Weekly Report for Week Ending November 1, 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  November 5, 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:  CLOSED MEETING - Adv. LIGO MRE submission
 

Special Items:


Special Announcements:


Weekly Report Highlights

This week we achieved the first full-power lock of the Thermal Noise
Interferometer.
 


LSC Issues (Weiss)


From: Rainer Weiss <weiss@ligo.mit.edu>

to: LSC executive committee
from: R. Weiss October 31, 2001
concerning: Notes from the LSC Executive committee October 26, 2001
 

LSC NSF ITR Proposal Activity
------------------------------
Reported on a conversation with Marvin Goldberg at the NSF. Members of the LSC
are strongly encouraged to apply for ITR funds. The recommendation is to have
people currently not supported by the ITR program as PI and to propose
around a new idea such as real time gravitational wave detection in
correlation with other astronomies. The proposed work needs to include
computer scientists and the application of innovative computing techniques
and/or networks. There are three levels of program for which one can propose
each with different proposal deadlines. It looks difficult to organize a major
proposal from LSC members in time, however, several smaller proposals due
in the beginning of February 2002 may be generated by LSC members.
 

Assay of Phd Students working on LIGO I
----------------------------------------
Sam Finn and I have surveyed the LSC for on going PhD thesis research on LIGO I
being undertaken by students associated with the LSC research groups. The student's
names,institutions and project abstracts will be posted on the LSC web page. There are
four experimental and eleven theoretical/data analysis thesis projects currently
on going in the collaboration. The count only includes work directly related to LIGO
I.
 
E7 run
------
The LSC Executive committee approved the request by Benoit Mour to take part in
the E7 run. Benoit was encouraged to seek endorsement by the VIRGO project
for his participation.
 
 

Report from the Software Coordinator
---------------------------------------
The final draft of the LSC White Paper on Data Analysis is circulating through
the writing committee and will be sent to the LSC Executive Committee in the next
two weeks.
 

An issue that needs further thought by the Collaboration, brought to a focus
by the White Paper, is the way to deal organizationally with the new initiatives
such as ITR and GRID computing. Currently the LSC is dealing with these in an ad hoc
manner.
 
MOU proposed by VIRGO on collaborative data analysis by GEO,LIGO and VIRGO
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Committee encouraged the Laboratory to go the next step with VIRGO in
formulating the MOU. The MOU needs to include the role of the LSC in the
data analysis
 
 

Overture to University of Wisconsin @ Milwaukee by individuals in the VIRGO project
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce Allen told the committee of an overture that had been made to carry out
joint data analysis by some members of the VIRGO project with UWM. Although there
is no intent to regulate scientific exchange between individuals, the committee
felt that an arrangement of such importance to the field and to both LIGO and VIRGO
should be made formally between the Laboratories.
 

Publication on the planned advanced LIGO detector
-------------------------------------------------
David Shoemaker raised the issue that there is not now a publication describing the
planned advanced LIGO detector which can be used as a reference for the field.
The discussion that followed was in favor of the concept but did not converge to
a plan. The issue will be raised again at the next meeting.
 

Next LSC Executive Committee meeting
-------------------------------------
Friday Nov 16, 2001 at 11:00AM ET


LIGO I Construction/LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)



 

WBS 1.2 LIGO Operations--Administration



LIGO Weekly Site Telecon (Lindquist)

There was a teleconference on Thursday, November 1.  Items discussed included:

The list of current actions revised to reflect the status of open actions assigned through November 1, 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 45 31
Out 9 35

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 Dorothy Lloyd Rita Torres

Advanced LIGO (Frey)

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

Progress Period from 10.26 to 11.01

Accomplishments:

Weekly Advanced LIGO Project Controls meeting not held this week.  Per Gary, we are scheduling our next meeting for November 13th.  Continue the process of preparing material that will allow management to review the current status of the MRE effort.

