Weekly Report for Week Ending March 14, 2002

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  March 18, 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:  MEMO ON TRANSITION TO SCIENTIFIC RUNNING IS BELOW - GHS

Transition to Scientific Running  (LIGO M020136-A-M)

Our prior memorandum (LIGO M010216-A-M) of August 2001, appended below, laid out the strategy for transition from commissioning to scientific operations, and interleaving these operational modes. In this memo, we define the progression of early scientific running in additional detail and create a basis for planning the important data analysis and interferometer commissioning and development work between the scientific running periods.

We have just completed a very successful E7 engineering run, as called for in the attached memo. Analysis of the data from this run and further interferometer commissioning and modification, at least partially based upon the E7 experience, is underway. We have carried out a set of "lessons learned" discussions in the Laboratory Executive Committee meetings, and a discussion with the LSC Executive Committee. The LSC has also held an important teleconference to expose the status of the data analysis effort with the E7 data. The E7 run also involved coincidence running with the GEO 600 interferometer and the Allegro bar detector. We have consulted with our partners in these efforts, as well, regarding accomplishments and the perspective for the future. These have all been quite constructive and the scientific, technical and operational issues have been examined and priorities that guide the next steps have been discussed.

Our overarching mission is to accomplish the scientific reach planned for the LIGO interferometer system and to exploit the system, with the LSC, to accomplish the science. Given this priority, we structure the next steps in the program around the progression of scientific running periods and the scientific reach for each of these periods. The development of the data analysis and detector systems, and the conduct of the scientific data analysis will then be guided by these science runs.

Our plan for the next steps includes:

Following the E7 Engineering Run -

1. The March LSC meeting should be the point at which we reach consensus on the sensitivity and noise curves from E7, as called for in the memo below. This consensus should help us benchmark E7 and the set the mark for the S1 run as we laid out in the earlier memo.

2. By the end of May, the analysis working groups should be able to complete much of the targeted data analysis tasks, as we called for in the memo below.

The Upper Limits Runs S1 and S2 -

3. Given the lessons learned from E7, the remaining high priority interferometer installation and rework tasks, and the goal to initiate science running described below, we will schedule the S1 run to begin at 8:00 am Pacific time on Saturday, June 29 and to be completed at 8:00 Pacific on Monday, July 15. This run will be the joint responsibility of the Laboratory and the LSC. The sensitivity goal is a two site coincidence with 3 interferometers running and the achieved scientific reach (volume searched x observation time in coincidence) should be an order of magnitude better than achieved in the E7 run. At least one interferometer at each site should be operated in the full recycled configuration.

4. The S2 run will have a goal of at least an order of magnitude improvement in scientific reach (volume searched x observation time in coincidence) beyond S1 and should follow successful completion of analysis of the S1 data. Considering the estimated time to carry out the data analysis of the S1 data, and the interferometer commissioning and development tasks, we will schedule the next science run to begin at 8:00 am Pacific Friday November 22, 2002 with completion at 8:00 on Monday, January 6, 2003.

These two runs will complete the upper limit running and the orientation for the LIGO running experience. We believe that this should lead to a broad set of new publishable limits, well beyond what has been previously published.

Extended LIGO Search Runs

5. Installation of the additional seismic filtering at LLO will be scheduled to follow the completion of the S2 run. A plan for the major additional interferometer commissioning, modifications and rework is under development with the goal of supporting the next major science run after S2 in the middle period of 2003. This significant shutdown period will be intended to achieve readiness for an extended science run with a significant step in sensitivity.

6. The S3 run will mark the beginning of true search running, representing a step beyond setting upper limits on selected gravitational wave searches. S3 will be intended to accomplish a real search for gravitational waves with significant astrophysical significance. We expect to schedule S3 to commence about June 27, 2003 and this run will be planned for several months duration.

7. During 2003 and 2004, we will plan to run in this search mode for at least 50% of the calendar time, followed by the planned one year integrated LIGO science run at design sensitivity. This science run will be completed prior to proposed major interferometer replacements.

With this framework, we will now develop a more detailed set of merit figures for setting goals for these runs. These planned runs will now be used to structure the detailed LIGO program plan for LDAS development, detector modeling and diagnosis, interferometer commissioning, modification and revision. This program planning will provide a clear structure for the work involved in interleaving interferometer development and improvement with progressively more ambitious science running.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Prior Memo

LIGO Commissioning and Transition to Scientific Running   (LIGO M010216-A-M)

During the past 18 months, LIGO installation has been essentially completed and commissioning of subsystems and complete interferometers has been initiated. We have achieved first lock in the Hanford 2k interferometer, operated the Livingston 4K in recombined mode, carried out several successful engineering runs, encountered and overcome several technical issues and at least one instance of force majeure. It was very encouraging to observe the reestablishment of lock in the fully recycled mode of the 2k following the extensive rework necessitated by the earthquake and the planned replacement of the suspension optical sensors. Early running of the Hanford 4k mode cleaner with the new sensors, digital controls and higher power is another very positive indication that our commissioning is progressing. Nevertheless, we have a great deal of work ahead in completing the commissioning of the three interferometers and initiating scientific observation.

The plan we established last year called for a coincidence run this year as a significant milestone, for the use of engineering run data to exercise the complete analysis pipeline from acquired data to a calculated upper limit, and for initiating committed scientific running in 2002 interleaved with progressive noise and availability studies. We defined this strategy recognizing that once the interferometers operated in stable configurations for significant blocks of time, scientific data collection and analysis and the detector characterization that is part of this process would be of critical importance to bringing the interferometers to full scientific utility. The strategy requires that interferometer commissioning should evolve from fully focused on technical issues to balanced data and detector studies as part of the smooth progression to science.

