Weekly Report for Week Ending September 5, 2002

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  September 9, 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)
7. CHANGE CONTROL BOARD/TECHNICAL REVIEW BOARD SESSION AS NEEDED
CR-020009, Digital Common Mode Servo to Mode Cleaner Path
CR-020011, High Power Test in Suspended Interferometer (Gingin)
CR-020012, Additional Funds to Complete 40-Meter Facility Upgrade
CR-020013, Pentec VME Digital Signal Processing Boards

General Computing has an action to update CR-010012

Executive Committee only 11:30 - noon   Topics:
 

Special Items:  S1 performance summary from Fred, Mark and Albert

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights
 

LSC Issues (Weiss)

no report

LIGO I Construction/LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

LIGO Operations--Administration

There was a site teleconference held on Thursday, September 05, 2002. The following issues were among those discussed:

Proposed Travel Rules--Caltech has proposed new travel policies that would affect contract employees, visitors, and new hires.  It is our opinion that these new policies would seriously affect LIGO's ability to conduct business.  The issues will be raised with the Division Office.

Livingston Staging Building--Expecting a more definitive report this week concerning causes and proposed corrective action for the HVAC problems.

A job walk for the Time and Material contract for partitions in the Staging Building was held on Tuesday, September 3.  Proposals are due on September 10th.  The target is to have a contractor on board by the end of September.

Hanford Laboratory Building--Otto is on vacation.  The installation of the audio/visual systems is at least close to completion.  Expect to begin moving people in soon.

Bid for traffic control came in very high.  Looking at alternatives.

All Terrain Vehicle for Livingston--Expect to have three estimates and issue a PO by tomorrow or Monday.

Property--Ed Chargois previously reported that NIH in Bethesda, MD might prove to be a good source of almost new furniture for both sites.  He has been told that they will have good furniture for the Hanford building by the end of next week.  The plan is still to provide pictures.

Use of Auditoriums by General Public--two issues still open: requires notification of NSF DGA of intentions, and the NSF should inform the DOE of intentions.  Outreach related activities should not be a problem.  Ed Jasnow has a new action (#114) to prepare an email for NSF.

The list of current actions revised to reflect the status of open actions assigned through September 05, 2002 may be found at ACTION LIST.

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

• Assisted the Detector Group (J. Romie) with packing and shipping of parts to Micro Hybrid Dimensions (R. Stouffer) of Tempe,AZ.  Account Number P20431.
• Assisted the Detector Group (H. Armandula) with packing and shipping of Optical Parts valued at $3,500 to Stanford University (Dr. R.Route).  Account Number P157746.
• Assisted the Detector Group (H. Armandula) with packing and shipping of two (2) Optics Substrates valued at $2,500 each, serial numbers 8 and 17, to Massachusetts Institute Of Technology (Dr. G. Harry).  Account Number P157746.
• Assisted the Detector Group (H. Armandula) with  packing, shipping, and US Customs Documentation for three (3) Optics Substrates, serial numbers 9, 10, and 20, valued at $5,000 each, to the University Of Glasgow (Dr. P Sneddon).  Account Number P157746.
• Assisted the Detector Group (C. Torrie) by providing a much needed work table for use in the Synchrotron Lab.

>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

• Met with Gary, et. al regarding press kit folder.  Also discussed initial design of general LIGO brochure.
• Met with Gary and Ryan regarding numerous templates that have been prepared to standardize use among all project staff as well as LSC community.
• Pull documents in response to NSF email regarding possible audit use for land leae agreements.  Reviewed documents with Gary and Ed Jasnow.
• Prepared process travelers for Jim to work on.  This represents several hundred documents that need to be processed and cross-referenced with supporting documentation.  A flow sheet was prepared and a form designed to track any drawings referenced on a given PT that has not been submittted to the DCC.
• Continued to have hardware problems with my desktop computer.  A new hard drive will be installed next week when MIke returns.  It may also be a heating problem, so rearrangement of equipment will be done to see if that helps solve any of the problem.
• Cleaned up email issues at the end of last week.  Larry deleted all emails on the desktop after discovering a dummy file that was saving and then dumping the emails.  At his suggestion, I began to use only the laptop.  However, today another 500 old messages were deposited into the inbox.  No reason has been found as of yet.
• The LSC presentations are nearly all in.  There remains about 4-5 to be submitted, and I will be sending reminder emails to those individuals still with presentations outstanding.
• Ran across a database anomaly today.  Generally, when a document is entered into the DCC database, the docLog  number, which was previously listed as reserved, automatically changes to an "entered" status.  However, we ran across a document that was entered in the database, available on line, but was still on "reserved" status in the docLog.  Veronica is investigating the situation and we are unsure how many, if any, more might be afffted the same way.
• 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

• No report (vacation)

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

Press here for ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY DATA .

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

• Working on making internal modifications to subcontracts and POs in the upgraded version of Oracle IIi, which has created changes in our procedures.  There are still issues in getting my password up and fully operational in IIi where I can make changes.
• Researching and investigations payments on subcontracts and working with Dorothy and Esther.

• Worked on the financial reports for August.
• Prepared a report for Gary of Project Science costs and encumbrances.
• Updated chart of FTE's by classifications to include MIT employees.
• Financial reports can be found at: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport

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

• Nothing significant to report.

CONSTRUCTION:

The job walk for the Time & Materials contract to install partitions in the LLO Staging Building was held on Tuesday, September 3.  Both companies that received the RFQ were in attendance.  The job walk was very informative to both companies.  Proposals are due on Tuesday, September 10.

Inquiries will be made to the NSF regarding the use of the LHO Laboratory Building auditorium for public community events not associated with LIGO.  If the NSF agrees, they will be asked to inform the DoE of the possibility of increased usage.

