Weekly Report for Week Ending October 3, 2002

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  October 7, 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

Executive Committee only 11:30 - noon   Topics:
 

Special Items:   IT Security Plan

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 27, 2002. The following issues were among those discussed:

The list of current actions revised to reflect the status of open actions assigned through September 27, 2002 may be found at ACTION LIST.

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

• No Report This Week.

>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

• No report.
• Reminder to LIGO staff:  Please make sure that as a minimum, each document submitted has a LIGO number, author's name, and date.  It's surprising how many documents are missing one of more of these essential pieces of information!

ACTIVITY

• Electronic document activity remains very steady.
• More documentation was filed away onto the shelves.
• Scanned a couple of documents for electronic access.
•  



For Week Ending 09/26/02	Packages	Faxes
In	34	34
Out	12	37

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

Press here for ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY DATA .

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

• Working on completing all of the paperwork on the requisitions and change orders entered into Oracle on the last day of the fiscal year 2002, Friday, September 27, 2002.
• Completed removing all open transactions from the construction accounts LIGO.5F500, LIGO.5k502, LIGO.5K503 and tasks 1.9 and 1.17 on LIGO.5J500 per Florence's request. Coordinated the transferring of the transactions with Dorothy, Irena, Bill, and various individuals involved.
• Transferred funds on MIT to allow for payment of the September invoice.
• Received several new requisitions on change orders to existing subcontracts.
• Received a new request for a new contract with Landscape Horizons for LHO.

• Prepared a preliminary report for FY2002 Operations as of September 2002 which is now posted on the network.

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

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

• Univ. Oregon: CO No. 09, adding funds for FY'03 salary support for three scientists (on site at LHO), was released to Purchasing.

CONSTRUCTION:

• Work is proceeding steadily on the punch list for the LHO Laboratory Building. The new furniture has been received and installed in the building.
• Excel Group has been selected as the time & materials contractor to install the walls in the LLO Staging Building.

• LLO has shut down the observatory in preparation for Hurricane Lilli in accordance with procedures reviewed by the Caltech Safety Officer.

SUPPORT (Baldon, Torres, Lloyd, Tischler)

>Irene Baldon

• No report this week, on vacation.

• Processed 64 invoices for payment. Tracked and followed up on invoice problems, and reviewed and recorded payments processed by Esther for the period September 9-27 . 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.

• Updated the log for LSC documents which have been submitted for posting.
• Chased lots of paper work in order to reconcile Pcard purchases. Placed a few more orders this week.
• Pitched in to help clear out the storage room on the 3rd floor. Along with R. Tischler, will organize old LIGO reference material, some of which is still used.
• Did minor updates to the LIGO roster, removed names of people who've returned to their home universities, and noted room change on the 3rd floor for Xavier De Lepine. New addition: Lei Zuo, grad student at MIT.

• 3rd floor storage
• travel issues
• work w/E.Jasnow re: Admin. meeting

Advanced LIGO (Frey)

Progress Period from 09.27 to 10.03

Accomplishments:

Weekly Advanced LIGO Project Controls meeting was not held this week.

Advanced LIGO MRE Proposal (Highest Priority)

• 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 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 - Working with Janeen doing updates and action items.
• Updated the plan with progress as of 09.27.02 and  posted to site.
• Sent out update data requests for progress as of 10.18.02.
• Assisting Janeen preparing cost and resource data in preparation for budget meeting.
• Worked with Janeen preparing response to RFI from GEO.
• 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 10.03.02 on the draft detailed schedule and no WBS dictionary.
• LDAS - No data / feedback from Albert to date.
• INSTALL - Issued draft installation / commissioning plan for review / comment.  Continue prepping cost data for import into cost book.  No comments as of 10.03.02.
• 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 09.27.02 and  posted to site.
• Sent out update data requests for progress as of 10.18.02.

• Updated the plan with progress as of 09.27.02 and  posted to site.
• Sent out update data requests for progress as of 10.18.02.

