Weekly Report for Week Ending April 4, 2002

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  April 8, 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:  Reprise of meetings at NSF

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights
 

LSC Issues (Weiss)

no report

LIGO I Construction/LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

LIGO Operations--Administration

A Site Teleconference was held on Thursday, April 4, 2002.  The meeting focused on budgetary issues raised at previous meetings.  It appears that two additional operators were included in Florence's most recent budget for Hanford (at 0.6 FTEs each).  Fred is going to check his head count against the budgeted head count oif 24.2 for FY 2002.  Actions to scrub the contingency liens list for construction have been assigned.  It will also be necessary to review the open commitments for the old operations accounts as well as for the Advanced R&D accounts as part of the process of closing then down.

We also discussed the budgetary performance as of the end of March and the status of the site construction projects.  Otto requested a go ahead for spending some of the underrun on building construction on paving in lieu of requiring contingency.  There were no objections, but Hanford was requested to provide a sketch of the proposed parking.

The list of current actions revised to reflect the status of open actions assigned through March 28, 2001 (no update this week) may be found at ACTION LIST.

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

• Assisted the Detector Group (H. Armandula ) with packing and shipping of two (2) Optic Substrates  Serial numbers 3A and 4A, valued at $5000, to MIT (G. Harry) via Federal Express Account Number P157760.
• Assisted the Detector Group (H. Armandula) with packing and shipping of several optic parts to Stanford University ( R. Route) via Federal Express, Account Number P157746.
• Assisted General Computing (L. Wallace) with packing and shipping of Computer  (Fore) Mdl ASX 1000C,  four (4) Ethernet Hubs Mdls 3810, to the LLO (S. Roddy).
• Assisted General Computing (L. Wallace) with packing and shipping of six, (6) Hubs, Forerunners to the LHO (C. Patton).

>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

• LSC, LSC, LSC!!  Nearly150 presentations have been processed and posted to the web.  There are approximately another 10 to 20 presentations still to be submitted.  Continued to generate a list for email reminders to presenters who haven't yet turned in their presentations.  Began a final audit of presentations--several submitted presentations can't be found on the session agendas, others are listed on the agenda but not yet submitted, and some authors presented in different sessions than listed.  As soon as this gets organized, I'll generate a list and send out email reminders for the missing documents.  Also, will request all presenters view the LIGO listing on the web to ensure that they're listed in the correct sessions.
• Met with Dave and Ryan regarding progress on the press kit.
• Participated in a meeting with the Gang of Five where the latest rendition of the policy manual was reviewed.
• Met with Gary to review documentation options for archiving and retrieval.  Reviewed several vendors with enhancement or processing options.  Have scheduled a meeting with Dennis to review two vendors specific to the engineering documentation process.
• Met with Ryan and Bill regarding the compilation of a complete set of LIGO templates.  Once collected and revised as necessary, would be available on the web for project-wide use.
• Contacted Otto and Gerry and requested a new set of aerials for each site as well as professional photos of the site and buildings from the ground level.  Additionally, requested a group picture for each site to be included in the press kit/orientation materials.
• Met with Ryan and began planning a Cinco de Mayo lunch party at the Tournament Park.  More details to follow. . .
• 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

• processing of LSC documents continues. . .
• updated rosters/labels of mail trays in room18.
• processed a healthy amount of electronic documents that were submitted
 

04/04/02	Packages	Faxes
In	42	40
Out	6	29

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

Press here for ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY DATA .

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

• Completed change order 6 to DigiKey.  Transferred funds on George Grant to Fy2002.  Set up the new contract folder to Frequency Devices and had the advance payment cut.  The change order to extend the Raytheon work order is being worked on and will be faxed today to Sheryl Jackson and Kathy Sovereign at JPL.  Continue to close out contracts and reduce funding as requests are submitted.
• Have gone through about 100 PO's closing them out if they are fully paid.  About 8-10 had open encumbrances which I have referred to Dorothy to determine whether the PO's should be closed or remain open.

• Assisted in providing information for the DCAA audit.
• Worked on reports for March 2002.
• Prepared an comparison of prior year to current year Operations costs.
• Met with Stan to review Detector encumbrances which should be reduced or closed, relayed information to Dot.

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

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

• Nothing significant to report.

CONSTRUCTION:

Work on the LLO Staging Building is proceeding, with a walk-through on the entire existing building punch list scheduled for April 10.  Completion of the entire building is scheduled for April 26.  This is dependent, however, on the results of an appeal to the fire marshal regarding handicapped access to the restroom by the auditorium.

The schedule on the LHO OSB East Building is slipping a bit due to late deliveries of materials.  The contractor is scheduling some overtime to try to make up time.

OPERATIONS:

Significant discussions have been held regarding support by the sites for 24/7 operations.   At this time, it is felt that there may be staff shortages, particularly scientists, for some of the shifts.

SUPPORT (Baldon, Torres, Lloyd, Tischler)

• On Vacation -- No Report

• Transfer of contracts, blankets and POs to FY02 POETAs are just about complete.
• Continue to work with Ruth on closing out complete POs with remaining encumbrances.
• Esther and I processed a little over 40  invoices for payment this reporting period.  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 25.
• Processed the usual requisitions and change orders.Continue to monitor contract and blanket order encumbrance and notify task managers when supplements are needed.
• Continue to work on update of PO Log books.
• Jim continues with data entry in the LIGO database and helping out in the DCC.

• Scanned documents for a new organization:  Salish Kootenai College Astrophysics Group (SKCAG).  Submitted these to DCC out, and updated the LSC roster with their Attachment Z.  More updates to roster with data submitted by D. Shoemaker for MIT participants.
• Captured a few documents submitted through the web.  Posted for review on the small web page documents from Loyola and Louisiana Tech.
• Updated site trips.  Placed Pcard orders, chased many invoices to reconcile this week.  Changes to the LIGO Roster:  Visitors - Norna Robertson and Kelin Wang, and new to LLO - Andri Gretarsson.

• Review of rough draft of LIGO press kit with Gary and then with Jill Perry.
• Pre Gang of Five meeting with Bill and Linda.
• Facility and group photo arrangements in conjunction with press kit.  Details to LIGO group coming soon.
• Walk through with Mike Hall with new "incoming" form.
• Handling payroll this week while Cindy on vacation.