SUPPORT (Baldon, Torres, Lloyd, Tischler)

>Irene Baldon

• Processed the paper work for one (1) new/revised trip and there are six (6) trips which are in various stages of completion before ticketing can be done and paper work completed.
• Completed twenty-eight (28) Expense Reports and there are nine (9) reports yet to be done.  Contacted a couple of travelers who have long-term outstanding Expense Reports and asked for their cooperation in sending me their receipts so that the trip(s) in question can be closed.
• Reconciled twenty-seven (27) P-Card items which required numerous phone calls to hotels, etc. in order to track down which traveler incurred which charge, and pulling each traveler's file to assure that charges are correct for each fee incurred.  Assisted a few travelers with their questions in regard to their P-Card and/or reconciliation.
• Worked on the preparation and distribution of the Travel/Vacation Itinerary for September 3, 2002.  Performed normal recording and filing associated with Travel and Reimbursement.
• I continue to do MIT's travel to the sites for installation activities and also to assist them wherever possible.

• No report this week (vacation).

• Formatted then submitted to the DCC progress reports from: Loyola, Southeastern Louisiana, India (IUCAA).
• Notified V. Kondrashov of LSC documents available for posting on the web.
• Did final updates with info from the organizations.  Last week Irena and I verified names and email addresses for participants listed on Attachments Z, then updated with new information; notified distribution.
• Prepared a draft spreadsheet/log to track documents in the review cycle.  The draft log is in review.
• Placed several Pcard orders, and reconciled a few.  Obtained price and delivery information for P. Willems/S. Whitcomb.
• Received packages for L. Jones while he was on vacation.
• Change to LIGO roster this period:  Ashfaq Khan transferred from CIT to LLO.

• Template meeting with G.Sanders/L.Turner. Sanders approved fax/letterhead/memo.
• Press Kit meeting w/group and designer.  Received photos of LLO outside building/inside interferometer -more on the way -thx Bonnie/Mark.
• Reconcile outstanding travel before end of FY02.
• Resolving sponsor reimbursement issues.
• Meeting w/travel audit re: new policies (last Friday).
• Addressed payroll  and various HR related issues for Cindy while she is on vacation.

Advanced LIGO (Frey)

There was no Advanced LIGO Project Controls meeting this week.  The Advanced LIGO MRE Proposal continues to have the Highest Priority.  Continuing the development of the Cost Estimate.

Posted data with budget comparison of R&D vs. Cost Book as requested by David Shoemaker.

The following is a summary of status by sub system:

• COC - Work on action items per second review continues.  Garilynn continues to execute action items.
• PSL -  Management to secure commitment from LZH for laser development.  Scope decisions to be made.  Next meeting date has not been scheduled.
• AOS - Work on action items continues.  Next meeting date has not been scheduled.
• IO -  Work on action items continues.  Next meeting date has not been scheduled.
• SUS - Prepared progress data request for progress through 8.30.02.
• 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 9.05.02 on the draft detailed schedule and no WBS dictionary.
• LDAS - No data / feedback from Albert to date.
• INSTALL - Continue processing of data developed by Dennis Coyne and provided by Gary Sanders.
• All other subsystems have yet to be scheduled for their first review.  These dates are pending per direction from Gary Sanders and Dennis Coyne.

• Updated the plan with progress as of 08.30.02 and  posted to site.
• Sent out update data requests for progress as of 09.13.02.

• Updated the plan with progress as of 08.30.02 and  posted to site.
• Sent out update data requests for progress as of 09.13.02.

• Updated the plan with progress as of 08.30.02 and  posted to site.
• Sent out update data requests for progress as of 09.13.02.

• ROSTER DATABASE: Rita encountered a technical issue with one of the data input forms and we are working with BK to resolve.  Provided updated reports to Irena.
• COST BOOK DATABASE: Continue to verbally communicate the username and password to users. Finished preparing data requested by David Shoemaker regarding 2003 budgeting. (See Link Above)
• Gang of 5+: Nothing new to report.

• Changed design to align with LIGO home page.
• See http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/index.html

We have reviewed the Annual Report against the requirements in the Cooperative Agreement.  Items that need to be addressed include:
1) MIT has sent me electronic versions of their proposal.  I will be incorporating these.
2) Fred Raab has sent me an Outreacg section for Hanford.  I will be including this.
3) I will add sections for actual costs, staffing, PAC meetings, etc.

I have prepared a budget model for FY 2003.  All reserve has been allocated in Planning Packages for items that have been identified on the contingency liens list.  We will also establish separate budget lines for items budgeted but not yet purchased in FY 2002.

The following change requests have been submitted:
 

I propose to present CR-020009, CR-020011, CR-020012, and CR-020013 during the next Executive Committee Meeting.

• General Computing has an action to update CR-010012.

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

• No report this week (vacation).

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

No report this week.
 

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

Summary of Commissioning Activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory (compiled by F. Raab)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(see ilog for details - if it's not in the ilog, it didn't happen...)
 

Science run continues. H1 has been improving in its "science" cumulative duty factor, now 58% compared to about 42% in last week's reporting. We expected we would see some improvement over the holiday weekend with lower seismic noise, but H1 is behaving better during noisy weekday times as well. We have no wisdom to share about why this improvement has occurred. The cumulative "science" duty cycle for H2 remains at approximately 72%. The lock-holding record, exceeding 21 hours, is currently held by H1. We were all promised beers by a certain detector group leader if we could keep H1 in lock for 24 hours straight, leading to great drama as the interferometer approached the 20-hr lock mark, but we did not make it on this try. (Rumors that lock was broken by a long-distance phone call to the LVEA from Australia were not supported by the data.)
 