• Updated the plan with progress as of 09.27.02 and  posted to site.
• Sent out update data requests for progress as of 10.18.02.

• ROSTER DATABASE:
• Continued working on technical issue with one of the data input forms.  Searched several knowledge bases online, Microsoft included, and no references found.  Found similar error in cost book database when executing a report.
• COST BOOK DATABASE:
• Continue to verbally communicate the username and password to users.

Prepared travel arrangements for attendance at PMI Conf. 2002 at the request of Gary and Richard.

Out of the office Friday the 4th and Monday the 7th.

See http://pmi2002.fusionproductions.com/ for conference details.

Project Web Site for posting schedule and progress related data continues to be updated with the latest and greatest.

• See http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/index.html

The following change requests have been submitted:
 

I have distributed (via .pdf attachment to email) Change Request CR-020016 submitted by Otto Matherny for consideration during the Executive Committee Meeting on Monday, October 7, 2002.  The request is for $60,000 for irrigation, erosion protection, and landscaping around the new Laboratory building at Hanford.  The amount requested is less than the amount held for this purpose on the liens list for LIGO Construction.

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

• Various personnel/payroll /HR related work.

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...)
 
 

2K IFO (H2)
-----------
Last week I reported that Jay had some reservations about confusing signals from SM2 on H2. The following day, after straightening out some DAQ problems, we were able to make a test for mechanical interference with the suspension by measuring the pendulum modes of SM2 with no damping. Instead of seeing the expected pitch, yaw and position resonances between 0.7-1.0 Hz, we saw a yaw resonance and new resonance at 1.8 and ~ 6 Hz. The higher frequency resonances indicated large restoring forces in the missing pitch and position modes, but the presence of the soft yaw mode indicated that the optic was still suspended. We hypothesized that we probably had a charge transfer hanging up the mass or the wire had jumped out of its alignment notch. We guessed that this may have occurred by an excitation of the optics table during the two-week period that the electronics were being changed, leaving the optics undamped.
 

We began planning an entry into the HAM7 vacuum chamber to make repairs. Staging took the first three days of this week and we were ready to start repairs on Thursday morning. The hope was that we had a charging problem and that the vent might discharge it as the pressure in the chamber passed through the region of electric field instability. However we were ready to enter the chamber if this did not work, and we were ready to pull the suspension if we could not make repairs in the chamber. Luckily the discharge did the trick. We began the vent at 8:35 am PDT and the optic came free at 8:36. By 9:10, we had completed suspension tests and initiated a pumpdown shortly thereafter. Pressure dropped rapidly and we were able tore-open the gate valves by the afternoon.
 

4K IFO (H1)
-----------
Francois Bondu, Luca Matone and Rick Savage continued to work on frequency noise. They characterized the electronic gain for the two paths: the VCO and MC2. A simulink model was then created to estimate open and closed loop transfer functions. The measured 'effective' frequency stabilization of the MC was found to agree well with the model.
 

Bill Kells worked on measurements of optical properties of H2.

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

No report due to hurricane. All is well though.
 

Detector/Technical Support (Coyne)

