LIGO Weekly Report

Special Items: Status towards S1, report on EMI/RFI visit with Nat. Radio Astro. Observatory

Special Announcements:

LSC Issues (Weiss)

LIGO I Construction/LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

The list of current actions revised to reflect the status of open actions assigned through July, 18, 2002 may be found at ACTION LIST.

Web pages for the DCC give simple how-to's for document numbering, easy access to the latest on-line documents, and search capabilities for the DCC database. Take a look. . .

The wooden auditorium floor of the LLO Staging Building has been accepted. As a result, the check in the amount of approximately $48,000 for the last invoice, that has been held for nearly three months, has been released. This leaves $110,000 in retention still being held. The only outstanding issue concerns some problems with the HVAC. These may be resolved under our warranty.

The LHO Laboratory Building remains on schedule, but completion by the LSC meeting of August 19 will be close.

Evaluations continue on ways to regulate vehicular traffic at both sites in order to reduce discernible noise. So far, gates with cameras operated from the control room seem like the best candidates.

WE 07/25/02	Packages	Faxes
In	39	28
Out	12	31

Oracle will be upgraded to the 11i level and the system will be shutdown campus wide August 16-22 for the upgrade. For those of you contemplating a large purchase or have an invoice that will require payment during this time period, it is suggested that you submit your requisition(s)/invoice(s) no later than 5PM, Wednesday, August 15. Note that for emergency procurements, our group will have a block of numbers pre-assigned and will be able to prepare and order off-line. -pel]

Advanced LIGO (Frey)

CR-010012 Revision B	WBS 1.4.4.1	Closeout Construction Budgets for Initial Computer Equipment Complement at the Sites	P. Lindquist
CR-020007	WBS 1.1.4	Finishing and Furnishing of Livingston Staging Building	G. Stapfer
CR-020008	WBS 1.1.4	Purchase and Install Audio Visual Equipment in the New Hanford Auditorium	O. Matherny
CR-020009	OPs	Digital Common Mode Servo to Mode Cleaner Path	D. Coyne
CR-020010	OPs	Additional Funding for Low Frequency Seismic Isolation	P. Lindquist

A LIGO Change Control Board (CCB) was held Tuesday, July 2, 2002. Change Request CR-020007 was discussed. Items totaling $157K were approved. Minutes were distributed (LIGO-M020281).

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

LIGO Hanford Observatory (LHO) and Interferometer Operations (Raab)

Summary of Commissioning Activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory (compiled by M. Landry)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2k IFO investigations
---------------------
MMT2 forensics: SEM images of the broken wire are available at
http://blue.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ilog/pub/ilog.cgi?group=detector&date_to_view=07/19/2002&anchor_to_scroll_to=2002:07:19:12:12:24-RaiW

Gate valves were reopened on Monday morning. Shortly after, the water load into each arm was
calculated to be 0.5 Torr litres/day, with the expectation this would fall as 1/t. The load was
deemed low enough to allow the gate valves to remain open indefinitely.

An initial ioo and core optic alignment was performed, resulting in single arm and Michelson
locks (no PRM or full locks yet). Alignment is currently being revisited owing to inadequate
centering of the input beam on the BS.

Complicating matters somewhat is the concurrent upgrade of the ISCT10 table layout. Taking
advantage of ifo downtime, the new AS port layout scheme was implemented. An iterative process
of ifo and ISCT10 component aligment is nearly complete. Some astigmatism in the AS beam
is noted, possibly due to aligment into the beam-reducing telescope. The primary remaining
table task involves setting AS EO shutter trigger levels.

4k IFO investigations
---------------------
A host of visitors worked on many parallel investigations on the 4k, including frequency-noise
suppression in the MC, improving mean-time-to-ifo lock, duration of lock, and the implementation
of the common mode (CM) servo. Frequency noise supression was improved with an MC_L gain
reduction and additional filtering:
http://blue.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ilog/pub/ilog.cgi?group=detector&date_to_view=07/20/2002&anchor_to_scroll_to=2002:07:20:18:31:12-peterF

The optimization of loop gains and resetting of RF phases resulted in swifter locking of the
full ifo. Saturations in RM and POB electronics were characterized.

The MC2 controller was upgraded to include 16kHz processing and the capability to digitally sum
in the CM's MC_L signal. The additive offset and modecleaner length paths have been switched
on but a final servo configuration has not yet been found.

LSC code changes eliminated switching transients in ETM dewhitening filter application.

LIGO Livingston Observatory (LLO) and Interferometer Operations (Coles)

PEPI Installation Overmeyer, Traylor, Langdale, Fyffe, Kovalik, Giaime, Busby, Kern plus a host of others)

PEPI went perfectly. Installation began as scheduled on Monday, July 15
and was completed a week ahead of schedule! Thanks to all assisting.

(THIS IS REALLY AN AWARD WINNING PERFORMANCE! CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL INVOLVED IN THIS FEAT! _GHS)

Discovered that the MOPA-126 safety shutter is tripping unpredictably
(probably because we have the system misconfigured) Working on that, and
had the installer out 2 days this week to correct a fault in the PSL
table reed switches.

