Weekly Report for Week Ending August 1, 2002

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  August 5, 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: PURCHASE OF DACs, STATUS OF PREPARATIONS FOR S1

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights
 

LSC Issues (Weiss)

From: Rainer Weiss <weiss@ligo.mit.edu>

to: LSC executive committee
from: R. Weiss July 31, 2002
concerning: Notes from the LSC Executive Committee meeting July 26, 2002
 

Report on the current state of the detectors prior to S1 (R. Weiss)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
2km at Hanford is back in operation after repair to MMT2 suspension wires
that were cut by laser beam heating. An atmospheric exposure of about 6 hours cost
us about 2.5 weeks of pumping to reduce the water load on the beam tube to 1 torr
liter/day (the water load permitted is 400 torr liters total).
 

4km at Hanford is locking more robustly after extensive work on driver electronics.
Common mode servo is being installed to reduce the noise which is known to be
dominated by frequency fluctuations
 

4km at Livingston is being brought back into operation after successful installation
of the two dimensional piezo-electric active seismic control system (PEPI). The
system was installed outside the vacuum without opening to air while maintaining
the mirror alignment.
 

Benno Willke and Ken Strain reported that GEO has been running 16 hour uninterrupted
lock and may be able to operate at night unattended.
 

ITR 2003 Proposal preparation (Al Lazzarini)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
A coordinated proposal by the LSC (Penn State, Univ of Wisconsin@Milwaukee, LIGO
Laboratory) is being prepared to ask for support for people at the various LSC
computing centers. The proposal will include funds for 8 - 10 FTE and address
LIGO science without a computer science component (the pattern of previous
computing proposals). Tom Lucatorto at the NSF is supportive and further progress
may require the active campaigning of LIGO and LSC management.
 
 

Planning for the August LSC meeting
-----------------------------------
The idea of using the afternoon of the third day and all of the fourth day
of the meeting for upper limit work was agreed. The technical development
groups have decided to meet more in plenary sessions to improve communications
between the groups and also to enable more experimenters to attend the detector
characterization group meetings.
 

Information from the working group chairs
-----------------------------------------
Bruce Allen reported that the coupling of the source simulation researchers
and ASIS was not moving quickly and that we may need to reconsider our strategy.
 

Benno Willke reported that the decision on the 180 watt laser design for advanced
LIGO will not be made at the August meeting as planned. The groups have not
made enough progress and there is no strong penalty in delaying the decision.
The August meeting will be used to review the situation and set a new decision
point.
 

Next LSC Executive Committee meeting
-------------------------------------
Tuesday August 20, 2002 at the LSC Executive Committee supper.

LIGO I Construction/LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

LIGO Operations--Administration

There was no site teleconference held on Thursday, August 01, 2002.

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

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

• Assisted the General Computing Group (M. Pedraza) with packing and shipping of two (2) Laptop Computers, LIGO Property Numbers C20712 and C20720, on temporary loan to LHO (C. Patton) to support the up-coming LSC meeting.  This equipment must be returned at the conclusion of the LSC. Account Number P204205.
• Assisted the General Computing Group (M. Pedraza) wiith packing and shipping of two (2) Projectors, LIGO Property Numbers C20801 and C21074, on a temporary load to LHO (C. Patton) to support the up-coming LSC meeting. The equipment must be returned at the conclusion of the LSC. A ccount Number P204205.
• Forwarded a copy of Caltech's DMV Self-Insurance Permit Renewal, effective August 1, 2002, expires July 31, 2003, to LHO (O. Matherny) and LLO (G. Stapfer).  A copy of this renewal must accompany each vehicle.
• Finalized the relocation details of L. Matone's Household Goods.  Prepared and submitted the Purchase Requisition Work Sheet on 7/30/02.  Account Number LIGO.DIR-1.1-NSFLIGO.FY02ON.