Advanced LIGO (Frey)

Progress Period from 03.29 to 04.04

Accomplishments:

• OUT OF THE OFFICE from 4/1 through 4/5.  All email is being forwarded to me and I will check my voice mail regularly.  If you need to reach me immediately, pager 800-470-7089, cell 949-422-2846, fax 800-850-8210.  I will be executing my regular duties while away.
• Weekly Advanced LIGO Project Controls meeting was not held this week.  Next meeting date has not been scheduled.
• 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.  Janeen is still executing the update and has committed to provide progress data through 3.29.  Executing outstanding action items and preparing revised meeting minutes.
• 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.
• Updated the plan with progress as of 03.29.02 and  posted to site.
• Sent out update data requests for progress as of 04.12.02.
• Continue to update the LASTI Schedule and incorporate any changes.
• Updated the plan with progress as of 03.29.02 and  posted to site.
• Sent out update data requests for progress as of 04.12.02.
• Project Plan for the 40-Meter Lab Upgrade continues.
• Updated the plan with progress as of 03.29.02 and  posted to site.
• Sent out update data requests for progress as of 04.12.02.
• Cost Book Tool.
• ROSTER DATABASE:
• Continue work on my action items providing BK with needed data.
• COST BOOK DATABASE:
• Continue review of changes and updates to procedures / online help.
• DCAA - Work started again on the proposal audit.
• No new work this week.
• 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.
• 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 03.29.02 and  post to site by the 5th.
• 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 04.12.02 and  post to site by the 18th.
• Will Continue to update the LASTI Schedule and incorporate any changes.
• Will update the plan with progress as of 04.12.02 and  post to site by the 18th.
• Will continue updating the 40 meter schedule and incorporate any changes.
• Will update the plan with progress as of 04.12.02 and  post to site by the 18th.
• Roster Database
• Will continue to work with BK and executing action items.
• Cost Book Tool development continues.  (Highest Priority Task)
• Mapping and formatting of OPS cost data for input will now continue with co-operative agreement approved.
• Will continue to work with BK 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.

I have started to assemble a quarterly report for the Construction effort.  The goal remains to prepare a short report comparable to the old Monthly Reports without having to harrass the task managers excesssively.

The following change requests have been submitted:
 

We will also prepare a request to close out some of the items on the contingency liens list.

Press for the latest Contingency Needs Projection.

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

• Nothing to report--on vacation.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

Nothing to report.
 

LIGO Hanford Observatory (LHO) Operations (Raab)

-----------------------------
Dave Barker's Report
-----------------------------

Remote Controls Stations:
Purchased Sun Workstations which will be installed at CIT and MIT remote
controls stations. Purchased and installed web video servers for both
LHO and LLO. Evaluating a VPN based solution to making the most
efficient use of the observatorys' T1 network bandwidth.

EPICS Upgrades:
Evaluating the latest official EPICS release (3.13.6). Porting this code
to the MIPS CPU, installing LIGO customized drivers. Will soak test this
release on mv162-333, mv162-242, baja4700 and baja4700E test systems at
LHO. Writing code to integrate 3.13.6 code development procedures with
the LIGO standard.
Evaluating beta release of EPICS 3.14. This system is released for
Solaris and Linux IOCs, and could be used to allow DMT/LDAS direct data
injection into the CDS controls system.

Control Room Upgrade:
Upgrading LHO control room to SunBlade1000 workstations. Expanding fast
ethernet network. Expanding ATM infrastructure in MSR, with possible
OC12 upgrade to the frame builder.

--------------
Facilities
--------------
The contractor submitted a new schedule indicating how he will make up for
lost time due to late material delivery.
Presently the contractor is installing the roofing and doing electrical
rough in.

LIGO Livingston Observatory (LLO) Operations (Coles)

Interferometer: The mode cleaner wavefront sensors are being re-measured in order to implement the servos. (Joe Kovalik)

Considered the influence of MMT1 - MMT3 orientation (angular misalignment of MMT from nominal orientation) to beam pointing of the output beam (beam toward beam splitter). Made a little program to calculate beam shift caused by misalignment of each MMT and/or pointing of MC output beam (i.e. input beam to MMT chain represented by misalignment of SM). The resultant beam shift can be calculated at each MMT in terms of translational shift (how much off center the beam hits on the MMT) and angular shift (shift in angle of reflection from nominal value). When SM, MMT1 or MMT2 is misaligned (one at a time keeping others aligned), misalignment of MMT1 has a factor of two greater effect than SM or MMT2 in translational shift on MMT3. The reason why the influence of SM is smaller than MMT1 in spite of the fact that SM is farther from MMT3 than MMT2 is believed to be because of the radii of curvatures of MMT1 and MMT2.  (Sany)

Optics and Installation: Laser Safety Interlock system is functioning with few, if any bugs!! Still waiting upon the contractor to add a device to the perimeter loop whereby operators will be able to tell which exterior door is opened, from the control room. Completed fabrication of three brackets and associated fixtures to mount scatterometers at both ITMs. (Jonathan Kern)

CDS: Completed the installation (software mods & processor rebooting) for the epics security system. Installed 24 single mode fiber cable from the mass storage room to the communicaiton room in the new building (it needs to be terminated). Built the shielded replacement cables for the lsc rack. (Rus Wooley and Chethan)

Completed the power schematics for the end station microphones. Awaiting approval before final installation. Plan to complete the resonance web page by Friday. (Doug)

LDAS: This week has primarily been spent laying out the organization of the computer room in the new building. We have been investigating the power requirements, cabling requirements, etc. I have put together a drawing of a floor plan and the equipment that will be going in individual racks. (Shannon Roddy)

* Upgraded firmware and OS on all the LDAS SUN machines
* Still learning LAL ...
* Preparing DB2 presentation for Caltech visit ...
(Igor Yakushin)

Detector/Technical Support (Whitcomb, Coyne)

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

• It's a 5-ring circus at the 40m!
• Betsy Bland, Janeen, and Helena are preparing three SOS suspensions for our input mode cleaner, with support from Bob Taylor, Steve Vass, and Dennis Ugolini.
• Steve and Larry Jones have completed the assembly of our last (output optic chamber) seismic stack, with in-vacuum cables, and we are now pumping down again.
• Dennis and Steve are doing final tuning up of the PSL after re-laying out the paths with new mode-matching lenses.
• Ben Abbott is coordinating the installation of the suspension controllers and mode cleaner controls racks, with help from Bob Taylor and Jay Heefner.
• Rolf is setting up the front-end suspension controller software. Ben, with undergrad Eric Lin, have already set up the databases and epics slow control screens.
• Suspensions (Romie):
• Betsy has arrived and proceeded quickly. All three small mirrors have guide rods and one mirror has it's magnets glued on. We are still on schedule to bake these mirrors friday afternoon.
• (from Betsy): MCFM03 (MC1) has guide rods glued, magnets glued; airbaked, hung and balanced.