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

• Final papers from all 5 SURF students have been completed and submitted to the SURF office and to LIGO DCC. Check them out at the 40m web page.
• Mike Smith is proposing to use the 40m for a feasibility test of a photon actuator for AdvLIGO, which he will describe at the AdvLIGO R&D review on October 8.
• Suspension Controllers (B. Abbott, Heefner, Taylor, Ugolini, Miyakawa):
• Dennis and Steve have properly shimmed the MC1 suspension (with a 0.28 mm thick piece of metal) so that all OSEMs read back near the middle of their range. They have rebalanced the OSEMs on MC1 and MC3, and checked for sensible readback from OSEMs on all 3 suspensions.
• Ben has changed the resistors (and thus the readout gain) on the satellite amplifiers for all 3 suspensions, from 40 kohm to 29.4 kohm (to get the OSEM sensor full scale match the ADC full scale). Full scale is 2 V, and all OSEMs are near 1 V. All yaw offsets are < 0.2 V.
• We are now pumping down, and Dennis will re-diagonalize all 3 suspensions shortly thereafter.
• We still have to notch out the 16 Hz bounce mode, and understand the origin of the 23.7 Hz roll mode excitation.
• We hope to get the latest greatest DSC software from Rolf, including software for the vertex core optics DSC.
• Suspended mass mode cleaner (Ugolini, Miyakawa, Vass, Abbott):
• As mentioned above, OSEMs on all 3 suspensions have been checkout out, and they're all near to the middle of their range.
• Dennis, Osamu and Steve have re-established alignment of the suspensions, with the PSL beam, prior to pumpdown. Clean TEM00 fringes were observed.
• Ben swapped out an 1125 on our Mode Cleaner Servo board in hopes that the boost gain induced offset will be minimized. We will test the change tomorrow.
• Dennis continues to work on the MC commissioning document.
• We pump down today.
• PSL (O. Miyakawa, M. Smith):
• Osamu re-measured the OLG of the frequency stability servo (FSS) using the faster HP4291A RF spectrum analyzer, and measured a UGF of 309 kHz (spec is 600 kHz) and phase margin of 28degrees. At 600 kHz, the phase is -205degrees. Presumably, this is due to cable lengths, placement of the frequency-shifting Pockels cell, and other details. However, because the free-running MOPA noise is lower than what was assumed in the PSL design, the resulting in-loop noise is well within specs at this setting.
• Osamu continues to write the PSL re-commissioning document. He had to write a converter to get the HP4291A data from floppy into the PC for plotting.
• Osamu and Mike Smith continue to work on the calibration of the input optics beam position and angle sensors (QPDs and associated optics, looking at the beam picked off just before it leaves the PSL table), with a newly-acquired translation stage and properly wedged beam splitter.
• Mike has received the 166 MHz Pockels cell for dual recycling length sensing.
• Optical sensing (Smith):
• OPTICS PARTS LIST, Orders pending: 67 each, 1in mirror mounts are pending from Newport; miscellaneous optical posts and mounts are pending from ASCO; input mode-matching telescope off-axis parabolic mirrors are pending from SORL; IFLEX1000 IR laser for optical lever is pending from Point Source Ltd; ; polarizers and half-wave plates for Faraday isolator from KLC; Faraday rotator from EOT; 3 PZT tilt platforms and 2 servo control drive electronics and strain gauge read-out electronics were ordered from Piezosystems Jena;1.5 in and 2in fixed vacuum mirror mounts and an adapter spacer were ordered from ASCO and California Machine; 2 deg wedged beam-splitter for sampling the initial pointing beam will be ordered.
• OPTICS PARTS LIST, Orders received: A translation slide and adjustment screw for the IO angle sensor QPD focus lens was received, together with a replacement beam splitter with a 3 +/- 1 deg wedge for the alignment fixture.
• OPTICAL LEVER FOCUS LENS: Detail working drawings are on hold.
• FARADAY ISOLATOR: Detail working drawings are in process.
• IFO MODE-MATCHING TELESCOPE: Detail working drawings are on hold.
• INITIAL POINTING BEAM: 2 deg wedged beam-splitter for sampling the initial pointing beam will be ordered.
• Optics (Billingsley, Armandula) and suspensions (Romie):
• Our BS, ITMx, and ITMy, are suspended and sitting on the South Annex clean room flow bench.
• Bob is finished building 15 clean OSEMs to replace the dirty ones in the above suspensions; they will be baked by Monday. Then we'll replace the dirty with the clean OSEMs, and Bob will try to salvage the dirty ones.
• Electronics (B. Abbott, Taylor):
• Bob and Ben are continuing work on front-panel wiring and cabling for 1Y4, the DSC for the vertex core optics. It should all be complete by the 15th.
• Electronics in process at Wilson House: 6 satellite amplifiers, universal dewhitening boards, parts for the DSC for the ends.
• 7 Penteks have arrived for the vertex DSCs. Pentiums are expected soon.
• DAQ (Ugolini, Ivanov): Alex came by and fixed several problems with the DAQ:
• PEM channels weren't being read out: traced to a recent change of master.config to sample at 1 Hz, which DAQ is incapable of.
• Corrupted trend data: LDAS framecpp library was bad. I installed different version and that fixed the problem, which was incorrect byte swapping on some of the channels.
• The DAQ has crashed 3 times in the last month; not clear why. Suspect the raid array...
• Facilities and vacuum envelope (Vass, Jones):
• Larry and Steve have completed the installation of all in-vacuum cabling, checked it all out with a continuity tester, and took lots of digital pictures.
• Dennis and Steve replaced the access connector and sealed up the 40m vacuum envelope in preparation for pump-down.
• We started pumping down Thursday morning. It's all going smoothly.
• Dennis has a new Motorola VME CPU to control the ion pumps. He got an EPROM for it, but couldn't make it work: it wasn't programmed! Now he has a programmed EPROM, and will test it out tomorrow.
• Larry and Steve checked out the new boxes for satellite amplifier protection and cable strain relief. They are working on some design modifications, for better placement.
• CES is working on a vacuum vent filter holder, and a new dolly to hold chamber doors when they are removed.
South Annex Bake Ovens (Taylor, Cardenas): Bob is baking new OSEMs.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

