LIGO Weekly Report

The list of current actions revised to reflect the status of open actions assigned through November 15, 2001 may be found at ACTION LIST.

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. . .

Advanced LIGO (Frey)

Going to have to start thinking about what we should do about an Annual or Quarterly Report for the end of November.

Held a LIGO Change Control Board on November 20, 2001. The following change requests were approved:

The following change request was not discussed because the necessary disciplines were not represented:

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

LIGO Hanford Observatory (LHO) Operations (Raab)

Commissioning of 2K and 4K interferometers continues as the main activity. To optimize the use of non-construction hours for commissioning, we have adopted a shift schedule running from 12 noon to 7 am with two shifts. This schedule will run through to the beginning of E7. Construction activity strongly shakes the ground from 7 am - 3:30 pm. The foundation work is making rapid progress, we expect the worst of the shaking will be winding down as E7 begins.

LIGO Livingston Observatory (LLO) Operations (Coles)

Detector: The output filters for the large optics suspension controllers were modified to reduce the number of stages and make them able to damp the optics more stably. We have then gone back to aligning the interferometer and then attempting to lock it in there combined configuration. We have been able to lock the x arm for tens of minutes, while with the y arm stays locked for a shorter amount of time. The recombined system does not seem to lock during the day. We are working on tweaking the alignment and the locking to attain a better lock. (Joe Kovalik)

Optics and Installation: Programming of the Laser Safety Interlock system is (still) ongoing, and the installer hopes to complete the programming sometime next week. We decided to defer the installation of the Acoustic Enclosure until after the conclusion of E-7. Investigated the possibility of having the manufacturer of the acoustic enclosure do the field installation but decided it was too costly. Work will be done by LLO staff with only a foreman from the company directing the erection. Ken Mason has provided us with source files of the ISC table designs, and we'll being the process of updating them to reflect the current table configurations. (Jonathan Kern)

GC: Installed password protection on some LLO internal web pages which are to be accessible by LIGO only. Continuing to test IMAP/SSL on a test mail server. This is working _flawlessly_ so far. In fact, it has been more reliable than the standard IMAP software on our Solaris mail server. We have received and installed the Cisco router which replaces our old router. The new one has been programmed by LSU to interface with them over our T1 lines, and it is currently operating over both lines. (Shannon Roddy and Tom Evans)

LDAS: Shipped out the tapes with the E6 data to Stuart Anderson. Restarted LDAS on Monday after shutting it down over the Holiday. There probably needs to be a better way of making sure someone is available in case of problems during holidays. Showed Igor how to power up LDAS. I sent him the link to the page with the documentation on how to "start LDAS." I will document what I showed him on Monday. It is not often LDAS has to come up from a complete shutdown, and it would be nice to have a document to reference. (Shannon Roddy)

CDS: We have completed the rework of the Chebychev filters on the LOS controllers. (Ref. DCN E010178-00-C & E010181-00-C)
We are going to modify the spare SOS controller before working on the input optics. This will give a feel for the shutdown time required and help to schedule the work. I also installed a new ethernet expansion board in the 3810 in the LVEA. The extra 24 ports will allow us to get rid of the small ethernet hubs in the racks. Those hubs are a big source of 60Hz noise. (Rus Wooley)

Facilities: Installation of all the outdoor cameras is complete. Installation of the hardware for the laser safety system is complete. Programming for the laser safety system began this week. Installed lights and test points on the suspension power supplies. Installed a new differential driver in 1X6. Began rewiring of power panels to balance the 480V load at the corner station. Repaired lightning suppression system at the corner station and both end stations. Received quote for the electrical work to install outdoor
power and lighting at the front gate (& cattle guard). (Rus Wooley)

We are developing a comprehensive list of anticipated costs for moving into the new building. In addition to obvious things like furniture and supplies it includes developing some cost estimates for the networking equipment, electrical distribution from the panels to the shop area so that we maintain clean power in the lab areas, and drops to the shop equipment. We are also pursuing an updated quote for the A/V equipment in the auditorium based on the list developed with the architect one year ago.