>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

• ACCOMPLISHMENTS
• Along with Veronica, met with Ed Dabran from Doculabs to review options for providing consulting services in an effort to determine the needs and requirements for the DCC and its relationship to the project and its collaborators.  A follow-up meeting included Gary and further consideration was given as to the direction the DCC would be going both short-term and for the next couple of years.  It was decided that after a short review of a week or two, decisions would be made as to the role, if any, Doculabs might have with the DCC and LIGO.
• Worked on finalizing template forms (DCN, Specification, Process Travelers, and Inspection Reports).  Met with Bill, Ryan and Rita to review additional correspondence templates (memo, letter, fax, and presentations) as well.
• Secured 10 licenses of a plug-in for Acrobat 5 that enables the rendering of document numbers into image documents.  These have been distributed to a small cluster at Caltech as well as 1 to each observatory.  There are two extra available if needed.
• Finished all preparation for the LIGO Beach party.  It appeared to be a success, especially with the many SURF students who participated.
• Processed over 75 invoices that had already been paid but needed entry into the database.
• Spent several hours working through the myriad of problems and inconsistencies in the electronic documents submitted to dcc/OUT.  There continues to be a haphazard regard for naming conventions and revision discrepancies in a large number of the documents.  There were also a few duplicate submittals which required some investigation to determine if they were actual revisions or duplicates of those already available.  All these varying problems  were individually handled either by requesting resubmittal, clarification, or manipulating the actual document.  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!
• Located and posted 5 additional LSC documents that appeared to have been previously handled but mysteriously evaporated into no-man's land.
• Conducted an audit of all G, M, and P directories to ensure that all documents located in these directories were accounted for in the database.  About 20 documents, though in the directory, were not listed in the database.  This has been corrected.
• Processed 3 DCN's.
• Worked through several notebooks of NSF reviews that Ryan had transferred to us.  Surprisingly so far, 4 reviews, though numbered, had not been submitted to the DCC.  These have now been added to the database and filed.

ACTIVITY

• Electronic document activity continues at a very steady pace.  Progress continues on reorganization of DCC files.  Made labels for four publications (numerous copies of each), which were also scanned for electronic access.  Processed and distributed four DCN's..
  DCC Activity


WE 08/01/02	Packages	Faxes
In	46	27
Out	10	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 #2 to NTD Architects.  Working on Change Order  #9 to Praxair which renews the contract for an additional five years and adds funds for the first year.  Working on Change Order #13 on Excel Group.
• Working with Gerry Stapfer on the preparation of the Time and Material Speciman Contract to be sent out as an RFQ for setting up the labs and offices at LLO.
• Closed out fully paid PO's.

• Continued working on clean-up of equipment classifications, which required the submission of Cost Transfers and requests for corrections of P-card entries.
• Attended meeting with Property Services Department discussion about using a more automated method for equipment tracking purposes beginning with the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2002.
• Assisted with information for the FY2003 budget.
• Prepared Fabricated Equipment Request Form for the Computer Server Farm for the Synchrotron. .
• Financial reports can be found at: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport [August should be out shortly. -pel]

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

• CRDF: CO No.10 adding FY'02 funds was released to Purchasing.
• Wave Precision: Change Order No.18, adding a requirement for polishing of a lot of 25 Caltech supplied SF-4 substrates, was released to Purchasing.
• Crystal Systems: Change Order No.10, adding a purchase of two large sapphire crystals, was released to Purchasing.
• University of Oregon: A proposal for LIGO funds to support R. Schofield, M. Ito, and R. Rahkola during August 1, 2002 to July 31, 2003 (Hanford site assignment) was received.

• No report (vacation).

SUPPORT (Baldon, Torres, Lloyd, Tischler)

>Irene Baldon

• Returned from vacation on Tuesday (July 30th) and spent the entire two (2) days catching up with E-Mail and Voice-Mail and will now start working on the "mound" or work to be done.

• Processed the usual incoming invoices for payment. Tracked and followed up on invoice problems, and reviewed and recorded payments processed by Esther for the week of July 22.  For the total number of incoming invoices received for this period see "Cost Schedule Control Systems" report by Esther Cunningham.
• Processed the usual requisitions and change orders on-line.
• Continue to monitor contract and blanket order encumbrance and notify task managers when supplements are needed.
• Jim continues with data entry in the LIGO database and helping out in the DCC.

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]

>Rita Torres

• Scanned LSC documents and submitted them to the DCC:  ACIGA, Oregon, and Texas-Brownsville.  Updated the LSC roster with addresses from their Attachments Z.  Also scanned and submitted documents for non-LSC member, Shanghai (SIOM).
• Completed updates to alias lsc-all.  The addresses contained in the alias correlate to those submitted by each organization in their respective Attachment Z.
• Placed several Pcard orders, and also reconciled after chasing the documentation.  Followed up on a long-lead item from Point Source.  Followed up with another vendor regarding brackets we need next week for pumps.
• Spent some time figuring out weird charges from CDW-G.  Turns out they duplicated orders and charged us at least twice.  I'm in the process of obtaining RMA numbers for the returns, and requesting credit for the overcharges.
• Got a chance to update my records of LSC documents submitted to us for posting.

• Resolved travel issues, added new press articles.

