Weekly Report for Week Ending January 24, 2002

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  January 28, 2002 will be:

 (Meeting time: 10:30 am Pacific Time)

Open meeting 10:30 - 11:30

1. Announcements
2. LSC Issues (Weiss)
3. Comments on Weekly Report
4. WBS 1 LIGO I Construction (Lindquist)
• Field Change Orders/Contingency Liens/Change Requests
5. WBS 2 LIGO Lab Operations
• Administration (Lindquist)
• Sites (Raab, Coles, Shoemaker, Sanders)
• Detector (Whitcomb, Coyne)
• Campus Research Facilities (Weinstein (40 Meter), Libbrecht (TNI), Zucker(LASTI))
• Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)
6. WBS 3 and 4  Advanced R&D and LIGO II (Sanders)

Special Items:

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights
 

http://blue.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ilog/pub/ilog.cgi?group=detector&date_to_view=01/22/2002&anchor_to_scroll_to=2002:01:22:04:25:36-rana
The 4k has full lock for the first time!! (albeit for only 1-2 seconds typically)
 

The common servo now works on the 2k IFO with full lock and reduces the noise at 150 Hz by a factor of 10: See
http://blue.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ilog/pub/ilog.cgi?group=detector&date_to_view=01/20/2002&anchor_to_scroll_to=2002:01:21:00:24:49-peterF
 

LSC Issues (Weiss)

no report

LIGO I Construction/LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

LIGO Operations--Administration

A Site Teleconference was held on Thursday, January 24, 2002.  Discussion centered on the status FY 2002 costs-to-date, of NSF funding and the Cooperative Agreement, the establishment and budgeting of FY 2002 accounts, the FY 2002 Financial Reporting format, as well as the status of the construction at the two sites.  We have scheduled a meeting Friday, January 25 with the Office of Sponsored Research and Finance to discuss our approach to tracking and returning budget to cover charges made against FY 2001 accounts while we wait for the FY 2002 funds.

A "lessons learned" session for the E7 run is scheduled for the time slot normally held by the Executive Committee Meeting on Monday, February 4.  The 24/7 Operations session is moved from February 7 to February 14 during the site teleconference.

A new action has been assigned concerning the location of the Weber Bar displays at the two sites.

The list of current actions revised to reflect the status of open actions assigned through January 24, 2001 may be found at ACTION LIST.

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

• Nothing Significant to report.

>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

• Processed three file boxes of documents from Fred Asiri's office.  Found lots of historical documents that the DCC didn't yet have.  Some of these papers were of contracts and agreements.

REMINDER TO LIGO STAFF:   Please continue to submit documents in a timely manner.  Inheriting volumes of paper months or years down the road puts a tremendous strain on the limited resources of the DCC to process and make accessible documents that are important for retrieval.
• Processed 11 DCN's for distribution and electronic archiving.
• Participated in a "gang of five" meeting to create a LIGO policy manual and orientation process for new hires.
•  Continued the task of scanning the last few months of the IFIS reports.
• Continued work on an article for the February LIGO newsletter.

ACTIVITY

• Scanned a handful of publication documents for electronic access.
• Copied and distributed 8 DCN's.
• Quite a stack of electronic documents were processed for this period.
• Assisted in the clearing out of Fred Asiri's old office.  Still in progress...

 

01/24/02	Packages	Faxes
In	27	32
Out	09	32

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

Press here for ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY DATA .

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

• Working on change orders and transferring funds on FY2001 accounts to FY2002 accounts trying to make both changes in one step when both changes apply.  Transferred funds on MIT, Air Liquide, Praxair, and NYMA.  completed change orders on Coastal Bridge, GP Manufacturing, MIT, and Praxair.
• Working on several no-cost extensions and transfers of funds on FY2001 accounts to FY2002 accounts.

• The Fabrication Accounts for Fiscal Year 2002 Operations have been set-up.  An e-mail was sent notifying staff of the new numbers.
• Cost Transfers have been submitted to move enough costs from 2001 Operations to 2002 Operations so that the current over-spent amount (Budget less Inception-to-date Expenditures) in the Fiscal Period 2001 Operations is eliminated and to leave budget available for anticipated expenditures against current Open Encumbrances related to Fiscal Period 2001 Operations. The process to be used in making these Cost Transfers was discussed in a tele-conference held with Dick Seligman, Phil Lindquist, Ed Jasnow and myself on Tuesday afternoon, January 22, 2002.
• Submitted requests for corrections of P-card entries posted to incorrect Expenditure Type.
• Submitted Cost Transfers and P-card correction requests to move certain R&D costs to Task  # 5.10 in the new FY02 Award.
• Numerous corrections were required because the delay in setting-up the Fabrication Accounts resulted in many Purchase Orders being set-up in incorrect POETA's.  This has resulted in a great deal of extra work for Dorothy, Ruth, Gina and Esther.

 
• The reports can be found at: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport

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

• Request for Information (RFI)/VME DAC: The package was released to 5 qualified firms. Responses are due first week of February.
• Wave Precision: CO No. 14, adding a requirement for polishing two additional Suprasil substrates, is in Detector review.
• MIT: CO No. 15, adding funds through Feb. 28th, was released by Purchasing.

CONSTRUCTION:

• Installation of the seats in the auditorium of the LLO Staging Building has been delayed due to the necessity of changing the lights from fluorescent to incandescent.  It is expected that this delay should be minimum.
• High winds have slowed construction of the LHO OSB East Building.  Since they are ahead of schedule, however, this will have no impact.  The steel is scheduled to be delivered on time on February 11.