George Tilley, Chief Forester at Weyerhaeuser, has confirmed there will be no logging activity near the LVEA during E7 (which was at one time feared). Also, there will be very little logging activity in Livingston Parish during the first quarter of 2002 since they anticipate a rainy winter and therefore have schedule the harvesting activity for higher ground in St. Helena Parish. This is good news for our seismic envronment during this time, as logging close-in to LIGO has been very detrimental to the seismic environment.

Detector/Technical Support (Whitcomb, Coyne)

Commissioning:

Hanford
Livingston

Science & Engineering Support

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

Hanford Detector Log

Livingston Detector Log

LHO COMMISSIONING

2km Commissioning

The week started with the 2km interferometer having low side band power (SPOB) calibration factor and a fussy state 3 (PRC + 1 arm) lock after shifting the beam for better centering. Further refinement in the alignment by the end of the week resulted in nominal SPOB calibration and stable full interferometer lock for periods of about 1 hr (in the evenings of course, due to the construction activity during the day). The initial conjecture that the SPOB calibration might be the result of the beam translation was shown not to be the case, but the cause of the initial low SPOB calibration remains a mystery.

An oscillation (350kHz) in the elliptical filter stages of the ITMy suspension controller was observed and may be responsible for a sudden large shift in the ITMy alignment that was observed. Repair attempts (op amp replacements) seem to have fixed the shift but have not eliminated the oscillations. Further repair is planned next week. The MC2 suspension controller required repairs (hot regulator replaced and LL coil drive gain stage amplifiers replaced).

The current intensity stabilization servo (ISS) was replaced with a slightly revised version of the same circuit. Non-stationary, jumps at low frequency in the laser power (> 1%) exceed the current shunt drive limits (+/- 10V) and limit the low frequency performance. A similar ISS will be installed on the 4km PSL. We hope to discover that the low frequency power level jumps are not a common laser feature, but something peculiar to the 2km PSL.

4-k Commissioning

Each LOS suspension controller actuation was diagonalized using their optical levers. The position actuation for the LOS controllers were calibrated. The suspension controller output matrices were scaled to prevent saturation (full range of LSC input is matched to full range of Pentek with unity in the digital suspension controller out put matrices). The interferometer was aligned and centered (several times) with multiple attempts to get consistent lock acquisition parameters. Finally with a good alignment and well centered beams, we achieved consistent state 2 and state 3 tunings with either arm, which give both peak arm build up and peak NSPOB. Most notably gLref to within 10% for each arm, whereas a week ago repeated measurements of gLref varied by a factor of 3. We tried some full lock state observation, with promising looking arm to arm toggling and transient buildups (consistent with random coincident resonances), but with no obvious acquisitions. (some details here; username reader, password readonly)

The cross talk in the whitening filters were measured to be –70 to –80 db for channels 1 through 4 and –30 for channels 5 and 6; Fortunately we are using channels 1 through 4 for control. The cause for the cross talk needs to be investigated.

A power budget was measured for the 4km interferometer. The results indicate that (1) there is apparently clipping on a steering mirror between the input port and the MC reflection port, (2) a large fraction of the light into the MC is unaccounted for, and (3) the anti-symmetric port output chain is only 80% efficient, so there may be clipping here as well. (power budget here; username reader, password readonly)

The revised IO periscope structure was installed onto the PSL table.

LLO COMMISSIONING

The work is concentrating on improving the duty cycle of recombined

FP/Michelson operation and learning how to acquire the full

recycled/recombined interferometer.

1) Recombined Fabry-Perot/Michelson Interferometer

The configuration was operated during the E6 run with a significant

improvement in stability from new digital filters in the optical lever

damping loops. One of the sources of fluctuation in the system are the

optic axis pointing variations of the long arm cavities. The motions have

been traced to resonances in the seismic isolation stacks at 1.2 and 2.2

Hz which cause cross coupling between displacement and rotation. The

resonances are excited by the Livingston seismic noise. The new filters

effectively clamp the mirrors to the ground at the resonance frequencies.