Advanced LIGO (Frey)

Progress Period from 07.19 to 07.25

Progress Period from 07.26 to 08.01

Accomplishments:

• Out of the office Thursday the 25th through Monday the 29th attending conference.
• See http://conferences.timberline.com/conference/index.asp?confid=118
• Requested opportunity to attend the Primavera User's conference with a P3e specialty track. October 20 - 23.
• See http://www.primavera.com/events/conference.html
• Weekly Advanced LIGO Project Controls meeting was not held last week.
• Advanced LIGO MRE Proposal (Highest Priority)
• Per direction of Gary, Dennis, David, and Phil, I am updating the presentation from November with most current data for meeting scheduled for August 16 at 1pm at SCR.
• Continuing the development of the Cost Estimate.
• The following is a summary of status by sub system:
• COC - Work on action items per second review continues.  Garilynn had me run a schedule report for her to mark up and changes to costing are ongoing.
• PSL - Received data from Peter on 7.31.02 regarding the coding of LIGO Lab and LZH scope.
• AOS - Work on action items continues.  Next meeting date has not been scheduled.
• IO -  Work on action items continues.  Received an update from David Reitze on his progress.
• SUS - Continue to process update data provided.
• SEI - Work on action items continues.  Next meeting date has not been scheduled.
• ISC - Mike continues to work on the WBS dictionary.  No comments as of 8.01.02 on the draft detailed schedule.  Started input of the ISC cost sheets.
• LDAS - No data / feedback from Albert to date.
• All other subsystems have yet to be scheduled for their first review.  These dates are pending per direction from Gary Sanders and Dennis Coyne.
• Continue to update the TNI Schedule and incorporate any changes.
• Nothing new to report.
• Another plan revision is pending per Eric Black.
• Continue to update the LASTI Schedule and incorporate any changes.
• Nothing new to report.
• Project Plan for the 40-Meter Lab Upgrade continues.
• Nothing new to report.
• Cost Book Tool.
• ROSTER DATABASE:
• Followed up with working group leaders and passed list information on to Rita for input.
• Barbara visited us on the 31st and we met with Rita and Irena to discuss the roster database.
• Worked with Barbara on changes to the email list utility and Z document automation.
• Responded to emergency regarding rosters being down.  Mike resolved issue by restarting WebBase service on the server.
• COST BOOK DATABASE:
• Continue to verbally communicate the username and password to users.
• Gang of 5+:
• Nothing new to report.
• DCAA - Work continues on the incurred cost audit.
• All quiet on the Western Front.
• 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.
• Changed design to align with LIGO home page.
• See http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/index.html

• Next weekly Advanced LIGO Project Controls meeting is to be scheduled.  Subject:  MRE Cost and Proposal Development.
• 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 code cost items with information provided.
• AOS - Continue inputting changes to and prepare for next meeting TBD.
• IO - Continue inputting changes to and prepare for next meeting TBD.
• SUS - Continue inputting changes to and prepare for next meeting TBD.
• Will complete update the plan with progress through 5.31.
• Add cost data changes received.
• Request progress data through 7.19.
• SEI - Waiting for information from SEI group per their action items.
• COC - Work on action items by Garilynn continues.  Will begin schedule changes when data received.
• ISC - Will continue inputting cost data and incorporate any changes and comments.
• LDAS - Will work with Albert to develop details.
• 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 08.02.02 and  post to site by the 7th.
• Will Continue to update the LASTI Schedule and incorporate any changes.
• Will update the plan with progress as of 08.02.02 and  post to site by the 7th.
• Will continue updating the 40 meter schedule and incorporate any changes.
• Will update the plan with progress as of 08.02.02 and  post to site by the 7th.
• 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.
• Gang of 5+
• Will continue to work on procurement guidelines.
• Will continue to provide support to PL for DCAA / NSF IG audit(s).
• Will continue the development of the Advanced LIGO Project Web Site.
• Will continue the development of the Advanced LIGO Project Controls Guide Book.

• The Quarterly Report for the end of May (LIGO-M020264) has been sent to the NSF.
• The Operations Work Plan was scheduled to be submitted to the NSF August 1.  Still waiting for some material.  Reviewed the budget with Barry.  Still looking for reserve for FY 2003.  A review of the Advanced R&D program will be held August 16, 2002 in conjunction with a review of the MRE plan.

The following change requests have been submitted:
 

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

• Various personnel/payroll /HR related work.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

Work continues on completing the Livingston Observatory 2002 Safety Audit Report.  The audit team has now reviewed the new and "old" safety audit action item status with G. Sanders.  As a result of this meeting, a new draft of action item status and comments has been prepared and distributed (limited).  In addition, an update of the LLO Visitor Information package is in-work.

The installation of the fire suppression system in room 215, Synchrotron, is nearing completion.  Assuming there are no further delays or problems, the final Pasadena Fire Department acceptance test will be completed before the science run construction "cut-off" date (mid August).
 