MCCM01 (MC2) has guide rods glued, magnets glued; airbaked, hung.
MCFM01 (MC3) has guide rods glued.
• Should have everything ready for vacuum bake on Friday afternoon. OSEMs will bake at the same time, in a different oven. Should be ready to come out by Monday.
• The satellite suspension box from Todd/Ben and the stand-alone suspension controller from Richard McCarthy are all working.
• We await SOS tower "slit" alignment targets from Dave Ottaway (MIT).
• Suspension Controllers & other CDS (Ben Abbott):
• I have finished and delivered a satellite box to Betsy to use in damping the mode cleaner optics during hanging.
• The ISS DC photodiode design is finished, and the pcb file should go to the board house sometime in the next day or two.
• I have given Rolf all the components of our suspension controller front end input crate so that he can use it for his coding purposes.
• I have started making some of the photodiodes that will be needed for the mode cleaner suspensions. These consist of 2 LSC RF PDs, and 2 WFS PDs. Each of these need to be tuned, and only 1 RFPD has been tuned so far.
• Rolf is also cleaning up the /cvs/cds software directory tree on our main disk on op140m.
• Bob will have the 1Y5 cross connect finished by tomorrow and we will install it and begin the cabling immediately thereafter.
• Jay will get the mode cleaner control rack cross-connect wiring to Bob Taylor, who will build it.
• Ben and Bob are gearing up for making all the cables for the suspensions and mode cleaner controls.
• Optical Layout (Smith):
• IO PERISCOPE: The modification was made to the PZT steering mirror mount spacer to stiffen the mounting to the periscope. The periscope is complete. A preliminary Algor FEA analysis of the periscope structure showed the natural structural resonances to be > 2000Hz. A vibration frequency test of the assembled periscope will be made.
• IO OPTICAL TRAIN: The first IO PZT steering mirror is complete. A rigid isolated mounting structure was designed for the QPD sensors, and the parts will be ordered by 4/5.
• IN-VACUUM ELEMENTS: A parts list for the IMC commissioning in-vacuum components has been finalized. All items will be on order by 4/5. The Dynamic Light 2in mirror mounts are due to be delivered by 4/15.
• OPTICAL LAYOUT: An temporary optical layout for the commissioning of the input mode cleaner is in progress.
• Optics (Billingsley, Armandula):
• Garilynn is relaxing the overly tight specs for polishing of the 5" test masses (by CSIRO, who was having trouble meeting the spec) outside the 30 mm central diameter, from 5 ppm to 15 ppm.
• Three PRMs, two SRMs, and two BSs have been polished by CSIRO and are ready to ship to us.
• Hope to get the 3 ITMs and 3 ETMs in a few weeks.
• Hope to send them to REO for coating, then back by mid-summer.
• PSL (Ugolini, Vass, Abbott B., Abbott R.,):
• Dennis and Steve re-commissioned the FSS optical path. The visibility in the reference cavity is 95%, and it is now locking stably. Dennis will measure the transfer function, shortly.
• More tuning of the beam through the AOM should improve the throughput (currently, 40 mW before the AOM, 16 mW after the double-pass).
• More tuning of the beam through the PMC should improve the visibility (currently 55%) and the power throughput (currently, 4.7 W for 8 W incident. Curiously, this number has slowly grown from ~3.5 W several weeks ago - we can only guess why...)
• Facilities (Vass):
• Caltech electricians are hooking our door alarms up to the Caltech security office.
• Larry has optical table enclosures, and beam tubes, in process in the Caltech shop.
• Vacuum envelope (Jones, Vass):
• Steve and Larry completed the installation of the output optic chamber (OOC) seismic stack.
• Dennis took a transfer function, which looks sensible: resonant peaks below 10 Hz, 1/f^n falloff (n ~ 3.5) to -20 dB by 50 Hz after which the coherence of the measurement is lost.
• The OOC and the rest of the envelope was sealed up. The 3-port door to the OOC could not be put on, because a special o-ring adapter made by Larry needed some work; so a blank door was put on. Hope to have the o-ring adapter ready by the end of next week.
• Steve pumped down the 40m vacuum on Wednesday; by Thursday afternoon, total pressure was ~ 1e-5 torr, and Steve turned on the cryopump, bringing the pressure down to ~ 1.5e-6 torr, slowly falling.
• Larry will get cable testing equipment so that on our next vent, we can test all the in-vacuum cables before installing the suspended optics.
• South Annex Bake Ovens (Taylor, Cardenas):
• Bake oven # E, the new oven. There is a RGA scan situation disagreement between the old Dycor RGA and the new PC comparable Dycord. The rga filament is new. Therefore, I have suggested to rely on the new PC Dycor RGA.
• The old oven # D, big chamber is in standby and ready to be used.
• Bake oven # B & C small chambers are ready and one of them will be used to bake Betsy's (LHO) optics and mounts over the weekend.
• The other, will be used to bake (7) stainless steel bars 2"Wx 3/16" thick x 12" L. (bars ready to go in). These are the bars that will go into the contamination cavity with the samples.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

This week (and last week) we made further modifications to the arm-cavity
servo filters in an attempt to reduce our lock acquisition time. By replacing our
crude, passive notch with a series of four active notches, we were able
to substantially increase both the bandwidth of the servo and the phase
margin at the unity-gain frequency. With the old, passive notch, typical
acquisition times were between 30 minutes and two hours. The active
notches reduce this acquisition time to just a few seconds, typically.
For eleven acquisitions in the South Cavity, times ranged from 3 seconds
to just over 3 minutes, and improvement of more than one order of
magnitude! Moreover, with good alignment there is little or no need to
break and reacquire to obtain the TEM00 mode. Of the eleven locks
performed on the South cavity, ten were to the TEM00 mode. Similar
performance was obtained when the notch filters were installed in the
North cavity. Our next task is to get a duplicate set of notches, so
that both cavities can be locked simultaneously.