We can now operate the interferometer all night (except for the trains),

over the entire weekend and begin operations on most workday afternoons by

4PM. More work is needed to understand the reason for the remaining drop

outs. Efforts to further improve the duty cycle will include

incorporation of the common mode servo and the antisymmetric wavefront

servo loop. Expect that the bulk of the research will now go into

understanding the noise budget of the interferometer.

2) Recycled Fabry-Perot/Michelson ("full interferometer")

After intial successes with extended (5 - 10 minutes) locks of the

interferometer at night, the art was lost for about two weeks. Just before

the Thanksgiving the instrument once again was locking for minutes

at a time at night. The significant changes were the "correct" use of the

antisymmetric wavefront servo loop and a change in modulation frequency

which retains the sideband power in the Michelson interferometer through

the various stages of the locking sequence. The most likely explanation is

an accidental coincidence of resonances in the long arm cavities

at the sideband frequencies with the original modulation frequencies.

A basic question we will be addressing in the next week is whether we

should continue work on the recycled configuration before the E7 run. If

there is still no noise advantage in the recycled system relative to the

recombined one, it would make good sense to push harder on the noise

studies with the recombined system exclusively.

E6 related fixes, checks, maintanence

Szabi Marka

Prepareing LLO E6 PEM data for merging: Juggling comissioning, feedforward and engineering run RDS data around

so we can fit on the tight raid disks (we need an additional disk soon

if we want to support engineering runs and comissioning in the same

time! It really cost me lots and lots of time.)

LLO E6 calibration with Rana: Documening changes to the active seismic isolation STS-2 driver box.

I also reviewed two papers for CQG.

SCIENCE & ENGINEERING SUPPORT

Core Optics

GariLynn Billingsley
All transmission, absorption and phase map data for the LA4K are now available by clicking the "Data" link under the "LIGO Data" column from the COC optic index page. Access the index page 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

Optical modeling

Bill Kells

Continue with the analysis of the conditions leading to SB balance

or imbalance in a "LIGO-like" interferometer. A basic statement on

this subject has been included in the recent MELODY paper with R.

Beausoleil. The continuing work will lead to a more detailed

exposition with E. d'Ambrosio.

Erika D’Ambrosio
Going on with a two dimensional model for studying the sideband imbalance.

Now I am implementing a mathematica notebook to have quantitative assessments.

For the recycling cavity there is an interesting behaviour: when the difference

in phase "due to the asymmetry and weighted by the asymmetrical distortions" is

as large as the Guoy phase (that means even for small perturbations if the

cavity is almost degenerate) the eigenmodes collapse in one whose round-trip

phase is half of the Guoy phase.

At this point the Jordan form of the round-trip matrix is triangular

and the "hierarchy" established by the Guoy phase in the basis of modes

is completely lost.

This hierarchy holds nicely if the Guoy phase is large

because it prevails on other small phases introduced by the combination

of the perturbations and the Schnupp asymmetry.

Since the carrier is not sensitive to the Schnupp asymmetry

its eigenmodes are always nicely defined according to the Guoy phase;

the only result of a large perturbation is a large dark port signal.

On the contrary if the asymmetrical distortions or the differential length

are varied the signal at the dark port may decrease for the sidebands

and goes to zero in the limit described above. Moreover beyond this limit

there is a puzzling situation with the basis for the two sidebands exactly

swapped that means we have balance if the sidebands are different modes.

In this regime the driving beam does matter and I might want to have a look

on the projection of that onto the eigenmodes.

But before that I want to do quantitative comparisons between simulations

and predictions for small perturbations.

PSL

Peter King

The VME hardware in the Bridge Development Lab is being assembled.

The vxWorks EPROM was burned and installed into the IOC and the base

addresses for the other VME cards set. At present I'm in the midst of

sorting out the EPICS configuration on a new SunBlade, as well a few other

things. This is proving to be a useful practise run for when we setup a

similar system at the University of Hannover.

A temperature sensor box has been fabricated for the PSL Lab so that

experiments with the temperature stabilization can proceed on campus.