Advanced LIGO MRE Proposal (Highest Priority)

  • Continuing the development of the Cost Estimate.
  • Continue to pursue all other sub system schedules.
  • Updated web site with latest data.
  • The following is a summary of status by sub system:
  • COC - Work on action items per second review continues.  Next meeting date has not been scheduled.  Attended meeting with LASTI and SUS to discuss schedule issues.
  • PSL - Issued cost and resource loaded reports and awaiting comments.  Next meeting date has not been scheduled.
  • AOS - Work on action items continues.  Next meeting date has not been scheduled.
  • IO -  Work on action items continues.  Next meeting date has not been scheduled.
  • SUS - Working with SUS group to incorporate current comments.  Next meeting date has not been scheduled.  Attended meeting with LASTI and COC to discuss schedule issues.
  • SEI - Work on action items continues.  Next meeting date has not been scheduled.  Made schedule change as requested by David per his meeting with the SEI group.
  • All other subsystems have yet to be scheduled for their first review.  These dates are pending per direction from Gary Sanders and Dennis Coyne.
  • Continue to update the TNI Schedule and incorporate any changes. Continue to update the LASTI Schedule and incorporate any changes. Project Plan for the 40-Meter Lab Upgrade continues. Continue to test the Cost Book Tool. 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.

    Schedule 11.02 to 11.08:

    Next weekly Advanced LIGO Project Controls meeting will be November 13th at 1pm at the SSCR.  Will continue to prepare and follow up with system leaders.

    Advanced LIGO MRE Proposal (Highest Priority Task)

    Will Continue to update the TNI Schedule and incorporate any changes. Will Continue to update the LASTI Schedule and incorporate any changes. Will continue updating the 40 meter schedule and incorporate any changes. Cost Book Tool development continues.  (Highest Priority Task) 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)



    Reports (Lindquist)

    Nothing to report.



    Change Control/Contingency (Lindquist)

    The following change request has been distributed to the Change Board:
     

    CR-010011
    Revision A
    Construction Adjust LIGO Construction Budgets to Reflect Actual Costs for Completed Tasks as well as REU Expenses, Accounting Adjustments, and 7-LIGO (old work order) costs (net $67K from Construction Contingency) P. Lindquist

    Press for the latest Contingency Needs Projection.


    COST SCHEDULE CONTROL SYSTEMS (Akutagawa)

    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)
     

    Commissioning on 2 interferometers is the main concentration. The laser-safety interlock installation by Moon Security is nearing completion.
     

    2k IOO Periscope installation
    -----------------------------
    (C. Gray, B. Weaver, S. Whitcomb, and R. Savage)
     

    We installed the new periscope on the 2k IOO/PSL table yesterday.  The
    installation went very smoothly thanks to all the hard work and
    attention to detail by K. Mailand, M. Smith, et al.  The new periscope
    performs about as expected.  A before-and-after plot of the frequency
    noise measured by the modecleaner (MC_F) can be found at
    http://apex.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/~rick/Temp/NewPeriscope.pdf  The
    reference traces were recorded before swapping the periscopes.
     

    The bottom line is that the peak that was at about 100 Hz is now at
    about 22O Hz, in reasonable agreement with modeling.  The narrow
    features in the broad periscope peak appear to be narrow acoustic
    sources coupling more efficiently due to the enhanced susceptibility
    near the periscope peak.
     

    We have received the second periscope and will begin making plans to
    install it on the 4k IOO/PSL table.
     


    LIGO Livingston Observatory (LLO) Operations (Coles)


    No report


    Detector/Technical Support (Whitcomb, Coyne)


     
    Installation& Commissioning:
    Hanford
    Livingston
    Other Science/EngineeringActivities:
    Design/Analysis/Fab
    Issues/Concerns
    See also the Installation web page

    1.1 LHO INSTALLATION & COMMISSIONING

    2km Commissioning

    Mike Landry, Fred Raab, Hugh Radkins, Bill Butler, Betsy Bland, Corey Gray, Stan Whitcomb
    More data on the frequency noise observed on MC_F has shown that the lowest noise we have seen at the 16 Hz small optics bounce mode was with the intial MC alignment, so we have returned to those settings.  The LSC and ASC processors have been a bit unreliable over the past week, as we are upgrading them to the lates ISC code.  There have been a couple of attempts to align and lock the interferometer, but the results have been mediocre.

    The new periscope was installed and the beam repointed into the vacuum system.  The results are similar to what had been observed at LLO; namely, the 100 Hz resonance in the MC_F spectrum has been moved to about 230 Hz, where the MC servo has greater suppression for frequency noise from the PSL.

    Several more runs have been taken with the x arm locked for long durations to get data dor calibrating and tuning the tidal compensation.