Also, we attempted to measure the Q's of the input masses by switching
the controllers and ringing up the lowest-frequency mode. We have used
this method before to measure the Q's of the output masses, and applying
it to the input masses becomes straightforward now that the acquisition
time is so short.

When acting on the input masses, we find that an additional mode appears
that we did not observe in the output masses. The new mode has a
frequency of 22.3kHz, as opposed to 27.4kHz for the lowest measured
frequency in the output masses, and it is easily excited by the servo
even with low gain. Introduction of a passive notch of sufficient depth
at this low frequency would cause our phase margin to become negative at
the unity-gain frequency, so we must build yet another active notch to
perform this measurement. Before we do so, we would like to calculate
the frequencies of all of the expected modes below about 40kHz, so that
no more surprises come up. Ken Mailand has generously offered to help us
with this using Finite Element Analysis modeling.

We also started looking at the difference between the North and
South Arm Cavities to try and find out why the South Arm Cavity (SAC)
was so much quieter than the North Arm Cavity (NAC). One rather striking
difference between the two cavities is the slope of the error signal,
which was nearly a factor of ten larger in SAC than in NAC. Suspecting
that the photodiodes might be to blame, we swapped them, placing SAC's
r.f. photodiode in NAC's reflected beam, and vice versa.

With the photodiodes swapped, we find that the asymmetry in the error
signals is reversed. Now NAC's error signal is larger than SAC's. The
ratio between the two is now closer to a factor of two (NAC/SAC) than
ten (formerly SAC/NAC), which is consistent with the relative amounts of
power going into each cavity.

We also measured the noise in each cavity after switching photodiodes.
Using SAC's photodiode in the North Cavity, we see a noise spectrum
similar to our best SAC spectrum taken with the original configuration.
SAC's noise floor, on the other hand, increased with NAC's photodiode.
These results are very preliminary, and we are now in the process of
verifying them and making sure they are reproducible.

LASTI (Zucker)

no report

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)

E2E for LIGO I meeting
------------------------
The monthly 'E2E for LIGO I' meeting between simulation specialists and Hardware experts
took place on April 2nd. Matt summarized the status of the new LIGO simulation model
and especially the inclusion of ground motion with correlation information in it.
Hiro summarized the brief plan of E2E activities. In the short term, we will
evaluate noise levels using available simulation tools. For the long term, we are
planning a schedule of developments targeting to make a fairly complete package
by the S2 run. We welcome support and feedback for the planning and development.

LIGO I simulation system
--------------------------
(Matt) Completed restructuring of seismic sub-system (coherent ground motion,
approximate seismic spectra, 6x6 HAM and BSC transfer function matrices).

Modal model
--------------
(Biplab) The bug reported earlier is found to be some accumulating round-off error
arising from inexact cancellation of Guoy phase and longitudinal phase offset. An
way-around to this problem has been implemented.

Code development and maintenance
---------------------------------
(Hiro) created new primitives and fixed bugs for the new LIGO simulation package.
He worked with Matt to create a DAC noise generator based on a bit-flip mechanism
hinted by Rana at LLO.

Hiro and Ed kept working with SLU collaborators to install e2e on their machine.

(Biplab) After discussing with Matt and Hiro, Added a new setting(s) "dphiGuoy" to
propagator and for each length in summation cavity modules. This allows us to compare
different runs for studying spatial modal model features like mismatch.

Alfi
----
(Bruce)
- Out sick most of the week.
- Working on focus problems after upgrading to Java 1.4.
(Ed Maros)
  Worked on integrating JAlfi into standard build
(Melody)
- Fixed some focus problems in alfi5 with the settings dialog using the latest
release of Java (1.4.0).  Working on fixing a popup menu problem when using fvwm.

LIGO Data Analysis System

Software Systems (Blackburn)
Kent is on vacation this week. Lazzarini compiled the weekly.
testing continues in preparation for the code freeze next week and LDAS release.
Issues being tracked involve documentation updates, recompilation of core modules
to handle some class modifications needed to improve code thread safety.
The first working version of our "last" API -- the diskcaching module, was committed to CVS.

Hardware Systems (Anderson)

Caltech
-------
(Dan Kozak)

* Continued HPSS migration from Redwoods/3590s to 9940s.

* More HPSS user directory reconfiguration and account maintenance.

* Provided support for Keith (MIT) and Greg (Hanford) with Qlogic HBA
  firmware and T3 pSOS upgrades.

* Did Qlogic HBA and T3 pSOS upgrades on ldas-sw and the three ldas-dev
  systems (gateway, dataserver, metaserver).  Upgraded the "extra" HBA we
  have in the file cabinet drawer on the 6th floor.

* LIGO SAN testbed:

  * Finally closed the loop with Lance at LSC/Sun about our
    problems with SAM-QFS/ACSLS.  So far it's still not working,
    but at least I'm getting responses to email in a timely
    fashion.

  * Benchmarking T3/switch performance continues--trying to get a
    baseline to judge multiple inter-switch link performance
    against.  It does appear that lmdd and dvt are doing something
    quite different--I'm going to try to figure out what that
    difference is.
 

(Al Wilson)

* Make operational the new P4 dual 2.2gig machine. Named ldas-pctest1 it is on
  the 131.215.115.xxx network with no NIS+ services.

* Cleared conflicts with RPM packages for redhat. Systems built within the
  last month should be rebuilt with the new list of RPM's.

* Made some minor changes in BigBrother: changed warning levels, and fine
  tuned some configurations.
 

(Stuart Anderson)

* Researching prices for the LDAS S1 & S2 beowulf clusters.

* Synchronized multiple LDAS filesystems between all of the CIT LDAS
  systems to provide uniform test systems for validating the next
  LDAS software release.

* Finished all Solaris, T3, and HBA patches to the 6th floor Millikan
  LDAS machines.
 
 

MIT
---
(Keith Bayer)

* 'Stage 1' patches applied to ldas Solaris equipment.

* DC-DC power converter chips replaced in SF880 by Sun Reps.

* QFS filesystem installed on dataserver T3.

* Currently reloading T3 data from tape.

* Investigating TB disk space solution for MIT data needs.
 
 

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

* Upgraded firmware and OS on all the LDAS SUN machines.

* Still learning LAL ...

* Preparing DB2 presentation for Caltech visit ...
 