As part of this strategy, the Laboratory and the LSC have organized the data analysis working groups and the upper limits groups with the goal of initiating the scientific analysis team efforts. Proposed physics goals have served as foci for the activities of these groups. The groups have already carried out successful Mock Data Challenge activities. Our plan has been to initiate the prototype data analysis with the upper limits groups using engineering run two-site coincidence data this year.

This memo provides additional definition to this commissioning and early science program for the next year. We list below several goals and the major planning milestones around which we should structure the details of the program.

The major goals of this program are:

1. Bring the LIGO interferometers, and our data acquisition and analysis capability rapidly to the ability to collect and analyze coincidence data to address the scientific goals of LIGO. Advance both the interferometer commissioning and the commissioning of our analysis capability in a mutually balanced manner.

2. Emphasize the goal of initiating the scientific running in 2002, with the subsequent scientific running interleaved with instrumental sensitivity studies until the instrumental limits are achieved.

We define Engineering runs (E) as data taking runs that are primarily motivated by the Laboratory detector improvement program and not by scientific goals leading to publications. Science runs (S) are intended to produce a data product for the LSC with scientific goals and resulting in publications.

With this background, we define the following major program milestones:

1. The LIGO Laboratory will carry out the E7 run before the end of the year. We anticipate that the run will take place during December and will be scheduled for two full weeks. The run is an engineering run and will be the responsibility of the LIGO Laboratory. The precise schedule for the run will be defined by the commissioning directors and the observatory heads, Stan, Rai, Dennis, Fred and Mark. The Laboratory will operate at least one interferometer at each observatory with the earnest goal to operate all 3 instruments. At least one operating interferometer should be in full recycled configuration so that the interferometer data is representative of a complete configuration. The goal is to achieve significant individual periods of locked coincidence data and a total locked duration that is significant. Sensitivity of the interferometers will not be guaranteed except that it will be the result of our best effort. While the E7 run is the responsibility of the Laboratory, participation in all of the run activities is open to the LSC members in the LIGO I working groups. The data collected will be available to all of the upper limits groups. The analysis goal is to produce sensitivity curves and information on noise by the end of February and full execution of the analysis to demonstrate our ability to do an end-to-end analysis by the end of April. If the E7 data run is not successful in producing data capable of accomplishing the run period goals, the Laboratory will repeat the E7 run in January 2002.

2. The S1 run will be held in May 2002. The prime purpose for this run is to carry out the first scientific searches. This run will be the joint responsibility of the Laboratory and the LSC. The sensitivity goal is a two site coincidence with 3 interferometers running and the achieved scientific reach (volume searched x observation time in coincidence) should be an order of magnitude better than achieved in the E7 run. At least one interferometer at each site should be operated in the full recycled configuration.

3. Between the E7 run and the S1 run, the commissioning teams are to have priority with the interferometers. Any data provided will be collected for instrument characterization purposes.

4. In order to accomplish the goals of the E7 and S1 runs, decisions will be required on scheduling implementation of digital controls for suspensions, coil driver augmentation in LLO, tidal servos, common mode servos, etc. The details of of these implementations will be defined by Stan, Dennis, Rai, Fred, and Mark representing the commissioning and observatory management, consistent with the goals and milestones above.

5. The S2 run will be scheduled with at least an order of magnitude improvement in scientific reach (volume searched x observation time in coincidence) beyond S1 and following successful completion of analysis of the S1 data. We anticipate future interleaving of E and S runs with significantly improved scientific reach will continue until design sensitivity and reliability are obtained and an extended science run is motivated.

Barry Barish and Gary Sanders

Weekly Report Highlights
 

LSC Issues (Weiss)

no report

LIGO I Construction/LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

LIGO Operations--Administration

The list of current actions revised to reflect the status of open actions assigned through March 7, 2001 and notes for that meeting may be found at ACTION LIST.

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

• No report this week (Livingston inventory).

>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

• Attended the Association of Imaging and Information Management (AIIM) Conference in San Francisco the week of March 4th.  Began to review numerous presentations and and vendors for meeting with Gary on Monday.
• Continued to rework several forms and listings for upcoming policy manual and orientation processing.
• Met with Albert, Bill, and Ryan to review work completed to date on the LIGO policy manual and orientation process for new hires.  Following discussion, recommended changes were implemented into the forms and lists.
• Began preparing for the upcoming LSC meeting.
• Worked on proposal for revamping current DCC processing.
• Working on several problem documents electronically submitted to the DCC.  Many of them involve numbering inconsistencies, revision discrepancies, and other such difficulties.  Reminder to LIGO staff:  Please make sure that as a minimum, each document submitted has a LIGO number, author's name, and date.  It's surprising how many documents are missing one of more of these essential pieces of information!.

ACTIVITY

• Electronic document activity picked up this week.
• Progress continues on conversion of old IFIS Financial Records to electronic form.
 

03/14/02	Packages	Faxes
In	51	40
Out	12	33

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

Press here for ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY DATA .
 
 

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

• Working on transferring FY2001 funds to FY2002.  Transferred funds on Great Impressions, Lightwave Electronics, Louisiana Tech, CSIRO, Heraeus Optics, Sun River, University of Florida, Pegasus, Wave Precision, US Doe, Associated Western Univ, Manpower, Mid Columbia Eng, MMR, Digikey, GP Mgr, and Teknicircuits.  There are still a few transfers to be made.
• Completed Change Order #11 to Teknicircuits, Change Order #3 to MLD Tech, Change Order #7 to Kaufman, F.   Working on Change Orders to Brunt, Butler, Air Products and various others.
• Next will follow close outs..

• All monthly reports for February are completed and are posted on the network.  Met with Phil Lindquist and Ed Jasnow to go over the reports.
• Continued working with Federal Accounting on funding realignments and closing or end-dating accounts.
• At Gary's request responded to question from Aylin Yu in Project Accounting who is assisting Sharon Patterson in providing information for the DCAA audit.
• Provided information requested by Alan Weinstein regarding 40 Meter Lab.
• Prepared PTA set-up form for new Award for Albert Lazzarini.
• Prepared an up-dated list of account numbers for FY2002 Operations and R&D for posting on the LIGO Internal Bulletin Board.
• I will be on jury duty beginning March 18th, so the reports for March may be a little late.