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

Summary of Commissioning Activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory (compiled by M. Landry)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Full locking has resumed on both interferometers.  The common mode was resurrected on the
2k ifo yesterday, resulting in noise performance similar to that prior to the vent, with
the exception at higher frequencies.  Above 300Hz, noise was higher as the EO shutter has
not been commissioned and less light is on the AS photodiode.  The 4k has at times
locked reliably with few dropouts, including an 8 hour stretch Wednesday evening, but
at other points suffered from alignment shifts that have been traced to MMT2 and
MMT3.

2k IFO investigations
---------------------
Relocking the interferometer highlighted several potential alignment issues in the
2k.  Straight reflection off first ITMX, then ITMY, differ by 10%.  Straight
reflection off of the RM for full locking does not coincide with the reflected maximum.
These and other observations have some worried about internal clipping; investigations
are ongoing.  Scattered light off of the core optics is being measured.

4k IFO investigations
---------------------
MMT2/3 alignment instabilities may have a diurnal trend.  However, several flavours
of spontaneous misalignment (enough to unlock the ifo and keep it that way) have been
noted: brief forays into never-never land, quasi-permanent shifts, and diurnal drifts.
Mode cleaner characterization (part of the common mode push) continues.
More  internal modes of test masses were measured; five modes of the 4k ETMs.

FACILITIES
------------------
All the different trades are busy in the Laboratory Building, trying to get it ready for
the LSC meeting.There is still lot of work to be done but hopefully the auditorium and
the bathrooms together with the air conditioner will be functional by the 18th of August.

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

CDS (Chethan)

Upgraded the old LLO CDS Server from Ultra 2 to E 220. Moved the files and two external disks from Ultra 2 to E220.

Upgrading the control room machines to 24 bit color mode. Installed a CDS
machine for Ash. Working on setting redundant time server entries on all control room machines.

GC (Shannon)

worked an issue on our web server that prevented users from secure
shelling to it.

Updating some files in the database for web pages.

Looking at tasks that need to be done over the next six months and
trying to schedule them in a reasonable form.

Preparing for the trip next week to Usenix and also Pasadena.

LDAS  (Shannon)

Wrapping up the quotes for the VPN servers.  I received one very
promising quote from Microway.  I may settle on them as a vendor.  The
specs are below:

Item 1: 2.53GHz P4 Node
QTY: 8
Tyan S2099GNNR Motherboard with 845E Chipset and 533MHz FSB
2.53GHz Pentium 4 CPU with 512K Cache (mPGA-478) (Supports Northwood)
5 32-bit PCI Slots, AGP Pro50 (& AGP 4X), 6 USB 2.0 Ports
512MB DDR PC2100 Unbuffered (has 4 DIMM Sockets)
2U 19? Rackmount Chassis (3 Bays) with 300W Power Supply
40GB Ultra ATA/100 7200 RPM IDE Hard Disk Drive
Integrated ATI RAGE XL 8MB Video
Integrated Intel 82540 100/1000 GETH
Integrated Intel 82562 10/100 Ethernet
Integrated IDE RAID (0 & 1) ? Promise PDC20276 dual-channel ATA-133
3.5? Floppy Drive & Sony 52X IDE CDROM Drive

LDAS  (Igor)

Finished writing LAL's part of correlation DSO. Started working on
LALWrapper's part of it.
* Investigating how to migrate data from DB2 7.1 to 7.2
 

Detector/Technical Support (Whitcomb, Coyne)

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

• All effort this week has been aimed at preparing the 40-meter for pumpdown to vacuum, followed by locking our suspended mode cleaner. A number of fixes have been made:
• The MC transmitted beam was clipping the edge of the first in-vacuum steering mirror; the mirror has been adjusted and the beam shape is now much cleaner.
• An initial pointing beam has been set up to help recover from PSL alignment changes more quickly.
• The MC3 satellite amplifier had a mis-soldered resistor, causing an incorrect LED current and a much smaller-than-expected reading from the UR OSEM. This has been fixed and the current is now as expected.
• The LL, LR, and S OSEMS of MC1 were all reading full-scale regardless of pitch and yaw offsets. A combination of counterweights on the IOC optical table and shifting of the UL and LR OSEMS in the suspension frame have brought all five OSEM readbacks to mid-range values.
With all in-vacuum repairs complete, the MC end chamber was closed and the IOC/OOC access connector reinstalled Thursday morning, and the IFO is now ready for pumpdown! Meanwhile, some other activities continue:
• Mike Smith is designing a new input mode-matching telescope. It will be an in-vacuum focussing telescope using all-metal flex pivots.
• Bob Taylor is working on the cabling of 1Y4 (core optic suspenion controls) and the cross-connects for 1X1 (auxillary, such as video controls).
• Ben Abbott is making modifications to the ISS photodiode following Flavio's suggestions.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

no report

LASTI (Zucker)

no report

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)
E2E weekly Physics meeting
-------------------------------
We discussed about measurement of angular motion of mirrors. First,
Virginio explained measurements of transfer functions from Ground noise to
stack and mirrors done by Fred Raab in April-May. Sany Yoshida gave a talk on
"Can't we monitor HAM table motion by OSEM sensors?" and presented the work
on this by him and his students at LLO.
 