(Shannon Roddy)

* This week has primarily been spent laying out the organization of the
  computer room in the new building.  We have been investigating the power
  requirements, cabling requirements, etc.  I have put together a drawing
  of a floor plan and the equipment that will be going in individual
  racks.

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)

Scientific activities (Shawhan)

* Learned how to run the "absGlitch" DMT monitor, and started looking
at glitches in LLO E7 data with the goal of setting thresholds, etc.,
for vetoing astrophysical event candidates using auxiliary
interferometer channels.

* Figured out how to build the GDS software tree, in preparation for
making the Event Analysis Tool available as a LIGOtools package.

* Tried out using the Event Analysis Tool.

General Computing (Wallace)
MIT:
(Keith)
-Looking into redundant file server solutions for mail file server
(firewire drives not an option due to incompatibility with SB100/
SB1000 machines - no driver support from sun)
-Rebuilt linux box ldas-pcdev1.mit.edu after suspicious activity
on machine (rebuild ldas-sundev1.mit.edu as well due to identical
configuration)
-Patched several Win2K machines
-Upgraded SSH to 3.1p1 on several machines

Livingston:
(Shannon)
-This week has primarily been spent laying out the organization of the
computer room in the new building.  We have been investigating the power
requirements, cabling requirements, etc.  I have put together a drawing
of a floor plan and the equipment that will be going in individual
racks.

Hanford:
(Christine)
- Continued setting up new Win2k PCs.
- Continued trying to get AutoCAD CD from Caltech ITS.
- Added a few user accounts, miscellaneous user support and
miscellaneous support to CDS.

CIT:
(Mike)
-Loaded a new PC with all GC software plus additional engineering packages.
-Added additional hardware to a new Dell 4100 Dimension; then loaded
(Windows 2000 Server) and am configuring this for a Ghost Enterprise Server.
-Swapped out the final PC that was in the queue for an upgrade in the OTF; this
included adding additional hardware and loading special software.
-Maintenance performed on two printers 4500 & 5000; this is included
replacing a fuser, rollers, transfer kit, and replacing filters.
-Started reloading two laptops, one for Janeen and Calum that is going to
include special engineering packages for travel; and the other one is for
the loaner pool.
-Finished up tightening up security procedures that was recommended by
(ITS Security Auditors)
-Went around and gathered our old switches for Larry to be ready for
shipping to other sites.
-Had a lot of user support this week that included printing, networking,
hardware and software problems.

(Lisa)
-Began working on the blade 1000 to replace luna
-Did monthly backups
-Worked on some cadence problems with the guys in EE.
-Swapped out the boot disk in algol for a larger one.
-Put an entry in the sys admin FAQ on how to use ufsdump/ufsrestore to copy a
boot drive
-Got a new visitor, Michael Hall, set up.

(Veronica)
-LIGO website: the LSC transparencies keep coming in. I am posting them as
they arrive.
-Per Peter Shawhan's suggestions, have rewritten the Research Bulletin
Boards webpage. The new page will be up and running in a few days.
-Posted updates to various parts of the LIGO website.
-LDAS: Met with Bruce Sears to talk about maintenance of the gnats
database.
-CaJAGWR: Taped Massimo Tinto's lecture to post on the web.

(Larry)
-Resolved a number of procurement issues. The matching grant equipment from SUN
has started arriving and is being distributed.
-Working on a couple of server replacements.
-Worked out a couple of printing problems. The worst one was a persons print job
went crazy and made a 400MB print file, which caused the prints services to hang
for a couple of hours.
-Working a number of budget related issues.
-Checked on the WAN connection for Hanford. Should be receiving some information
from NoaNet in the next few days.
-Still tweaking the network installation. Along those lines, Ed C. has shipped
most of the FORE equipment to the Observatories.
-Reviewed a number of documentation issues. The group is working on getting some
of the documentation up to date.
-Setup a couple of accounts and the general cleanup of old accounts. Working on
a list of old accounts that are to be deleted.
 
 

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)

(This report has contributions of past two weeks)

The short term and long term plan of the simulation group are under discussion.
This is to make e2e most efficiently used for LIGO. The short term effort is to
evaluate the realistic limiting noise curve using the capability of e2e available
now, and the long term effort is to identify the needed features for various
science runs, to prioritize to-be-developed functionalities and to set the schedule
to follow.

E2E school @ LLO
------------------
About 10-15 people attended the E2E school on 18th Mar at LLO. There were talks by
Hiro, Biplab and Matt and a demonstration session. Thanks to Szabi Marka for
initiating this and taking all organisational responsibilities. Details available at
http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~e2e

Weekly E2E Physics meeting
----------------------------
(On 28th Mar) Luca matone talked about "absolute calibrations" and comparison with
other methods. Details in our homepage.

LIGO I simulation system
--------------------------
(Matt) Began testing SimLIGO.  I am currently restructuring the stack sub-system
and parameterizing the ground motion.

Mode mismatch
--------------
(Biplab)
- (Before LSC meet) After taking proper phase offsets into account (in order to
   make a proper comparison among intermediate states between hot and cold IFO),
   locked various states. Gave a talk on this topic in LSC meeting (detector charac.)
- Trying to fix a bug. Did the above work devising a way that avoids that bug.
- Started documenting the work done so far.

Code development and maintenance
---------------------------------
(Hiro) Improvements and bug fixes to support the new LIGO simulation package.
(Ed Maros)
- Worked on getting release out and worked for LSC meeting.
- Installed latest version of JDK for Solaris

Alfi
----
(Bruce)
- Fixed problems with saving blank lines in comments and macros.
- Better version tracking implemented.
- Working on updating files' data regarding locations of elements in edit windows.
- Fixed other misc PRs.

(Melody)
- Fixed several popup menu problems in alfi5. Also wrote a document outlining some
   tips and shortcuts for using alfi5.
- Implemented a routine which converts the node coordinates in the files from center
   to top left. Keeping the top-left coordinates of the nodes fixed solved some
   problems reported in alfi5.
- Testing the latest Java version (1.4.0) with the third-party graphics package and
   alfi5. The latest version addresses some problems with the windowing focus subsystem.

LIGO Data Analysis System

Software Systems (Blackburn)

A problem with the use of the ilwdfcs library used to convert internal data
into
a pre-frame formated ILWD was discovered in the eventmonitorAPI. Strangely,
the
misuse of the library did not result in corrupt data even though there was a
chance of this happening. The usage has been corrected and the
eventMonitorAPI
is properly generating pre-frame data objects.