    4 km Commissioning

    Luca Matone, Bill Kells, Richard McCarthy, Josh Myers, Rick Savage, Paul Schwinberg, Mark Guenther, Dick Gustafson, Dennis Coyne, Stan Whitcomb
    Various configurations of the interferometer have been locked: individual arms, simple Michelson, power-recycled Michelson.  The latter was plagued with excitation of the violin resonances.  This led us to identify some incompatibilities between the filtering in the suspension controllers and the LSC code, which may contribute to the rather unreliable locking.

    1.2LLO INSTALLATION & COMMISSIONING

    4 km Commissioning

    Rai Weiss reporting
    The interferometer was fully locked at night for fractions of hours at a time. The lock was broken deliberately to avoid exceeding the dynamic range of the controllers due to the tides and by trains. Reacquistion occurred in minutes. The long locked sections allowed iteration of the operating parameters to improve stability and reduce noise. The differential mode wavefront servo was used successfully during the runs. The system will acquire with the angular servo on. A large amount of data was accumulated during these night runs that is now being analysed to provide a first estimate of the noise and to look in detail at the servo performance just prior to a break in lock.

    The full interferometer cannot yet be locked during the day. The power recycled Michelson and a single arm cavity (state 3) can be locked during the day but not robustly. The interferometer may require active angular alignment control to stay in lock during the day and additional wavefront sensor servos are being prepared.

    The common mode servo has been installed and is being tested.

    Late news: Last night the feed forward system to compensate for the microseismic noise was tested on the recombined interferometer. The system worked well reducing the micrsoseism by at least a factor of 10.

    Nergis elaborates:
    Most of the effort this week has been devoted to improving the power-recycled interferometer locking performance. The two significant area of progress were:
    (i) Increasing the frequency of successful lock attempts: now the interferometer typically acquires within 1 to 2 minutes. To do this we fine tuned RF phases while locked in State 5. We also remeasured g-ratios in State 3, and this time the measured ratios were very close to the ones we had been using to acquire lock, which had been arrived at with a mixture of direct measurement and informed (we like to think) adjustment.
    (ii) Extending the lock durations, which are now typically 10 to 20 minutes. Here, closing feedback loops to the ETM differential pitch and yaw from wavefront sensor 1 (at the antisymmetric port) helped the most. Being able to better adjust the RF phases in State 5 to remove large spikes from the arm common-mode/laser frequency in the PRM loops has also helped in keeping the sideband power in the PRM above the servo shutoff level.

    Other interesting phenomena: we have also been able to measure the mirror displacement due to the radiation pressure when the carrier power builds up in the interferometer.

    Other persistent mysteries: we still see peculiar angle-dependent reduction in the sideband power build up. The present favorite theory is the occurence of an accidental overlap of the rf sideband with a higher-order transverse mode of the arm cavity, but we have yet to measure it. We also have  some evidence of 60 cycle noise that seems to vary with time.

    Mike Zucker
    participated in commissioning on the L4k. Besides gratifying progress on locking the full interferometer (reported elsewhere), did a number of qualitative and quantitative diagnostics on RFI and 60 Hz ground currents.

    PSL

    Peter King
    The spare 21.5 & 35.5 MHz frequency reference cards for LLO arrived.

    2.0 OtherEngineering and Scientific Activities

    2.1 Design/Analysis/Fab

    Modeling

    Erika D'Ambrosio
    I am going on trying to interpret the results obtained by simulations for the sidebands' imbalance: one if a phase shift that basically is the distortion of the wavefront averaged over the cross section of the beam.

    This phase shift is added to the delay due to the Schnupp asymmetry. Such delay is weighted by the sign of the modulation frequency so that the combination is different for the two sidebands.

    Another effect is the impact on the geometry of the mode and it turns out that an important contribution of Legendre[2,0] is excited. For this second part of the problem I am missing a constant, that is my predictions are proportional but larger than the observed values. For the TEM00 mode my simple model and data are exactly the same.

    The Schnupp asymmetry that makes the dark port maximum for the sideband is the one that minimizes the imbalance between the sidebands. If a microscopic offset that compensates for the distortions is added to the vacuum lengths between the beamsplitter and the mirrors there is a large reduction of the imbalance since this cancels the impact on the TEM00 mode but not the excitation of the Legendre[2,0]. This excitation also depends on the degeneracy of the cavity but in a way I am still working on to explain it by analytical expressions.