We have been tracking associations between loss of lock on either interferometer and transients recorded by seismometers. In one class of events, we see a transient in only one building's seismometer. For example, a lock loss in H2, but not H1, might show an associated transient in the MY seismometer. This would be consistent with a vibration source local to that building. It is unclear what causes these events. We have made a positive identification of another class of lock losses associated with turn-on transients of the well pump out at EY. We see a consistent trend where the FMCS records pump activation, H1 immediately drops lock coincident with a seismic transient at EY and, six seconds later, we get a seismic transient at MY and H2 drops lock. Since run initiation, there have been about sixty such seismic event pairs, not all leading to lock losses. Masahiro Ito is now working up the efficiency of these events driving lock losses. In the meantime we have shut down the irrigation system - a major water user on site - and we are planning to charge the water storage system outside the prime lock times for Livingston, in an effort to optimize triple-coincidence times.
 

The strangest phenomenon to date is a regular "heartbeat" developed by H1. On microphones the dominant sound of H1 heard yesterday was a "thump-thump" at 88 beats per minute, beginning after an interferometer alignment on Tuesday. This remained constant until a magnitude 4.7 earthquake in the Queen Charlotte Islands occurred during the early morning hours of Thursday. The earthquake knocked both IFOs out of lock. H1 recovered once the shaking subsided, but required some realignment. Once the realignment was complete the 2-thump beat had become a 4-thump beat. The "heartbeat" is obvious in calibrated spectra, but we do not see it causing a big change in ZGlitch or SenseMon reporting. Without visibility into results from on-line DSOs in the control room we are unsure whether we should take invasive measures to diagnose and stop the "heartbeat", or just let H1 run unmolested.
 

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

Interferometer: We are preparing for installation of the DSC's beginning Sept. 10. A significant activity that needs to be completed prior to this date is the modification of the universal dewhitening boards. This is a labor intensive activity involving three or more staff continuously. There were two additional modification that needed to be made to all the universal dewhites for the digital suspension installation. This involved replacing some caps and op-amps on every board. That work is complete. Modification to the los controllers is nearly complete. The six that we need for the installation are done - only the two spares are left. I have purchased and received new linear power supplies for the rework of the end stations. Interface cables that connect the new suspension racks to 1X22 are complete. Basically, we are ready to start on Tuesday morning. (Wooley)

LDAS system administration:
1) Sent 25 tapes with S1 raw data to Caltech, 7 tapes with S1 RDS to MIT
and 7 RDS tapes to UWM;
2) Cleaned /frame10 to make room for RDS, together with Greg archived
old data from /frame10.
3) Troubleshooted LDAS after Wednesday's power accident.
LDAS data analysis:
1) Writing wave DSO. gor)
(Igor)

GC:
* Fixed a problem with the dhcp server today.
* Most of this week has been spent pulling Cat5 cable into the
conduit in the new building.
* ordered & received a symantec VPN server to test on GC
* created several accounts for the elog
LDAS:
* Helped fix a power problem on the beowulf. There was an
outlet that was shorting, which caused 1/4 of the nodes to
lose power. The repair involved shutting down the entire
beowulf so breakers could be turned off. Igor helped reboot
the beowulf.
--
Shannon Roddy

HEPI / MEPI / LASTI Completed characterization of 8 machined springs for the LASTI HEPI installation. Hastily packed and shipped 200# of springs for Friday delivery to MIT. Made 2 more purchase requisitions of MIT for balance of machined parts and assembly of initial 2 units. Ordered 8 additional load cells and panel displays for HEPI. Still working with Power Dynamics to close out open items on spring tester. Hammond, Kern Optics/Laser Safety Playing catch-up with LLO paperwork. The ophthalmologist I have been using to dispense the laser prescription glasses has closed his dispensary, so have made arrangements to deal directly with the lab for single vision users. Working to find a oculist who will measure and fit bifocal users. Updated registered user list with new employees. (Kern)

The first set of eight springs has been characterized and have been shipped to MIT to be installed. I am still looking at the collected data, but my preliminary findings look good. I have ordered four more springs to make a complete set of springs (8) because it appears that the coil springs were in adequate. The resolution on the load cell for the spring cell is roughly 50 lbs. The resolution advertised by the manufacturer is in the magnitude of 10/1000th. I have asked Russyl Wooley to trouble shoot and try to correct the problem. Russyl is quite busy with the upcoming installation, but promised to take a look at it before the next Tuesday. I have also solicited help from Russyl for the GS-13 installation into the pods (along with the Lockdown device). I will need help with the mechanical installation as well. This effort is to expedite the Streikheisen sensors as well as the GS-13s so they can be married into the ETF prototype at Stanford. My main effort has been to marry the latest and greatest HEPI unit into the EPI unit provided by Ken Mason at MIT. I am still finding mating problems but feel that this exercise will prevent the possibilities of installation problems. (Marcel Hammond)

Other: LSU Chancellor Mark Emmert toured LIGO Thursday afternoon. He was accompanied by Profs. Joel Tohline, Gabriela Gonzalez, and Joe Giaime. Logging activites and resultant ground motion are intense (<140 cnts in the 1-3 Hz band). Cutting is occurring simultaneously at the South end station and near the vertex.