Ran a security audit last week and went over the results with Larry
while he was at LLO. There are some action items that we agreed I
should look at.

Larry and I had a meeting at LSU with Ric Simmons, Charlie McMahon, and
Shawn Robins concerning bandwidth and connectivity to LLO. The results
of the meeting were promising. There are some new options we will be
looking at.

There are some issues with the virus scan software I am looking at.
Specifically they involve the actions of the scheduled scans and why
some files are not being quarantined.

Working on blocking some SPAM that is coming in on our mail server. A
couple individuals have been getting various SPAM including some porn
advertisements. I should be able to have these blocked soon.

Installed some software packages on the SURF and guest computers in the
new building.

* Helped Greg to restore E7 injection data from tape to disk.
* Using an offline backup, recreated LLO_TEST (380 Mb) on one of the
test machines and replicated it on the other through VPN. It took about
3 hours. Everything seemed to work fine.
* Double checked that federated database configuration on DB 7.1 does
not work with BLOBs.
* Installed DB2 7.2 on a laptop. Playing with it.

(Shannon Roddy) I am looking at what I will need to
do to add a third leg to the WAN VPN while I am in Pasadena Aug
11-14th. Also note the meeting with LSU in the GC portion of my weekly.

Chips are falling on the floor in the machine shop. Bellows issues were
finally resolved and MIT has issued a PO. HYSPAN is manufacturing them
now. The LLO spring tester has been modified to incorporate a positive
mechanical stop limiting spring elongation.

Still waiting to hear from the shop about correcting manufacturing
errors found in the Pods (housings for the geophones). These were
returned to the machine shop 2 weeks ago.

Detector/Technical Support (Whitcomb, Coyne)

DETECTOR SCIENCE & ENGINEERING

Commissioning Plan

A draft revision to the Commissioning Plan and schedule has been issued for comment (M020135-01) The primary purpose of this plan is to establish the major improvements and revisions to be undertaken between the science runs. We hope to finalize the plan next week.

Seismic Upgrade Project

Dennis Coyne

A revised project schedule has been issued (M020142-04)

PEPI

Overmeyer,Traylor,Langdale,Fyffe,Kovalik,Giaime,Busby,Kern plus a host of others

PEPI went perfectly. Installation began as scheduled on Monday, July 15 and was completed a week ahead of schedule!Thanks to all assisting.

Initial checkout indicates that the the Fine Actuation System (FAS) is working fine. The balance of the PEPI installation and commissioning (dSpace controller, wiring, signal conditioning) is underway.

MEPI

Dennis Coyne reporting

The first 3 MEPI units have been assembled. A few small dimensional problems were fixed in real-time with the MIT/LIGO machine shop (and capable machinists like Myron, Mike, Ken, …) Assembly procedures are being refined.

An installation of one of the MEPI units on HAM20 at LASTI was attempted as a fit check (this is a chamber with only the HAM support structure installed – no isolation stack). There is a fit problem with the spring/actuator housing (the weldment that is common to both the HEPI and MEPI designs); The housing interferes with the HAM door. Ken Mason designed a fix involving a rotation and translation of the housing. The modifications are being machined Friday and it is anticipated that all 4 MEPI units will be installed next week (on the HAM with the isolation stack).

HEPI actuator and springs

Jonathan Kern, Marcel Hammond

Chips are falling on the floor in the machine shop. Bellows issues were

finally resolved and MIT has issued a PO.HYSPAN is manufacturing them

now.The LLO spring tester has been modified to incorporate a positive

mechanical stop limiting spring elongation.

HEPI Pump Station/Distribution

Ken Mailand

·Running system daily.

·Getting setup to do tests at all sensors with various accumulator pressures.

·Manifolds [fluid distribution]: The manifolds [5] with their mounting bases are finished machined and are being welded.

·Tests: Start tests 7-25 at several accumulator pressure settings to optimize the operation of the pump isolation. Determine which improvements or modifications might be made to improve performance.

·Design: A site installation version of the test pump station to be designed, when final configuration is known. This would be more compact, have a mass dampened mount base, and be in an isolation enclosure, to control temp and exhaust vapor.

·Stanford [information needed from]: A range of acceptable viscosities will guide us in the design, re. the allowable temp rise of the oil in the system.

·LASTI: Sent motor data to Myron re. voltage and phases. The oil will ship with the rest of the pump station. Distribution manifold drawings were sent 7-2 to MIT to show the configuration, and the attachment method. Need to design and build a bypass resistor for MIT configuration. A large box crate is ready for shipping all items not on bases.

·Layout Drawing: I have finished a scale plan view and partial elevation [acad 2D] layout drawing, of station component assembly.

·On Going:

1.A new pump mount adaptor will be designed to attach the existing motor to the new screw style pump.

2. A new aluminum coupling will be modified and balanced for the existing pump, and new screw style pump.

3.The lighter coupling will be finned to reduce heat in pump shaft. A new Buna coupling spider material will be tried to smooth flow.