    Core Optics

    GariLynn Billingsley
    Linda Turner has scanned in most of the vendor data for the LIGO 1 optics.  We are working on getting a format that loads faster, you can access the data at: http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~gari/COCAsBuilt.htm
    You can also get to this page by following the link from the LIGO home page through the Research Bulletin Board, Core Optics Components, Optic Index

    IOO PERISCOPE

    Mike Smith, Ken Mailand
    The second periscope was shipped to LHO on 10/26 and was received by LHO. The third periscope is in process of being anodized and will be shipped to LASTI the week of 11/5.

    PSL

    Peter King,
    AdvLIGO PSL -- Dan Feehan of Lightwave Electronics advised me that the upgrade to 20 W of the 10-W laser currently on loan to Stanford is seen by Lightwave to be an engineering project, requiring a full re-design of the power amplifier.  I suspect the fact that the pump diodes are no longer available from Spectra Diode Labs and the number of hours on the amplifier (approx. 11k) might have something to do with it.

    Rick Karwoski
    Frequency Reference boards:

    ISS Sander Liu

    Suspensions

    Janeen Romie
    AdLIGO Suspensions

    CDS/DAQ

    Rolf Bork
    - Spent part of week troubleshooting problems reported from LHO:
     
    1) Broadband noise noticied on AS I&Q signals in LHO 2k ADC readings (read from first Pentek in LSC crate). Center frequency of noise moves with different phase settings and number of TP selected. This noise does not show up on ADC channels of second Pentek board.  Indication is that noise center freq. moves with change in servo loop calculation time.  At Sigg's suggestion, first moved the sin/cos calculations required for phase shifts from the lsc front end to the isc supervisor. The front end that just performs a matrix multiplication and compute time of servo is constant. This stopped the noise center freq. shift when the phase shift was adjusted, however it did not remove the noise and shift in noise freq. still noted with number of TP selected.  Since the ADC is externally clocked, change in lsc loop calc time should not, in theory, cause ADC noise, unless the loop was running so long as to miss ADC readings, which was not the case. The cause was finally tracked down to be the result of polling the ADC data ready bit in the ADC module control register. The code polls this bit on the first ADC board to determine when it is time to read in the ADC and compute the next servo cycle. When the code was modified to poll the second ADC card instead of the first, the broadband noise went away on signals from the first ADC and appeared on signals from the second ADC. This indicates some sort of ADC hardware problem. Unfortunately, removing the polling and rather waiting for an interrupt from the ADC for data ready adds a 10usec interrupt service delay to the loop, which is too long.  Pentek has been notified of the noise problem and we are looking into alternative means of determining that ADC data is ready.

    2) LHO2k ASC experienced comms problems with one mid station controller. Problem was tracked to a faulty reflected memory board on the ASC front end (local processor could not write to it and all data coming in was corrupted). Reboot of system did not clear problem, however a power down reset did.


    - Added code to systems which use Pentium processors and reflected memory boards to automatically detect modules and addresses on code startup.  We have at least four models of Pentium boards with up to four PCI buses, on which the reflected memory modules reside, and each wants to map the modules to different buses/addresses. I had been keeping up with this in header files, but this was becoming too troublesome. New code detects which PCI bus the RFM boards are on and then returns the address pointers. This makes the code more portable.

    - Rep from Pentek was out last Friday. Data from our testing was passed on to them, particularly the noise measurements. They are supposed to look into the noise problem noted above, why DAC channels 5&6 on all our boards have higher noise, and the data packing problem we noted over a year ago.

    - Updated the LHO2k ASC software. OptLev servo code was removed from the ASC front end and a newer release of end station front end code was loaded.

    Digital Suspension Controls

    Peter Fritschel
    Working on the design of the digital filters for the digital suspension controllers. So far a couple of minor modifications to the front end code have been requested. Should have a write-up finished next week.

    LSC

    Mike Zucker
    LSC photodetectors: Nathan Hindman from LHO is visiting this week to assist & learn test and adjustment of RF photodetectors. We are working on a new batch just arrived from Caltech.

    Luca Matone

    Rich Abbot
    Mohana Mageswaran
    I have finished my photon calibrator new design and had given out for PCB layout. I am ordering the parts needed for the project. I have been also looking into the VME based stuff in order to come up with a VME interface board.

    EO Shutter Controller

    Sander Liu

    Misc.

    Szabi Marka
    The Snowmass (P4.6 Gravitational Waves subsection) poceedings paper "New Physics and Astronomy with the New Gravitational-Wave Observatories" by Scott Hughes, Szabi Marka, Peter Bender and Craig Hogan is available from the DCC (docspublic/P/P010029-00.pdf).