no report

LASTI (Zucker)

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

VACUUM SYSTEM (Zucker, MacInnis)
 

Still at 1 atm for MEPI testing
 

PSL (Jamie R, Kirk M, Mike Z and Dave O)
 

Jamie completed design and layout for his 300 mA photodetector for
intensity noise studies.  Kirk is measuring and modeling the prototype
fast FSS card.
 

MEPI/HEPI DESIGN, FABRICATION AND INSTALLATION (Mason, MacInnis, Coyne)
 

MEPI Installation
Several of the Kamam position sensors were damaged during setup and had
to be replaced. We believe the damage was caused during the calibration
when the flag touched the sensors. We now calibrate over a shorter
distance and none have been damaged.
 

HEPI Design and Installation
We spoke with several suppliers to install plumbing for hydraulic lines
from the pump room into the high bay. We are planning on 1" dia
stainless tubing from the pump to the large manifold tig
welded the entire way. They will also run 1/2" dia stainless tube up to
each of the 4 small manifolds on the top of the piers. VCO fittings will
be placed on the small manifolds so that
they can be blanked off and the line can be helium leak checked.
 

HEPI/LASTI Fabrication (Hammond/Kern)
 

This week has been spent answering questions and directing the welder
assembling the first article HEPI actuator. Also generating a parts list
and ordering a multitude of fasteners, o-rings and hydraulic fittings
and valves. The threaded, mechanical process to restrain the diaphragm
worked fine, but needs to be qualified in Stanford's test stand.  We
expect to have an actuator completed this Thursday or Friday, and bring
it to LLO for a Helium leak check first thing next week. Day by day
progress this week can be seen at these sites (hurricane permitting).
 

http://emvogil-3.mit.edu/~jkern/ActuatorAssemblyOct1/index.htm
http://emvogil-3.mit.edu/~jkern/ActuatorAssemblyOct2/index.htm
 

EPI MODEL DEVELOPMENT, TESTING & SIMULATION (Coyne, Ottaway & Mittleman)
 

MEPI/Ham Characterization update
 

  We now have four fully instrumented HAM piers.  A number of the new
position sensors did not work after being installed; these were
replaced and everything works.
 

        #MZ note: now understood as an assembly/calibration problem,
        resolved.
 

Professor Nayfeh and two of his graduate students, Lei and Osamah, were
in last week characterizing the external support structure.  There have
identified and characterized a number of  modes, and plan to return next
week for follow up work.
 