Sander Liu

Received five RF power amplifiers form Microwave Power Equipment for the 80 MHz VCO.

Rick Karwoski, Rich Abbott, Flavio Nocero, Paul Russell

We managed to stuff and test the intensity servo electronics ready for the installation at the sites. The boards have been tested at the 40 meter lab. Installation of the ISS for the LHO 4km interferometer will happen this week by Rick K. & Paul. The LLO 4km unit will be installed by Flavio and Rich next week.

Lee Cardenas

PSL at LASTI-MIT:

Chiller is installed, waiting for the chemical (Chloramine-T) to prepare the cooling mixture
Laser is already hooked it up and installed inside the enclosure.
Laser will be fired-up this week.
Preparation to hung the Ref. cavity is on going (gathering all the components, HeNe laser, pump station, RGA unit etc...)

EO Shutter Controller

Sander Liu

In the process of building five mother boards to retrofit two units from the field and build three new ones

NEW IO PERISCOPE

Mike Smith

The third periscope is still being vibration tested.

OPTICAL LEVER ANGLE SENSOR

Mike Smith

A design for a fixed, 55m focal length objective lens is being developed. The total length of the objective lens, from the entrance aperture to the QPD focal plane, has been reduced to 6.0 in. This will increase the size of the current optical lever receiver package by approximately 6.0 in. The minimum angle detectivity of the optical lever with this lens should be < 0.2 microradian. A 7X zoom lens design is in process.

LSC

Rich Abbott
Progress continues on the RFPD saga. We now have most of the spares re-worked and tested according to the ATP. The travelers have been filled out and they will be shipped to LHO for final alignment.

DMT

John Zweizig

Set up the Offline DMT process configuration for the Burst group's PEM

studies (the "PEM Deep Mine") and will run the E5 data through the

available transient finders as soon as the transient search configurations

have been finalized.

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

LASTI (Zucker)

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Mechanics Modeling Meeting
---------------------------
A meeting to discuss the mechanics simulation in e2e was held on November 20th.
Speakers included: Hiro, B. Lantz, M. Barton, C. Torrie, G. Cagnoli, P.
Fritschel,
V. Sannibale, G.C. Cella, A. Vicere.
Details available in http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~e2e

Han2k seismic model
-------------------
(Hiro) Working with Bill Butler to use his seismic module properly in Han2k.
Two modules are under construction, one to rotate coordinates and another to
calculate correlation spectral density.

LSC characterisation
--------------------
(Luca) Presently working on the e2e model used to study the acquisition of lock
problem (Han2k). The objective is to introduce a more detailed picture of the
LSC system.
However, in order to do this, the architecture of the model needs to be
modified.

Frequency sensor
-----------------
During E6 run Biplab and Rick did analytical calculations to understand noises
in
frequency sensors and results of e2e runs.

Code development & maintenance
------------------------------
(Hiro) Committed large number of low level adlib code changes which are
necessary
for the next revision of Han2k.

Installation
------------
(Ed Maros) 1. Built e2e-1.7.3 at Hanford
2. Helped Luca to get e2e-1.7.3 on his laptop.

Alfi
----
(Bruce)
- Completed implementation of junctions.
- Working on model for updating bookkeeping objects from changes the user makes
in the GUI.

(Melody)
- Worked on more member node widgets functionality for alfi5.
Working on the dialog that sets the node attributes.

Wrote scripts to automate parts of the process of migration off of 3590
and Redwood tapes. According to James' statistics, this increased the
average rate of transfer by a factor of 5--at the current rate of
transfer, it should take 4 years to completely eliminate Redwood and
3590 tapes (the first estimate was 20 years! :-). The rate will
increase again once Encina is fixed so it doesn't crash when lots of
requests are queued up (steps have been taken to this end--we're
waiting to see what happens as of this writing).

Received LIGO-purchased 9940 tape cartridges (510 units). Began the
process of labeling and importing them.