    Data Monitoring Tool

    John Zweizig
    This week I spent chasing an insidious bug in the Trigger Manager. Along the way I have modified the DMT and GDS code for compatibility with RedHat version 7.2 of linx and version 3.2 of root.

    Szabi Marka
    I have a much more advanced version of GPS time monitor working and I released a new version of the IRIG-B decoder/monitor code (DMT).

    Diagnostics

    Daniel Sigg, Alex Ivanov, David Barker, Greg Mendell
    In the last 2 weeks significant improvements have been made in the data acquisition system---speeding up data access rates by an order of magnitude in most cases. When using DTT to read fast channel data from the past, data rates of ~5MB/s have been observed. Meaning that a request of, say H2:LSC-AS_Q, for the last one hour now only takes one minute to complete!

    The following upgrades have been implemented:
    1. The frame size has been increased from 1 sec to 8 sec or even 16 sec. This drastically reduced the overhead involved in opening and closing files, as well as reducing the inefficiency involved in accessing small blocks of data in a large number of files.
    2. (Almost) all CDS Unix machines have received a memory upgrade. The machines in the control room now have between 786MB and 1GB of RAM. This allows to run data viewer and dtt in parallel as well as having a large number of medm/netscape/terminal screens open at the same time.
    3. The networking of these machines has been changed from 10bT to 100bT by adding fast ethernet ATM equipment to the 3810 switches.
    4. Part of the ldas high performance disk system (T3) has been directly attached to a SUN Blade 1000 through fiber channel. This machine mounts the ldas disks using the QFS file system and is currently being used as a test frame builder.
    5. DTT and data viewer have been updated to take advantage of the new long data blocks. The dust hasn't quite settled yet. Stability still needs some improvements but this should be ironed out in the next week or two.
     


    40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)



    Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)


    This week we achieved the first full-power lock of the Thermal Noise
    Interferometer.  All three cavities, the Mode Cleaner and the North and
    South Arm Cavities, now lock to carrier TEM00 modes and hold for hours at a
    time, even during the day.  Lock acquisition is not prompt.  It takes a few
    hours to get both arms locked in TEM00 modes, but once locked the system is
    quite robust.
     

    The noise in the North Cavity is, as anticipated, not substantially
    different from the old configuration, remaining in the low 1e-17 m/rHz
    range around 1 kHz, but the South Cavity is somewhat quieter.  The
    equivalent length noise in the South Cavity between 700 Hz and 1 kHz is
    consistently 9e-18 m/rHz during the day, and one measurement at 10:00 pm
    gave 4.7e-18 m/rHz at 1 kHz.  Cross couplings between the cavities, a
    problem that had plagued the TNI under the old configuration, have been
    eliminated at the level of our preliminary measurements.  We have no noise
    data from the South Cavity under the old configuration to compare this
    with, since we were not able to reliably lock it before.
     

    We are currently working on improving our lock acquisition time, and after
    that is reduced we will try to find out why one cavity is quieter than the
    other.


    LASTI (Zucker)


    LASTI (Bayer, Fritschel, Goda, Harry, Laliberty, MacInnis, Mason,
    Miller, Mittleman, Ottaway, Phinney, Rollins, Shoemaker, Zucker)
     

    =======================================================================
     

    BSC SEI INSTALLATION:
    Myron, Fred and Bob have finished mods to the cartridge cleanroom to
    customize it for installing the LIGO I stack.  The BSC side door has
    been removed and the BSC dome was balanced & rigged for removal today.
    We have a few last minute odds & ends but we should be ready for next
    week's visit by LLO experts Gary Traylor and Harry Overmeier.  They
    will help us drop in and assemble our downtube and stack elements.
     

     
    HYDRAULIC ACTUATORS:
    Ken is continuing to iterate the counter-wound spring design with
    feedback from the Stanford group.
    Joshua got his pump running and circulating oil, and is performing
    tests to characterize it.
    With some added shaker equipment shipped up from LLO by Joe Giaime,
    Rich, Myron, Bob and Joshua repeated the BSC pier resonance test and this
    time achieved a clean result.  First relevant mode turned up around 40
    Hz, which is good from the standpoint of providing a robust reaction
    impedance for the hydraulic actuator.
     