• A laser safety incident at LLO has resulted in everyone being taken off the access list to undergo re-training and an awareness-raising regarding safety.
• The laser safety interlock systems at both sites are undergoing installation delays.  These should be resolved shortly.

SUPPORT

• Processed the paper work for one (1) new/revised trip.  I have nine (9) trips in various stages of completion before ticketing can be done and paper work completed.
• Completed seven (7) Expense Reports and there are five (5) reports yet to be done.  I'm not holding any reports requiring checks to close at this time.  I have two (2) 2001 trips still outstanding.  Each traveler has been contacted and I'm told they are on the way.
• Reconciled ten (10) items on my P-Card, requiring numerous telephone calls to vendors to track down which traveler incurred each charge.
• There is a meeting schedule for Friday (1/25) with Montrose to cover numerous concerns and requirements for LIGO.  I'll keep everyone posted as new information becomes available to me.
• Worked on the preparation and distribution of the Travel/Vacation Itineraries for January 22, 2002.  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.

• Continued concentrating on transferring contracts, blankets and POs to FY02 POETAs with Ruth and Gina. It appears that after we  (Gina and I) had transferred a number of  40M purchase orders over and had input a number of new reqs for the 40M using the POETA that we were given by Florence, the number was changed once again to a fabrication number.  Hence, these orders have/are being redone for the 3rd time. There are approximately 20 invoices still on  hold pending the transfers, and invoices still coming in daily.
• Esther and I processed a little over 63 invoices, most after the FY02 transfers were made. I tracked and followed up on some other invoice problems.
• Approximately 18 new  reqs (no change orders) were processed this week, with Gina working them in between the FY02  transfers.
• Jim continues to work for the DCC in the mornings and with me in the afternoons.

• Ensured that recently scanned LSC documents are available for web posting, passed info onto V. Kondrashov.
• Continue to collect responses to the test LIGO Roster, as well as new additions for the roster.
• Completed the electronic travelers to accompany 51 boards that will ship from Wilson House.  Prepared a few more travelers for boards to ship from Bridge.
• Distributed to the Science group an article written by Malik Rakhmanov, however I ran out of reprints.  Malik to send me more so that I can complete the distribution.  Updated the distribution list with input from S. Whitcomb.
• Collected info from LSC Computing committee members on availability for a standing meeting.  Submitted the results to A. Lazzarini.  Arranged for a telecon for the Inertial Damping group, after requesting phone numbers.
• Updated site trips.  Placed a few Pcard orders, some of them the first orders for valves and such that will be part of the SEI system..

Advanced LIGO (Frey)

Progress Period from 01.18 to 01.24

Accomplishments:

Out of office on the 21st.

Weekly Advanced LIGO Project Controls meeting was not held this week.  Sent out request to schedule a date for January as requested by Gary Sanders.  Still waiting for date to be set.

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.
• PSL - Issued cost and resource loaded reports and awaiting comments.  Next meeting date has not been scheduled.
• AOS - Work on action items continues.  Inputting / reviewing data provided by David S.  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.  Met with Janeen and Helena and discussed the budget for FY 2002.  Janeen will be releasing an email to management regarding her budget issues.
• SEI - Work on action items continues.  Next meeting date has not been scheduled.
• ISC - Continue to review data.
• All other subsystems have yet to be scheduled for their first review.  These dates are pending per direction from Gary Sanders and Dennis Coyne.

• Nothing new to report.

• Nothing new to report.

• Nothing new to report.

• ROSTER DATABASE:
• Continued work on procedures for data gathering.
• COST BOOK DATABASE:
• Working on reports with BK and will finish next week.
• Continue review of changes and updates to procedures / online help.
• Cost Calculation Review is completed and all numbers match.  Cost rules are documented.
• Mapping and formatting of OPS cost data for input on hold pending finalization of co-operative agreement.

Followed-up on incident with Primavera regarding actual finish dates for finish milestones being dropped from the update files through email. (No Change or Solution yet).

Development of the Advanced LIGO Project Controls Guidebook continues.

Project Web Site for posting schedule and progress related data continues to be updated with the latest and greatest.

• See http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/index.html

Next weekly Advanced LIGO Project Controls meeting to be scheduled.  Date to be set for month of January.

Advanced LIGO MRE Proposal (Highest Priority Task)

• Highest priority is the development of the Cost Estimate.
• Will continue to pursue all other sub system schedules.
• PSL - Will schedule next meeting.
• AOS - Continue inputting changes to and prepare for next meeting TBD. (New data from David to be input).
• IO - Continue inputting changes to and prepare for next meeting TBD.
• SUS - Continue inputting changes to and prepare for next meeting TBD.  Will continue working with Janeen to prepare her budget discussions with management.
• SEI - Continue inputting changes and prepare for next meeting TBD.
• COC - Work on action items by Garilynn continues.  Anticipate schedule changes prior to next meeting TBD.
• ISC - Finish review of data.  Input data and change WBS as requested.
• Will issue updated meeting minutes for every subsystem as action items from most recent review are completed.

• Will update the plan with progress as of 02.01.02 and  post to site by the 7th.

• Will update the plan with progress as of 02.01.02 and  post to site by the 7th.

• Will update the plan with progress as of 02.01.02 and  post to site by the 7th.

• Will continue work on actions items.

• Will continue ops cost data input when available.
• Will continue to work with BK importing data and executing action items.