4.The motor pump adaptor will be modified [opened] to allow air flow thru coupling area.

5.The motor will be detached from the base and allowed to contact the floor independent of the

6.station plumbing brackets with the hope of further isolation of vibrations from pump and motor.

7.The plumbing will be mounted on an existing base board which is more secure than the current and of a better material.

CDS Software

Rolf Bork reporting

- Most of the past week spent on changes to Digital Suspension Control (DSC)

software necessary to operate LHO4k MC2 similar to a large optic for CARM

control. This included:

- Removing all but sensor inputs for MC2 in the SOS controller and adding

reflected memory signals to send this data to the MC2 controller. While were we

at it, we also replaced the two MIPS processors, which were providing the EPICS

interfaces, with a single Pentium processor.This processor is running EPICS

release 3.13, ported to a Pentium by Alex.It's been in since last Thursday or

Friday and have had no complaints of problems thus far.If this proves

successful, we may also want to consider changing out the ASC front end EPICS

processors (presently a MIPS CPU), as these are also over taxed by the number of

EPICS database records required support the standard filter modules (ASC has up

to 100 digital filter banks, 10 filters per bank).

- LSC front end code modified to send CARM error signal to MC2 controller.

- Large optic controller software modified to run MC2.This involved adding

an input and filter bank for IOO-MCL and removing optical lever controls.At

Peter's request, we also moved the UL and LL coil excitation points to send

excitation signals into the LSC and IOO_MCL paths for MC2 testing.

- All large optic DSC software modified to move the dewhitening filters to be

the last filter in the coil output stages (as per Peter, Sigg, Rana).

- Alex installed the GDS tools at the 40m lab.He is also working on getting

the Arbitrary Waveform Generator (AWG) running.This requires code changes, as

the sites use the VME reflected memory and the 40m lab only uses the newer PCI

versions.

- New version of ASC code has been modified to operate with the DSC in the

LHO4k.Two versions are ready to go (with or without Microseismic FF).End

station code for DSC also modified to handle microseismic FF.This new code

will not be installed until after S1.

- I will get together with Jay on his return Monday to discuss the best approach

for a phased installation of DSC on the LHO2k (and perhaps LHO4k) between S1 and

S2.We will also try to work out a schedule for this phased install, as the

time between S1 and S2 is relatively short.

CDS Hardware

Jay Heefner

Rich Abbott reporting

1.Flavio designed and sent to board house a test fixture to be used with the +/- 10 amp drivers.

2.Ran the +/- 10 amp drivers through a variety of stress tests including maximum power dissipation tests.The units performed within the design envelope even at 115 watts of thermal dissipation per channel (there are 6 channels per chassis).We are writing a test procedure to formalize the release of the first prototype to LASTI next week.

3.Received the 8 channel valve driver boards and have begun the stuffing process for evaluation quantities.

4.Ordered more +/- 10 amp driver circuit boards.

5.Finished CAD of new adapter board for L4C geophone head.

6.Released drawing of seismic retrofit electronics topologies and am in the process of writing up cable lists.

7.Finished CAD and sent a BNC adapter board to PCB manufacture that adapts the valve driver board to BNC inputs for use with the dSpace system.

Mohana Mageswaran

I am getting ready another seismic interface box. It will be tested

and ready to be shipped by next week. I am also trying to use the

web version of the Altera's Quartus II software package in my earlier

designed New Variable Timing Board.

PSL

PeterKing

The schematic for the modified experimental VCO was drawn up.I

was more than 50% of the way through laying out the board when a computer

problem resulted in the loss of the PCB file - the file was not actually

saved even though the "Save" button was hit.Most of the board layout has

been done.Parts for the board were also being searched for - large value

capacitors in particular.The an effort to simplify things for now, the new

board does not include the automatic gain control and power sensing of the

previous version.This will be added back in once the phase noise of the

circuit has been characterized.

In the meanwhile, I have been gathering information about components

suitable for measuring the VCO phase noise and calibrating the phase noise

of an IFR oscillator at 80 MHz.

Lightwave have apparently made some minor engineering changes to the 10-W

laser.The fifth Microlock is no longer present and there have been some

silkscreen changes to the master oscillator interface board.

DMT

John Zweizig

This week I have been working on implementing a DMT message tunnel to

allow users outside of the control room to access DMT monitor data

directly. At present a copy of the DMT viewer running on a GC node can't

see any data from monitors running on the new Blade 1000s that are

connected only to the CDS network. The tunnel process would run on sand or

delaronde and echo the requests to the monitors as well as the replies

produced by the monitor processes. The nameserver will automatically

provide a route via a tunnel (if one exists) when a client requests the

address of a monitor that is not on an accessible network.

Optics

GariLynn Billingsley

2 LIGO 1 Beamsplitters were coated at REO with the help of Helena Armandula.They will be coming back to CIT for evaluation.

Optics Analysis

Erika D’Ambrosio

I am doing analytical calculations to see where the sidebands imbalance comes

from, since we see that in the simulation results and want to understand which

effect brings that up.