    CDS/DAQ/GDS:
    No progress on DAQ, GDS or RAID problems (MZ out of town)
     
    PSL:
    Dave, Jamie and Go have measured the actuator transfer functions for
    the EO phase corrector and the PZT and they look pretty good (alas,
    we're having trouble getting them from our ancient network analyzer
    into Matlab for quantitative fitting...)


    Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)


    Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)
    E2E Physics Meeting
    -------------------
    Biplab explained how he's studying the mode mismatch problem while the interferometer goes
    from cold state to hot state. Then Erika discussed her FFT study of the amplitude
    mismatch problem of sidebands possibly due to misalignments in the recycling cavity.
     

    Lock acquisition & thermal lensing
    ----------------------------------
    Biplab has started studying the effects of mode-mismatch as the interferometer goes from cold
    to hot state by mimicking the effects of thermal lensing by an effective change in refractive
    index of input mirrors. The runs suggest that it's necessary to change the gain parameters
    several times during this process to keep the system properly locked.
    With help from Matt, he is  trying to properly lock each temperature state systematically.
     

    CVS
    ----
    Ed Maros added anonymous cvs read-only accesses for e2e software
     

    Alfi
    ----
    (Bruce)
     - Completed edit capabilities of connection widgets.
     - Work on updating of the container tree view.
     

    (Melody)
     - Continued on member node widgets.
    -  Worked on adding primitives onto the canvas.
     

    LIGO Data Analysis System
     

    Software Systems (Blackburn)
    The number of bugs in the released version of LDAS was larger than we
    expected. This was especially true of basic functionality in the frameAPI
    and the metaDataAPI. Steps have been taken to insure more regular routine
    testing of all LDAS functionality. We will be setting up scripts which exercise
    all testbeds once every other night on the LDAS development system in order to ensure that
    problems can be detected earlier than they have been in the past.
     

    The ILWD library was enhanced to support a new data attribute called meta-
    data. It is primarily intended as a place holder for information used by
    the LDAS system.
     

    The frameAPI, dataConditionAPI, lightWeightAPI are all being extended to
    support missing frames (data gaps) in a user request for data. This will involve a
    slightly more structured exchange object for time series data and support
    for missing data fills in the data ingestion and algorithm action sections
    of the dataConditionAPI.
     

    The new library (IlwdFCS) used to format data into FrProc frame files that
    was used by the dataConditionAPI in the 0.0.21 release is being ported to
    the eventMonitorAPI.
     

    The dataConditionAPI, eventMonitorAPI and frameAPI are being extended to
    support a new set of user options allowing user defined data products to
    be written to a single frame or to separate frame files.
     

    A proposal for a frame file naming convention has been reviewed and
    circulated. A final draft is nearing completion. The conventions specified
    in this document have been adopted by the development versions of both
    LDAS and the framebuilder.
     

    A quick assessment of the new GCC 3.0.2 compiler has determined that it is not
    ready for use in LDAS.
     

    The enormous size of the disk cache at Hanford introduced a major process
    inefficiency into the frameAPI. This has been sorted out and the improvement in efficiency will become
    available in the next release of LDAS well in time for the engineering run.
     

    Supported development efforts on GriPhyN underway at UWM for the upcoming
    SC2001 conference in Denver the week of 11 November.
     

    A new feature was added to the managerAPI that generates a timing profile. This enables a
    user to trace the performance of his jobs through the system. Also,  the wrapperAPI was
    modified to provide additional timing information which is written to the log files.
     

    We assisted the Periodic Search Group in tracking down a problem in their
    code which was preventing them from being able to run preliminary search
    codes in the LDAS system.
     

    We discovered that the new LAM MPI library uses the SEGV signal. This signal
    is actually being thrown in the LAL/LALwrapper code to identify memory
    management issues thereby introducing a risk of confusing the source of
    a serious signal in the OS and the signal handler used to process the
    signal. The issues have been reported to the MPI working group. One of our
    Caltech software engineers has been tasked with looking into the LAM
    signal handler's detailed behavior.
     

    Hardware Systems (Anderson)
    Caltech
    -------
    (Dan Kozak)
     

    Helped move LIGO T3s from Synchrotron to Booth
     

    Expanded SFS volumes in HPSS that had filled up
     

    Worked on HPSS/hsi upgrade:
     

            compiled hsi 2.6.2 for Sun, HP V-class and SGI architectures
            and installed it on lugh, skinner/mulder/scully, earnest &
            johnny.
     

            assisted with HPSS software upgrades and metadata conversions
     

            labeled and imported more 9940 tapes
     

            configured Ultra 10 (acsls.cacr.caltech.edu, used for silo
            management) per CACR network and security guidelines, brought it
            up on the network
     

    Worked to get StorageTek to agree to repair a broken part on Powderhorn silo under warrantee.
    We are still awaiting the repair to be performed...
     