Will continue the development of the Advanced LIGO Project Web Site.

Will continue the development of the Advanced LIGO Project Controls Guide Book.

We are doing a standard Annual Report for the Construction Project as of the end of November.  I have received contributions and am working on the report, although this effort has been interrupted to respond to DCAA Audit questions.

The following change request has been submitted:
 

Press for the latest Contingency Needs Projection.

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

• I am setting up a LIGO key database.
• Helped when needed with various accounting details .
• Various personnel/payroll /HR related work.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

No report this week.
 

LIGO Hanford Observatory (LHO) Operations (Raab)

Commissioning:
--------------
 

We have had two nice successes by the commissioning team. (See details below in detector reports, or read the elog.) The noise-equivalent displacement of the 2-kilometer interferometer was improved by a factor of ~5 across the broad band of frequencies, relative to the E7 performance level. As we speak, work is ongoing to understand and mitigate electronics noise from the ETM controllers, which limit performance below ~500 Hz. Those who wish to feel good can note that this puts us within a factor of 100 of design sensitivity above 1 kHz. Those who wish to feel ambitious can note that we have a factor of 10,000 to go at 100 Hz. On the 4-kilometer front, we have seen locking times exceeding 10 minutes in the power-recycled configiuration - a great step forward for shaking down the digital suspension controllers.
 

We are preparing to boost the laser power into the interferometer to near-design levels, with only a little extra reserve to assure constant operating conditions. This will not directly affect the light detected at the antisymmetric port, due to a scarcity of diodes. However this will get the recycling-cavity components "hot" - closer to the self-focussing levels for which we selected mirror curvatures. Our hope is that this will shrink the size of the recycled sideband light and stabilize the carrier/sideband overlap.
 

Once again, we are plagued by high wind conditions that make it impossible to lock anything but the mode cleaners, and they are shaking like crazy.
 

Construction:
-------------
 

Activity has ramped down on the construction, because of a gain against schedule for the foundation and slab work. The next big activity will be delivery of the structural steel which is holding to the Feb 11 date of the original schedule.
 

General:
--------
 

F. Raab visited Salish-Kootenai College (SKC) in beautiful Pablo, MT to coordinate (1) a proposal for SKC to join the LIGO Science Collaboration and (2) outreach efforts within the Native-American community in the Northwest. The plan is for Prof. Tim Olson of SKC to propose joining the LSC at the Livingston LSC meeting in March.
 

LIGO Livingston Observatory (LLO) Operations (Coles)

LDAS
*Removed ssh v1 from dataserver.
* Made current frames available again at LLO.
* Studied first 2 chapters from DB2 Administration Guide: Implementation.
* Installed DB2 administration server and control center on my desktop to play. Learning how to backup database with these tools.
(Igor Yakushin)

GC: Hooked up and tested a wireless link to the new building to provide support during the LSC meeting. This seems to be satisfactory so that we will not to terminate the fiber in the network room in a hasty way in order to meet the LSC schedule. Investigating  options outside of Bellsouth for a high speed connection to LSU. I have a promising lead that I am working on with a local Baton Rouge company that should be significantly cheaper than BellSouth.

Working on a failed rack mount computer. I believe that the power supply died. This is a problem because it is my development web server and this contains a database that is quite important for Rai Weiss and the commissioning effort. (Shannon Roddy)

PEM: Started working on getting the site's weather stations up to standard which includes installing soil temperature probes (part of the suite of sensors in the standard LSU packet weather station), properly mounting the rain gauges, running power to the end stations towers, and dressing up of the rats nest of signal cabling.
OTHER: Scheduling crane and forklift operation training for unqualified personnel. Scheduling our annual crane (6 ea.) inspections.  (Rich Riesen)

Interferometer: We measured the frequency noise of the PSL with respect to the mode cleaner and found that the new acoustic isolation chamber results in about a factor of 5 reduction in the frequency noise at the resonant frequency (~200 Hz) of the periscope. There is about 25 dB of acoustic isolation at that frequency, so some of the what's driving the periscope must be coming in through structural vibration (we think). There is still some work to do on the isolation enclosure, so things may improve slightly. Some clamps and seals are yet to be installed around the chamber access ports.

Safety: Some changes are being observed in the procedures governing access to the IOT/ISC tables in order to reduce the likelihood of future laser safety problems. Consequently, if you have been previously listed as a registered laser operator at LLO, you have had your name removed from the access list pending the opportunity for to you to make a walkthrough with Jonathan. He will bring you up to speed on these changes. We'll do this individually as your schedule/visit permits. Just be sure to see him for a half hour or so before accessing the tables and your privileges will be restored.
 

Detector/Technical Support (Whitcomb, Coyne)

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

1.1 LHO INSTALLATION & COMMISSIONING

2km Commissioning

With the ETM control signals reduced by offloading onto the other paths in the CM servo, we were able to engage a second stage of the dewhitening filters that are meant to reduce LSC DAC noise. Happily, the interferometer can withstand the switching transient most of the time, but we saw no improvement in the noise,  indicating that we are not presently limited by DAC noise in the LSC system.

Some improvement was made in the noise above 1 kHz as well. Here we were limited by ADC noise and we circumvented that by increasing the input gain in the DARM loop (and decreasing them downstream).

With these improvements, the displacement sensitivity is about 5x lower than it was during E7. Presently, we suspect we are limited by very high noise levels measured at the ETM coil monitors.