Spent the better part of this week (from Tuesday afternoon until
present) working with StorageTek to fix the broken ACSLS (silo control)
software. At their direction, reinstalled the software completely.
After a bit more work, it came up, and currently the silo is auditing
all 6000 slots (since the database was completely blown away). This
experience leaves me somewhat nervous since no one has ever come up
with an explanation of what the failure was (so it can be avoided in
the future) and because STK software support didn't have enough savvy
to fix the problem short of a complete reinstall.

Continued working on RH7.2 for ldas. got the system kickstart program to
work correctly. You just have to follow the RH instructions. No deviation
is allowed. Also use the boot disk image from the CD (or iso file) under
the utils directory. The disk that you make at setup time will not
work. Also have the KS program working with a network-based install. (all
files can now be at one location). Still to come is substituting rpm's on
the initial install. Do not have that one solved yet. Will start Big Bro,
at cit. Getting the information from Shannon.

Shipped out the tapes with the E6 data to Stuart Anderson.
Restarted LDAS on Monday after shutting it down over the Holiday.
There probably needs to be a better way of making sure someone is
available in case of problems during holidays. Showed Igor how to power
up LDAS. I sent him the link to the page with the documentation on how
to "start LDAS." I will document what I showed him on Monday. It is
not often LDAS has to come up from a complete shutdown, and it would be
nice to have a document to reference.

1) The November 2001 Known Pulsar Demodulation Mock Data Challenge has
been planned and is currently underway at LHO.

http://apex.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/~gmendell/kpdmdc/KNOWNPULSARDEMOD_MDC_NOV2001.pdf

These items have also been checked into the cvs archive at
gravity.phys.uwm.edu:/usr/local/cvs/ldasmdc.

2) The raw full frame E6 data was successfully backed up to the T3s and
to tape at LHO and LLO. The tapes should arrive at Caltech soon.

3) A Sun Fire 880 server has arrived at LHO. We are still waiting for a
few items like power cords, PCI cards, etc., to install this server.

Livingston:
(Tom)
-We have received and installed the Cisco router which replaces our
old router. The new one has been programmed by LSU to interface with
them over our T1 lines, and it is currently operating over both lines.
-Working on the VRVS installations.

(Shannon)
-Reinstalling windows 2000 on the machine in Bonnie's office. She
has someone that needs to use the computer and it was previously set up
for Laura and just needs to be cleaned out.
-Working on price quotes for the networking equipment to go into the new
building in the spring. I
-Working with Computer Associates on the necessary information
for the evaluation software we are looking at.
-Installed password protection on some LLO internal web pages.
-Continuing to test IMAP/SSL on a test mail server. This is working flawlessly
so far. In fact, it has been more reliable than the standard IMAP software on
our Solaris mail server.

Hanford:
(Christine)
- Worked on setting up the Video conferencing system on a new computer.
- Met with Daniel Sigg, Dave Barker and Greg Mendell to discuss comments
to a Laboratory wide Security document for NSF being written by Albert
Lazzarini. I am combining our comments into one change packet for
Albert.
- Researched problems with Solaris 8 Adminsuite software not properly
adding new user accounts in the NIS+ tables.

(Larry)
-I was contacted by NoaNet to inform me that they are still working on getting
more information for us in relation to getting a OC3 connection to the
Laboratory.

CIT:
(Mike)
-Reloaded three laptops from the loaner group with all General Computing
software and created a ghost images.
-Pherkab users were having problems connecting to the workdir.
It turned out to be a permission problem; I undid the share and created the
new share and the appropriate permissions.
-Loaded a NTSRV 4.0 to host the Amaldi and Cajagwr websites.
-Ken Mailand was having problems with his computer OS acting up.
I reloaded on top of current OS and so far things to be okay.
-Problems getting ALGOR to run a certain analysis, I have reloaded ALGOR
software with current update and this seems not to correct the problem. We
are contacting ALGOR to try and resolve this issue. One problem was resolved
by moving the data directly to the computer and off of the network.
-Reloaded a PC with new OS and General Computing software to get ready for
a guest computer.