Detector/Technical Support (Coyne)

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

• Suspended mass mode cleaner (Ugolini, Miyakawa, Vass, Abbott, Benna, Bonfield, Berdnikov):
• We have been bypassing the Mode Cleaner length control servo board, locking the MC using SR560 preamps, while we diagnose the many problems in the servo electronics.
• Osamu determined that there was no phase margin at the cross-over point between the frequency path and the length path in the servo. Poles and zeros are in the wrong place.
• Denis and Ben found that the VCO had a wrong capacitor value, putting a pole in the wrong place, thus explaining part of the problem. This capacitor was replaced with the correct value, but only a small improvement in lock time was observed using the servo board (up to 5-7 secs).
• Finally, a detailed comparison of the servo board with a simulink model from Rana revealed that another pole-zero combination was in the wrong place (apparently, an old rev; newer rev's have not made it back to DCC!). Dennis and Ben replaced a resistor, and ...
• Now, after months of work, the MC locks robustly with the MC servo board!
• Meanwhile, using the old setup, Osamu and Dave Bonfield measured many of the properties of the transmitted light.
• They did a beam profile with the BeamScan, and measured a very round beam (ellipticity < 1%).
• They measured the intensity noise spectrum; around 2e-4 / rtHz at 10 Hz.
• Osamu and Aya calibrated the QPDs that measure position and angle at the point where the beam leaves the PSL table. They observed drifts of ~ 100 um (pp) and 3 urad (pp) over 2 days. They measured the noise spectrum, and found 1 um/rtHz and 0.04 urad/rtHz at 1 Hz.
• Suspension Controllers (B. Abbott, Heefner, Taylor, Ugolini, Miyakawa, Berdnikov):
• Dennis re-diagonalized MC2 following the procedure developed by Ilya.
• The MC transmitted beam was observed to be bobbing up and down. Dennis increased the gain on MC2 pitch damping from 1 to 100.
• PSL/IOO (Ugolini, Abbott, Miyakawa, Vass, Sekido): Ben is suspicious that the PSL frequency stability servo is not up to specs, thus contributing to the problems associated with locking the MC. Attention will turn to tuning up the FSS and try to get the UGF up to spec.
• Optical sensing (Smith):
• Optics Parts List: Orders placed: 166.033 MHz Pockel's cell is pending from New Focus; 67 each, 1in mirror mounts are pending from Newport; miscellaneous optical posts and mounts are pending from ASCO; 3 each Uniblitz shutters are pending from Vincent Assoc; IO alignment/calibration fixture is pending from ASCO.
• INPUT MODE-MATCHING TELESCOPE: A purchase requisition for input mode-matching telescope off-axis parabolic mirrors was placed with SORL; the lead time for one of the mirrors is 5 months. An interim version of the telescope, using tilted spherical mirrors, will be designed and fabricated.
• VAC MIRROR MOUNT: The design drawings for the 1.5 in and 2in fixed vacuum mirror mounts were completed. Parts will be ordered shortly.
• OPTICAL LEVERS: The detail design for the optical lever focus lens prototype is in process. An 830nm laser is pending from Point Source. The oplevs will feature EPICS-controlled zoom and focus.
• Priorities: Mike will focus on getting the rest of the IOO system (in-vac MMT and Faraday Isolator) in place in the next 2-3 months.
• Osamu is assembling all the parts to get an electro-optic shutter in place, to chop the beam for ring-down studies. Ben delivered an EOS controller from Wilson house, earlier this week.
• Optics (Billingsley, Armandula) and suspensions (Romie):
• Betsy Bland arrives next Monday to help us hang 3 core optics (BS, ITMx, ETMx), and teach us to hang the remaining 4.
• From Helena: Magnet sets are assembled. An alignment target has been manufactured. Beamsplitter suspension structure is assembled.
• OSEMS: Bob has completed the assembly, testing, and cleaning of the 15 OSEMS (5 short, 10 long, plus a spare) needed to hang the 3 optics next week. They're now in the bake oven. Should be finished and post-bake tested by Friday.
• Bob has been baking misc. parts for the 40m suspensions.
• Bob is making more OSEMs for Janeen.
• After that, Bob will get started on the OSEMS needed for the remaining 4 40m core suspensions.
• Janeen noted that Bob's OSEM work bench was not up to cleanliness specs. Bob will get quotes for a small flow bench.
• Electronics (B. Abbott, Taylor):
• Ben is scrambling to get a satellite amplifier to control the optics we will be hanging next week.
• Ben will continue to push for the electronics needed to complete the suspension controller system for the core 40m optics. Net flow of electronics into the 40m lab has been negative.
• Bob has received parts required to complete the assembly of the auxilliary controls rack, as well as various cables and wire for the video cameras, shutters, etc.
• Several anomalies have been seen in data acquisition and/or display: second-trend min and max are gibberish in dataviewer, and the dust monitor data is not finding its way into frames. Dennis will contact Alex Ivanov to see if he can help diagnose and fix these problems.
• Facilities and vacuum envelope (Vass, Jones):
• We will plan to vent in the 3rd week of this month, to install the newly hung optics (it's the cleanest place in the lab to store them, until we get suspension controllers). At that time, we'll also rebalance the OSEMs on the 3 mode cleaner suspensions, and might have to shim MC1. We'll also install in-vacuum cables for the core optics at that time.
• The existing cpu which controls vacuum hardware via serial ports crashes after some hours or days, when communicating over its serial ports. Dennis is obtaining an additional motorola cpu to alleviate this problem.
• The ion pumps continue to outgas, but it's not too bad.
• Bob and Steve have been doing RGA scans of our teflon-coated in-vacuum cables, to see if they are suitable for LIGO. The outgas rate is quite low (6e-13 t-l/s/sqcm). There's no evidence of a flourine 19 peak, but the huge H2O 18 leak is obscuring it. There's no evidence of CF3 69 at the 3e-12 torr level. These cables are certainly clean enough for the 40m, but it is not yet clear whether they can be vacuum-qualified for LIGO. More tests are being planned.
• The EE crane has been repaired, and its controls changed from heavy metal to light plastic.
• The AC filters have been changed from 65% to 85% efficiency. We lose some capacity, but it did not seem to be a problem during the last very hot weekend.
• Optical table covers are in. Boxes to protect the satellite amplifiers are in, but they need Larry's attention; he'll be back in mid-September.
South Annex Bake Ovens (Taylor, Cardenas): Bob is baking OSEMs for the 40m and for Janeen, parts for the 40m suspensions, and in-vacuum cables.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

no report

LASTI (Zucker)

