LIGO accounts continues.  We got a bill for $0.00 on a LIGO/Caltech account that was line 3 in a medical doctor’s office.

Advanced LIGO (Frey)

From: Thomas Frey <tfrey@ligo.caltech.edu>

Progress Period from 07.0136 to 07.19

Accomplishments:

Schedule 07.13 to 07.19:

WBS 1.4.1.2   Project Controls (LIGO Construction)



Reports (Lindquist)

A draft copy of the end-of-May Quarterly Progress Report has been distributed and several minor editorial comments have been received.  I am holding the report pending resolution of questions regarding the percent complete status for the Detector and Civil Construction.



Change Control/Contingency (Lindquist)

The following Change Request has been submitted:
 

CR-010006 WBS 1.1.4 (OPS) Roof Shelter for Concrete Pad Adjacent to Erosion Control Pond (Livingston) M. Coles

Press for the latest Contingency Needs Projection.


COST SCHEDULE CONTROL SYSTEMS (Duncan, Akutagawa)

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

From: Cindy Akutagawa <cindy@ligo.caltech.edu>

SUBCONTRACTS MANAGEMENT (Jasnow)

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


Quality/Safety (Tyler)

>From: Bill Tyler <tyler@ligo.caltech.edu>

No report this week.
 


LIGO Hanford Observatory (LHO) Operations (Raab)


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

Nergis M. and Peter F. have managed not only to lock the full power-recycled WA2K,
but to actually make it look quite easy. Took about a minute after they "threw the
switch" to lock up first time and held for about 10 minutes; locked up again about
30 seconds later. More elsewhere in the commissioning section.
 

It appears that the mechanically "hung-up" mirrors in WA4K repaired themselves
during the vent of the vertex section. We can make up some kind of story to explain
it, but we were quite surprised by this. We will continue to correct other placement
and alignment issues on this interferometer.
 

We experienced a roughing pump failure that burped some gas back into a section
of WA2K while the system was unattended. All safety systems worked as planned and
the gate valves to the beam tube were closed as is customary during unattended
operation. Nonetheless, we realized that more gas than we would care for would
have gone into the beam tube (1-10 Tl) if the tubes had been open, even if there
were people watching the event occur. Stan, John Worden and I have therefore
resolved not to open gate valves unless turbos and the their associated roughing
pumps are valved off from the connected volumes.
 

Controls:
-----------
(C. Patton)
 

A new "Enhanced Autoclose" software has been tested, installed and put
into operation.  The software provides perl/tk and medm GUIs which allow
the operator to select a signal to monitor, a trip point, any
combination of beam tube gate valves and a start and stop button.  These
items can be selected for up to 5 sessions.
 

When the monitored signal goes higher than the entered trip point, the
"Enhanced Autoclose" software will close the selected beam tube gate
valves.  An alarm will be sent to the alarm handler.
 

This software is currently being used to monitor the 25 l/s annulus ion
pumps on the gate valves separating the 4k volume from the 2K volume and
the beam tubes while the 4K volume is at air pressure and the rest of
the system is in vacuum.  If the annulus ion pump signals go above the
trip point selected by John Worden, the LVEA beam tube gate valves will
be closed by the software.  A screen capture is available at
http://blue.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/screencapture/display1.gif
 

The original autoclose software is still operational from the gate valve
medm screens.  The original autoclose monitors the cold cathode pressure
gauges on both sides of the beam tube gate valves and closes the gate
valve if the cold cathode pressure is above 10e-7.
 
 


LIGO Livingston Observatory (LLO) Operations (Coles)


Detector: Optics and Installation:  Alignment of the MC and telescope has been completed, along with the core optics in the vertex.  We had a setback this morning. During the BS closeout an OSEM was bumped, upsetting it in its mount.  The optical lever had been zeroed, and we are setting up to  check the alignment with the PSL.  Normally, we'd use the COS autocollimator but in our haste to get the IAS tooling back to LHO we're reinstalled the spool pieces in the manifolds and cannot check alignment from the IAS survey position. (Jonathan Kern)
 
Electronics:  General maintenance continues, with the installation of additional grounds at the LVEA. RF survey of the LVEA ongoing. (Rus Wooley)
 
Computing:  The repairman has been here, and the front color printer is working again.(Tom Evans)
 
Operations:  Gearing up to resume Control Room activities next week, when Commissioning resumes.(Rich Riesen)
 
Outreach:  Prepared two presentations for general outreach use. a technical one and another for non-scientists. (Joe Kovalik)
 