The FrDetector data objects have now been fully unit tested in the LDAS
APIs. A
new DSO is being developed to pass through this data so that a full end to
end
test at the system level can be performed.

The dataConditionAPI is now running without multi-thread issues for periods
of
time as long as we have tested (over night). This is a tremendous
improvement
in the reliability of the dataConditionAPI. The changes to the GNU STL
string
class were responsible for this improvement. However, a costumized GNU GCC
must
be used (and is being made available by LDAS) under LDCG.

The stack has now been completely removed from the dataConditionAPI. This
now
completes all memory optimizations for this API. We should see roughly 5
times
less memory usage in the next release of LDAS as was seen in the version
used
in E7.

A bug in the resampling code was discovered for resampling values of p/q
where
p was not 1. The problem was that the pass-band edge frequency in the
low-pass
filter was wrong. The procedure is meant to be equivalent to upsampling by p
(inserting p-1 zeroes between each input sample), filtering out everything
above the target frequency p/q*Nyq_in, and decimating by q. The pass-band
frequency was set to fc = 1/(p*q) (units of upsampled Nyquist = p*Nyq_in)
when it should have been set to fc = 1/q (units of upsampled Nyquist =
p*Nyq_in).
I'm in the process of retesting today. This has now been fixed.

Unfortunately, the improvement in reliability in the dataConditionAPI has
been
countered by a new issue in the metaDataAPI. The metaDataAPI is failing
about
twice each hour in which it is heavily used as a result of dereferencing a
null
pointer.

The managerAPI now has support for fully managing *all* URL request within
LDAS.
This new code allows more of LDAS to run inside the private network. Test is
currently underway for this new functionality.

Work began on implementing the new cache structure in the diskCacheAPI this
week. There are several more days of development needed here so testing will
likely not begin until middle of next week.

The issues with jobs not working properly at MIT was finally sorted out and
fixed this week. The problem resulted from extraneous files being added
under
the frame mount point.

Greg Mendell reported statistic from using the LDAS system at Hanford for
construction of the SFT (short Fourier transform) frame data sets. Of the
roughly 2000 jobs submited 0.5% failed with an additional 1.3 reporting
success before the job was known to successfully complete.

A significant increase in our testing of LDAS was carried out this week
as we get closer to being ready for a code freeze. The additional testing
has identified numerous problems which have been easy to fix.

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

* Continued HPSS migration from Redwoods to 9940s.  Had a 24 period in
  which migrations ran continuously without operator (me) intervention--a
  first!  Due to DCE credentials expiring, this is the theoretical limit
  given the way it's being done.

* More HPSS user directory reconfiguration and account maintenance.

* LIGO SAN testbed:

      * Got a response from Lance at LSC/Sun about our problems with
    SAM-QFS/ACSLS, but none of his suggestions panned out.  No
    reply to that info from him.  I'm asking Linda Feather if
    there's something we can do to move this along at a faster
    speed.

      * Trying to replicate directio QFS bug (unable to do so given a
    single host with the new QFS version, but I'll be testing the
    old version and multiple host configurations as well).
 

(Al Wilson)

* Flashed the EEPROMs for the 450's and 880 on the 6th floor.

* Moved ultra 10's and setup.

* Linux machine couch ready for a student.

* Called sun for bad 100b pci card.

* Got alcor (ultra 10 ) running.

* Cleaned up file system at MIT.

* Cleaned up security holes in ldas systems.

* Added new warning levels for cpu loads in BB.
 

(Stuart Anderson)

* Upgraded the boot and diagnostic PROM code on the ldas-test and ldas-cit
  SPARC servers (E450 and V880).

* Switched ldas-sw over to Gigabit Ethernet and verified 500-800Mbit/s
  TCP/IP performance.

* Cleaned up legacy fiber connections from the recent general computing
  switch from ATM to Ethernet at Caltech.

* Fixed a long-standing issue with lock file contention for the CGI based
  LDAS software mirroring interface.

* Installed the recent RedHat Beta release (Skipjack) on a laptop.
  This is a candidate for the next LDAS Linux reference platform
  when the final version is released.

* Configured and started a pre-release of LDAS on the new LDAS-CIT system.
 

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

* Ran the tapecontrol script to put the triple coincidence E7 data,
  identified by Erik Katsavounidis, onto tape at LHO and LLO. The tapes
  are on there way to MIT.

  The GPS start time and intervals for the coincidence data are given in
  Erik's email below:

Erik Katsavounidis wrote:

Hi guys,
Here's the list with the triple coincidence data. I've already augmented
them by 16 seconds at both ends. The list includes GPS times and duration
in seconds. The total data is about 4.5 hours.
Thanks a lot,
--Erik

693641096       968
693727231       985
693768256       1114
693793913       1214
693836529       1188
693879462       1101
693943822       1139
693961577       983
694067741       1118
694086913       1197
694147861       935
694250455       1201
694254892       1220
694420685       1098
694614036       1172
694843198       1115

* A complete list of the coincidence data frame files on tape is at these
  URLs for LHO and LLO respectively:

http://www.ldas.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ldas_outgoing/tapecontrol/logs/clientlibrary.html

http://www.ldas.ligo-la.caltech.edu/ldas_outgoing/tapecontrol/logs/clientlibrary.html

* Upgraded firmware from OBP/POST 4.0.45/1.2.6 to 4.5.9/2.0.1 on Sun
  Blade 100 admin host at LHO.

* Assisted Igor in reconfiguring the backup script on admin at LLO.

Report from Previous Week 2002.03.29
Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)
Scientific activities (Shawhan)

* Investigated the distortion observed in burst-like signals injected
into the LLO interferometer during the E7 run, and found that it was
consistent with what you would expect from the frequency-dependent
response of the interferometer.

* Created a "LIGO Science Links" web page to collect various LIGO/LSC
web resources into one central place.

For The Weekly Report: Mar. 28, 2002; Data Analysis Update:

1) The knownpulsardemod DSO ran under LDAS from Mar 13 2002 to Mar 28
2002, generating SFTs at LHO and LLO on E7 data.  As of this report 99%
of the SFTs have been generated.  The remainder will be completed by the
end of today. The SFTs will then be backed up onto tape, as well as made
available via anonymous ftp to those with proper permissions (see
below).