LASTI (Kern, Goldman, Harry, MacInnis, Mason, Mittleman, Ottaway,
Rollins, Shoemaker, Zucker)
=============================================================

VACUUM SYSTEM (Zucker)

We have vented to put the test cavity suspensions on their stops
and to permit temporary installation of a seismometer in HAM13 to facilitate end-to-end characterization of the MEPI system (see below). Since the system has been at hard vacuum for over 3500 hours, we
took a residual gas spectrum before venting. With an overall system pressure of 3.3e-7 torr (dominated by water vapor), we can set an upper limit of about 1e-11 torr for possible hydrocarbon fragments.  This limit is bounded (we think) by generation of HC signatures in the RGA itself. The corresponding flux, if this limit were attributed to the
LASTI chamber and tube walls (surface area 2e6 cm^2), is about 5e-15 torr-liters/sec/cm^2.

EXTERNAL PRE-ISOLATORS (Hammond, Kern)
Completed characterization of 8 machined springs for the LASTI HEPI
installation.  Hastily packed and shipped 200# of springs for Friday
delivery to MIT.  Made 2 more purchase requisitions of MIT for balance of machined parts and assembly of initial 2 units.  Ordered
8 additional load cells and panel displays for HEPI.
Still working with Power Dynamics to
close out open items on spring tester.

MEPI INSTALLATION (Mason, MacInnis, Kern, Coyne)
The spacers used to maintain the gaps between the electromagnetic coils and fields were removed. The HAM stack is now floating on the pre-isolators. The springs are stiff and maintain position
as monitored with the optical lever. We were able to bring the height and level of the table back to its original position easily. Forces on 7 springs were within 5%. The eighth spring had been overstressed during testing and appears to be causing us problems. Slight adjustments appear to cause large fluctuations in load. With a lot of effort we were able to bring this spring within 10% of the others, however when acted upon by the actuator it might cause trouble in operation.
        #MZ: on later inspection it was found that the
                errant spring's adjustment
                screw was jammed up due to its excessive length;
                a workaround is in progress.

We wil be opening up the chamber today to place the optics on their
 stops.
 

MEPI MODELING & DYNAMICAL TESTING (Mittleman, Ottaway)
The electronics for the HAM magnetic pre-isolator are mostly installed,
lacking one cable to connect the DSpace and the raw power supply, which
should be finished today.  The DSpace PC has been installed and the DSpace system will be tested as soon as the missing cable is installed.
The DSpace stepped-sine analyzer has been tested on the quadruple pendulum and should work on the HAM system.
Brian's Hydraulic-BSC model has been morphed into a magnetic-HAM model and is ready to be loaded with the more realistic M-K matrices from the stack analysis.
 

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)
Mirror rotation simulation
------------------------------
(Hiro) The rotation of the mirror is simulated by 6 DOF motion of the ground,
passed to the top through 6x6 transfer functions and via suspended mirror
model. At the last LSC meeting, it was pointed out that the coupling of
translational mode to table yaw motion can be the major source of the table
yaw motion. This coupling comes from the asymmetry of the stack and is now
neglected in the simulation. Virginio will look into this issue ...together
with Sany.

Tilted cavity study
------------------------
(Hiro) The analytic solution of the time evolution of fields in a FP cavity
with tilted mirrors is obtained. It is being compared with the e2e
simulation result to understand the physics meaning.

Code development and maintenance
----------------------------------
(Matt) Continued development of new E2E field model.

(Biplab) Change of yaw in common mode in recycling cavity was generating
wrong result in dark port. The bug was traced and the following files were
modified to correct and improve the implementation: align_matrix.*, sum0x0.*,
recycling_sum.*.

(Hiro) Code management: Because alfi is JAVA based and does not share c++
codes with AdlibMM (the simulation part), ALParser (a CVS repository keeping
codes shared by alfi and adlib) has become obsolete. The next release is
expected to be made gcc 3.1 compliant by doing minor modifications to make
the code more C++ standard compliant.

Alfi
-----
(Bruce)
- Continued work on the parser for better error messaging.

(Melody)
- Continued work on the automated tester for alfi5.

LIGO Data Analysis System

Software Systems (Blackburn)
Jobs are now being sent regularly to the LIGO site LDAS systems. A summary
of the jobs sent based on ldas command type is show in the table below. Most
failures are due to frames not being available. However, a very few are due
to other issues which will be discussed below. Specifics of the failures
have been summarized to LAL-DISCUSS on a regular basis this week.
A summary of jobs sent to the sites during S1.