Detector/Technical Support (Whitcomb, Coyne)


 
 
Installation& Commissioning:

Hanford
Livingston

Other Science/EngineeringActivities:

Design/Analysis/Fab
Issues/Concerns

See also the daily electronic logs for the installation and commissioning activities:

Hanford Detector Log

Livingston Detector Log

1.1 LHO INSTALLATION & COMMISSIONING

4-k Interferometer

Stan Whitcomb reporting

[Betsy Weaver, Mark Barton, Corey Gray, Doug Cook, Richard McCarthy, Kyle Ryan, John Worden, Gerardo Moreno, Hugh Radkins, Bartie Rivera, S. Whitcomb]

We have accumulated a better understanding of the "event" that affected the digital suspensions on June 28.  It appears that the input to the digital suspension processor got confused and began to drive the suspensions with something other than the normal sensor inputs--possibly channel shifting--effectively applying "noise" to input.  This noise would then drive up the pendulum/pitch/yaw modes until they contacted the stops.  During the 11 hours that this took place, one can watch the small optic sensor signals gradually shift to their greatly misaligned postions.

Four of the six small optics showed a major shift; the other two and the five large optics (including MMT3) showed no significant shifts.

The severity of the problem is perhaps best characterized by saying that the mode structure of the misaligned optics was radically different from what we see on a healthy optic.  A healthy optic has modes at ~.75 Hz (pitch), 0.8 Hz (yaw) and two closely spaced modes at 1 Hz (longitudinal and sideways pendulum).  The misaligned optics had a modes at ~1.5Hz, 2 Hz, and 7 Hz.

We vented the vertex volume for the 4 km interferometer to diagnose the problem with the four small optics (and to make a couple of other corrections while we were in there: tweaking the alignment of the ITMs and RM and correcting the modecleaner length).  After opening HAM1, in-chamber inspection of MMT1 and MC3 (two of the "sick" optics) revealed no obvious problems so they were removed for closer examination.  In the meantime, we took another look at the behavior of MC2 and MMT2 (the other two sick optics, located in HAM2).  To our surprise, these optics seemed to be hanging normally--reasonable looking sensor voltages and more quantitatively, showed the correct mode structure for the pendulum/pitch/yaw modes!  Setting up MC3 on an external table, revealed that its mode structure also appeared normal.

The picture that is emerging is one where the repeated contacting of the optics with the stops cause an electrostatic build-up on the optic that caused it to misalign, and possibly even to contact the stops.  The venting process apparently discharged the static charge.  We still need to inspect MMT1, but plan reinstall and realign the optics during the next week, as well as complete the other tasks for this vent.

Preliminary testing of a independent watchdog to monitor the optics and shutdown controllers if things seem to be going out of control was completed.

2 km commissioning

Stan Whitcomb reporting

[P. Fritschel, N. Mavalvala, F. Raab(!), Bill Butler, Richard McCarthy, Josh Myers, Stan Whitcomb]

We installed the new rev B modecleaner servoamp.  The module sent up from Caltech for the 2 km interferometer had one bad stage in the boost gain path, so we stole the 4 km unit until the 2 km board  can be repaired.  Everything looks like it is working properly, but we have not done a careful performance characterization.

Bill completed the first round of leveling of the modecleaner to reduce the amplitude of the 16 Hz bounce mode.  These measurements lead to better definition of the requirements for the notch filter in the feedback path to the laser from the modecleaner servo board (mostly an increase in width of the notch to cover the different frequencies of the different MC mirrors), and the notch board was tuned and installed.

Alignment, alignment alignment.  Aligned the interferometer. Aligned the ISC tables. Aligned the quadrant photodiodes in the midstations.  Routed cables, checked signals, set levels, calibrated this and that.  Locked the individual arms to set rf phases, locked the PRM to set up the pick-off signals.

And last night in a marathon session, Peter, Nergis and Fred completed the calibrations for the lock acquisition code.  Quoting the elog:

"FULL 2KM INTERFEROMETER LOCKED!  (Nergis, Fred, PF)

After several hours of manual alignments and measuring gain coefficients, we

put all core optics at their aligned orientation and turned the interferometer

over to the lock acquisition code. Within about 1 minute it had acquired

state 4. The first lock lasted about 10  minutes, then reacquired in just a

few seconds. As the alignment was manually tweaked to increase the arm power

levels, the lock period tended to shorten, though it still re-acquires pretty

quickly, typically within 1 minute, often within ~15 sec.

The arm power buildup (NPTRR & NPTRT) is up to 350-400x the single cavity

level (recycling gain of 10-11)."