    (Al Wilson)
     

    Getting ready for RH7.2 have preped a directory for the RPM's Checked out
    and have a final set of rpms for RH7.1 - 2.4.9-6 kernel. The ldas-test
    system will be the first installation to be up graded to the new kernel.
    also tested a test start config that will not delete the usr1/lcldsk
    directory.
     
     

    (Stuart Anderson)
     

    Continued testing of RedHat 7.1 updates and RedHat 7.2 for use as next LDAS
    Linux reference platform.
     

    Contributed to the new LIGO Frame file name guidelines.
     

    Helped with configuration and testing of QFS file system at LHO for the
    CDS framebuilder.
     

    Received in-situ fiber length measurements for existing LDAS single-mode
    fiber runs at Caltech. The lengths are short enough that we will
    install 50micron multi-mode fiber side-by-side to allow the use
    of cheaper computer equipment when available. If this configuration
    works in practice at Caltech we will specify 50micron multi-mode fiber
    for the network connections to the new buildings at LHO and LLO.
     

    Moved the LIGO<->CACR ATM OC-12 connection from a test workstation
    to the LDAS-DEV gateway box for increased bandwidth in archiving
    and accessing Engineering run data.
     

    Reinstalled and configured Solaris on the form GC computer "sargas" to
    prepare the system for use as a test machine to run and test the initial
    LIGO archive system until the new Sun servers are delivered.
     

    Livingston
    ----------
    (Shannon Roddy)
     

    Admin locked up yesterday evening and did not respond at all to
    keyboard input, pings, etc.  I have not had too much time to
    investigate, however Stuart has recommended that I install the newest
    set of patches.
     

    BigBrother & Tripwire:  I found a third party script that has
    been written for BigBrother to interrogate tripwire. I am checking
    into the feasibility of using this rather than writing my own
    using the examples in SysAdmin magazine.  Fixed some problems with
    bigbrother and rsync - Thanks Stuart.  Will have to reinstall on ldas-sw
    to get the cgi working again.
     

    Ordered and received the QFS licenses for LDAS and CDS.  Still working
    an issue with the backup scripts & secure shell.
     

    Hanford
    -------
    (Greg Mendell)
     

    1) QFS was installed and configured on the LDAS dataserver and the CDS
    fb3 framebuilder.  Initially, kernel messages indicated a problem
    occurred on fb3, e.g.,
     

    "fb3 samfs: [ID 145447 kern.notice] NOTICE: SAM-FS: sam_wait_space:
    /fb3qfs1: File system full - ENOSPC".
     

    Removing the mount option "forcedirectio" seems to have solved this
    problem, but testing continues.
     

    2) Calculated tapes needed for E6 run, and started plans to archive data
    for this run.
     

    3) Debugged the knownpulsardemod DSO so that it now successfully
    produces SFT frame output when run as an LDAS job. Started planning the
    known pulsar MDC.
     

    General Computing (Wallace)
    MIT:
     

    -Upgrading admin assistant machine from win98 -> win2K
    -Moving accts over to new file server (piece meal)
    -Adding accts to modem pool
    -Investigating licenses for win2k and acrobat
     

    Livingston:
    (Shannon)
    -Fixed a couple networking issues.  Moved a user over to IMAP
    instead of POP.  This will help in keeping his mail synced between home
    and LLO.  Swapped out a laptop for a user to replace his older laptop.
    Reenabled a user account on the GC network.
     

    Hanford:
    -  As of Wed. 10/31/01, we are running on the new NIS+ server, still
    called rainier but it is now a new Sun E220 instead of the old E3000.
    This has put more emphasis on our application server as all application
    software has moved off the NIS+ server.  The swap went quite well.  The
    users are still identifying application software, mostly freeware, that
    used to exist on the NIS+ server and now needs to be installed on the
    application server.  Before anyone can change their password on the new
    NIS+ server they must "reinitialize" their password with the server.
    The steps for this process have been published.
     

    -Setting up a new PC to handle the video-conferencing camera.
     