Statistics:

1393 jobs have run at LHO. 7 jobs failed with an error in LDAS, for a
0.5% failure rate.  However, 18 jobs claimed to finish without error but
produced no SFT output, for another 1.3% failure rate.

702 jobs have run at LLO.  4 jobs failed with an error in LDAS, for a
0.6% failure rate.  However, 9 jobs claimed to finish without error but
produced no SFT output, for another 1.3% failure rate.

Thus, SFT generation has run mostly very successfully within LDAS.  The
errors messages have been sent to LDAS and discussed at today's SLUG
telecon. The cases where errors were reported in LDAS were all due to
timing issues with sockets.  These issues are known, and are being
addressed.  The case where no error is reported, but no result is
output, is also a known issue where the LDAS managerAPI reports back
before a job has finished.  Again, LDAS is taking steps to prevent this
error in the future.

The SFTs are generated on the "gravity-wave" channel, using the
clean_locks files for quality information from this URL
http://tenaya.physics.lsa.umich.edu/~dwchin/LIGO/E7/LockSegments/. SFTs
are FFTs of every 2048 seconds of the data, with data of poor quality
replaced with the mean value of the good data. The percent of the data
"padded" in this way is stored in the history structure of the SFT. The
FFT data is stored as COMPLEX8 data. (SFTs are output in frame format.)
SFTs are not produced when there is missing raw data during a 2048
second segment. The complete SFT specification is in the DCC as
LIGO_T020043-00-W.

For those with permission to connect to LDAS via anonymous ftp, SFTs are
available at these URLs:

For the SFTs of H1:LSC-AS_Q:
$ ftp ldas.ligo-wa.caltech.edu
ftp> cd /output/sfts/sft_E7_H1_CleanLocks_031302

For the SFTs of H2:LSC-AS_Q:
$ ftp ldas.ligo-wa.caltech.edu
ftp> cd /output/sfts/sft_E7_H2_CleanLocks_031302

For the SFTs of L1:LSC-AS_Q:
$ ftp ldas.ligo-la.caltech.edu
ftp> cd /output/sfts/sft_E7_L1_CleanLocks_031302

2) Attended the March 2002 LSC meeting at LLO 3/20-3/23.  Reported on
the progress with SFTs and discussed progress on the LALDemod function
with Steve Berukoff.

General Computing (Wallace)
MIT:
Nothing to report.

Livingston:
(Tom)
-Recovering from the LSC and getting things together to send back.
-New location for network usage can be found at :
http://kahuna.net.lsu.edu/mrtg/ligo.html

(Larry)
-There will be more discussion on improving the VRVS system usage in the
conference rooms. Many things were learned from the LSC conference setup.
Shannon and Tom did a great job on getting the video conferencing up and going.

Hanford:
(Christine)
- Continued setting up more new PCs.
- Continued trying to get the AutoCAD CD from Caltech ITS.
- Modified the access list for the site GC network due to a hacker
getting into one of the GC/CDS gateways.
- Attended a meeting about getting LHO on Noanet through the local
Energy Northwest site. Minutes of the meeting have been sent to the attendees.

CIT:
(Mike)
-Loaded two laptops with full GC software one for Stan Whitcomb and the
other for loaner pool.
-Swapped out a PC for the OTF (Subbasement), this included special hardware that
took some time to get to work with upgraded computer.
-Loaded NT4.0 server on a new PC for a webserver to host (project science
website), this is up and running.
-Building a backup server to replace old Ghost server that is max out
on disk space.
-Worked with Ed on tagging new computer equipment.
-Reloaded and setup PC's for visitors.

(Lisa)
-Rebuilt electra (new hard disk)
-Rebuilt spica (hacked)
-Rebuilt asterope (upgrade to solaris 8)
-Looked at how to redo the mailman archives to accommodate mime attachments.  It
can be done but it will take some work.
-A lot of small housekeeping tasks: add new tapes to tape robot, put nis+ on
some ldas machines, chase down some mac addresses, clean up the dns tables, test
the modem pool.

(Veronica)
- LIGO website: posted LSC March transparencies. The remaining files are
still coming, will be posted as they arrive. Attended 2 meetings regarding
LIGO Policies and Procedures manual. Created draft webpages for it; links
will be activated as the task force decides on the content.
Together with Mike, looked into the DCC database to see why it was
malfunctioning. It seemed that compression of the file may have been the
cause. We restored the file from the backup in its uncompressed form, and
it is now running. Met with Linda to talk about possible improvements to
the DCC database structure.
-Posted updates to various parts of the LIGO website (Undergraduate
projects, Int. BBoard, LSC).
- CaJAGWR website: did usual upkeep.
- LDAS webpages: edited various images.

(Larry)
-Ordered a couple more PC's and SUN hardware for various people. Assisted others
in getting on the matching grant program with SUN.
-Cleaning up some documentation. Discovered I need to get the General Computing
Policy out to the Engineering Committee, that should happen next week after some
cleanup.
-Just as a point of information on the wireless access. For the LIGO wireless
access you need to have a configuration to connect to the network name
"AIRLIGO". Those without Orinoco cards may have trouble doing this. This will
help you get on the LIGO network in place of some other wireless network.
-Worked a couple of logistical issues for the visitors that are arriving.
-Worked a number of web, network and server issues. All just annoyances nothing
major.
-Worked with Ed C. on some property issues. As a side note we are sending a
number of FORE switches to the Observatories to be used as spares and augment
their resources.
-Resolved a few printer issues. Mostly, PC's that lost their connections.
-Worked a couple of hack related issues. We did have a couple of machines hacked
into. They have been rebuilt. Also, worked with ITS on some other attempts that
were made, they have blocked the offenders at the edge routers.
 
 

LIGO II/Advanced R&D (Sanders)

for the 40m Lab:

40 m  (from Betsy Weaver)
MC1 has guide rods glued.
MC2 has guide rods and all magnets glued.
MC3 has guide rods glued.

Rolf Bork
- We are setting up the 40m lab Digital Suspension Control (DSC) VME crate here at Wilson house.  We will test the code here, along with connections to our DAQ and GDS, as much as possible and then move it into place at the 40m lab.  Since the 40m lab will not have the same 5588 reflected memory as the sites, Alex will need to modify the DAQ controller and AWG software to run with 40m systems.