In the midst of this work we had trouble with two suspension controllers.  The BS controller blew one output coil driver, and was temporarily replaced with a small optics suspension controller .  Later the MC3 controller started to show shifts in the output of the LL coil driver.  It too was replaced with one of the units from the temporary set used to install the 4 km vertex optics.  At this time we also tried some modifications to the steep lowpass filtering in the position damping loop, which Peter's model indicated should reduce the coupling of ground motion in the 10-20 Hz regime.  Unfortunately the first cut seemed to bring up some added electronics noise around 8-13 Hz.  We are looking into possible fixes for the latter problem.

1.2LLO INSTALLATION & COMMISSIONING

OSEM replacement/vent activities

Dennis Coyne reporting

The in-chamber work OSEM replacement and re-alignment work is nearing completion in the vertex. The recycling cavity and the Mode Cleaner have been co-aligned using the COS laser autocollimator/projector. The IO beam has been mode matched to the mode cleaner cavity. The ETMx optic was inspected and found to have no visible cause for the low bullet mode Q. The OSEMs have been replaced but the re-alignment is still pending.

Tidal Servo

Peter King

I have been trying to get the Earth tide prediction code up and

running.  Initially I had some problems trying to figure out which

ephemeris file to use.  This was eventually sorted out after a few

discussions with Hugh Radkins and Fred Raab.  The correct ephemeris file

has been generated and the tidal code compiled - the slow network link to

LHO prevented transferring of the ephemeris file.  The remaining mystery,

for me at least, is the role of an array of 48 coefficients pertaining to

the effect of the Sun and Moon on both arms.  How to generate the desired

coefficients was not clear to me.

A comparison of the common arm data from the recent E4 run with the tidal

prediction results in a fit that doesn't look all that great.

2.0 OtherEngineering and Scientific Activities

2.1 Design/Analysis/Fab

ADC/DAC

Jay Heefner

Finalizing the RFP for development of an ADC module. It should beready by early next week. A DAC module RFP will follow.

[D. Coyne note: This is a development effort intended for advanced LIGO, but could be available for retrofit for initial LIGO if warranted.]

Digital Suspensions

Rolf Bork, Lori Robison

Lori and I are continuing to work on adding GDS test points and excitation to 

the system.  Lori has completed the coil driver code, but I still need to finish 

the primary controller code before we can test the whole system. 

As I was testing yesterday, I noted that the ICS110B ADC data had glitches in it 

again. Using the VME bus analyzer, I found that data was moving between channels 

ie all data on a read cycle were in the wrong ADC channel locations.  After 

further investigation, I found that after I send a command to the ADC module to 

clear its FIFO at the end of a data read cycle, the FIFO was not empty. I 

believe what was happening is that the FIFO reset part of the code would get in 

synch with the ADC module loading the 32 channels of data into the FIFO, such 

that the code would clear some number of channels out and then the ADC module 

would continue to load the remaining channels.  This results in the first read 

on the next cycle getting an arbitrary channel rather than the expected first 

channel, which results in the data mix up.  I was able to correct this problem 

by continuing to send the FIFO reset at the end of a read cycle until the FIFO 

indicated empty. (NOTE: The DAQ system does not operate the 110B ADC modules in 

the same fashion, so this would not pertain to DAQ).

Jay Heefner

Module
Needed
In Fab
Complete
Tested
PD Interface
29
34
0
0
Anti-Image
12
  8
7
  7
Universal Dewhite
22
25
0
   0
LOS Coil Driver
14
18
0
   0
LOS Bias Module
14
17
17
   0
SOS Dewhite
11
16
0
    0
SOS Coil Driver
15
  0
24
24
Optical Lever Interface
15
13
4
0

Sander Liu

Received 10 housings for the LEMO version antialiasing filter chassis. Will proceed to build 8 chassis for the field.

Timing

Rolf Bork

Our first modified timing module appears to be working at LHO in the DAQ system 

and a second one here in the digital suspension development system.  We are 

modifying a couple of additional units to take up to LHO next week such that we 

can run more complete tests prior to committing to a new board design.

Input Optics Spares

GariLynn Billingsley

One of the Mode Cleaner Flat Mirror blanks being polished by Wave Precision was broken during fabrication.  This is a fairly common occurrence with smaller mirrors.  We are ordering several (~10) blanks of mode cleaner size to serve as material spares.  One of these will replace the lost MCFM, the rest will remain unpolished, but could be used for any mode cleaner or 40 meter small optic as they have good optical quality.  Having material on hand can save us ~4-5 months in processing, and the small blanks are relatively inexpensive (~400.00 ea)

Core Optics Spares

Helena Armandula

As I left REO Tuesday afternoon, all 4 SPETM's had been coated on Side 1 (HR).