Part of the problem is due that for general perturbations not only light goes

from one mode to another but there is also an impact on the phase shift which

seems to redefine the optimal lengths that minimize the sidebands imbalance. I

am going through a lot of algebra to check all the quantities that contribute

to the overall phenomenon.

Bill Kells

Optical Contamination Cavities

Lee Cardenas, Liyuan Zhang, Bill Kells

OTF Lab.

Contamination Cavity # 1 with glycerin still running and it will be running for another week.

No discernable change in absorption and only ~2ppm increase in scatter loss (step change after introduction of the sample).

New Lab at RSE

Cavity #3Reference Cavity is pumping down now and it will be used as reference.

The optics has been installed and aligned and waiting to be aligned into the cavity.

I have replaced the exhaust filter on this pump with a bigger filter and it is just fine.

Cavity #2Test cavity

This cavity is waiting to be pumped ( no vac. pump available)

I am working on a pump now, refurbishing the one we have.

Bob Taylor gave me one but it does not work.It has electronic problem.

We continue bringing the rest of the equipment needed here at RSE from OTF Lab.

I have received the 100mw NPRO Laser from Lightwave and replaced it for the 700mw that was

used for the transmission test setup.The 700mw NPRO laser will be used to run again the Mineral test sample,

running the laser at max. power ~750mw.

The wooden crate with optic and mounts was shipped to MIT (Nergis Mavalvala)

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

> Since our last report we have attempted to lock the TNI and take noise
> data with the new optical configuration (optimized polarizations) and
> the new servo electronics. Unfortunately, we were not able to lock
> reliably to the TEM00 mode and so were not able to take data.
>
> Lock acquisition is not a problem. We are able to acquire the TEM00
mode
> every minute or so, but the lock will not hold for more than 20 or
30ms
> at a time. (We can tell we are locking to the TEM00 mode by the
> visibility, which is around 60% for this mode and much less for other
> modes.) This hold time of 20-30ms is very consistent, and we have no
> trouble locking to and holding on higher-order modes.
>
> We have observed modes in the system at 27Hz, 21Hz, and 30Hz that
> produce fairly large amplitudes in the error signals of the arm
> cavities. Moreover, we observed that the 27Hz mode shows up in the
mode
> cleaner's shadow sensors, and the 21Hz and 30Hz modes show up only in
> the arm cavities' shadow sensors. This led us to suspect that theses
> were mechanical modes in the suspensions. The periods of these modes
are
> on the order of 30-50ms, and they could be kicking the system out of
> lock after approximately a half period. Moreover, we would expect
these
> mechanical modes to get rung up by acquisition to the relatively
> high-gain TEM00 mode, but not the lower-gain, higher-order optical
modes.
>
> Some very quick calculations, verified with dummy masses suspended in
> air, revealed that these frequencies were those of the "bounce" and
> "roll" modes of the suspended optics. In fact, the mode cleaner
mirrors
> exhibit a "roll" mode around 38Hz (root 2 above the bounce mode) that
> does not show up in the shadow sensors. Nergis had warned us some time
> ago that, if our OSEM heads were not vertically aligned with some
> precision, the bounce mode might couple into the shadow sensors and
> excite the mirrors. With that in mind, we vented, opened the chamber,
> and began re-optimizing the OSEM heads, some of which were
substantially
> far from their optimum positions.
>
> We also found some electrical problems with the mode cleaner's
> input-mass controller, and we repaired that. While we had the system
> locked to high-order modes, we also took some ringdown data on the
> mirror modes to measure internal Q's.
>

LASTI (Zucker)

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)
Commissioning meeting on Monday
--------------------------------
Matt presented SimLIGO model at the commissioning meeting. There were
suggestions for inclusion and/or improvement of the following noise sources:
(i) scattering noise (ii) low frequency components of the intensity noise
(iii) 60 Hz noise. Also the following investigations were suggested:
(a) bilinear couplings from low freq intensity noise and 60Hz noise, and
(b) how the pitch-position coupling of mechanical system leads to optical
lever noise and then couples to AS_Q signal.

E2E Physics meeting on Thursday
---------------------------------
Luca, Matt, Virginio (LHO) and Biplab and Hiro (Caltech) discussed details
related to SimLIGO, suspension system model, locked states of IFO in FFT and
E2E, COC phasemap implementation in E2E etc.

Latest e2e and SimLIGO installation
--------------------------------------
The full package was installed at LHO. A few glitches were found and some are
yet to be fixed. At LLO, the latest softwares necessary for e2e installation
were not available. Raghu is working on this with help from Tom Evans. If
the installation is not completed by next Monday, Ed will need to help.

SimLIGO
-----------
(Matt) Helped Andrea with her characterization of LSC electronics.
Investigated digital ASC system design for inclusion in the next version of
SimLIGO. Tested SimLIGO installation at LHO.