    CIT:
    (Mike)
     

    -Hardware problems with cdrom & zip drive repaired on a PC. I have corrected
    this problem and user is back up and running with full functionality of the
    computer.
    -I performed a complete rebuild with OS and all General Computing software.
    -Swapped out the laptop, for Ed C., to a more updated and lighter Laptop this
    included moving all his personal files over and setting network configurations.
    -Ghost Enterprise Network is up and running, the biggest scenario to this
    software is configuring the different network cards on the project getting
    the correct dos drivers for each nic card to work; so far it looks like
    there is four different network cards for the PC's; now I am starting to
    look into the Laptops. This is going to be a great tool for the General
    Computing a big plus for the project. If a users PC gets corrupted or hard
    disk failure I should be able to recover within 30 minutes or less
    depending on the size of the image. This will be done without moving the PC
    to a staging area, this process can now be implemented threw the network.
    We will also be configuring this software to push additional software
    packages and security patches threw the network but not to bog down the
    network causing a bottleneck.
    -Reloaded 2 PC's with OS and all General Computing Software.
    -Loaded Rack Mounted server with NTSRV 4.0 and am going to run server base
    Mcafee software, plus additional security packages.
     

    (Bruce)
    Gnats maintenance:                              (1.0 days)
            - Completed set up gnats for the detector hardware group.
     
    (Lisa)
    - Began looking at wireless security.
    - Worked on some secure shell tunneling problems.
    - Resolved a problem with solidworks on sunpci.  It looks like running NT
    instead of win98 will fix the display issues.
    - Rebooted sirius.  We have had a chronic problem with ultra10's locking up
    after sirius gets a reboot.  It looks like MU5 resolves many of these problems.
    - Built a development apache/mysql/php server.  This was done using the solaris
    8 bundled apache/perl. I have started working on putting together a web based
    system to manage our IP & inventory information.  This is becoming a
    necessary tool.  There is no easy way right now to manage things like mac
    addresses or tracking computer moves.
    -Onsite user and phone support that included software, OS problems and
    printing problems.
     

    (Larry)
    -Worked on updating a number of programs on the servers. Moved a number of
    the servers around in the server room in preparation to swap equipment out of
    the racks.
    -Contacted NoaNet concerning connectivity for the Hanford Observatory. They are
    working on getting more information sent to me. When I receive it I will pass it
    along.
    -Resolved a couple of e-mail issues. The tools being used by everyone all have
    different methods of configuration which have caused some conflicts for the user
    but most issues have been easily resolved.
    -Working on the virus-scan s/w for the e-mail server. The first tests have not
    proven too positive for the virus-scan but the smtp check is looking pretty
    good.
    -Worked a number of procurement issues. Mostly, trying to get things corrected
    with SUN.
    -Working on the fiber installation for the GigE backbone. The distance for each
    location from Bridge Annex has been measured; WH 2400 ft., 40M 2300 ft.,
    Millikan 613 ft., Lauritsen 1448 ft., Booth 1320 ft. .
    -Spent a little time working on security policy documentation.
    -Some time working on training and getting more of the WEB duties moved to
    others. Setup a couple of new WEB procedures for different people.
     


    LIGO II/Advanced R&D (Sanders)


    From Calum Torrie:
     

    Advanced LIGO
    Modelling and Testing for proposed Prototype Suspensions
     

    Continuing to add to and adapt existing engineering drawings for prototype mode cleaner suspension.
    Started to design the upper mass with particular attention to mass and moment of Inertia and position of centre of mass
     

    I have been looking at wire suppliers in the USA. Planning on getting some spring steel wire sent to me from California Fine Wire Company to test.
     

    Started discussions this week with Mike Plissi and Eoin Elliffe in GEO and Janeen here at Caltech to model the cantilever blades we will use on the prototypes on I-DEAS. In particular we are interested in the deflection and internal mode of the blades.
     

    I hope to build up a small test facility in order to test some prototype blades here in the lab, and also as I mentioned before to test some wire.
     

    From Mark Barton:
     

    This week I finished incorporating the thermal noise according to the parameters in Bench plus corrections from Peter Fritschel and Phil Willems. I also made some optimizations that halved the run time for the short version of the calculation (without thermal noise) that will be used for tweaking the normal mode shapes and frequencies, and reorganized the code to make it possible to try different damping models without having to redo the time-consuming part of the calculation (finding the second derivatives of the wire bending potential terms).


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