All four masses had been cleaned on the second side and were on the coating fixtures waiting to get (AR) coated.

Over the weekend, while running the calibration runs for the AR coating, the ion beam source developed grid problems.

The grids were repaired and tested. Since the problem persisted they were replaced by a new pair of grids and the calibration procedure was re-started.

With the grids replaced, no further problems were expected. The coating should be completed by now.

[D. Coyne note: Helena discovered a flaw in REO’s warm liquinox cleaning procedure which results in water marks which could only be removed by an extremely fine grit, low pressure, short duration “polish”. REO will re-design their equipment/process to preclude the problem in the future.]

ISC

Mike Zucker

Miscellaneous ordering & shipping in support of 4k ISC table completion.

Tuned, balanced and characterized LSC photodetector #21 for LHO 2k

mode cleaner reflection.  Also troubleshot PD #27 (from 2k reflection

port). In addition to a blown logic chip, this unit evidently had

a "partially blown" photodiode (about 100 microamps of dark current

and a factor of two higher noise than is expected).  This is the third

known instance of this disease, which may be caused by ESD; it still

"worked" and was probably in service a long time with the fault. The

diode has been replaced with one of the few precious spares currently

on hand.

Submitted an updated list of LSC detector head test data to the DCC

(E010138-02.pdf).

LSC

Luca Matone

I've been analyzing the data that I took last week on the LSC electronics. In particular

I am in the process of analyzing the data taken on the pentek, AA and Anti-Image boards as a whole.

PSL

Peter King

Lightwave Electronics has finished the autopsy on NPRO #332 and

concluded it needed a diode replacement.  The cost for repair was quoted at

$5072.  It seems that over the last 3 months, the cost of repairing an NPRO

laser has gone up by approximately $1000 for the same repair job.

Sander Liu

Placed an order for a VMEbus 19" chassis and half height cabinet for the VME test set. Unit to arrive in approximately 4 to 6 weeks.

Lee Cardenas

I am preparing a chamber to bake small parts. Putting together the old vacuum pump unit which will serve to pump the small bake chamber. This chamber will be transferred to the South Annex when PSL vacuum bake needs have been completed.

Rick Karwoski

EO Shutter

Sander Liu

Received and shipped  the DEI high voltage pulser to LHO.


40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)




Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)


        This week we installed the first phase of our data acquisition system.  We
now have a 16-channel digital oscilloscope with a maximum bandwidth of 50
kHz and resolution of 1 uV (at lower speed).  We also upgraded and tested
our modecleaner OSEM power supply, started work on a remote-control test
cavity beam alignment system, and worked on several procurement issues.
        Our sapphire boules are quite late, so we called Crystal Systems and
relaxed our requirements to speed production.  A preliminary analysis
indicates that relaxing our requirements will not affect our measurements
too badly, since we have no power recycling in the TNI.  Currently Crystal
Systems has three of our blanks in hand, so our reduced specs will only
apply to the fourth.
        Many thanks to Flavio Nocera for building us a notch filter for our test
cavity servo, and to Janeen Romie and Todd Etzel for providing new OSEM
sensor/actuator heads!
 
 


LASTI (Zucker)


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

PSL: Optical alignment of the PSL table is proceeding quickly using an
NPRO laser in lieu of the 10 W MOPA, still at Lightwave
pending repairs. Peter King and Rick Karwoski have set up a visit for
the week of 7/30 to help install the controls and test electronics.  A
new enclosure has been ordered.

        VISITORS PLEASE NOTE: The MIT high bay is currently a nominal
        laser hazard zone at TWO wavelengths whenever laser warning
        signs are illuminated. Protective eyewear suitable for both
        1064 nm (OD 4 or greater) and 10.6 micron (OD 4 or greater) is
        required. We do have a supply of visitor glasses on hand, in
        case your personal eyewear does not comply.

QUAD PENDULUM PROTOTYPE: Norna, Calum, Janeen, Myron, Rich, Virginio,
Fred and Dan have now got both the main and reaction chains fully
suspended and very nicely balanced. It's beautiful!

        #MZ comment: This is a significant milestone. Attached photo
        shows Calum with the upper 3 stages (final test mass stage is
        off the bottom).