Seismic measurements at LLO
-------------------------------
(Hiro) Sany and Raghu (SLU) are working at LLO to measure the seismic motion and
coherence. They are also building e2e models of the suspended mirrors to
understand the measurements. Hiro is working with them to make a realistic
HAM table with several suspensions, of different sizes and orientations,
placed.
The OSEM senses the relative locations of the mirror wrt to the cage, not
table nor ground. This difference seems to be observed, and an e2e model is
being built which has this granularity included.

Locked states of IFO in E2E and FFT
-----------------------------------
(Biplab) The correspondence between an FFT run and E2E run under the same
mode-mismatched condition has been established. Wrote a simple matlab code
that takes optimized lengths from an FFT run and converts those
appropriately into mirror positions for the corresponding E2E run. With
mirror positions fixed at these points Han2k model can build up power to
the saturation levels. Carrier power levels from this run agree very well
with the FFT run but Sideband values differ presumably for these reasons:
(i) the finite number of modes considered in E2E (ii) no diffraction losses
considered in E2E runs.

When lock acquisition is started in Han2k model after the above-mentioned
saturation level is reached, the mirrors get displaced to certain extent
from the FFT-specified positions (i.e., initial conditions for these runs).
In this locked state the carrier power for TEM00 at dark port increases by
about 5 times from the FFT value. This is an interesting consequence of the
realistic locking that the Han2k model provides and the study of the reason
behind this may provide good insight into the actual IFO locked state.

COC phasemap
-----------------
(Hiro) Software development was started to create a phase map of the LIGO
mirror covering the entire surface (radius R1) using the measured data
covering smaller portion of it (radius R2). The measured phasemap is
expanded by Zernike polynomial with the normalization radius of R1 by
minimization, and the result is used to extrapolate. Residual noise psd in
radius < R2 is used to generate random noise in radius > R2. This software
also provides a facility to generate a phasemap with arbitrary pixel size.
The main purpose of this development is to calculate the mode decomposition
matrix of as-built mirrors to be used in the e2e simulation. The effect of
the as-built mirror will be studied using FFT. This is an interesting topic
by itself and is also necessary to validate the e2e implementation.

Alfi
-----
(Bruce)
- Completed work on positionable ports in Alfi5 for the internal view.
- Cleaning up code in MemberNodeWidget prior to implementing positionable
ports in the external view.

(Melody)
- Working on the automated tester for alfi5. Also fixed problem reports.

Software Systems (Blackburn)
The week long effort to come up with a single coherent C++ code to manage
concatenation of data from frames in the frameAPI which also allowed
additional threads and more CPUs to be used in the LDAS system was not
fruitful in the alloted time necessary to be ready for the release. Instead,
we fell back to the existing TCL code and worked to inhance its performance.
This proved much more successful and within a day we were able to
significantly reduce the First In, Last Out (FILO) bottleneck. This does not
thread so there is still a serialization issue, but we now feel like the
performance will be satisfactory for the science run.

We have added significant new plotting features to the controlMonitorAPI to
allow more insight into queued up jobs and jobs that the system is rejecting.
We are now able to detect the impact of various nightly activities (such as
nightly compiles of LDAS) on the system performance.

It was discovered that in going back to the new TCL frame concatenation code,
a bug existed which was incorrectly building up large time series data from
reduced data set frames that had been resampled. This bug was eventually
traced down and fixed.

A Tcl script was developed to test every combination of argument for each
binary arithmetic action (scalar/vector, float/double, real/complex, add,
sub, mul, div). This showed that some scalar/vector combinations are still
not implemented. These are not combinations that are used often so the
priority for fixes is mostly post science run.

Routine nightly testing of LDAS is consistently showing about a 0.1 - 0.2
percent failure rate. The remaining issue contributing to this failure rate
is a new bug that has only recently shown up (last week) in the frameAPI
which causes it to core dump a couple of times a night. No luck in
identifying the source yet.

* HPSS migration to 9940 tape continued for most of the week. I've stopped
it (as of today) until CACR's 9940 tape order comes in.

* Lots of HPSS/hsi problems, worked with Mike Gleicher to fix Scott
Koranda's hsi problem on saiph (ongoing, he's been on vacation since
Monday).

* Installed new ATM NIC (on loan from CACR) in saiph to see if that's the
cause of the connectivity problem.

* Set up pseudo-site and pseudo-CIT QFS filesystems on ldas-archive.
Worked on setting up rules to control migration of data to particular
tapes.

* Changed racks in LDAS-TEST. Moved some of the servers out of a large rack
to a standard size one.

* Worked with Albert to place an order to procure 2TB of IDE RAID
for S1 reduced data set storage for both LHO and LLO.

* Investigated 135GB IDE disk limit in the current version of Linux
used by LDAS and determined that an upgrade to RedHat7.3 will
be required to address all of the space on large IDE disk drives.

* Made frames from the nightly Observatory mirror/archive visible
to the LDAS-DEV system at Caltech for testing LDAS against
current frame files.

* Using an offline backup, recreated LLO_TEST (380 Mb) on one of the
test machines and replicated it on the other through VPN. It took about
3 hours. Everything seemed to work fine.