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

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

• No report (vacation).

CONSTRUCTION:

• A punch list comprising items on the interior and exterior of the auditorium side of the LLO Staging Building has been completed and presented to the contractor, Brunt Construction.  The contractor is being given 25% of the retention, with an additional 25% due upon the completion of an acceptable plan and schedule to complete all of the punch list items.
• Audio/visual equipment is now being installed in the LLO Staging Building auditorium, and the room will be ready in time to hold the LSC meeting on March 20.
• The steel frame has been erected for the LHO OSB East Building, and construction is on schedule.

• Discussion of the transition to 24/7 operations has been scheduled for the site teleconference to be held on Thursday, March 28.

SUPPORT (Baldon, Torres, Lloyd, Tischler)

• Processed the paper work for sixteen (16) new/revised trips.  I have seven (7) trips in various stages of completion before ticketing can be done and paper work completed.
• Completed five (5) Expense Reports and there are nine (9) reports yet to be done.  I have no reports being held for a check at this time.
• Reconciled thirty-four (34) P-Card items which required telephoning vendors to track down which traveler incurred which charge.
• I continued to work with Montrose Travel to work out various kinks, etc.  Ticketing has started and progress is being made.  Various kinks are being addressed as they come to light.
• Worked on the preparation and distribution of the Travel/Vacation Itinerary for March 11, 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.

• Transfer of contracts, blankets and POs to FY02 POETAs continues, and will now include transfers to the new fabrication accounts.
• Processed the usual invoices for payment. For the total number of incoming invoices received for this period see "Cost Schedule Control Systems" report by Esther Cunningham. Tracked and followed up on invoice problems and reviewed and recorded payments processed by Esther the week of March 4.
• Processed the usual requisitions and change orders.

Continue to monitor contract and blanket order encumbrance and notify task managers when supplements are needed.
• Jim continues with data entry in LIGO shadow database and updating files in my office.

• Scanned documents from U of Oregon, submitted these to the DCC, then updated the roster with info from their Attachment Z.  Posted for review on the small web page Goddard Attachment A, and progress report.
• Ensured that recently scanned LSC documents are available for web posting, passed info onto V. Kondrashov.
• Searched catalogs and websites to obtain more part numbers for components going onto boards for Noise Voice Coil Driver.  Now preparing a list to order from vendors.
• Arranged telecons this week: morning and afternoon call for Core Optics, and SEI Retrofit.
• Updated site trips.  Placed lots of Pcard orders, and chased invoices to reconcile several more.  There were no changes or additions this week to the LIGO Roster.

• Worked on policies and procedures with Albert, Linda, Bill which is in conjunction with GoF.
• Press Kit photo/article gathering with Dave, Linda.
• Archiving files from project office with Linda.

Advanced LIGO (Frey)

Progress Period from 03.08 to 03.14

Accomplishments:

• Weekly Advanced LIGO Project Controls meeting was not held this week.  Next meeting date has not been scheduled.
• Per request by Gary, I am working on preparing an executive schedule of science and engineering runs to be presented to the executive committee and LSC.
• I have received data from Dennis Coyne and issued a draft to Gary for comment.
• I met with Albert L. on 3.14 and data is forthcoming.
• 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 - Finished inputting changes to the cost book and schedule.  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.  Have commitment from Janeen to update schedule with progress this cycle.
• 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.
• Continue to update the TNI Schedule and incorporate any changes.
• Nothing new to report.
• Continue to update the LASTI Schedule and incorporate any changes.
• Nothing new to report.
• Project Plan for the 40-Meter Lab Upgrade continues.
• Nothing new to report.
• Cost Book Tool.
• ROSTER DATABASE:
• Continue work on my action items providing BK with needed data.
• Issued revised meeting minutes for comment and logged with DCC.
• COST BOOK DATABASE:
• Continue review of changes and updates to procedures / online help.
• Issued revised meeting minutes for comment and logged with DCC.
• Mapping and formatting of OPS cost data for input on hold pending finalization of co-operative agreement.
• DCAA - Work started again on the proposal audit.
• Prepared / revised 4 transmittals.
• Followed up with Linda regarding updated DCAA transmittal log.
• 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.
• Complete effort on executive schedule for science and engineering runs per Gary's requirements.
• 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 complete estimate and schedule changes.
• 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 update the plan with progress as of 03.15.02 and  post to site by the 20th.
• 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 Continue to update the TNI Schedule and incorporate any changes.
• Will update the plan with progress as of 03.15.02 and  post to site by the 20th.
• Revised work plan pending / forthcoming.
• Will Continue to update the LASTI Schedule and incorporate any changes.
• Will update the plan with progress as of 03.15.02 and  post to site by the 20th.
• Will continue updating the 40 meter schedule and incorporate any changes.
• Will update the plan with progress as of 03.15.02 and  post to site by the 20th.
• Roster Database
• Will continue to work with BK and executing action items.
Cost Book Tool development continues.  (Highest Priority Task)
• Will continue ops cost data input when available.
• Will continue to work with BK importing data and executing action items.
• Will continue to provide support to PL for DCAA audit(s).
• Will continue the development of the Advanced LIGO Project Web Site.
• Will continue the development of the Advanced LIGO Project Controls Guide Book.

The Annual Report for the Construction Project as of the end of November has been delivered to the NSF.

A quarterly report for the Construction effort is now due.  I have started to assemble material for it.  The goal is to prepare a short report comparable to the old Monthly Reports without molesting the task managers to heavily.

The following change requests have been submitted:
 

Press for the latest Contingency Needs Projection.