The shadow sensor/coil actuators have been installed and wired, and
preliminary indications are that they will in fact damp all the
eigenmodes properly (actually the first demonstration was
_anti_-damping, but the coil leads are being swapped as I write...).

Calum is heading home now after a very successful visit; Norna will
stay with us another week to kick off characterization of the normal
modes and to help lift the assembly into its vacuum chamber for detailed
testing.

VACUUM & INFRASTRUCTURE:

-Myron and Fred have completed torqueing of bolts on HAM21's external SEI
support structure and started staging some of the SEI equipment for
return to LLO.

-Ken and Dan Mason completed specifications for and ordered the new PSL
enclosure; this is somewhat of a departure in that it will in principle
eventually allow Class I status for the PSL (i.e.  interlocked and
baffled so no goggles are required in the high bay).  It is also fire
resistant for compatibility with a 200-W LIGO II laser down the road.

-Ken has designed and requested quotes on a system of cable trays,
based on Jay Heefner and Rus Wooly's detailed suggestions.  At the
moment it looks like we'll try to do the installation ourselves to save
money.  Unlike the sites, trays will be situated at beam tube height to
preserve critical rolling/walking access under the tubes.
 


Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)


Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)

Weekly Physics Meeting
----------------------
 In Wednesday's meeting, Kathy (SURF student) talked about her JAVA program
 for generating gravitational wave time series which could be used as
 input to E2E mirrors. Luca Matone talked about his measurements of the
 transfer functions of electronic systems in LSC of 2k IFO and how noise
 level depends on gains and his future plan. This will also be useful for
 the work that Bill Butler (who visits us from LHO this week) aims to do
 on estimating the noise levels especially of electronic noise. Biplab
 described his and Hiro's work on mode mismatching. He also described the
 work (with Rick) on frequency sensor noises due to higher order spatial modes.

Mode Mismatch
-------------
(Biplab & Hiro) More analytical calculations. More validation runs
 for the recycling cavity. We decided that we'll first try to compare with
 real data for sidebands resonant in recycling cavity and then decide if
 we need to implement the modal model calculations up to 4th order in e2e.

PSL Frequency Noise
-------------------
(Biplab) More discussion with Rick and some more calculations involving
 Zernike polynomials.

Alfi
----
(Bruce)
- Revising initial draft of Alfi5 specification.

(Ed Maros)
- Completed work to reduce number of screen updates.

(Melody)
- Participated in discussions for the new Alfi design.
- Working on integrating the new Alfi design with the base classes
  which have already been developed.
 

LIGO Data Analysis System

Software Systems (Blackburn)

On Tuesday of this week we implemented a code freeze on the LDAS CVS
repository to initiate the software testing for the next release of LDAS
(0.0.19). This particular testing cycle is occurring without the use of
the test system as it is still dedicated to file system software tests.
Instead we are making heavy use of the LDAS systems at the sites. This
has the added advantage stress testing the new hardware (dataConditioning
and beowulf) at the sites.

The first couple of days of testing at the sites revealed a half dozen
configuration differences from the routine development and test hardware
here at CIT. A meeting was held on Tuesday to organize a configuration
audit from the perspective of LDAS software to determine the needed
changes. These configuration tests are being made available on the LDAS
webpages under the LDAS test page link which will be activated with this
next release. Items being tested include the database tables, the user
accounts, the environment variables, swap space, etc.

The dataConditionAPI segmentation fault issues have been greatly reduced
through running hundreds of jobs using linear filtering and ffts on a
sun smp box with a debugger attached. This process has allowed us to track
down a couple of non-thread safe lines of code and make fixes. However,
the behavior on linux, while being significantly improved is not as
stable as the solaris code. This thought to be related to the maturity
of the OS and the kernel under linux. We have also determined that the
2.95.3 GCC has non-thread safe STL routines that have been fixed in the
3.0 release of GCC. It is expected  that the migration to 3.0.x later
this summer will also improve the stability of the dataConditionAPI.
Never the less, a back up plan is being formulated and discussed which
would involve migration away from threaded code towards a shared memory/
fork code model. Insights are too preliminary at this point to warrant
a deeper discussion.

The wrapperAPI has a new "safety valve" implementation to prevent jobs
requesting lots of memory from running hundreds of times longer by using
memory from swap. If the wrapper detects physical memory usage exceeding
a user defined level it will through an exception, thereby preventing
code from running days or weeks when it would run for minutes or hours
if adequate memory was available or better memory management was part
of the search code software model.