##Stan says:  Congratulations to Peter, Nergis and Daniel for getting this complex servo operating.  It really breaks new ground for us!##

4 km Commissioning

Several things were done to get the 4k locking: the coil drivers's current drive was increased; light levels, signal gains and phases on all detection ports were adjusted; lock acquisition parameters were measured; mirror drives were balanced...

(Many thanks to Rana for getting the 4km interferometer locking!!!)

1.2LLO INSTALLATION & COMMISSIONING

4 km Commissioning

There is a continuing effort to understand the sources of the noise and the transfer function of the electronics. Findings this week:

• The noise above 1kHz in the recombined interferometer as configured for the E7 run is due to the photodetector electronics and can be reduced by increasing the light power.
• A possible explanation for our inability to switch in the two stages of dewhitening after the D/A converter and still hold interferometer lock is a ringing or spike generated in the digital filter when switched. A software strategy to make the transition more gradual is being devolped.

A histogram of the integral distribution of the rate/day of peak seismic velocities and the rms seismic velocities in the 1-3 Hz band over several months has been made. This is needed to help set specifications for the active seismic isolators being planned for Livingston.

2.0 OtherEngineering and Scientific Activities

2.1 Design/Analysis/Fab

Modeling

We want to write down all the important features in a final draft.

I also made some additional tests using the FFT-code in order to validate some results I have been achieving by Melody just to be sure that certain properties are note related with the kind of simulation code I am using.

In particular I have been investigating how "the choice" of the parameters characterizing the driving beam has an impact on the behaviour of the sidebands.

Optics Fabrication and Testing

Lee Cardenas
Alignment and mode match  to the 2nd contamination cavity completed.  Cavity is well aligned as one can only see no more that two higher modes.  The cavity is resonating in a TEMoo mode as right now.  The input power is 125mW and the output power is ~ 1.5 mW so far.   More sensitive alignment will be made once we place a photodiode detector for transmission and another one for reflectance.  We still have low power transmission even though the cavity is resonating in a Gaussian mode.  As compared with the 1st. Contamination cavity,  one can see easily in this 2nd cavity the power output on the infrared sensor card which it did not happened with the 1st cavity.  Both Cavities are well aligned.  We (Mr. Liyuan and I) encounter one situation for the 2nd cavity as we did not know for sure where is the flat mirror sitting, Is it at the input or output side of the cavity since old note records shows drawing for both places.  The paper for this experiment shows the flat mirror to be at the entrance so we modematch the beam waist to the front of the flat mirror. (We did modematch to the output side mirror but we encounter with so many higher modes so decided for the front mirror).

PSL

The output of NPRO #332 was measured in preparation for its installation in 10-W laser #118.  The output of the laser was measured to be 530 mW. Fortunately the output does not require any adjustment of the cylindrical lenses inside the 10-W laser.

The 1-W NPRO, S/N 393 was returned to Lightwave Electronics for repair under RMA 4201.

Lee Cardenas
I am in process of making the jacket insulator for the Ref. Cavity chambers (three of them) with foam fiber insulator and fabric material as final cover as i mentioned above. The materials has been ordered.

Another situation came up.   I have mentioned before that the Laser  NPRO power supply does not read the power output that the manufacture specifies.  I have approached Lightwave and they faxed to me the procedure to fix this situation.  But I could not calibrate the output power.  Peter King and I encounter this same situation with another Laser NPRO  power supply and we couldn't calibrate it.  I will get in touch again with Lightwave and find the final solution.

Rick Karwoski
Four VCOs (GEO, LHO spare, LASTI spare, Lauritsen) are tested.  Traveler preparation in process.

40 m Bake Chamber

Bob Taylor have ordered some more foam insulator(Polyimide fiber good at 550F ~260C temp.)  for the new bake ovens.  Blankets to cover this foam insulator made of Nomex Aramid fabric which has good temp., Chemical, tear and abrasion resistance. Max. temp 600F ~315C has been ordered.  This same fabric will be used to cover the Polyimide fiber insulator foam for the Ref. Cavity Chambers.

CDS/DAQ

• Began work again on CDS portion of computer security document; still trying to sort out all the connections required by DMT machines at sites and provide both security and ease of use.
• Hongyu just completed upgrades to dataviewer to read 16sec frame files directly.  Initial testing done here.  New code will be passed to Barker at LHO for online testing before we switch over.
• Alex added test points to the frame TOC on frames generated by the framebroadcaster.

Digital Suspension Controls

• Received the new SOS Coil Driver Boards from the board house. They should be stuffed and ready for test by 2/2/02. Following test they will be shipped to LHO and for installation.
• Installed DAQ monitoring of LHO 4K ETM coil signals. An as built drawing has been done and will be submitted to DCC after it is checked.

LSC/ASC

• Finished two more RFPDs, one at 29.495 MHz and one at 24.495 MHz.  They will be shipped to Nathan at LHO.
• Prepared and sent to PCB manufacturing a variable gain amplifier prototype board to be used on the present version of the MC servo.  The proto board will be attached as a daughter card onto the existing servo if it works and will allow bounceless variation of gain in the MC length path.

• I am testing the ISC Fanout board and I am collecting the information for the next version of our board.
• And I have also designed a prototype circuit board eventually to replace our VGA stage in the Mode Cleaner Servo. It will be tested to see whether it meets our gain range.
• Photon Calibrator board has been tested and put in the box which we received from MIT and I need to take some measurements with the whole set up at the Lauritson Lab.