(Veronica)
- Installed the October newsletter.
- Posted various updates to the LIGO website (Internal Bulletin Board; LSC
MOU's; Fellowships/Faculty opening postings; LIGO Conference participations)
- Updated the CaJAGWR webpages; working with John Armstrong of JPL on
the schedule of talks for the next term. The schedule is to be finalized
as the prospective speakers provide their input. Still waiting for the
security clearance to post the video of the talk by the JPL LISA team.
- Posted various updates to the Project Science webpages; worked with
Larry and Mike on configuring the NT host server. Fixed the database for
application submission.
- Together with Mike and Larry, made changes suggested by Barbara to the
scripts of the DCC database. Will meet with Barbara to discuss what
further changes need to be made.
- Will discuss with Thomas and others involved the implementation of the
LIGO Roster database.

(Lisa)
- Moved calendars off of gsparc. Tested the calendar-to-web interface. Made
appropriate script changes.
- Installed a first cut at a web based inventory system on vega. It still needs
some code modifications.
- Resolved scp and sftp problems with beli in the synchatron.
- Installed forte compilers on gemma.
- Helped Peter Shawhan resolve some p-card printing problems.
- Installed RAM for Melody on a blade100.
- Resolved a wireless problem on a laptop. It turned out to be a conflict with
the Cisco VPN software. With the Orinoco network adapters, it really matters in
what order the network adapters get installed. There is also a new 11/01 beta
driver and firmware update for the adapters that help resolve the known,
intermittent conflict with 3com lan cards.

(Larry)
-Resolved a number of procurement issues. Purchased a number of PC's and laptops
for different users on the project.
-Spent a little time with Mike working on video conferencing for the laptops.
We've been able to resolve most of the issues but it still likes headphones may
be needed in some cases to avoid audio feed back.
-Worked with Lisa on the calendar move. With this move we should be able to shut
gsparc down and trade it in. The calendar move appears to have gone well so far.
-Worked a number of WEB server issues. Changing existing configurations and
debugging a few issues as well as working on the logistics for yet another web
server.
-The new home directory server had some problems during testing. One of the disk
partitions became corrupted. It has been repaired but the test period has been
extended to make sure things are OK. There are still a few more modifications
needed on the server before we move the disks over. The plan is to make the move
at the end of the second week of December.
-Working on a number of Policy documents. Some of them are on the process of
being reviewed by Albert and Gary. Once they are approved will get them into the
DCC and post them on the web.

LIGO II/Advanced R&D (Sanders)

Advanced LIGO PSL
Peter King
A meeting has been arranged with Stanford and Lightwave Electronics
to obtain what the Stanford requirements are for a 20-W laser. There
appear to be some concerns by Lightwave about upgrading the laser, which
they see as requiring another amplifier.

Modelling and Testing for proposed Prototype Suspensions
Calum Torrie
Pre-prototype work started in workshop. I have also started to take weekly workshop classes.
Janeen and I had a very interesting conference call with Giles Hammond where we discussed the background and the development of the stiff blades.
Norna Robertson, who is currently at Stanford, and I have been looking at updating the triple pendulum model from GEO. The idea is to bring it up to the same version number as the quadruple model.
Have preliminary experimental results on existing blades from work with Eoin Elliffe. Currently checking these results against theory.

Suspension Modeling
Mark Barton
The last two weeks I prepared delivered a presentation on my suspension
model at the modelling telecon, gave Phil intensive coaching on how to
use it, made a triple pendulum version and two toy versions, tracked down
better default parameters than the ones I had, extracted the mode
frequencies from the Matlab model and have been tracking down
discrepancies. The correspondence is pretty good but not perfect, so I've
been disabling bits of the extra physics in my fully 3D version to be
sure where the differences are coming from and that they're innocuous.

Contamination Cavity
Bill Kells
With L. Cardenas we are continuing efforts to get the contamination
station(s) in the OTF up and running , back to the point where they
were routinely being used for materials studies by JC and DL.

Lee Cardenas
I have re-aligned the incoming beam into the Contamination chamber, the beam is sweeping across the cavity and its output is detected clearly as a gaussian beam. Bill should be able to lock it easily now.