KB was able to negotiate a $14,570 savings on a suite of software development tools available for C++ QA and automated testing. These tools were
evaluated several weeks ago and found to be very powerful and quite
effective at finding bugs in our code. However, the original quotes for
academic pricing were unacceptable. The new pricing and yearly upgrades
are extremely attractive. The use of this produce should significantly
improve the quality of our C++ source code.
 

Hardware Systems (Anderson)

LDAS MIT
--------

The installation of LDAS equipment at MIT has been started:

Installed Solaris 8 operating system and Maintenance Update 4 patches
on SB100 + E450.

Reconfigured D1000 disk devices
Reconfigured E450 internal disks
E450 work
 Installed GE card
 Installed Fiber card
 Installed 2Gb RAM
 Attached D1000 and T3 disk systems to E450

Started mirroring LDAS software to T3 on E450

Hooked servers up through KVM switch
 

LDAS LHO
--------

1) Installation of Sun fans for 72'' expansion cabinets (Sun Part #
X9819A) into Sun StorEdge Expansion Cabinets with the T3s was completed
on 7/05.  Each fan unit for one rack consists of 6 fans divided into two
trays with 3 fans each. Each tray has its own power supply, so each tray
connects to its own power sequencer in the rack.  The fan trays also
have serial ports that can connect to power sequencers, though I haven't
connected these yet.  No documentation came about the serial connection,
so I'll have to consult sun docs online before doing this.

2) Conducted test of the tapecontrol script and ldas monitor client GUI
to prepare for E5.  Some debugging of the GUI is needed, and some fine
tuning the tapecontrol script is needed to keep up with the LHO full
frame data rate of 6.5 MB/s.

3) LHO beowulf nodes 6 reported an uncorrectable memory error.
Reseating the memory cards did not fix the problem. After consulting
with Dell, a board failure was indicated, and Dell is coming to replace
this.

4) LHO beowulf node 11 reported a hard drive/ide problem. Reseating the
IDE cables and rebooting has fixed the problem (at least for now).
We'll have to monitor this.

5) Contractors have begun work on sealing the LHO LDAS area in the
staging building.  This should be completed by the end of next week.

6) Submitted LAL function LALFoldAmplitudes to UWM for insertion into
the cvs archive.  Continued work towards writing a LDAS DSO for the
known pulsar search, though now using AEI's LALDeMod functions.

7) Worked with my SURF student on gravity waves from the r-modes.

LDAS LLO
--------
Tried some software out that I thought might be a good
distributed administration tool, however it crashed my system at home.
 I will not be investigating this software further.  I am working on
hooking up the ultra 10 formerly known as beowulf to run the tape
library for the coming engineering run.  I will name it "tapectl" and
put it into the host table of dataserver, etc.  I have been reading up
on the cfengine software this week.  BigBrother is still functioning on
dataserver, but I need to resolve the issue of the symbolic links being
overwritten during the LDAS software sync with caltech.

LDAS Caltech
------------
Support for the next release of LDAS involving system reconfigurations.

Testing of automated procedure for installing/configuring Linux desktop
development machines.
 

Received an additional 90 50GB tapes for HPSS to continue to support
LIGO Engineering run data.
 

Data Analysis Activities
Shawhan:
I spent a few days developing tools to convert to/from GPS time.
There is now a command-line utility called 'tconvert' which takes
free-form input and prints out the converted time, plus C library
routines to convert between Unix system time and GPS time.  Both
of these tools are as bulletproof as I could possibly make them
with regard to automatically becoming aware of future leap seconds
without any human intervention.  They have been added to the
"dataflow" package in LIGOtools.
 

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT:
(Keith)
-Working on LDAS setup.
-Getting quotes for wireless network components in support of the MCD.
-Rebuilt user directories from failed file server disk.
-Working on new disk system for the user home directories.

Livingston:
(Shannon and Tom)
-Ordering a couple of SUNBlade 1000 units to act as servers.
-Working on security monitoring pkg. setups.
-Preparing for the next engineering run.

Hanford:
(Christine)
- Saturday, 7/21/01, the user accounts and e-mail will be unavailable
from about Noon until 4 p.m. PDT in order to move user accounts so they
are more efficiently using the available disk space.
- Purchased a replacement for the main file server.  It will be here in
about a week.  Expect server down time every Saturday for the next month
until the new server is in place and user accounts are all moved to
final locations.
- Continuing preparations for LSC meeting.  Wireless network equipment
has arrived and is being setup in the staging building.
- Lots of time spent on user support this week.  Setup a new account for
a new hire and helped him get started using the GC network computers.
- Continue with getting quotes and purchasing for GC and CDS equipment,
supplies and maintenance contracts.