Interval: 08/23/02 12:00:00 PDT - 09/05/02 10:00:00 PDT
_______________________________________________________________________
|              |                          ||                          |
|              |           LHO            ||           LLO            |
|              |__________________________||__________________________|
| User-        |           |        |     ||           |        |     |
| Command      | Submitted | Failed |  %  || Submitted | Failed |  %  |
|______________|___________|________|_____||___________|________|_____|
|              |           |        |     ||           |        |     |
| createRDS    |   14225   |   157  | 1.1 ||   14132   |    32  | 0.2 |
| dataPipeline |   16044   |  1714  | 11  ||    5658   |   534  | 9.4 |
|  inspiral    |    4468   |   732  | 16  ||     676   |     2  | 0.3 |
|  power       |    4265   |   105  | 2.5 ||    1802   |     6  | 0.3 |
|  slope       |    3676   |   381  | 10  ||    1638   |   326  | 20  |
|  tfcluster   |    3630   |   491  | 14  ||    1538   |   196  | 13  |
| getMetaData  |    6839   |    22  | 0.3 ||    4055   |     7  | 0.2 |
| putMetaData  |   22520   |    12  | 0.1 ||    9027   |    12  | 0.1 |
|______________|___________|________|_____||___________|________|_____|
|              |           |        |     ||           |        |     |
| All Jobs     |   59672   |  1910  | 3.2 ||   32877   |   587  | 1.8 |
|______________|___________|________|_____||___________|________|_____|

There was a power outage at the LIGO Livinston site which abruptly shutdown
the LDAS Beowulf nodes. This required completely shutting down the LDAS
system at Livingston during repairs to electrical circuitry. Several issues
ensued from this that required correcting a permissions problem in the IBM
DB2 server and restarting the metaDataAPI and mpiAPI. At this time LDAS at
Livingston appears to be fully functional again.

After a careful code read of the frameCPP version 6 code base, a decision
was made to make a more coherent effort to capture the requirements in the
new specification by going back to the drawing board on the code
development. This is not expected to delay the next release of LDAS, though
it does push the limit of when new code can be added before a release. Stay
tuned for timeline developments.

New asynchronous mpiAPI - to - wrapperAPI communication procedures were
implemented in the wrapperAPI's master. In addition several other
optimizations of communications were added to decrease even further the
serialization of code blocks. The time-frequency "bothD" enumerated type was
tested and shown to work properly.

A set of test scripts have been completed and used to test the use of state
data objects in dataPipeline commands. This is now working again. State data
objects contain DSO defined information from one job that can be reused by
future DSO jobs.

It has been identified that the secure webserver used to administer
applications for LDAS accounts can fail with error messages on a regular
basis when used from the LIGO Observatories over the slower networks. This
is in general not an issue since virtually all administration takes place
locally here at CIT, but we are looking to see if there is a fix.

Several new users applied for LDAS users accounts this week. We currently
have 61 authorized users of the LIGO LDAS systems.

A port of LDAS to the new Solaris 9 Operating System has been underway this
week. It looks like the included loader will not work with LDAS and we will
have to continue to rely on the GNU loader on this OS.

A new operator and emergency socket handler was added to the TCL layer of
the genericAPI . This has significantly improved the reliability of message
transmission between APIs. A similar effort to rework the assistant manager
socket handler is underway but has not been fully debugged yet.

The new job request handing layer in C++ for the frameAPI has greatly
improved the throughput of the frameAPI. We are already seeing a 1.5X
improvement in the overall system throughput from this. It has also allowed
the job ordering code to be removed as it only interferes with performance.

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

* HPSS: continued migration of files off of Redwoods.  Did a large batch
  of project/account creations.

* SAM-QFS: Started archiving S1 data.  Sorted out StorageTek maintenance
  (with Gina Salone's help) and got broken 9940 drive replaced and
  functioning.  Got another 60 day extension on our SAM-QFS evaluation
  license.
 

(Al Wilson)

* Did prep work for the raid systems for Caltech.
  Installed, Cat 5, Fiber, Racks, etc.  Also tested the Kickstart script
  for the systems.

* I configured Big Brother to run properly on the CIT system. Minor setup
  files problems. I will be adding node monitoring in the near future.
 

(Stuart Anderson)

* Started archiving the full S1 data: 2 copies into HPSS, 2 copies into
  SAM-QFS, and 1 copy over Internet2 to UWM. This is pushing the responsible
  SB1000 to its limits and slightly beyond.

* Identified and copied 1hr of coincident S1 data from LHO and LLO to
  be used in all LDAS systems for software testing and validation. This
  is a subset of the S1 "playground" data identified by the burst group.

MIT
---
(Keith Bayer)

* Troubleshooting PC Raid unit (timeouts from drives).
* Installed 3dm web based raid mgmt utility.
* Continuing to load S1 data (RDS) from sites.
* Continuing to create AS_Q channel frames from E7 reduced frames.
* Built/started webserver on lancelot for LDAS/DMT users.
* Completed burntest of PC Raid unit.

Lazzarini: I am working with David Shoemaker to develop a plan to improve bandwidth between LIGO MIT and the rest of the LIGO WAN.

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

* Sent 25 tapes with S1 raw data to Caltech, 7 tapes with S1 RDS to MIT
  and 7 RDS tapes to UWM;

* Cleaned /frame10 to make room for RDS, together with Greg archived
  old data from /frame10.

* Troubleshot LDAS after Wednesday's power accident.

(Shannon Roddy)

* Helped fix a power problem on the beowulf.  There was an
  outlet that was shorting, which caused 1/4 of the nodes to
  lose power.  The repair required shutting down the entire
  beowulf so breakers could be turned off.  Igor helped reboot
  the beowulf.

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

* Continued, with Igor, the running of tapecontrol scripts to archive
  raw frame data for S1; 50 tapes have been sent to Caltech from LHO,
  45 from LLO.

* Continued, coordinating with Isabel and Igor, running of tapecontrol
  scripts to write RDS output from LDAS to tape.  Currently tapes are
  written simultaneously for UWM and MIT and each site has received ~9
  tapes with data.