Core Optics
Bill Kells
Have started up significant "cognizance" on the Adv Ligo
Optics. Picked up on several of the issues discussed at
last weeks telecon. One was the question of whether the
strae seen in the Sapphire test piece (m and a acis) OPD
maps are bulk or surface effects. With Garilynn, we obtained
and examined series of maps with the optic rotated in few
degree increments. The manner in which the apparent stare positions
change with angle can identify bulk or surface location of
the index anomalies. The general situation is complex. But it
can be definitively said that the strae we are predominantly
bulk effects. However it cannot be ruled out that some, even
significant, portion might be at a surface.

@ Pasadena
Charlotte
Measuring thermal conduction of existing glassy metal and maraging
samples.

Charlotte, Riccardo, Gianni
Designing reed (diving board) Q-factor measuring setup between 2 and
400oK, calculating double oscillator support geometry to achieve
sufficient reed mechanical isolation factors within the 2.5cm diameter,
7.5 cm length available sample volume.
Testing some shadow meter components.
Preparing a coarse glassy metal stress strain measurement.
Creep measurement ongoing. Problems with data transfers due to
firewalls.
Received all mechanical parts to upgrade the creep measurement setup.
New electronics still lags. Anycase installation of new components will
have to wait for end of present measurement.

Charlotte, Bill Johnson, Jan, Riccardo
Preparing melt and spin cast of ribbons optimized for mirror suspensions
(non magnetic, high yield, high internal Q-factors).

Riccardo, Hareem
LVDT paper ready to be submitted to NIM, will appear under P010035-00-D

Also previously submitted
Szabi
Submitted “Anatomy of the Seismic Attenuation System for TAMA300(TAMA
SAS)” for Amaldi conference proceeding, P010034-00-D
Akiteru
Submitted “Mirror Suspension System for the TAMA SAS” for Amaldi
conference proceeding, P010033-00-D
Riccardo
Submitted “Path-finding towards a cryogenic interferometer for LIGO” for
Amaldi conference proceeding, P010032-00-D
Virginio, Giancarlo
Completing MGASF theory paper.

@ Pisa
Francesco, Riccardo
Organizing University of Pisa/LIGO grad student exchanges, there might
be students available for different locations in LIGO and or Virgo/LIGO.
Please enquire if you need a student.

Alessandro, Riccardo, Francesco
Ultra Sound Milling Machine will be built by Faimond and paid in
partnership with INFN and INFM of Italy, the machine will reside and be
further developed in the INFM locals of Universita’ di Pisa. It will
produce sapphire flex joints for LIGO. Other INFM scientists to join
the development.

Alessandro, Riccardo, Franco Frasconi, Gianni
Refurbishing an old Virgo stress strain machine for precision
measurements of elastic and Poisson modulus, hysteresis and yield points
in Glassy metals.

Alessandro, Riccardo
Tested thinning of glassy metal ribbons by electro-polishing and
successfully thinned existing 30 micron ribbons to 10 microns.
Developing differential etching to shape the flex joint; failed with
conventional photoresist available in house and gold plating, will
procure ad hoc photoresist and solve the problem. Testing different
brazing techniques.

Alessandro, Riccardo, Gianni
Engineering flex joint structure for mirror hook-up.

@ Hongo
Akiteru et al.
Starting with the one tower TAMA-SAS Michelson measurement. Will get
some results soon.
Riccardo going to Hongo next week to assist on second tower
commissioning.

11/15-21	Packages	Faxes
In	29	26
Out	6	41

11/26-28	Packages	Faxes
In	21	15
Out	8	29

CR-010011 Revision D	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.	P. Lindquist
CR-010013 Revision A	WBS 1.4.3.3	Realign budgets for LIGO Data Analysis and Computing. This is a zero-sum change request.	P. Lindquist
CR-010014	WBS 1.1.4	Additional budget to complete Livingston Staging Building.	G. Stapfer/ P. Lindquist

Weekly Report for Week Ending November 29, 2001

Special Announcements:

LSC Issues (Weiss)

LIGO I Construction/LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)