• For the ASC code upgrade and future developments, we are trying to standardize digital filter code.  An initial write up and sketch were distributed for comment.  I am incorporating comments to date and putting the info into a more detailed tech document for review.
• Lori is working on ASC code upgrades.  She will be working on this proposed generic digital filter code first, as it will be plugged into the new ASC code for testing.

EO Shutter Controller

Antialiasing Filter Chassis

Seismic Signal Processor

Data Monitoring Tool

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

• PSL (Abbott, Ugolini, Vass, Smith, King):
• Peter King brought a spare 700 mW NPRO, and Dennis and Steve swapped our dying one for the spare while Peter watched. After a day of tuning the internal optics, the exit beam is back up to 10.8 watts.
• Now we need to get a BeamScan so that we can survey the beam before making our extensive mods to the PSL table layout, including new mode matching lenses and new layout for the beam diagnostics.
• Lee Cardenas plans to install the reference cavity heater and insulation on Friday.
• Ben will make sure that all electro-optical components are isolated from the PSL table ground.
• Mode cleaner sensing and control:
• ISC TABLES (Smith): A majority of purchased parts for the IO, IMC_R, IMC_T beams have been ordered. Quotes are being obtained for the LIGO-designed mechanical parts. After discussions with Mike Z., additional steering mirrors will be added to the ISC beam paths to enable steering into the spectrum analyzers on the ISC tables.
• VAC MIRROR MOUNTS (Smith): A request was sent to Dynamic Light Control for a modified version of the vacuum compatible 2in mirror mounts. A fixed vacuum compatible 2in mirror mount is being designed.
• ILLUMINATOR (Smith): Chamber illuminators will be placed outside each of the chambers to illuminate the optical components on the optical tables inside the vacuum chambers. Mounting flanges will be designed for the 40m chamber viewports.
• Suspension controllers (Ben Abbott, Jay Heefner):
• The suspension wiring diagrams are being improved with parts intelligence for the cabling, which lends itself to a from/to list for cable running. Electronics for the 40m suspensions are still moving along. I have updated my list of all the parts, and I am working with Todd Etzel to keep the flow going, and to start transporting the remaining modules over to the 40m.
• CDS systems:
• Jay has generated purchase orders for CDS equipment needed for 40m ISC: XVME220's, VMIC 5579 reflective memories, ADCs, DACs, AA filters, DEI HV pulsers, HV power supplies, IFR signal generators, PCB mounts.
• Jay is thinking out the timing system and the reflective memory system.
• Rich and Ben are thinking out he RF distribution system.
• AJW and Mike Smith are thinking out the video system, with advice from Mike Zucker.
• South Annex Bake oven chambers (Vass, Taylor, Cardenas): Bob is preparing the clean and bake of the Fluorel parts for the in-vacuum cable clamps.
• Bill Tyler and Caz Scislowitcz brought a fire consultant to the 40m Lab yesterday. This was a follow up of the last safety audit that deals with treating fire without damaging our delicate electronics and optics.
• Facilities (Vass, Jones, Smith, AJW):
• Allen Sibley will send us a purge air system to allow us to vent the 40m with clean dry air, and overpressure it during installation.
• We received 7 of the 9 optical viewports from Cascade Optical; they scratched some of the others, and have to repolish them. The tilted flanges for these windows are completed at CES.
• We have all of the connectors and feedthrough flanges for the in-vacuum cabling. Todd Etzel will have the first batch of 8 cables built for cleaning and baking.
• Larry is assembling loads of in-vacuum equipment (assembled cables, feedthrough flanges, cable clamps, optical port flanges & windows, hardware) to be shipped to Hanford for clean and bake.
• Larry has completed his conversion of hundreds of IDEAS mech drawings to ACad.
• We continue to shoot for installing the 2 remaining seismic stacks, all in-vacuum cables, clamps, feedthroughs, optical ports in March.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

no report

LASTI (Zucker)

no report

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)

Weekly Physics meeting
-----------------------
Biplab talked about the locked state of LIGO with all its in-bulit parameters that cause
spatial modal mismatches. Details available at http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~e2e

LIGO I simulation system
--------------------------
(Matt) I have designed and built a LOS suspension model (with digital controller and 3D
mirror).  I am currently collecting parameters for the LOS model and will begin testing
today or tomorrow.

Locked LIGO: as it gets hotter
-------------------------------
(Biplab) After locking the cold state LIGO with all its in-built parameters, progress is
being made in studying the locked states as the IFO heats up, by mimicking the effect of
thermal lensing as an equivalent reduction in the refractive index of the input mirrors.
Preparing for consistency checks with FFT runs.

Mechanical Simulation
----------------------
Hiro and Virginio talked about the strategy of the development of mechanics simulation.
We concluded that the highest priority is to finish Virginio's stack model based on the
first version of MSE. This stack model will serve to evaluate various ideas to suppress
the low frequency seismic noise, which is a serious problem at both sites.

After this is completed, Virginio will switch to the new version of MSE. Right now, we
still reserve a possibility to adopt a completely new mechanics simulation code. This
strongly depends on the availability of time of Geancarlo Cella, the author of MSE.
Whatever an appropriate path will be chosen so that a realistic LIGO I suspended mirror
can be simulated in e2e within one year.

Code development and maintenance
---------------------------------
(Hiro) is working on various issues of the simulation code - bug fixes, refinements and
new features. No direct new physics involved, mostly to support Luca, Matt and Bill Butler.