* Double checked that federated database configuration on DB 7.1 does
not work with BLOBs.

* Nothing to report other than I am looking at what I will need to
do to add a third leg to the WAN VPN while I am in Pasadena Aug
11-14th. Also note the meeting with LSU in the GC portion of my weekly.

* ASA returned two beowulf nodes with new memory and mother boards. I
am currently working to get these nodes back on line.

* Working on plans to move LDAS into the new building at LHO at the end
of Sept or early Oct.

* At LHO I have copied from tape to disk 6 hours of data taken at LLO
during a period of low noise, as organized by Szabi. (As previously
announced by Igor to lal-discuss, this data is available at LLO from
decatur and LDAS at LLO. Also, this data is available via getFrames as
announced by Peter Shawhan to dc-ligo.)

The data will remain on disk until we need to free up the space for the
restart of S1.

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)
Mendell:
1) The knownpulsardemod code has been submitted to lalwrapper cvs. (For
a summary of the knownpulsardemod DSO, see last week's report.) Minor
bugs reported in last week's report were in the calling script, and have
been fixed. I have run test jobs in stand-alone mode AND using the LDAS
system at LHO. Thus the code has been shown to work on an LDAS
production beowulf system in that it produces numbers without crashing.
Verify and testing that it produces correct numbers on synthetic data is
now starting. Bugs in the LALDemod function have also been reported
this week by the AEI group, which will have to be dealt with before
testing can begin in earnest.

2) Work with my SURF student this past week has focused on studying
leakage caused by gaps in the locked stretches and other statistical
issues. He has added the ability to multiply his test data by an
arbitrary window function, and is also studying how to deal with side
lobes created by amplitude modulation.

Creighton: (report from last week)
Finished writing LAL code to generate modulated signals from simulated
continuous sources (pulsars) in binary systems.

Wen: Working on a paper with CaRT group on the Kozai effect and its implications for inspiraling binary searches.

General Computing (Wallace)
MIT:
(Keith)
-Patches loaded on several windows 2K boxes.
-Setting up SB1000 compute server with NFS mounts.
-Loading MU7 patches on SUN boxes.
-Performed a couple of NIS+ table updates.

(Larry)
-Assisted Keith on a couple of NIS+ updates.
-Reviewed the security audit with Keith and tested a couple of machines.
Overall things were OK but there are few items Keith will be correcting.

Livingston:
(Shannon)
-Ran a security audit last week and went over the results with Larry
while he was at LLO. There are some action items that we agreed I
should look at.
-Larry and I had a meeting at LSU with Ric Simmons, Charlie McMahon, and
Shawn Robins concerning bandwidth and connectivity to LLO. The results
of the meeting were promising. There are some new options we will be
looking at.
-There are some issues with the virus scan software I am looking at.
Specifically they involve the actions of the scheduled scans and why
some files are not being quarantined.
-Working on blocking some SPAM that is coming in on our mail server. A
couple individuals have been getting various SPAM including some porn
advertisements. I should be able to have these blocked soon.
-Investigating a problem with the Samba server.
-Planning my travel to Usenix and Pasadena in August.
-Installed some software packages on the SURF and guest computers in the
new building.

(Larry)
-Spent time going through the auditorium setup. There are a number of things
that we need to test out. Shannon has a good start on equipment that should
improve the quality of the network presentation system.
-Reviewed the equipment needs for the new building. Shannon and I have a few
more things to work out but it looks like the new building will have a GigE
backbone.
-Reviewed the security audit items with Shannon and ran a few test systems.
Shannon has discovered a number of security issues. Most were with the PC's and
it will take some time to get them all cleared up. Fortunately none of the
problems are major and the firewall takes care of most the issues.
-Shannon and I met with a few of the LSU representatives concerning the WAN
connection at the Livingston Observatory. They are going to check on options
with COX cable. They now have a strong presence and LSU is working with them. I
will be contacting BellSouth again to find out if they have any better deals
than what they offered in the past.

Hanford:
(Christine)
- All the hardware for the network bandwidth increase is ready.
Planning to schedule the switch to the new increased bandwidth the week
of Aug 5th.
- All the ethernet and wireless networking hardware is ready to go into
the new building. The fiber and ethernet cables are scheduled to start
installation on Aug 1. I still need to purchase a new color laser
printer for the new building office area.
- Installed more matlab toolboxes. Working on getting the matlab
license log file to work consistently.
- User support: created new user accounts, changed the password on some
others, installed printers on a visitor's laptop and fixed problems
caused by the latest email virus.
- Procurement: purchased a flat panel monitor for CDS, contacted Dell
and Mathworks for refunds on sales tax, purchased the hardware for the
bandwidth upgrade and worked with Richard on purchases for the new
building network.

CIT:
(Veronica)
- LDAS website: rewrote and installed the LDAS hardware page for MIT.
Installed the images of LLO and LHO hardware diagrams updated by Albert.
- LSC website: posted agenda of the LSC meeting. Adding to the list of
participants as they register. Updated the list of MOUs.
- LIGO website: posted several updates. Attended a presentation on a new
release of QuickTime Pro. This is a good media authoring tool that
delivers a lot for its $30 pricetag. In LIGO or CaJAGWR it can be used
for editing and enhancing videos, i.e., by adding a powerpoint slide show.
Attended a meeting on the final design of the folder for press & media
kit.