* Ran scripts to copy preS1 injection data from the framebuilder disk
  cache to ldas disks to preserve this data on disk at the sites after
  S1.  (The data was previously archived to tape.)  Continuing to monitor
  disk space for RDS data and injection data.

* The new 2 TB Raid Server at LHO has passed the burntest.

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)
Data Analysis Activities at MIT
===============================
Laura: worked with Alan in real time plotting of bursts DSO outcome- check
       out LDAS-MIT web page
Erik:  worked with Alan on new threhold investigation for POWER.
Laura+Erik: prepared S1 analysis outline as requested by Finn/Saulson
            and communicated to the Bursts group
Keith: produced E7 RDSs with AS_Q channel only- E7 full frames will
       be deleted soon.

Igor:
LDAS data analysis:
1) Writing wave DSO.

Weinstein:
- Set up, and began running three burst DSOs on three IFOs
  online during S1.
- After initial problems, all 9 sets of jobs
  are running smoothly.
- Assembled web status page and instructions:
http://lancelot.mit.edu/~ajw/burstdsos.html
- Continuing to monitor and improve the online running
  and monitoring system.

Data analysis activities (Shawhan)

* Debugged the "loop" scripts for the burst and inspiral on-line searches
now running at the sites.
 

General Computing (Wallace)
MIT:
(Keith)
-Created AIT-2 tape of julien directories and sent it to Caltech
-Patched a number of Windows machines
-Investigating VRVS audio
-Placed order for CAD PC + software

Livingston:
(Shannon)
- Fixed a problem with the dhcp server today.
- Most of this week has been spent pulling Cat5 cable into the
conduit in the new building.
- Ordered & received a symantec VPN server to test on GC
- Created several accounts for the elog

Hanford:
(Christine)
- Bought Visio to do drawings for the IT Security Plan document.
- Started processing to replace a broken monitor that is still under
warranty.
- Modified the cisco router access list to allow some new computers
access to the trinet seismic computer.

CIT:
(Mike)
-Nothing to report. Still at class for the week.

(Veronica)
- LIGO website: posted various updates. Reworked a webpage on LIGO
correspondence templates and standards, to be posted along with the new
templates.
-Posted updates at the Internal Bulletin Board.
-Working with the DCC on various related issues.
-Meeting with Gary and others regarding the final design of LIGO handout
folders.
- LSC website: posting remaining LSC meeting transparencies as they
arrive.
-Edited MOU lists for several institutions.
-Contacted Caltech Digital Media Center w.r.t. digitising the VHS tape of
the public lecture given at the August LSC meeting.
-Updating the LSC Talks webpage.

(Lisa)
- More user support on managing mailman mailing lists.
- Began writing a MySQL database for the inventory data.
- Spent time working with Mick on the tape restoration project.
- Still trying to get a response from the Caltech Telephone Office regarding
converting the 800 number of the modem pool to ISDN.
- Did Monthly backups.
- Misc. user support.
- Worked on a couple of PC's and e-mail issues.

(Wendy)
- Checked out a few computers for viruses, noise, etc.
- Restored some more tapes.
- Installed programs on various PC's for users.

(Larry)
- Worked a number of procurements. Mostly computers for other people and misc.
items for different groups. Also, spent time working on the p-card
reconciliations.
- Worked a number of PC issues including getting PC's for lab use.
- A major thorn was the VRVS system being played with and all of the settings
and hardware being disabled. We are going to purchase a new system to be
dedicated for the VRVS system which will have limited access.
- The general paperwork and user support. A lot of assistance for SURF students.

(Bruce)
- General Ilog Maintenance:
- Dealt with many requests for additions and some changes to
existing logs.
 

LIGO II/Advanced R&D (Sanders)

Mode Cleaner
Mike Plissi and I have been testing and characterizing the 2 sets of cantilever blades to be used in the prototype suspensions. Virginio, Mike and I have been discussing some of our preliminary results.
On Friday we ran a successful test assembly of a triple pendulum without the upper blades and support structure.
Janeen and Helena have started to assemble the cage structure and its associated parts and we are almost ready to assemble the upper blades.
New and edits to existing drawings are being kept up to date as much as possible, as are changes to the drawing tree. The next stage to aid this is to get the laptop set up with SOLIDWORKS and /sirius access.
 
 

Photographer
From next  week a student photographer will start work for LIGO for ~ 2 hours / week. Over the next 10 weeks or so he is going to photograph and document on a LIGO web-site the fixture and assembly procedures for the first advanced LIGO prototype. However, he will be available during this time if others are interested. For now please send me an email with your request at ctorrie@ligo.caltech.edu.
 

From: Bill Kells <kells@ligo.caltech.edu>

This last week has been spent on the following AdL
optics issues:

1. Reviewing the optics design and its consequences of
the flat top beam refinement (aka
   MH= Mexican hat). This, in advance of the (telecon)
meeting on the subject at MIT.
  I will have several comments and analysis to present
on this. Have had discussions with
  Erika, and Garilynn on this.

2. Clarified the issue of AdL (sapphire) AR surface
micro-roughness with D. Reitze and Garylynn.
   Turns out that The spec we were carrying for this is
[way] too stringent and the Goodrich
  compensation polish is not marginal in this respect.
So it seems clear that with the level of
  homogeneity we could reasonably expect plus demo'd
compensation, the unique problem with
  sapphire is bulk absorption.
 

3. Completed the long on the back burner analysis of
Carrier matching into a (AdL) double cavity with
    PRC distortion (a la thermal lensing). Such a PRC
distortion produces a net mismatch of input beam
  power to FP arm power (which is what counts for GW
detection) which is about the same (within
  factors involving Guoy phase of order 1) as the same
distortion would within the [stable] arm itself.
  Will be writing this up in detail shortly.
 