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

• Took care of miscellaneous accounting details.
• Attended several meetings related to HR duties.
• Various personnel/payroll /HR related work.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

The first phase of the fire suppression system installation in room 215 Synchrotron was completed.  Also included in this first phase work was extension of the raised floor and addition of an equipment ramp and safety rail.  Along with the HVAC ducting modification, a problem with the thermostat control system was also corrected (this was apparently one of the reasons for the "rapid" heat up rate observed by LDAS folks).
 

LIGO Hanford Observatory (LHO) Operations (Raab)

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

The walls are going up on the OSB East Building. Ground shaking from construction has decreased so that it is no longer preventing us from operating the 2K interferometer during the day. We did lose two days of operation due to high winds. We have rotated our operator coverage to 7am-2am to increase overlap with the scientists working on commissioning. We had attempted a 24-hr commissioing schedule, but we found that we had spread science resources too thin to be effective.

LIGO Livingston Observatory (LLO) Operations (Coles)

Detector: The mode cleaner in loop frequency noise was measured and compared to the in-loop frequency noise of the frequency stabilisation servo.  The two agreed above about 10 kHz.  We now have a calibration for the in-loop frequency noise of the mode cleaner which needs to be checked against the frequency noise seen by an interferometer arm.

Some work on ISCT4 to reduce to the beam size going through the electro-optic shutter required some realignment to be done on the table. (Joe Kovalik)

Re-zeroed all optical levers on large optics and re-calibrated dark levels on the QPD's for each OPLEV. Received a tutorial on ion pumps and other vacuum situations for operator 'need to know' situations. (G.Traylor, H.Overmier)

Optics and Installation:  Had a training session with the installer of the Laser Safety Interlock system and am learning to administer the software. We're using the access system and no serious faults have been uncovered, although it appears I need to lengthen the access interval at some of thetables because the access times out before users open the table doors (unless they're quick). Completed the first of the core optic scatterometers and installed it at ETM-x.  We're using a temporary channel for data collection.  I'm working on three more for the cavity optics. (Jonathan Kern)

CDS: Epics Security databases and Security configuration files created. Checking to see if we can incorporate it without booting the processors. If not we will have to do a "boot-a-thon" sometime during Rolf's visit next week. Upgraded the OS and setup an Ultra 10 for the gateway for Epics security. The gateway is not still connected to the outside world. Working with Dave on the VPN's (Virtual Private Network) for Virtual Control Rooms to be setup at Caltech and MIT. Ordering a Sun Blade 100 for setting up the test VPN network. Working on the Pentek test code . Found problems with booting of the new pentium.  Experiencing problems with GPS Clock Driver for the pentek testing when booted
with a baja.(Chethan)

LDAS: Configured several more experimental replication scenarios. Finished running burntest on beowulf nodes: no errors were found. Applied patches to all LDAS Solaris machines. Although it looks like
some problems with SunFire still are not resolved. Discussing with LDAS group how to set up a central metaserver. Learning LAL. (Igor)

General Computing: In addition to the preparations for the conference here next week, we are in the process of upgrading our Solaris user file server to a Blade 1000.  We are taking advantage of this upgrade to also upgrade many of our freeware software packages. The new server will be faster than theold server, and will also have more disk space for the user files. (Tom Evans)
 

Detector/Technical Support (Whitcomb, Coyne)

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

• PSL (Ugolini, Vass, Abbott B., Abbott R.,):
• After some adjustment to the new mode matching into the PMC, the visibility rose only from 40% to 55%, and power transmitted through the PMC remains low (around 3.5 watts).
• Dennis is out of town, and Steve is quite busy with the vacuum envelope modifications (see below), so further work on the PSL will be put off for a couple of weeks.
• The Minco temperature controller functions properly, though the heating jacket runs hot. Ben will find out whether the setpoint is right.
• Suspension Controllers & Other Electronics (Abbott B., Heefner, Taylor)
• Ben and Bob beeped-out the cross-connect wiring for both suspension racks; there were zero mistakes! Bob will complete the DC voltage distribution for these cross-connects.
• Ben has completed wiring diagrams for the cameras, illuminators, mechanical shutters and EO fast shutters. After a brief review, some mods are in progress and an updated version should be complete by the end of this week.
• Ben is making required mods to the EPICS databases for the suspension controllers and mode cleaner controls. Eric Lin, guided by Dennis, is making required mods to the EPICS adl screens. We need Jay to complete work on the software for the SOS front end.
• Jay is also working on redesigning the reflected memory layout for the 40m, and needs some of Rolf's time.
• Ben and Bob will gear up for making all the cables for the suspensions and mode cleaner controls.
• Optics (Billingsley): We have received from REO our one coated mode cleaner curved mirror (no spare available, but LIGO has a spare we could use if necessary). This is our first completed optic for the 40m! Garilynn has measured the ROC; it's a bit out of tolerance but still usable. We also expect 3 coated mode cleaner flat mirrors by next week, so we will be ready to suspend them in April. We continue to await polished core optics from CSIRO.
• Suspensions (Romie):
• Janeen and Helena have gathered all the material they need for hanging the mode cleaner SOS suspensions.
• Todd Etzel is still working on the OSEMs for the mode cleaner SOS suspensions.
• Betsy Bland will come down on April 2 to help prepare the suspended optics.
• We continue to await the shipment of a stand-alone suspension controller from Richard McCarthy at LHO.
• Optical Layout (Smith):
• IO PERISCOPE: The welder is in process and is expected to complete the weldment by 3/15. The weldment will go back to the shop for the finish work and the periscope should be completed by the week of 3/22. Modifications are being made to the 2 inch mirror mounts for mounting the PZT tilt platforms with electrical isolation from ground.
• ILLUMINATORS: The inline and angled illuminator designs were reviewed by Larry and Steve. Modifications are pending. A 20W illuminator was received and will be evaluated prior to completing the design.
• PARTS ORDER: The IO, IMC_R and IMC_T parts have been received from all vendors except 1 inch optical mounts and lens mounts from Newport; zoom camera lens from Edmund. A purchase requisition for Dynamic Light mirror mounts for inside the IFO has been submitted. The machined parts from ASCO for the periscope are in process and should be completed by the week of 3/22.
• Facilities (Jones, Vass):
• After installing the mode cleaner end chamber stack and cables last week (pictures here and here), Steve pumped down on Friday. The vacuum pressure, and the RGA scan, looked quite good; about the same as before the vent.
• On Tuesday, Steve vented again. One Wednesday, he and Larry installed the cables and feedthrough flange in the input optic chamber. (All the feedthrough flanges have arrived). On Thursday, they are preparing to install the seismic stack and cables for the output optic chamber. This work should continue well into next week. We expect that by the end of next week, we will be able to pump down again with almost all of the vacuum envelope mods complete. Still need to install cables and feedthrough flanges in all the other chambers, new beamport flanges, new camera, illuminator and viewport flanges, and, oh, also an interferometer.
• While we wait for the Caltech HVAC guys to produce a final proposal for improved air cleaning (which we anticipate to cost many $10K's), Ben will puchase a $500 stand-alone HEPA filter (Air-Zone HealthMate Plus, 400 cfm) which we anticipate will alleviate much of the problem.
• South Annex Bake Ovens (Taylor, Cardenas):
• Bake Oven # D, large old oven. The old fiber glass insulation has been stripped out completely and it has been wrapped with the new foam insulation. attached new cables and heat sensors and plumbing is in progress.
• Small bake oven # C. in standby.
• Bake oven # E new large oven is completely covered with foam insulation and new oil-free scroll pump station from Varian has been installed. Waiting on a few bits of plumbing hardware, expected any day now; preparation for baking is in progress. Bob will get Pirani gauges for both new ovens (E and F).