 The DSpace system identification has begun, with some preliminary
results.
 

 Today we found that the piers were not completely free, some stops were
just touching the suspended mass, one actuator might have been in
contact with it coil.  How this affects the previous measurements
remains to be seen.
 

        #MZ note: this problem was mechanical interference with one
        of the motion stops; it has now also been resolved.
 

MEPI model
 

  Dave finished the MASS/Spring constant matrices, and they should be
installed in the MEPI model quite soon.

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)
E2E Physics meeting
-------------------------
Matt and Biplab discussed about the WFS outputs of SimLIGO and why some
outputs for modes of pitch are different from outputs for corresponding
modes of yaw. Hiro and Matt then discussed about the implementation of
merged box files which may speed up the modeler runs.

SimLIGO
---------
(Matt & Biplab) Continued debugging of WFS in SimLIGO. Apart from RM (Rec Mir)
mislaignment (common) mode, all other modes generate correct signals.
However, in Han2k runs, all including the RM  mode generate correct outputs.
From various tests and our current understanding, it seems to be a
problem somewhere in data-handling part of SimLIGO or the extraneous
matlab files used to look at the data.

Code development and maintenance
----------------------------------
(Hiro) Modeler Code: Working with Melody to support the merged box file.
File caching support is implemented in a similar way for the merged box
file and standard box files. These modifications will simplify and speed
up the use of e2e. Various other low level modifications are going on
to support the next version of SimLIGO.

(Biplab) Another bug in misalignment calculations for summation cavities
was traced out.

Alfi
-----
(Bruce)
- Cleaned up and modified event code for cut and paste implementation.
- Continued implementation of cut and paste.

(Melody)
- Continued work on the automated tester for alfi5.
- Finished first version of exporting modeler files from alfi5.

LIGO Data Analysis System

Software Systems (Blackburn)
Dedicated ldas user accounts were created for testing each of the different
search strategies that are looped throug each night. This should allow test
rates that exceed the current throttle limit for individual users (one job
per second). Hard to beleive that LDAS is approaching this level of job
submission with 95+ percent succcess rates.

The new frameCPP is approaching the 90% complete mark. This has allowed it
to be integrated into LDAS. The frameAPI, dataConditionAPI and eventMonitorAPI
have all undergone some changes to support the new frame specification. We are
currently able to run jobs through with this new frameCPP, though a complete
investigation of the validity of the data products has not been finished. The
preliminary results are seeing some minor differences in the data products. We
are currently looking into these to see if they are numerical precision or
indications of some bug in the new frameCPP its usage in LDAS. One of these
tests which has been completed does indicate that the correct data is making
it way from the frameAPI through the dataConditionAPI and into the wrapperAPI
for simple data types.

Several problem reports associated with shutdown and startup of LDAS APIs have
been addressed this week. In addition, several problem reports in the data-
ConditionAPI have been closed out this week.

A big bug in the controlMonitorAPI server was discovered this week which caused
requests to add or modify LDAS user accounts through the Secure Web Server to
fail.

Some of the excessive logging in the metaDataAPI has been suppressed which
should help to increase database request performance by a few percent.

The performance of the diskCacheAPI was improved by a factor of a thousand for
the larger directories currently exported by the new RAID disk servers. This
fix was identified when it was discovered that the frames listed from large
directories was not in a sorted order as expected.

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

* SAM-QFS: Imported the tapes that had been erroneously exported so the copy
           of S1 data to IDE-RAID could continue.  Did a tape catalog changeover
           to simulate moving tapes from a site to CIT.  Copied files to
           IDE-RAID that had been missed due to their tapes not being imported
           earlier.  Started work on sanity check scripts to make sure the
           SAM-QFS configuration is writing data to tape in the way that
           we want.
 