From: Peter King <pking@ligo.caltech.edu>

2.1 Engineering and R&D

    NPRO #259 was put through its paces with the electronics destined for
the University of Hanover.  Without the ability to control the slow
actuator - due to having to cable up the NPRO power supply to the wiring
harness - the laser remained locked overnight to the reference cavity.
Some of the field wiring will have to be replaced as there seem to be at
least one intermittent connection (to the phase-correcting Pockels cell).

2.2 AdLIGO PSL

    All the electronics modules destined for the University of Hanover have
been tested except for the 21.5 MHz RF photodetector, as this will require
a minor re-organization of the wiring harness relating to the pin-outs on
the DB15 connector used.  The only other board not tested is the Motorola
IOC, since this requires a little fiddling around but should be trivial.  Of
the commercially-sourced boards, the VMIC 3123 failed on boot.  A spare board
will be tested later this week.

    Suggestions for various tests to be performed on the high power laser
technology demonstrator systems are being made.  The idea is to converge on
a standard set of tests to apply to each laser and then with the results
make the decision as to which approach to adopt.
 

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

AdLIGO Suspensions
Superior Jig will deliver the balance of the blades, 8 small MC blades, on Thursday afternoon or Friday morning. Mike Plissi and Calum have been testing and characterizing the blades. They have been assembling the MC prototype suspension. Bob Taylor has started soldering the components to the circuit boards for the hybrid osems. The osem bodies, with coils wound, are due here from Glasgow this week. Bob will bake them as soon as they come in so he can assemble the boards in them next week. After that, he will continue on with the LIGO I osem fabrication to support the MC suspension and the remainder of the 40m suspensions. Helena will assemble the magnet/flag assemblies tomorrow. She's already assembled the magnet/dumbbell assemblies for the global/LIGOI osems. We're still working part procurement and fabrication. The LASTI dSPACE computer will arrive there on Friday, 9/6.
40m Suspensions
Helena has been assembling the TM and BS suspension structures in preparation for Betsy's arrival on Sept 9th. She has also been making magnet assemblies. This morning, Bob Taylor started baking the osems needed for this assembly work. The PZT, PZT driver and the translation stage have arrived and are in the So. Annex.

New Osems
All of the alumina heads were sent FedEx to the plating company this afternoon.
 

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

Shipped to Stanford 1" dia. substrates for absorption measurements.
Six 1" dia. substrates were coated by Wave Precision with Ta2O5/Al2O3; 3 of them were annealed and 3 were not annealed.
Only two 1"dia. substrates were coated by MLD with Nb2O5 / SiO2 because with had previous absorption data on these materials.
One substrate was annealed; the other was not.

Shipped Nb2O5/SiO2 coated "Q" substrates to Glasgow and MIT.
 

From: Hareem <htariq@ligo.caltech.edu>

Stoyan:
Verified that the density measurement of the sample did not have errors due to the micrometer. Micrometer leaves no plastic deformation on the sample during the measurement only some elastic deformation takes place.
Pistons and anvils for the splat quencher are all ready to be tested.
ANSYS started working but need more RAM and CPU power to run the simulations.
Learning stress/ strain measurements from Stefano.

Lia:
Wrapped up at Caltech and left for Italy this week. Working on creep data analysis for her 3rd year theses at University of Pisa.

Brian:
Leaving this week. Will submit a research paper on work done for credit once back at Cambridge university.
Verified absence of X-ray diffraction pattern shifts with the changing incident angle of the beam on the sample; no effect on the peak position noticed.
Crystalline samples of Boron 17, 20, 21 show no change in number of peaks in diffraction pattern, as the chemical composition remains same. Documented all scanned peaks present in X-ray diffraction pattern for Boron 17, 20 and 21 samples.
Noticed variation in peak position with respect to the day data was acquired; the problem probably due to the small displacements of monochromator stage in the x-ray diffractrometer.
Doing more data analysis on peak shifts in B17, 20, 21.
Finished soldering all the stepper motor controller cards for automating the sample stage in the x-ray diffraction machine.

Maddalena:
Conducted multiple Vicker Hardness tests on MoRuB samples. Found a discrepancy in the length of diagonals of diamond indentations that could have been caused by the mass on top of diamond dropping too quickly on the sample rather than gradually. Fixing this problem removed the systematic error. The diagonal lengths still vary but there are no jumps in lengths as going across the sample.

Stefano/ Chenyang:
Power supply for stress gauge finally working properly and the circuit for stress gauge controller in order. Labview programme for the controller finished. Starting the data taking but encountering problems with managing data buffers, as computer is too slow.

Barbara/ Hareem:
Having noise problems above 100 degrees Celsius on the DTA therefore only was able to see two transitions below that temperature in the initial measurement. Discovered that the instrument and thermocouple noise levels were off therefore fixed them. Recalibrating the DTA now. Spanning out the thermal analyzer network.

Xavier:
Finding the small meshing limits for flex joint membrane simulations on ANSYS. Computers are too slow for simulation; needs faster computers.

Mike:
Trying to measure the conductance of the shoes but having trouble with the Quantum design thermometers. Calibrated the new thermometers under QD instructions but apparently the instructions were wrong! Recalibrated thermometers correctly. A thermometer broke during the measurement; this is the 6th thermometer which broke.
Running heat capacity measurement for determining heat capacity of addenda.
Helped write the Excel macro for exporting ANSYS data.
Studying and defining the radiation losses in TTO measurements.
Jumps observed in  temperature control in cryostat due to the National Instrument DAQ card. These jumps caused problems in feedback loop and thus made the temperature control unstable.
 

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