Sander Liu
40M EO Shutter Controllers
        Received three high voltage pulsers from DEI. Ben delivered them to 40M
        Three controllers are currently under test.

and for advanced LIGO:

Janeen Romie:
AdLIGO Suspensions
Submitted a PO for the sensor/actuator ceramic circuit boards for the controls prototype suspensions.

AdLIGO PSL
Peter King
Shally Saraf reports that he managed to get approximately 10-13 W (I don't
recall which) out of the 10-W laser/amplifier chain.  The input power from
the laser was approximately 4 W.  During the recent LSC Meeting, I gave
instructions to Shally on how to increase the diode current and thereby
increase the output power of the laser.
 

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

I had a bit of a setback with the modelling when Mathematica crashed
while saving the quad model definition file and corrupted it. Fortunately
I had a backup only two days old; unfortunately I had been editing like
crazy for that two days. I put back all the changes, did a bit more
debugging and released it as v2.1: <http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~mbarton/
SUSmodels/asus4/index.html>. This is a major milestone: the model is now
feature-complete and the only refining left to do is to put in some
better values for the blade parameters, which will probably happen in the
summer when the prototype gets moved here from MIT. In the meantime we
should be able to get some interesting thermal noise results out of it.
 

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

Sapphire homogeneity
Homogeneity compensation at Goodrich is complete.  Goodrich will be sending the 250mm sapphire piece to Caltech where the homogeneity will be verified.  Goodrich has supplied before and after images of the homogeneity of this piece.
LIGO-C020137-02 contains four of these images, all are measurements made with circularly polarized light.  The first two images represent the current state of the optic.  One can clearly distinguish the orientation of the optic by the birefringence fringes running at 45 degrees, these are perpendicular to the wedge of the optic.  Recall that the inhomogeneity of sapphire measures differently depending on the polarization with which it is probed.

1.  Current compensated homogeneity, RMS 13 nm.  They have chosen orientation "A" as the preferred  orientation.  There is a circular pattern, I don't know if this is incomplete subtraction of side one or just a residual on side two.
2.  Current map of (what is believed to be) the other polarization.  This is seen by aligning a different reflection.  They apparently get three returns, one from the first surface, and two from the rear surface.
3.  Orientation A before the last correction
4.  As received from LIGO, which reflection was used is unknown.

It is certainly plausible that the two returns represent each polarization.   Unfortunately these images are not clear because of the birefringence fringes running at 45°.

Gingin
The homogeneity data of one of the 150 mm sapphire pieces has been examined for beam sizes on the order r=10mm.
http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~gari/Supporting/2cmSaphAhomog.JPG
shows an image of the homogeneity (over r=10mm) of one of the 150 mm diameter pieces that we have been considering using for Gingin.

The image of the whole piece can be seen at http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~gari/LIGOII/homogeneity.htm
by choosing Saphah9a (the third data set.)
For the analysis above, I chose an area in the blue streak just down from center (there are masked pixels in the center of the data set due to an internal reflection in the interferometer)

If I choose a r=10mm area just to the right of center it is even better, ~2.7nm rms.

Crystal Systems
CSI reports a successful growth of a 15" boule.  They say it looks good.  This is the third attempt at the new size.
 

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

I was on vacation on Thursday, Friday and Monday.

Norna is visiting again from Stanford for the month of April . We have been looking again at the MATLAB model for the mode cleaner suspension and we have made some small changes to the parameter set to improve the coupling between some of the modes.

I have been working on various drawings and assemblies for the mode cleaner suspension.
 

From: "k.strain" <k.strain@physics.gla.ac.uk>
Subject: Minutes of the 40m Tech Adv Committee

 minutes of the 40m TAC committee meeting at
the LLO LSC last month.

Dennis Ugolini gave a concise presentation outlining the progress on the
40m over the last 6 months or so. He detailed a few minor changes relating
to the detection optical bench at the antisymmetric output of the
intferferometer. Some minor difficulties with dust in the clean area are
under investigation.

Our attention is drawn to the last page of the presentation where a number
of tasks that are not viewed as being the responsibility of the 40m group,
but which could be tackled by them if necessary/best are listed.

A small number of points were raised in discussions after the talk

Q. Was communication between the LSC groups working on RSE sufficient
A. This should be improved. Especially in the frequency of less formal
exchanges.

Q. Are the technical issues relating to the VHF photodiodes being
addressed? - especially for wavefront sensing
A. This is currently viewed as an LSC task. Is unclear if a solution will
be available in time to meet the 40m program, without additional work. The
work at Stanford, on high speed photodetectors is not on the critical path
for the 40m program.

Committee recommendations:-

We should avoid undue formality getting in the way of smooth and
continuous communication between groups working on RSE. The
relatively formal reports (6 monthly/LSC meetings) should continue,
but these  should be supplemented by informal exchanges and requests for
input whenever the  need/opportunity arises.
 

Report of the LASTI Technical Advisory Committee LIGO-T020048-00-R

Based on its 5 th meeting, 21 March 2002, at the LSC Meeting at LLO
Members in attendance: Rolf Bork, Dennis Coyne, Riccardo DeSalvo, Brian Lantz, Fred
Raab, Peter Saulson (chair), and Alan Weinstein.

Mike Zucker gave the presentation on behalf of the LASTI team.
LASTI has completed its infrastructure. It now has a functioning PSL, a 1 meter test
cavity, and LIGO I stacks in both a HAM and a BSC chamber. All of the installation was
done in a way that preserved vacuum cleanliness. The LASTI team, as well as the large
set of visitors from the rest of the Lab and from the LSC, deserves congratulations for
this achievement.

Since our last meeting, LASTI was asked to carry out the testing of the new External
Pre-Isolator system being designed in response to the strong seismic noise at LLO.
LASTI was the only facility available within LIGO where such tests could be carried out,
so one could say that it has already proven its value, in a way not quite intended by its
designers. Tests have started, and are slated to be intensive through 3Q02.
This work of course has an effect on the rest of the LASTI schedule, although it is hard
to argue that anything is more important right now. In fact, much of the impact on the
LASTI schedule comes from the fact that the EPI work has caused the SEI team to
lengthen its own schedule for delivering prototypes to LASTI. The LASTI team has done
a nice job of inserting other interesting tests into its own schedule, including an earlier set
of suspension tests made on the “controls” version instead of the “noise” version.
In summary, the TAC’s simple message is “Keep up the good work.”

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