SimLIGO
-----------
(Matt) Rebuilt ISC detection sub-system in SimLIGO to allow for inclusion of
 wave-front-sensors with correct optical paths. Constructed digital ASC
 system.  Next to come is parameter setting for ASC hardware and software
 enroute to full alignment control.
 

COC phasemap
-----------------
(Hiro) Software tools were developed to prepare a phasemap of COC to be used
 to calculate the mode decomposition when fields interact with optics.
 

Code development and maintenance
----------------------------------
(Hiro) The code of the simulation engine are improved to simplify the
 construction of SimLIGO.
 

(Ed Maros) Worked on installation at LLO
 

Alfi
-----
(Bruce)
 - Cleaning up event processing code in MemberNodeWidget in order to make the
   widgets resizable, and later to be able to move ports on the external view
   of a node.
 

(Melody)
 - Working on the automated tester for alfi5.
 - Implemented several print features in alfi5. Users can now print using
   the scale that is displayed or use the 'fit to page' print feature.
 
 

LIGO Data Analysis System
 

Software Systems (Philip Charlton for Kent Blackburn)
 

-This week we have continued final testing and preparation
for the next release of LDAS to be used in S1. The system
has been exercised with a variety of user jobs based on
the expected usage during and after the science run.
These include jobs that use the available LAL DSO's
for inspirals, bursts, tfclusters, slope detection,
stochastic background and known pulsars, and also the
new user commands for creation of reduced frames.
Throughput of the system has been substantially improved,
although it is still possible for the job queue to fill
up to its maximum allowed value if jobs are submitted too
quickly.
-A bug in the diskcache API has been found that occasionally causes
the API to use up large amounts of CPU when a request is made for
frames that don't exist in the disk cache. This is being investigated.
-The new user command "createRDS " for creation of reduced
data sets has been profiled and tested on the local CIT systems
and at LHO. On an unloaded system the time taken to produce
reduced frames is around 0.5 * real time, while under realistic load
conditions the time taken is about 0.85 * real time.
-Some minor fixes were made to the control and monitor application
interface and documentation.
-Background development has continued for support of Version 5 frames
and C++ routines for more efficient frame concatenation.
-Routine nightly testing of LDAS is showing a somewhat reduced failure
rate. No failures out of 5800 jobs were reported overnight
at ldas-dev and ldas-cit, while a failure rate of 0.06% was reported at MIT.
 

Data Analysis Activities (Wallace)
CIT:
(Creighton)
This week I have been writing a program for generic coherent
multi-detector GW signal simulation and injection.
Hanford:
 

Livingston:
(Yakushin)
* Finished writing LAL's part of correlation DSO. Started working on
LALWrapper's part of it.
* Investigating how to migrate data from DB2 7.1 to 7.2
 

MIT:
(Katsavounidis)
Work is continuing on finishing up the E7 analysis
looking for bursts. Stefan and Laura have worked
on specific items that were raised by the bursts group
during the conference calls over the last 2-3 weeks.
More specifically:
 

o implemented code to deal with a vetoing scheme where
  the response of the gravitational channel is taken
  into account. This was motivated by the use of the
  MICH_CTRL in H2 as a veto for the E7 bursts analysis.
  Code is in place and functional but needs testing.
  Several subtle issues still need to be understood
  w/r/t to this vetoing scheme (Stefan).
 

o analyzed entire E7 (coincidence) data set for vetoes.
  Roughly 100,000 veto triggers per instrument per
  veto channel were generated. Entries were temp written
  to the MIT_TEST database but will be soon moved to
  their definitive location on MIT_E7 (Stefan).
 

o performed a detailed analysis of vetoes and efficiencies
  for the slope DSO (Laura). In addition, following discussion
  at Tuesday's bursts call, investigated a re-analysis of
  the TFCluster E7 (playground) data after splitting the
  events in three separate bands. This is work in progress.
  (Laura, Jacob- Jacob is a summer undergrad student).
 

o produced various additional supporting plots for E7 playground
  analysis already reported (Stefan, Laura, Erik).
 