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

no report

LASTI (Zucker)

> LASTI (MacInnis, Mason, Mittleman, Ottaway, Rollins, Shoemaker, Zucker)
> =======================================================================
>
> VACUUM ENVELOPE:
 

We have vented for installation of accelerometers and geophones to
characterize the stack
and support structure. These items were prepared as Class B hardware to
prevent
contamination of the vacuum envelope.
Wiring is foil-wrapped and passed through the
open 60" access door to preamp electronics in an outside rack.
 

> EXTERNAL PRE-ISOLATORS:
>
> In situ BSC stack characterization (Rich and Myron):
 

All equipment arrived from LLO and LHO. Some last-minute fit problems with
the
shakers required
machining adapter plates and raising the softwall cleanroom by about a foot
to get
clearance.  These delayed installation a few days such that we may miss our
"window"
to get the testing done and the BSC buttoned up before people drift off to
LSC. As a
contingency we've resolved to disconnect our cabling and reinstall the BSC
door temporarily
to minimize potential for atmospheric contamination (we are particularly
concerned as we lack
a positive-pressure clean air flow system).
 

> Pre-isolator mechanical design/fab (Ken):
 

A design of the pre-isolator with the electomagnetic actuator has been
created and presented at last week's SEI meeting.
 

The main Housing assembly drawings and many of the machined drawings
have been taken to three fabrication shops for quoting.  Quotes have
been promised by this friday.
 

An assembly drawing of the hydraulic HAM pre-isolator has been
completed.
 

> PSL (Ottaway and Rollins)
 

The bandwidth of the FSS board has been found to be limited to around 200
kHz, for oscillation free operation. This is a little strange as two
independent measurements of the open loop gain suggest that a bandwidth of
a least 750 kHz should be possible. These measurements were made in two
ways, the first involved closing the FSS loop with a unity gain frequency
of 150 kHz, then measuring the closed loop response from 50 kHz to 10 MHz.
The open loop response is derived from this. The next method involved
using the PMC cavity as an analyser to measure the frequency response from
a signal injected into the test 1 input of the FSS board. This should have
included all of the relevant frequency response of all the components in
the loop except the Ref Cavity Pole and the linewidth of the PD, which
were later accounted for. It does not appear as if any of the electrical
components are saturating.
 

In addition to this it was noticed that the phase and amplitude response
of the fast correcting pockel cell were changing with time, this was
causing stability problems with the cross over between the PZT path
and the EOM path. This was significantly improved by realigning the pockel
cell in the laser path to minimize the RFAM generated at the modulation
frequency (35.5 MHz) used to lock the PMC. However, it has been noticed
that residual instability still remains as the FSS Phase Correcting path
periodically becomes dominated by a 10kHz signal that slowly comes and
goes (timescale of order minutes).

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)
We are organising e2e school at LLO conference room on 18th March, Monday
from 9am to 6pm. All are welcome.
Details are available in e2e homepage http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~e2e

LIGO I simulation system
--------------------------
(Matt) System testing continues, along with infrastructure (modeler, alfi) debugging.
I have also spent time writing my presentation for the upcoming E2E school.

LIGO: cold to hot
-------------------
(Biplab) found a bug in calculation that includes phase-offsets in recycling cavity.
Working on that. Continuing other studies related to transition from cold to hot state.

Code development and maintenance
---------------------------------
(Hiro) Working with Matt to make modeler compatible with the new LIGO
simulation package.

Alfi
----
(Bruce)
- Fixed cyclic include bug.
- Implemented Save Copy As.
- Fixed misc PRs.

(Ed Maros)
Worked on enhancements to build procedure to support JAlfi

(Melody)
- Finished the node settings window for alfi5.
   Also worked on fixing multiple selection and menu problems.

LIGO Data Analysis System

Software Systems (Blackburn)

We were not in a position to have the code freeze this Wednesday due to a dozen open
issues in code development that are critical to this release. The code freeze has been
rescheduled for the Monday after the LSC meeting.