CIT:
(Wendy)
- Mapped and updated the computer inventory database (still need to do
Wilson House)
- Helped install memory in Millikan with Mick and Mike
- Attended a LIGO surf lecture
- Toured 40m (and inventoried computers there)
- Installed OS on Sun Machines with Lisa and Mick
- Performed security tests on UNIX machines with Mick
- Updated FAQ on flashing proms for Ultra machines on ligo admin site
- Installed software and mapped drives for users
- Had eye exam
- Worked on installation of the Cadence software (with Lisa)

(Mike)
-Configured one ORiNOCO AP, then learned it had to be configured for a
different subnet
-Continued to address shutdown problem on newly loaded PC; determined it
may be necessary to flash the BIOS
-Inventoried 40m facility with Wendy
-Learned about configuring a printer on UNIX (from Lisa)
-Learned how to install Solaris 8 on Ultra 10s (configured for CDS)
-Learned how to flash the PROM on an Ultra 10
-Helped Mike install RAM on 6th floor Sun boxes
-Performed security audit (with Wendy) on all UNIX boxes accepting an ssh
connection  (~60 machines done currently, on 115 and 125 subnets)
-Installed Solaris 8 on alcor
-Did a little research into procmail as a server process, with little
success

(Mike)
-Added more memory to PC^s and sparc stations at Millikan on the 6th
floor,
bringing most of computers up to 512 Mbytes per unit.
-Received new DELL computer for Donna and, had to do a full general
computing software install and load additional drivers for multiple
peripherals. Plus transfer all personal files over to users new computer.
-Received another computer for Cleveland must load all general computing
software and transfer all users data over to new computer.
-Working loading an ANSYS license server. I had to obtain a new license in
order to register server name PICTOR. I just received the server codes
today but was told to hold off until tomorrow.
-I had to load additional software and OS patches on multiple user
workstations and onsite tech support.

(Barbara)
- Finished latest requested changes to the costbook -- GRA benefits,
estimator comments, layout changes to printed reports, etc.  Investigated
and cleanup up some mismatched data.   Also installed an "administrators
view" in MS Access - forms, menus, etc for editing and running printed
reports.
- Worked a bit on automating the web roster
- Made some web site changes -- talks, publications, PAC meeting
announcement.

(Lisa)
- Installed an hp4mv on the 40meter martian network.  I still need to
setup the other computers to print to it.
- Rebuilt rana, the 40m gateway computer.  It has a far more restrictive
configuration now than it did before.  I'm going to dump it to tape today.
- Tried to compile aide without success.  Luckily the binary is portable,
so I have Keith's copy installed on rana.
- Did a security overview for the surf students in the 40m.
- Loaded a good portion of the cadence software in preparation for the new
install.  Wendy helped out with this.
- Started teaching Mick and Wendy how to load solaris 8 and how to flash
the OBP on the ultra10's.
- Made a Ligo t-shirt for Omar.

(Larry)
-Spent some time helping Lisa deal with various Cadence issues.
-Ordered and high-end PC to be used as a license server and analysis
system for some of the new engineering pkgs. being ordered by Dennis C.
The unit will reside in Dennis Coynes office and will have restricted
access.
-Worked on a number of logistical items for the LSC meeting. It appears
that Christine and company have things well in hand.
-Made a number of updates to the LSC e-mail aliases. Working on changing
the alias file to a system that Rita or another person can maintain
without going through the sysadmin group.
-Started going over the policy statement with Albert and have received
some feed back from him. There are a number of changes to be made.
-Worked a couple of security issues. The spam mail advertising a porn site
appears to have been sent by someone just sending it to the ligo mailing
list. I just recommended deleting it.
Plugged the sendmail hole on another security incident which Lisa later
handled.
-Worked with Keith at MIT on a number of GC projects as well as assisting
in the LDAS setup.
-Worked a number of procurement issues including tracking down invoices to
reconcile my p-card.
 


LIGO II/Advanced R&D (Sanders)



Advanced LIGO PSL
Peter King
I have gone through the detailed cost sheets and assuming the
definitions of the adjustment factors defined in the LIGO Cost Estimating
Plan, suggested some modifications to the current values.
 

From: GariLynn Billingsley <Billingsley_G@ligo.caltech.edu>

A 127mm x 54mm c-axis piece of sapphire has been measured in transmission.  No evidence was found of striae as seen in all three m-axis pieces we have measured.  The processes this piece went through are the same as for the rest of our sapphire samples.  This result may eliminate the residual stress explanation for the inhomogeneity we have seen in m-axis sapphire.