(Wendy)
-Rebuilt and ghosted some machines
-Upgraded a machine from win98 to win2k to see what would happen--it
seemed all right and it seems that Norton and PCard software should be
removed before upgrading (it didn't seem to cause any problems though)
-Played around with VNC
-Played around with VRVS, but there were some problems that Mike will look
into
-Wrote some documentation on VNC, will do same for VRVS when the problem
is smoothed out
-Wrote other documentation to be posted on the FAQ page
-Helped users solve random computer problems

(Bruce Sears)
- General Ilog Maintenance: (0.5 days)
- Moved log at MIT to a new server.

(Mick)
-Continued documentation of luna rebuild
-Installed programming environment on dt140m with Lisa
-Setup rana ssh shortcut for Steve Vass
-Upgraded openssh on beli (in Synchotron) with Lisa
-Created POs for ORiNOCO equipment (2 APs, 10 cards), AIT-2 tapes, and
Solstice Backup s/w
-Helped troubleshoot VRVS with Mike and Wendy
-Created RMA to return broken hard drive under warranty

(Lisa)
- Looking at a java based webmail application. I am still working out the
installation glitches, but it looks very promising.
- Fixed some ssh authentication problems on mirfak and sargas by adding
/usr/local/bin/tcsh and /usr/local/bin/bash to the systems.
- Put pine on mirfak, sargas and alterf.
- Installed a development environment on dmt140m in the 40meter martian network.
- Installed openssh on beli in the synchatron.
- Moved grumium, an ultra30 to WB 251.
- Helped configure Ruth's new pc.
- Worked on some email problems for Hongyu.
- More new accounts and visitor support
- Spent quite a lot of time working with Mick and Christian.

(Mike)
-Setup an upgraded computer for Linda and I got a ghost image.
-Swapped out Gina's computer with a new Dell computer and got a ghost image.
-Finished up working on Ruth's computer getting her data moved to her new
computer and setting up her email by connecting her to the ATC exchange server.
-Loaded an engineering workstation for a surf student that is working for
Riccardo.
-Loaded MatLab 12.1 on a visitor's workstation.
-Ran a cable drop to Ed Chargois office to eliminate Ed C. and Ed J. from
being connected to Veronica's hub that is dangling in the middle of
Veronica's office.
-Terminated the new data run in Ed Chargois office, both Ed's are on the
own dedicated hub.
-Rerouted ethernet cables in Veronica's office.
-Performed some trouble shooting a networking problem for Gary Sanders; this
seemed like a bad hub.
-Swapped out the hub and replace it with a switch.
-Made an updated ghost image of Irene Baldon's and Irena Petrac computer.
-Performed some maintenance on the NT servers.
-Started looking over on what I need to do in order to upgrade the Amaldi box to
2000 Server.
-Showed Wendy how to used VNC, and have her working on Documentation that
will include step-by-step instructions on how to use VNC software.
-While showing Wendy and Mick how VRVS software works, I came across some
problems with the MIC and ended up having to reinstall
VRVS software. This included cleaning up the registry and clearing out VRVS
launcher.exe from Netscape and Internet Explorer then reinstalling VRVS
software. This is now ready for use.

(Larry)
-Worked a few procurement issues. Presently, trying to get a number of
maintenance contracts renewed.
Purchased, a number of items that we normally keep stocked. With the influx of
students and fixing different items our cabinet became empty of essentials like
power strips and hubs.
-Worked on a number of documents including a reply to the security audit and
some items related to the GC budget.
-Worked on a number of logistical items concerning the WAN at Hanford. Christine
and Richard have things under control.
-Started working on the computer and VRVS logistics for the LSC meeting being
held at Hanford.

LIGO II/Advanced R&D (Sanders)

Adv. SEI -- ETF
Marcel Hammond, Jonathan Kern
Still waiting to hear from the shop about correcting manufacturing
errors found in the Pods (housings for the geophones). These were
returned to the machine shop 2 weeks ago.

Gingin
The 100 mm x 50 mm A axis sapphire piece slated to be the Gingin Input test mass has been shipped to Insaco for OD polish. I have just received the mirror specifications from Peter Veitch.

Crystal Systems
We have placed an order for two full size sapphire pieces. CSI expects to have the proper core drill by the beginning of August and hopes to deliver the two pieces with inspection polish by mid to late October. This is an estimate and not a commitment.

Goodrich
The final compensating polish run has finished, preliminary metrology indicates that modeling was correct and the piece comes in at 9 nm rms. The specification was less than 10 nm rms. The piece is going through final metrology and inspection and is due to us by mid August.