Began announcing to the LIGO/LSC LDAS users community the discontinuation of the
shared user accounts within LDAS. This will start with the removal of the ldas_mdc user
this week. The LSUG group was also informed of the intend to re-issue ALL LDAS user
account for the Science 1 run.

Research and prototyping associated with the implementation of a "federated" database
for all LDAS systems continues. This effort is being headed up at LLO with guidance
from CIT.

The GCC 2.95.3 standard library string class has been modified to make it thread safe
after it was identified as the primary case of the dataConditionAPI failure. No test results
are available at this time detailing any improvements from this change.

cntlmonAPI and utilities: fixed db2utils and logscan email that were broken by changes
in gpstime; fixed deletion of core files to also delete .file files

metadataAPI: verify core dump is caused by metadataAPI not catching a database open
error exception when the database server is down when requesting uniqueIds; added code
to do a reconnect if the database server is down and then restarted; fixed metadata pipeline
macros to call reattach directly to prevent loss of return value in macro; verified changes
worked by pipeline testing.

cmonClient updates: changed insertion page to allow choice of insertion, queries or both;
clean up graph data handling; patched emu-graph to be closer to x-axis values (gpstime) to
reduce excessive looping when figuring out x-axis tick marks; minor enhancements to
tapecontrol per Greg's request; minor fixes to various pages to keep up with ldas changes.

Wrote a sample client and server for Ed and Isaac to explain how the Tcl channel version
of the data socket is supposed to work from Tcl which has now been implemented in the
generic LDAS library.

Development continues in the dataConditionAPI on the new shift/interpolation algorithm.

Discovered that dataConditionAPI ingestion routines for objects originating from the
metaDataAPI were no longer returning the names of ingested objects (PR #1367).

Frame API was packing detector structures in outgoing ilwd objects in individual containers. I
changed this so they are packed into a single container as required by datacond et al for
treatment as a linked list on ingestion.

Added new state variable ::${jobid}::usrcmdinput and function mgr::getCommandInputText for
use by the controlMonitorAPI. This procedure returns the user command name and arguments
on a per-job basis.

Phil Ehrens, Philip Charlton and Isaac Salzman met to discuss the syntactical details and
interoperability of frameAPI resampling and the selection of data subsets by time offset and
duration.

Implemented simultaneous concatenation and resampling of data in the frameAPI. Formerly concatenated
objects which were time-sliced from multi-second frames were packaged as multiple objects, they are
now properly concatenated into single logical objects when contiguous segments of data exist. Time
metadata are correctly updated to reflect the data in the output.

Implemented correct time slicing of ADC data for the getFrameElements user command. Formerly the
time metadata added to the ADC on conversion to ilwd was taken directly from the parent frame header.
Values are now updated to reflect the actual data array in the ilwd.

Worked to make certain that all frameAPI data sent to the dataConditionAPI were packed into containers
at the proper nesting level and with the appropriate metadata for correct ingestion.

Wrote generic API function for use by the controlMonitiorAPI which allows discrimination between user
keyed GPS and UTC time values.

The eventmonAPI now has support for the added detector geometry structure. It has passed unit tests.
The support for Frdetector geometry in the dataConditionAPI is still under development.

frameAPI/framecpp: Fixed problem report #1383 concerning corrupted data when doing ilwd->frame->ilwd
conversion of FrProc complex data. Removed exception specifications from frameCPP. Removing exception
specifications from frameAPI.

A 'watch jobs' utility has been added to 'guild' to display a list of jobs currently running on an LDAS
system. At present, it only works with the ldas-dev system; it will work with the other LDAS systems
after the next release of LDAS. Also, 'guild' has been modified to allow users to limit queries to a
particular "user tag", which is a short string that users can specify in association with one or more
LDAS jobs to facilitate retrieving the results.

Investigated the behavior of LDAS when reading frame files produced on little-endian machines. Both
frame i/o libraries (FrameLib and frameCPP) have been found to have internal inconsistencies which
are being addressed.

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

* Continued HPSS migration from Redwoods to 9940s.

* Installed OpenSSH-3.1p1 on ACSLS (the Ultra 10 in Booth).  This took
  more time than one would expect since the machine has no compiler and
  the method of just copying the binaries from lugh which worked for the
  old ssh didn't.  Finally ended up installing pkg-get (from
  bolthole.com) and using it to get the binaries in pkg format from
  sunfreeware.com.

* Dealt with another crash of the Ultra 10 managing the STK silo. Haven't
  heard back from Sun.  Talked to STK field service (Gary Vogt) and told
  him to try to get in touch with them and/or have them call me.  Told him
  that the next failure will cause us to swap the machine out for one of
  our own.

* LIGO SAN testbed:
  * Installed SAM-QFS.  Working on configuration, specifically getting
    SAM-QFS to reliable talk to ACSLS (the silo software).

(Al Wilson)

* Cleaned out 215 Synchrotron.
* Brought the ldas-test system back online.
* Installing Big brother on ldas-test.
* Tested the backup of the new systems.
* Testing the temperature script on dataserver@LHO.
* Added new version of openssh to linux boxes at Caltech
  also upgraded glibc to 2.2.4-19.
* Installed motif and nedit rpm's on linux server boxes.

(Stuart Anderson)

* Brought the initial ldas-cit system on-line. It currently consists
  of 3 Sun servers with no Beowulf cluster yet.

* Upgraded the ldas-test and ldas-cit Solaris servers to the latest
  Solaris 8 Maintenance Updated (sol8mu7).

MIT
---
(Keith Bayer)

* Loaded a specific set of playground data on metaserver (~80GB).