Simulation on CACR
-------------------
(Hiro) We may need to simulate the code with very large number of modes (up to 6 or 8).
This will need 100 times more CPU. And to study various conditions of LIGO (cold, hot,
lock acquisition, in-lock state,..), we need to run many different cases for long time.
To be prepared for it, we tried last year to install e2e on CACR machine. Unfortunately,
in the past, various compiler issues prevented us from completing. Now we are preparing to revisit this
issue again.

Alfi
----
(Bruce) Miscellaneous options implementation:
Smooth Connections, Connections on top, Port reordering, Port and Connection colors
and widths, Menu item enable/disable cleanup etc.

(Melody)
- Continuing on the alfi5 implementation.  Working on the node user modifications.

LIGO Data Analysis System

Software Systems (Blackburn)

Reworked LDAS make and configuration files to allow version labeling of the
shared objects. This will hopefully eliminate the start up issues from having
cached versions of older (out of date) shared objects on the local computers.
In addition, routines were added to expose the version of LDAS to the APIs.

The issue of not being able to generate core files for the purpose of
debugging has been resolved. To make core files possible, new routines have
been exposed to set the core file limit.

The hope for adopting GCC 3.0.3 has evaporated. There are unresolvable issues
with Solaris. A problem report has been filed with GNU.

The eventMonitorAPI had a limitation from not using a sufficient number of
socket servers. The limitation has been removed and the wrapperAPI has been
enhanced to retry several times if the server is unresponsive.

The controlMonitorAPI had some bugs in the job statistics package. These
have been identified and fixed. Work continues on adding a core file
monitoring functionality.

Work continues on separating the disk cache functionality from the frameAPI.
We hope to have the new diskCacheAPI up by the end of the week.

Several issues have been identified with frame selection. Problem reports
have been filed and bugs are being fixed.

The rewrite of the resample functionality found in the dataConditionAPI as
a C code engine so that it can be used in both the frameAPI and the
dataConditionAPI. We are also planning to add an interpolation routine to
the dataConditionAPI once the resample is finished.

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

* HPSS migration from 3590 to 9940 tape drives continues.

* Fixed various breakages in HPSS (deleted core files, restarted
servers, added tapes to storage classes, stuck 9940 tape).

* Worked with StorageTek field service to isolate problem with the
Ultra10 that controls the 9310 silo;memory was reseated and the problem
has not reoccurred (given that the MTBF was weeks, this doesn't mean
that it's solved).

* Tried to find ways to get the hsi ls command to run faster, without
success.  Have begun splitting the HPSS directory
/proj/ligo/frame_archive/LHO/second-trend/archive.notar into
subdirectories with only thousands of files per directory, rather than
10s of thousands.  The goal is to get the LIGO HPSS web page up and
current.

(Al Wilson)

* I got the kickstart build of a 7.2RH system to work. I am now trying to
make it load only the RPM's that ldas uses.

* I am coming up to speed with Big Brother for Ldas

(Stuart Anderson)

* Figured out how to run rsync through an ssh tunnel to allow software
mirroring through gateway machines to private networks.

* Moved to a new office.

* Increased the performance of archiving E7 data from 3.5MB/s to 9MB/s
by buffering files between tape reading, ftp'ing, and checksumming operations,
as well as switching to the parallel HPSS ftp client.

* Performed a final walk through with the electricians who now have
the new 50micron multi-mode fiber to install between the various LDAS
computational sites on the Caltech campus. If this technology works well
at Caltech it will be replicated at LHO and LLO between the
mass-storage rooms and the new buildings being constructed in
preparation for an LDAS move at each site.

* Compiled, tested, and found wanting all recent version of gcc for performance
reasons on file I/O under Solaris.

MIT
---
(Keith Bayer)

* Put T3 into rack
* Connected T3 with fiber to SF880 and tp to 3com switch
* Partitioned T3 and set IP and password using serial cable

Livingston
----------
(Igor Yakushin)

* Removed ssh v1 from dataserver.
* Made current frames available again at LLO.
* Studied first 2 chapters from DB2 Administration Guide: Implementation.
* Installed DB2 administration server and control center on my desktop
to play. Learning how to backup database with these tools.

(Shannon Roddy)

* Scheduled LDAS power shutdown for Thursday Jan 24.

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

* The last set of tapes with LHO full frame E7 data were shipped and
have arrived at Caltech.  All the full frame LHO E7 data is now at
Caltech on tape.

* Started work on configuring the new Sun Fire 880 server.  The
graphics card was installed, a QFS license was obtained, and ssh has
been set up and other services have been turned off.

* A test of fssnap without stopping xntpd was run on tapecontrol. This
was to check if the 109667-04 patch applied on Oct. 18, 2001 had fixed a
problem with running fssnap while xntpd was running. However, the same
problem "snapshot error: File system could not be write locked", still
occurred.

* A faulty disk on t3-14 was been replaced.  Sun sent me a new disk,
which I hot swapped. The data was automatically reconstructed to the new
disk.  This took about 2 hours. This disk was used by the LHO
framebuilder fb0, which continued to write data and took no notice of
the fault or the replacement.  Thus, the T3 handled the disk failure in
a way transparent to the framebuilder, without loss of data, which is
what we want.

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)
P. Shawhan -- Scientific activities:

Participated in discussions about what analysis can be done on the E7 data
without the risk of biasing the final scientific results.

Made a proposal about how to manage the various LDAS databases at LSC
institutions as well as within the LIGO Lab.

Continued to investigate timing discrepancies in the conlog log files
during the E7 run.