Beyond E7-related activity, Stefan looked at the low noise
LLO data collected in mid July. He presented his findings at
the commissioning conference call last Monday.
He performed a TFCLUSTER-based burst search on that data.
Several modes were seen ringing down over the first
~5min of the lock while there were still some broad-band
glitches visible similar to the E7-PSL ones but ~ 20x weaker.
Hanford:
(Greg)
1) Worked with LDAS to debug the new prereleased version of LDAS when
requesting SFT data for the knownpulsardemod DSO.  The metadata about
the input frequency series and the start time the data were generated
from were getting set incorrectly, but this has been fixed. Updated my
scripts to work with the new prerelease of LDAS; more work is needed
along these lines, but scripts for test cases work. These scripts were
sent to Isaac to made part of the standard LDAS tests.
 

2) Worked extensively with my SURF student this past week to understand
the distribution of the maximum likelihood estimator we use to search
for periodic signals with amplitude and phase modulation. We can now
derive from first principles all the basic distributions and produce
these distributions numerically with his test code and matlab. We also
wrote code to fit histograms of the data to a model of the distribution.
We find discrepancies between our calculations and numerical results,
and some published theories about the distribution. We are working to
sort this out.  We have also found discrepancies between his code and
code in LAL. These appear to be do to a few minor bugs in LAL, and we
will be contacting the authors of this code to get these bugs fixed.
 

LDAS Hardware Systems (Mendell)
 

(Greg Mendell)
1) The two ASA beowulf node computers that I sent for repair were
returned with new motherboards and memory.  However, one of these now
has a problem with its network interface, the other hung during a 3 day
burntest. I have contacted ASA about this, and I am running some further
tests.
 

2) I've made measurements to make drawings of the new LDAS room, as part
of plans to move LDAS into the new building at LHO at the end of
September or early October.
 

3) Provide the usually assistance to LSC scientist and graduate
students, this week from U Oregon, U Mich, and WSU requesting
information about data and running LDAS jobs.
 

(Dan Kozak)
HPSS: migration off of Redwoods halted until CACR gets some more 9940
tapes.  Worked on migration of small files off of 3590 tapes.  This
being a good opportunity to catch violations of policy (people using
HPSS for system backups mainly), I'm keeping a close eye on it.
Managed to delete ~68,000 small files during this process this week,
which helps the ever growing namespace problem.
 

Took delivery of 1050 LIGO 9940 tapes and set up summer student Mik
Garvey to label them and put them in the silo.
 

Worked on getting a quote from Sun/LSC for our real (non-eval) SAM-QFS
license.
 

Worked on setting up SAM-QFS to put files on tape in such a way that
we'll be able to ship tapes from the sites and import them into the
CalTech system.
 

(Igor Yakushin)
* Finished writing LAL's part of correlation DSO. Started working on
LALWrapper's part of it.
* Investigating how to migrate data from DB2 7.1 to 7.2
 

(Shannon Roddy)
Wrapping up the quotes for the VPN servers.  I received one very
promising quote from Microway.  I may settle on them as a vendor.  The
specs are below:
 

Item 1: 2.53GHz P4 Node
QTY: 8
Tyan S2099GNNR Motherboard with 845E Chipset and 533MHz FSB
2.53GHz Pentium 4 CPU with 512K Cache (mPGA-478) (Supports Northwood)
5 32-bit PCI Slots, AGP Pro50 (& AGP 4X), 6 USB 2.0 Ports
512MB DDR PC2100 Unbuffered (has 4 DIMM Sockets)
2U 19 Rackmount Chassis (3 Bays) with 300W Power Supply
40GB Ultra ATA/100 7200 RPM IDE Hard Disk Drive
Integrated ATI RAGE XL 8MB Video
Integrated Intel 82540 100/1000 GETH
Integrated Intel 82562 10/100 Ethernet
Integrated IDE RAID (0 & 1)
 
(Keith Bayer)
removed old data on SF880 internal raid unit
Loaded lownoise data from LLO onto internal raid unit
installed o/s's on PC Raid Unit
configured RAID cards on PC Raid Unit
running benchmark tests on unit
 

(Al Wilson)
Working on the kickstart 7.3 release
Ordered parts for the new terabyte raid systems
Did a power down test at millikan, even though campus maintenance did not
kill the power.
Tested the backup tape system
 
 

General Computing (Wallace)
 

MIT:
(Keith)
-Pulled pellinore.mit.edu off network after discovering hack
reinstalled o/s and patched machine.
-Installed patched version of openssl on solaris servers.
-Installed software on virtual control room computers.
 

Livingston:
(Shannon)
-Worked an issue on our web server that prevented users from secure
shelling to it.
-Updating some files in the database for web pages.
-Looking at tasks that need to be done over the next six months and
trying to schedule them in a reasonable form.
-Preparing for the trip next week to Usenix and also Pasadena.
 