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

* Configured several more experimental replication scenarios.
* Finished running burntest on beowulf nodes: no errors were found.
* Applied patches to all LDAS Solaris machines. Although it looks like
  some problems with SunFire still are not resolved.
* Discussing with LDAS group how to set up a central metaserver.
* Learning LAL.

(Shannon Roddy)

* Ordered and received the 12-pair 50um Fiber to run to the new building
  for LDAS.

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

* Richard McCarthy has obtained three quotes for the purchase of 12 pair
  of armored 50 micron multimode fiber to go between the current office
  building and the new building. Once the distance through the conduit
  between the buildings has been accurately measured (which should happen
  within the next few weeks) he will purchase the fiber.

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)
Mendell:
1) David Chin reported that corrected clean locks were posted at
http://tenaya.physics.lsa.umich.edu/~dwchin/LIGO/E7/LockSegments/.
Thus, loop scripts that use the knownpulsardemod DSO were restarted Wed
Mar 13 to generate SFTs at LHO and LLO. The scripts use the clean locks
to generate quality channel information. They will run for the next 7 to
8 days.

2) Resolved issues with AEI group as to how to center frequency bins on
exact targets with known pulsar frequencies.

3) Test input of SFTs using the frameAPI. This works, but more testing
is needed to get SFT data into the dataconAPI and into the
knownpulsardemod DSO.

Charlton:

This week I spent some time (~ 1 day) prototyping a Matlab script for
looking at components of the 2-phase fn FCT lying in the tau0-tau1 plane.
The implementation is not efficient because of the difficulty of working
with 3D matrices in Matlab, so it is best suited to looking at
small "postage stamps" of the FCT.

The function has the form:

    H = fct2d(h, M, L, k)

where

    h is the input data
    M is the number of bins in the tau0 direction
    L is the number of bins in the tau1 direction
    k is a particular time index

that is, the function returns the plane

    H_{k k0 k1} where k is fixed, 0 <= k0 < M, 0 <= k1 < L

A simple extension would be to allow subranges of indices in M and L to be
specified.

Shawhan:

Worked on improving the procedure for calculating the response function
of an interferometer from the raw calibration information.  In
particular, figured out how to fit simultaneously to amplitude and
phase data using MINUIT in ROOT.

Verified that the E7 RDS (reduced data set) files being produced by
Isabel Leonor are constructed correctly, complete, and can be read
by LDAS.

Overhauled the LIGOtools "Frequently Asked Questions" web page (at
http://www.ldas-sw.ligo.caltech.edu/ligotools/faq), adding several
new write-ups.

Helped a number of LSC members solve problems retrieving LIGO data with
the getFrames utilty.

General Computing (Wallace)
MIT:
(Keith)
-Installed a new mail-server.

Livingston:
(Tom)
-In addition to the preparations for the conference here
next week, we are in the process of upgrading our Solaris
user file server to a Blade 1000.
-We are taking advantage of this upgrade to also upgrade many of our freeware
software packages. The new server will be faster than the
old server, and will also have more disk space for the
user files.

(Shannon)
-Spent this week preparing for the LSC. Working on fiber connections
between the two buildings for the network.  Set up three wireless access
points, 24 port 10/100 switch, projectors, laptops, etc for the
conference.  Working on finding a hard to find fiber patch cord to hook
up the network.

Hanford:
(Christine)
- Continued setting up new Win2k PCs and transferring user files from old
PCs to new ones.  I have completed 5 out of 9.
- Helped users learn how to use Win2k OS.
- Helped CDS with purchasing equipment and supplies.
- Various other support to users and assistance to CDS.
 

CIT:
(Veronica)
- LIGO website: posted various updates on Conferences/Talks, Elba GWADW,
Internal Bulletin Board, LSC, MOUs. Tracked down and corrected a misplaced
entry in the LSC talks database.
- Attended a teleconference with Gary and Sydney on the Elba GWADW
preparation.
- CaJAGWR: Videotaped the talk by Braginsky and Khalili. Compressed and
posted video and viewgraphs of Braginsky's/Khalili's talk.
- Reading through CVS and GNATS manuals.
- Working on the webpages for the Advanced Suspension group.

(Mike)
-Loaded all GC software and configured security plus added critical updates
and service pack 2 for two laptops, these were 2000 professional loads.
-Loaded a webserver on top of NT4.0 but this box has problems loading active
server pages, which looks like a hardware problem.
-Having a big problem with a NT4.0 server that is running IIS 4.0 it
keeps shutting its services off. I have installed multiple hotfixes and
plus installed the IIS lock down tool but now this server seems to be
having some hardware issues. We have a replacement server ordered and will
be transferring this website over to the new server.
-Working with Larry testing the new edge switches WBridge, 40Meter, Wilson
House, to get ready for Friday nights switch over.
-Started working security issues on NTSRV's that have been suggested
by (ITS) this is real time consuming, but hope to have this finished up by
next week.

(Lisa)
- Janeen's external hard disk lost its disk descriptors.  Larry and I tried to
re-label it but to no avail.  We have a good backup of Janeen's work, so this is
inconvenient, not tragic.
- Installed orinoco access points to cover the 2d floor of bridge and the other
half of the third floor.  Reprogrammed all of the access points with a new mac
address list.  This list has been sent out to sysadmin so they have a copy at
the sites.
- Working with Bryan Johnson of Audits on our security audit.
- Built a new Blade 100 for Gary.
- Will be working on the luna swap out for Wilson House the new unit has
arrived.