Lazzarini - completed first draft of an anallysis with Vicere' and Schofield on modeling and understanding the source of possible transcontinental power mains cross-correlations: LIGO-T010101-00.pdc in DCC.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT:
(Keith)
-Testing new networking hardware for NW22 support
-Troubleshot Access Point problems (bad hub)
-Patched a number of win2000 PC's
-Moved tape drive from NIS+ server over to file server
-Troubleshot VMware software networking issues on laptop
-Investigating run-away print job(s)

Livingston:
(Shannon)
-Hooked up a wireless link to the new building.
-Investigating options outside of bellsouth for a high speed connection to LSU.
I have a promising lead that I am working on witha  local Baton Rouge company
that should be significantly cheaper than BellSouth.
-Working on a failed rack mount computer. I believe that the power supply died.
This is a problem because it is my developement web server and this contains
a database that is quite important for Rai Weiss and the commissioning
effort.

(Tom)
-Investigated a couple of network performance issues. Still working
on the PIX setup with LSU.

Hanford:
(Christine)
- Discussed network security policies and configurations between GC and
CDS networks with Dave Barker.
- Created several new user accounts.
- Helped users with pcard installation issues.  Helped users with
Netscape encryption issues.  Helped users with Norton Antivirus
liveupdate problems.
- Started setting up a new guest PC.
- Worked on finances and procurements.

CIT:
(Lisa)
-Worked on the GC inventory scripts.
-Spent time working with ssh agents.
-Rebuilt the hardware on a UltraSparc 10 unit.
-Started to demo the iPlanet calendar server, but that requires LDAP. LDAP
installs pretty easily but the calendar server won't talk to it afterwards.  I'm
still futzing with that.
-Helped Albert debug an email -> web interface script.

(Mike)
-Norton Anti Virus,
I had multiple users that were not able to update their virus scan software
due to the recent upgrade that (ITS. Caltech) has pushed on us. The fix for
this was to un-install the users software then reinstalling the latest
version. On some of the users workstation I had to cleanup the registry in
order to get Live Update to work.
-Solid Works,
I installed solid works on my local workstation to run an upgrade package
that was mailed to all our current users; to test this software on a
non-production workstation, I came across a problem with non-backward
compatibility. After going over the documentation with Dennis Coyne, he
suggested that I hold off on upgrading users in order for him to coordinate
with other campuses make sure this process is done at the same time due to
the non-backward compatibility of Solid Works Plus. Once a drawing is
converted to the Solid Works Plus you cannot open the drawing in then the
previous version of Solid Works and will not give you option to save in
previous formats.
-PC's
Loaded two computers with General Computing Software to use as visitor
workstations.
-User Support,
I had multiple on site and phone support that consisted of network
connectivity, printing problems, software issues.

(Veronica)
-Assisted with the Management conference.
-Worked a number of web page issues.

(Larry)
-Worked a number of procurement issues. The Dell situation is still up in the
air. We should know about our orders in a few days. The relicensing of Matlab is
being reworked, they shorted us a few months on the new contract. Various other
orders were taken care of.
-The single mode fiber installation has finally wrapped up. We've started
working on getting the new equipment setup for the new backbone.
-Finally, finished up this iteration of the General Computing Usage Policy. I
should be sending it out for review today.
-Worked a number of web issues on various web servers.
-Working with Shannon on alternatives for WAN connection at the Livingston
Observatory.
-Just as a reminder that anyone wishing a LIGO account must first get approval
from LIGO management.
-Assisted on the setup for the Management Conference held last week.
-Working a couple of issues with the DCC computing system. A number of tables
are not updating. Solved some of the problems but still have a few more to go.
-Also, working out the logistics with others concerning the changes Caltech
is making concerning site-licensing of software.
 

LIGO II/Advanced R&D (Sanders)

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

CSIRO reports on progress in the area of homogeneity compensation using ion beam etching on sapphire.  You can view a cool example at:

http://ligo.caltech.edu/~gari/Supporting/ionetch.jpg
 

From Rich Abbott:

Finished the prototype of the voice coil driver.  The board was sent to PCB manufacturing house and will be back on 23 Jan.

Had a first look at the capacitance position sensors.  There is a small issue to be resolved with the cabling, but the units seem functional.  Noise plots will be taken next.
 

From: Mark Barton <mbarton@ligo.caltech.edu>

    This week I finally got the comparison between the Mathematica and
Matlab suspension models sorted out to my satisfaction. With the quad
models I had achieved agreement to within a few percent for all mode
frequencies, which is plenty for most practical purposes, so I was
tempted to call it quits. However by rights there should have been at
least four-figure agreement in the key test case and I was only getting
that for the vertical and yaw modes, so I felt bound to keep digging.
 

To be sure that what I was validating against was correct I rederived the
matrix elements for the longitudinal-pitch subproblem in the Matlab using
Mathematica and the recipe in Calum's thesis, and found a number of
discrepancies. Thus I decided to give up on comparing the quad models and
switch to the triples, because the Matlab triple model had been much more
extensively debugged. (In particular, four-figure agreement had been
achieved between it and Matt Husman's Maple model.) I updated my triple
model with the various improvements that I had put in my quad model over
the last few weeks and redid the comparisons. This time I got four-figure
agreement in three subproblems: vertical, longitudinal-pitch and
transverse-roll, with yaw badly wrong. This narrowed down the
disagreement enough that I was able to spot a problem in my model: I had
suppressed the yaw degree of freedom of the blade objects, arguing that
since the blade was so stiff horizontally, it couldn't yaw. That was half
right: it couldn't yaw relative to the mass it was bolted to. But of
course, it could yaw in absolute terms. So the fix was to unsuppress the
blade orientation variables and add more elasticities to cause the blades
to track the supporting objects. And this gave the hoped-for four-figure
agreement all round.
 