Hanford:
(Christine)
- The LHO network will be down Tuesday, Aug. 6 at about 10 a.m. PT for
one-half to one hour.  We will be upgrading the WAN network from T1 to
10 Mb ethernet (about 6.5 times faster than T1).  I will announce this
again before it happens.
- The LHO email/web server was moved to a new IP address on Mon. July
29.  This was necessary as part of the WAN bandwidth upgrade.  Caltech
modified their DNS tables with the new IP address.  The name of the
server stays the same.  Everything went very smoothly, only a few e-mail
problems have cropped up over the last few days and all those have been
fixed.  Thanks to Larry for coordinating everything with Caltech ITS.
- Provided the usual types of user support and worked on several
procurement issues.
 

CIT:
(Veronica)
- LIGO website: Recorded two SURF lectures and compressed them for
streaming, currently in RealMedia format. Experimenting with QuickTime
video editing.
-Together with Gary and Linda, met with a consultant regarding possible
software upgrades for the DCC. Discussed with Larry the needs and possible
solutions.
-MIT reported a problem with image loading; trying to pinpoint the
problem, tested the pages in question on various platforms/settings. The
problem turned out to be at the user end and is now resolved.
Mike and I looked into a glitch that caused a webserver malfunction
on pherkab. A license expiration date turned out to be the problem.
Posted several web updates.
- LSC website: updated the LSC August meeting page. Posted a bulk of
MOUs, progress reports, and talks to be presented. Working with Rita and
Irena on updating some LSC-related pages.
- CaJAGWR website: posted a new membership information.
- LDAS website: the latest hardware diagrams are now installed; the
pointers will be active by the end of the day today.
 

(Lisa)
- Did monthly backups.
- Showed Mick how to replace a fan in an ultra10.
- Pulled the Cadence disk off of sadal and disabled the cadence automount.
- Ran XSun patches on algol and rastaban to try and fix an xlock problem.  It
appears that Solaris 8 has been having chronic xlock troubles (see patch
106852).
- Installed a java web-mail package but the authentication mechanism keeps
failing. I'm pretty sure there is an unrelated piece of software missing but
the documentation for the package is pretty poor.
- Updated the 115 and 125 wireless access points with a new access list.
- Wrote a script to automate updating the sendmail access list.
 

(Mike)
-Worked some Networking issues on the second floor of West
Bridge; it turned out to be some bad cabling. This problem is corrected and
I enabled a couple extra ethernet ports to get some other cabling issues
squared away.
-Upgraded Calum's PC to service pack 4 on his Solid Works installation and this
became an issue with interacting Solid Works files from education and
commercial version when he did this. I tried to uninstall service pack 4,
but had no luck. I was forced to uninstall Solid Works and then reinstalled
with only loading service packs 2&3, this has the Solid Works group back up
and running.
-Reworked the Bridge VRVS, which was having audio transmission (MIC). This
is back up and running.
-Working a Sony LapTop that was owned by Alan Weinstein. This computer
keeps on freezing and it is looking more like a motherboard problem. I
called Sony about this LapTop and it is out of warrantee.
-Finished loading two Laptops to give to Ed to send to Hanford Wendy
gave me a hand with this.
-Worked on multiple workstations that included cleaning up viruses,
hardware issues and loading software. I ended up having to bring two of
these computers to my office to work on. I finished these computers up and
have them back in Synchrotron.
-Trouble shooting Jim's computer for we are trying to upgrade his computer
to 2000 but this computer is having some hardware and software issues.
We are reloading another computer to swap him out.
-Worked on printers up on the 3rd floor of W/B, Millikan and Bridge
Annex that included paper jams and changing out a replacement drum and
toner cartridges.
-Wendy and I have been working on upgrading users from win98 to 2000
Professional this is including getting current ghost images of user
computers then upgrading computers, which include flashing bios and adding
additional memory.  So far this has seems to be working out okay, the only
problems that we have come across is that you must uninstall Norton
AntiVirus and PCARD then reinstall. We have just started working this
project; our goal is to have everyone on the same 2000 platform (hardware
permitting) to take advantage of security features plus this seems to be a
much more stable operating system than win98 as long as current service
packs are loaded which we take care of. If those of you are going on
vacation please backup your personal files to your home accounts just to be
safe. You never know about computers for they are sometimes temperamental
and refuse to cooperate. Just a safety precaution! I will contact all users
before I attempt to upgrade their computers we already have a great
percentage of our users already running win2000 and all software is
compatible. If there is a problem with this, please contact either Larry or
myself and we will hold off on the upgrade of your computer.
 