(Larry)
-The testing for the new GigE backbone has gone well. The board in slot 2 of the
core switch was bad. Replacing it also allowed us to tighten down the fans and
other items that loosened up during the burn-in of the unit. It now appears that
everything is a go for the swap out this Friday night.
-Worked on a couple of the servers. Mainly debugging and upgrading some of the
patches. Still have a couple of major rebuilds to perform on the new servers.
-Ordered server replacements for a number of the PC web servers.
-Working on a number of orders with SUN for the matching grant program.
-Assisting Mike and Veronica on various web issues. Mike will be handling more
of the hardware and OS issues concerning the PC Web servers and Veronica will
continue with the WEB pages and associated applications. There are plans for
cross training but time limitations may keep that to a minimum. Also, spent time
working with Mike on getting the CIT Oracle install for the PC's to work
correctly.
-Went over some of the security audit issues. So far nothing major. Most of the
procedure items are covered in the GC computer usage policy document that is now
going through the system.
-Worked on some of the logistical issues for the LSC.
-Sent a copy of the JPL drawing formats to Janeen.
-Worked a number of hardware issues with Mike and Lisa. Most were PC related.
 

LIGO II/Advanced R&D (Sanders)

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

    This week I did a lot of work with my toy model to check that the
calculation of thermal noise. Most of the thermal noise in the pendulum
mode is expected to come from the elasticity and associated dissipation
due to bending of the wires near the flexure points. The rather complex
code for the wire bending was indeed predicting the right amount of noise
relative to analytic expressions, which is pleasing given that it hadn't
received any validation in the comparisons to the Matlab model. However
the older code for the plain longitudinal stretch of the wires was
producing spurious damping, and it turns out that "dissipation dilution"
hadn't been correctly allowed for. The reason it was going wrong was
rather interesting. First it turns out that when you analyze a pendulum
system in a normal mode approximation, the physical reality that the mass
actually moves in a curved path and has gravitational restoring force is
implicitly replaced by a fiction that the mass travels in a purely
horizontal path and has elastic restoring force. The mode shapes and
frequencies come out the same because there's a numerical coincidence
between the restoring forces in the two scenarios. However this makes it
look as if energy is being cycled into and out of the lossy elastic
potential when in fact it's not. Second, the loss that a spring with
damping factor phi contributes depends on how it's deployed. If you put
it under a large static tension and then use the sideways restoring force
(as in a violin mode), the effective phi is amplitude dependent and goes
to zero in the limit of small amplitudes. In fact it's this tension
effect, not the losslessness of gravity that causes the low-loss nature
of a pendulum. Gravity merely acts as a tensioning agent, and could be
replaced by a lossy spring attached between the mass and some point a
distance below without spoiling the Q significantly. The fix was to do
the first stage of the calculation a second time with the tension in the
wires relaxed, and to use as a base for the damping calculation only the
components of elasticity that persist with no tension (e.g., the vertical
elasticity of the bounce mode).
 

From Benno Willke:

LSC LASERS WORKING GROUP
Minutes of telecon Mar 14 th 2002:
participants: morning call: Peter Veitch, Jesper Munch, Maik Frede, Martina Brendel, Ralf
Wilhelm, Rene, Ivo Zawischa, Michèle Heurs, Benno Willke
evening call: Rick Savage, Peter King, UF, David Shoemaker, Benno Willke
1) updates
Adelaide:
- laser head is together, problems with mounting the waveguide that allows spreading out
the pump distribution in the horizontal direction while keeping it confined in the vertical
- expect laser experiment to start next week
LZH
- modelling continued, surprising result that thermal aberations are similar for transversal
and longitudinal pumped rods
- laser diodes for 1200W of pump power delivered, 4 from 30 diodes had to be returned
due to different problems (short between heat sink and TEC, Thermistor failure)
- started experiments with longitudinal pumped water cooled rod (300W), due to so far
unclear reasons the undoped end cap of a rod cracked at a position where modelling
shows only a small temperature rise and no big temp. gradient
Stanford
- Lightwave amplifier was delivered
- due to missing cabling no experiments started so far, cabling is now in hand
- plan to set up chain LIGO-laser(8W) – Lightwave-amplifier (20W) – Stanford Amplifier1
(35W) – Stanford AmplifierII (100W) within the next month
2) schedule
- Benno announced that the high-power-stage decision milestone was delayed until end of
July, Adelaide and Stanford said that this timescale is reasonable to get a 100W level laser
up and running and characterize it
 

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

Suspensions

Janeen and I held a tele-con with various people from Caltech, Stanford and Glasgow to discuss the requirements for the design of the OSEM for LASTI.
We held a follow up tele-con with Russell and Alastair in Glasgow re. update on the new hybrid coil former/head for LASTi. (Blade wire clamps and assemblies were also discussed

I have been working on 2 sets of assembly drawings in SOLIDWORKS for the parts that went to the Physics machine shop and have been continuing with my weekly machine shop class.

I have been discussing with Norna plans for both my visit to GEO in May and her visit to Caltech in April.

Janeen and I have sent drawings for the new coil former/head and surface mounts for the LED and PD's to Glasgow. These are to be put with drawings of the coil clamp etc.. and a quote will be obtained for the new prototype this week.

Janeen and I have been discussing in more detail the planned experiments and there breakdown for planned 3 SURF students.
 

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

Silicate bonding
Had prints made and obtained quotes to manufacture parts to be silicate bonded and be used to investigate bond creep.

Heavy glass
The polisher manufacturing samples made from VIOX # 24935 is having a hard time with the substrates' surface staining. They will be delivering the polished substrates next week.
 

From: Janeen Hazel Romie <romie_j@ligo.caltech.edu>

AdLIGO Suspensions
Still waiting on two vendors' quotes for maraging steel for suspension prototypes. Two have already come in.
Working with GEO people on controls prototype sensor/actuators along with a possible laser diode approach to noise prototype sensors. The controls prototypes shall have sensor/actuators that use the magnets and coils of the GEO design and the LED and photodiode boards of the LIGO I osems.
Working with Calum on integrating the MC design components.
 
 

 AdLIGO PSL
Peter King
The amplifier, refrigerated bath and laser power supply arrived at Stanford.  After a few questions about how to connect the various cables and the optical setup, the amplifier is in the process of being aligned with the output of the 10-W laser.

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