The errors in the Matlab quad model that have been discovered so far turn
out to be insignificant in practice because they mostly involve swaps of
quantities that have the same numeric values for typical parameter sets,
e.g., the vertical distances from the centres of mass of objects to the
corresponding wire attachment points (all 1 mm). And the one discrepancy
that did have a non-zero effect only changed the mode frequencies by
about 1%. The transverse-roll matrix elements haven't been checked yet
but I will be working with Calum to rederive them as well.
 

From: ctorrie <ctorrie@ligo.caltech.edu>
Suspensions

Norna Robertson and I are continuing to set up blade and wire tests in the lab.

I have started my weekly workshop class again after missing last weeks.

Janeen and I have been comparing methods and preliminary results with Eoin Elliffe and Russell Jones in Glasgow on modelling a blade. We have been using both ALGOR and I-DEAS.

I have started working with Eoin and Russell in Glasgow on a possible design for the coil formers, coil holders and associated parts for the LASTI prototypes that will come from Glasgow.

The Physics workshop are going to sub contract the cutting of the prototype blades to a company who specialise in wire EDM.

Norna, Mark and I met with Peter and Rich at MIT to discuss the mode frequencies and damping performance Rich presented at last week S.U.S. telecon.

Mark, Norna and I met to discuss a draft report Mark wrote on comparing his Mathmatica model to the existing triple and quadruple model in MATLAB.

The SolidWorks course Janeen and I attended last week was very interesting and productive. Janeen and I now  have SolidWorks 2001plus which comes with a E-drawings package which allows you to send interactive drawings and assemblies to people without SolidWorks.
 

From: Phil Willems <willems@ligo.caltech.edu>

Fused Silica Fiber Research:
----------------------------

We have applied the Mathematica code used to analyze dumbbell-shaped fibers to
the analysis of the pins at the ends of fiber suspensions.  Our results are
substantially in agreement with the analysis of Braginsky, Mitrofanov, and
Tokmakov, with about a 20% discrepancy due to the couple applied to the pin by
the fiber, ignored in the Braginsky analysis.  We then calculated the effect on
our suspension, and we estimate that if the pins have a Q of 500,000, that would
agree roughly with the Q's we measure.

From: Helena Armandula <ahelena@ligo.caltech.edu>

Advanced LIGO Coatings - "Q" measurements

There is a Web page that has all the information on the "Q" substrates. It will be up-dated as changes occur.
http://ligo.caltech.edu/~coreopt/AdLIGO/AdLIGOindex.htm

Four thin and four thick substrates have been shipped from Lyon to Caltech and Glasgow respectively.
With these coated substrates we completed another portion of the SMA/LIGO collaboration.
After all substrates are measured, we'll define the second round of experiments based on the tests results.

From: Helena Armandula <ahelena@ligo.caltech.edu>

Advanced LIGO SUS

Norna and I visited the facilities of Sem-Com. This company, situated in Toledo, Ohio has custom glass melting capabilities.
Sem-Com is very interested in working with LIGO, it is a small family run operation, the president states that they have 20 employees.
They manufacture flat panel display components, vitreous sealants and a variety of frit glass, over 30,000 different compositions.
Because they purchased the glass technology melting operations of Owens-Illinois and brought on board an old employee from that company, they have the equipment and expertise to handle our heavy glass requirements.
Owens-Illinois is a world leading producer of glass and plastics packaging products.

After our visit, my only concern was that we did not see much going on at the place, only 1 or 2 workers, most furnaces idle.

Just in case, I contacted another possible source, Glass Specialty, in Oldsmar, Florida and they are evaluating our specs.
 

From: Riccardo DeSalvo <desalvo@ligo.caltech.edu>

Akiteru, et al.@ Hongo

After applying stronger actuators and fixing the software finding a
signal that approaches the f^-8 diving below 1 at 1.5 Hz.  More precise
measurements to follow.
MSE calculations on angularly stiff wires ongoing.

Hareem, Riccardo @ Pasadena
Setup the new cryo-lab in West Bridge, regenerated carbons in cryo-pump,
restarting the thermal conductivity measurements.
Following creep measurement, increased oven temperature from 60 to 80
centigrades.
Readiing test bench for quick reed Q- factor measurement in WB.

Jan, Bill, Riccardo @ Pasadena
Spin cast of MoRuB sample failed for nozzle problems, suggesting nozzle
modifications to Carnegie Mellon.
Sending FeMoCB glass sample to be spin cast.
Preparing AuSn, and possibly AuSi brazes for test brazes for
stress-strain machine samples and suspension prototypes.  Quick braze
tests to be made in Pasadena.

Riccardo @ Pasadena, Gianni @ Bientina
Updated preliminary design of auxiliary bench for Hongo low frequency
TNI

Alessandro @ Pisa
Refurbished and sent to Hongo a spare horizontal accelerometer.
Converging on vertical accelerometer prototype.
Following Ultra Sound milling machine construction.

Franco @ S. Piero
Preparing stress-strain machine.

G&M @ Lucca
Stress-strain supports to be ready next week.  Q measurement probe to be
ready the week after.

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