AdLIGO Suspensions
Local machine shops have been able to take our orders for machined parts for the MC controls prototypes with a proposed delivery date of Aug 16th. Mike in CES is still on track for a mid-August delivery of a MC structure, along with a number of mechanical parts for the suspension assembly and some fixtures.
Calum, Russell Jones and I are trying to get Solidworks 3D Teamworks to work between us all with some success. More work is needed. We're starting to feel like a beta site for the Solidworks software creator.

Lisa Bogue has put my IDEAS data directory on my UNIX box from the back-up tapes after my external hard drive died. Many thanks to her.

Machined parts for the MC controls prototypes have been distributed between several local shops, CES and Physics Shop. Hopefully the majority of these parts should be delivered by August 15th.

Work is being done in the Synchrotron Laboratory to prepare for the 2 prototype suspensions.

Russell Jones, Janeen and I are trying to get SOLIDWORKS 3D Teamworks to work between us all with some success.

Several parts that are prototypes for the August tests are being tested in the Synchrotron with the help of Dan Mason and john Veitch

Photon Acuation:
I have estimated the hours for an R&D activity to create a preliminary design for a Photon Actuator. The design method relies on extensive simulink modeling in lieu of an experimental prototype. The work plan is based on the Conceptual design outlined by Mike Zucker on 10/13, T000113-00-R. I have included an alternate approach which substitutes a Fabry-Perot cavity in place of the 30 bounce "modified White cell" to increase the photon force on the mirror.

Shally Seraf reports that there is a problem with the Lightwave
power supply used with the power amplifier. The front panel displays
"Ck St Sw", the message for checking the standby switch. The error message
has apparently appeared more frequently in the past few days. Dan Feehan
of Lightwave Electronics has been contacted.

Papers
LVDT and actuator papers:
From NIM about the LVDT:
We are pleased to inform you that your paper is due to be published in
volume 489, issue 1-3, on pages 570 - 576, cover date 21 August 2002.

Naturally the actuator paper, per our request will be published just
next to it.

Alessandro integrating the author's comments to the accelerometer
papers, then will submit the draft for referee. If you are an author and
did not send yet your comments do it now or do not bother at all.

Alessandro
Shipped LVDT to Stefano for mini-stress-strain machine.
Studying how to laser zap Nickel over MoRuB oxyde, may abandon if
confirmed success elsewhere (see below).

Work here is going well. I am implementing optical lever control in the
end tower (the front tower is finished). I am running a measurement to
re-diagonalize the sensors on the IP tonight and will take a set of
measurements for actuator di
agonalization. Hopefully the in vacuum, SAS
suspended F.P. cavity will be back on line this weekend or early next week.

On glassy metals. As a group, now that we are bringing all the
measurement instruments online we will characterise MoRuB with all B
concentrations from 14 to 24%. These are incomplete measurements from
the past and will make a nice paper.

Eric
Scanned last week X-rays and identified uniformity problems both with
the X-ray field from the gun and film inhomogeneities. Refined
procedures to offset the inhomogeneities. Trained Stoyan on matlab
analysis of X-rays.
Made the first melts of MoRuB at various concentrations of B.

Stoyan Nikolov
Learning X-ray scanning.
Designed new splat pistons, in production. E.t.a. Thursday. Made melts
of MoRuB with Eric.

Brian
Compared X-ray diffraction spectra of glassy, poly and mixed MoRuB
Working on a sample positioner.

Stefano, Hareem
Initially failed again in brazing, but then SUCCEEDED brazing to MoRuB
with A
gTnTiGaCe braze AND mechanical scrubbing of the hot surface. But
the braze has problems wetting CuBe. It may still be a good solution,
the MoRuB surface could be primed this way, then drained with a solder
wick and mated to the CuBe surface, primed with another braze. Work to
follow. Will test also on Vitralloy

Stefano, Chenyang
More work on LVDT and load cell readoutcircuit for mini stress-strain
machine. Waiting for the other parts.
Will make asap tests of braze effectivness.

Hareem
After testing the silver braze which worked and therefore ordered more
things (hot plate and ultrasound pen) for brazing. Have been reading
papers on specific heat capacity measurement to prepare for the
analysis. Learnt how to calibrate and use DTA for glass transition and
crystallization temperature measurements; need to test the machine as it
has not been used for a long time. Catching up with everyone on what
they are doing.

Francesco Fidecaro
Welcome back. Getting tuned in and
helping in data analysis tasks.

Mike
One of the thermal conductivity thermometers in the cryostat broke,
replaced and recalibrated, back online.
Taking final measurement on Glasmet.
Training new student in fitting of data.

Valerie Cervantes
Welcome, Junior student at Mayfield High School.
Making fits of thermal conductivity.

Kelin
Mounted LED to fibers and to cryostat vessel. LED replace the laser
diode with advantage and can be easily modulated. Now ready for test of
split photodionde in cryostat.

Exec. Comm. Agenda	Highlights	LSC	Administration	Hanford Observatory
Livingston Observatory	MIT	Caltech	Detector	40 Meter
TNI	LASTI	Data Analysis	LIGO II/Adv. R&D	Past Weekly Reports

Weekly Report for Week Ending July 25, 2002

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