(Mick)
-Worked on documentation for luna build
-Loaded 2 laptops
-Installed  new fan in Ultra 10
-Performed root partition dumps for primary servers;  importantly, first
dump for luna since rebuild on Blade1000
 

(Christian)
-Working on documentation for Larry.
-Spent time learning the h/w setup on PC's.
-Labeling cables and computers at various locations.
 

(Wendy)
-Loaded laptops and PCs with win2k and all software with Mike
-Upgraded a few machines to win2k from win98
-Helped users do random computer stuff, such as trying to troubleshoot
programs and installing new ink cartridge for printer
-Ghosted a few machines
 

(Larry)
-Spent a deal of time going over financial/procurement issues. Florance is
working on setting up a training session for those involved in the procurement
process. This session will cover some of the details to help us put in the
correct information on the paperwork.
-Working out the details on the SUN maintenance renewal. Renewed the maintenance
on the CISCO router. Purchased a number of supply items that we have depleted
over the past few months.
-Purchased another 8 port GigE blade for the Foundry switch. This should allow
us to have all the major servers on a GigE backbone. Next FY we will work on
getting the PC based servers on the GigE backbone.
-Spent a deal of time working on machines with viruses. A few visitors did not
have a Anti-Virus pkg. on their machine and are now having to rebuild their
machine. Fortunately, we've been able to recover their data.
Spent time recovering data for the PC's and others that had inadvertently lost
their data for other reasons.
-Worked a number of e-mail issues. Also, we've added a large number of addresses
to be blocked by the access list. We are really getting a number of spams. The
campus as a whole is getting inundated with this type of e-mail.
-Worked a number of hardware issues. Did some recabling of the computer room.
Working on some VRVS enhancements.

LIGO II/Advanced R&D (Sanders)

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

    This week I've been doing a literature search of suspension-related
material in support of a forthcoming paper on LIGO I suspensions by Fred
Raab and me.
 

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

Goodrich reports that the microroughness measured on the large m-axis sapphire piece after compensating polish was 55 angstroms.  Our goal for the LIGO TMs is that the microroughness be less than 5 angstroms, the requirement is that it be less than 10 angstroms.  Goodrich has indicated that they could pursue better microroughness using a separate slurry, however there is concern that the bubbles which break through the surface of this piece will chip and cause more sleeks in the surface.  They suggest that they could work on another piece to demonstrate improved microroughness.  The trade-off is that as you re-polish for a smoother surface, it may compromise the compensated wavefront.

I think they do need to demonstrate the ability to achieve the compensation and microroughness concurrently. I have found that the piece, when originally delivered from Wave Precision had a microroughness of 0.54 angstroms rms, with one or two peaks at 2 angstroms.  A repolish with a second slurry should be possible.
 

From: Michael Smith <smith@ligo.caltech.edu>

40 METER IFO

IFO Mode Matching Telescope:
A final design for a remotely focusable, vacuum compatible, off-axis telescope is in process. Quotations for the parabolic mirrors have been received. A specification for the parabolic mirrors is being written in preparation for placing a purchase order.

Quad Photodiode Mounting Pedestal
The parts for insulated mounting pedestals for the quad photodiode boxes have been received. New mounting holes will be drilled in the boxes to accommodate the pedestals.

Optics Parts List
Purchase orders are being prepared for most of the opto-mechanical parts for the AP1, AP2, ITM PO, BS PO, ETM PO, and SPS ISC beams and sensing table optical trains.

ADVANCED LIGO

Photon Actuation:
Costing data for an experimental task to evaluate the performance of a photon actuation scheme is being prepared; the experiment would take place during the summer of 2003 and involve several SURF students. A simple performance analysis is being made to assess the feasibility of the photon actuation scheme.
 

From: Gregg Harry <gharry@ligo.mit.edu>

We finished measuring mechanical Q for 5 modes on the SMA/Virgo coated
sample that is 3/4 silica and 1/4 tantala.  Based on our previous
measurements and the theory developed from it, we could calculate
an expected Q for this sample.  These measurements then serve as a check
on our understanding of coating loss to date.  Qualitatively, we expected
the Q to be higher than when the coating was even, as we had found that
tantala was the lossier component.  This was true for all the modes.
Quantitatively, one of the modes gave an answer for the tantala phi, 2.4
+/- 0.4 X 10^-4, that agreed  with the previous values. All the other
modes gave phi values on the high side of this, but all were within 2
sigma.
 

We have now hung the MLD coated sample with equal amounts of silica and
tantala.  This will serve as a test of the effect of the coating process
(including annealing) on the coating loss.  Previous measurements on an
MLD coated sample gave much worse loss for an alumina/tantala than had
been seen from a different coating vendor.
 

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