We are scheduled to receive an a-axis piece at the end of July.
 

From: Janeen Romie <jromie2001@yahoo.com>

Supporting GEO personnel in assembling the quad
pendulum prototype.
Working on Advanced LIGO Suspensions cost/schedule package.

From: David Reitze <reitze@phys.ufl.edu>
To: Core Optics WG
Minutes of the Core Optics Telecon, Thursday, July 12, 2001

Caltech: Jordan Camp, Dennis Coyne, GariLynn Billingsley, Ren-Yuan Zhu

MIT: Gregg Harry, Norna Robertson, Dave Ottoway

Stanford: Shiela Rowan, Roger Route, Marty Fejer

Glasgow: Jim Hough

Jordan reporting on Crystal systems.
Crystal Systems has received the new annealing oven, they are working on it's commissioning.

Ren-Yuan Zhu reporting on his and Jordan's trip to Shanghai Institute of Optics and fine Mechanics (SIOM)
Background:  SIOM has grown 36 samples over 3 years, three of which were delivered to LIGO.  These were C-axis samples that showed promising absorption.  These are grown by the Thermal Gradient Technique (TGT)

We are now in a second phase with SIOM.  They have just entered into a joint venture with a Hong Kong company.  Because of this they now have 10 ovens in a new, modern facility, these currently grow 3" sapphire.

They now have the oven which was funded by LIGO, they need to locate the space for this oven.  They will soon try for 32 cm diameter pieces.  They have currently agreed to deliver small samples of sapphire by the end of July for absorption measurement.  They will also deliver 11cm dia 8 cm thick M-axis sapphire.
SIOM has proposed the use of YAG for LIGO, which they also grow(doped) by TGT and Czochralski method.  They will grow 1cm cube YAG samples for testing. These should be available by September.

GariLynn reporting on Spot polishing
Goodrich has the removal rate data for m-axis sapphire and can now proceed with the estimate for spot polishing the large piece.  They expect to have the estimate to us in a couple of weeks.  The CSIRO change order is in place for spot polishing, we are now waiting on delivery of sapphire from CSI.

Roger reporting on Absorption
There have been no new measurements, Alex is still reconfiguring the setup.  The new post doc is getting some hands-on time with Alex, so momentum is picking up.  Jordan mentions that it would be good to have the measurement capability at Caltech.

Nothing new with the Hydrogen annealing oven, Roger is waiting for absorption measurements on his last batch.

Q-test substrates
Mindrum expects delivery sometime this week, they are currently a month behind.  They are having trouble getting figure and microroughness to come in at the same time, and they have broken some pieces.  We have put a duplicate order in with Wave Precision (GO), who has a 12 week turnaround now.

Jordan, Roger and Shiela plan to meet with Gary DeBell of MLD on Monday the 23 of July to discuss the next coating phase.

Jim Hough asked about the status of getting some SV glass for q-testing.  Jordan reports that Helena has been working on it and that we have some ordered.
 

From: Francesco Fidecaro <fidecaro_f@ligo.caltech.edu>

Welcome to Charlotte Py and Mathieu Musso, from Lyon Institut National de Sciences Appliquees (INSA), an Engineering School. They will work on mechanical studies and design.

Alessandro
Should receive his visa, so will be here next week.

Lia
Checked channels on data acquisition board, drawings made, found noises on LVDT channels. Wrote LabVIEW program to check every channel on DAQ board and all connections. Wrote MATLAB program to read data and make plot to study noise. Suspected noise from fan switching on.

Andrea
Working on 40 m. Aligned cavity and pre mode-cleaner. Will start analysing data reading frames to make first frequency spectra.

Charlotte
Web scanning to look for mechanical and thermal properties of sapphire. Different answers obtained. looking into Frederic files together with Mathieu.

Mathieu
ANSYS installed and working. Likely to need more powerful computers. Started with Frederic files. Started studying a flex joint to study first vibration mode.
Must get CAD program to be coupled with ANSYS, ProEngineer?

Hongo activity Virginio, Akiteru & Florian
Cabling, DSP, ADC, DAC, NIM crate power supply debugging. Intense line background. 1 accelerometer smoking actuator. Work needed on accelerometer sensitivity at low frequency. LVDT diagonalization done, actuator diagonalization still to be done. Entire suspension chain tuned. Software works nicely.

Riccardo
Still in Australia

Francesco
Helping here and there to start activity

With Riccardo back in Europe we'll fix an adequate meeting time


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