(Al Wilson)

* Started the LDAS upgrade to RedHat 7.3

* Updated the Kickstart file for RH7.3.  Have a local copy of the disk
  image, when out of the beta stage I will post it on the ldas-sw machine

* Updated the rpmsync files for RH7.3.  The new files are ldas and node.
  Same names as before but different RPM's Note that there is still a
  listing for Beowulf. This will be removed in the near future. And a file
  for workstation was updated, but not tested.

* Overhauled the cfdef files. Old copies are still left on the system.
  There will be 3 classes of machines ldas, node, workstation. Besides
  removing obsolete files, updating site specific files, the def tree has
  been pruned.

* Updated the ldas-dev system to RH7.3. Looks like it survived the storm.
  Node15 looks like the only casualty. There is one problem still need to
  be worked out, the nodes on the dev system hang on boot without an
  keyboard plugged in. This is new with the upgrade.
 

(Stuart Anderson)

* Finished retrieving LHO S1 data from SAM-QFS and copying to IDE-RAID.
  The average transfer rate was an impressive 27MB/s.

* Working on installing complete LDAS systems on each of the new LDAS
  server farm dual-CPU systems.
 
 

MIT
---
(Keith Bayer)

* Installed several firmware version of 3ware card (7.5.2 took)
  rebuilt raid on datawulf
 
 

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

1) Four beowulf nodes have experienced problems since purchase: node25,
   node29, node32, and node48.  All have since past the burntest, after
   repairs, and have run over a week without problems.  I have added
   node25, node29, and node48 back into the list of nodes available to LDAS
   at LHO.  Node32 did initially crash again during the burntest, but
   subsequently passed.  However, I plan to do additional testing of this
   node.

2) Sorted out issues with raw S1 data sent to Caltech and RDS data sent
   to UWM.  It seems some problem occurred with 3 tapes sent to Caltech and
   1 tape sent to UWM.  The UWM problem occurred for a small amount of
   data, and this data was transfered over the internet to UWM from disk at
   LHO.  Igor and I will check the tapes sent to Caltech, and replicate
   them from data on disk if the tapes are unreadable.

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)
Mendell:
1) Generated a playground set of 64 second LIGO S1 H2 SFTs on two 5.69
hr GPS intervals: 714150032 to 714170512 and 714886656 to 714907136.
This is to investigate issues of windowing, filtering, and padding, as
well as nonstationarity of the noise during SFT generation.  The shorter
time SFTs can also be used to test code being developed to search for
periodic signals from neutron stars in binaries.

2) Assisted the PULG group in preparation for the lsc-wide telecon on
Fri Oct 4, 2002.

Weinstein:
- Continued to run LDAS jobs on S1 playground data
  with burst simulations, injecting gaussians, sine-gaussians, and ZMs.
- Discussed issues regarding the time dependence of calibration,
  relevant for burst group work, with Patrick and LSUG.

Shawhan:
* Working with Keith Riles and Vladimir Dergachev at Michigan on plans for
a new, multi-platform trend-data viewer.

MIT:
Continuing investigations on S1 playground data with Bursts
DSOs (Laura, Stefan, SHourov, Erik) and vetoes (Stefan, Shourov)
in  preparation of the  weekend analysis meeting. Alan made
available (software) injection data that Laura started parsing.

Lazzarini;
Together with Mike Landry and David Shoemaker, I set up a new web site
(temporarily located in my directory) that will become the source of "official" sensitivity
curves (with DCC numbers) for people to use in talks, publications, etc. The site includes
links to the ASCII data files from which the graphics were created. See
http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~lazz/distribution/LSC_Data/

General Computing (Wallace)
Lazzarini: Iterated on the IT security plan with a number of people across all LIGO sites

MIT:
(Keith)
-Reinstalled win2k on XP box for DSpace utility (R Middleman)
-Helped setup linux box for Tania
-Ordered software / harddrives / printer supplies

Livingston:
(Tom)
-Monday afternoon: Finally finished recovering from hurricane Isidore.
-Tuesday morning: Began preparing for hurricane Lili.

(Shannon)
-Recovered from Isidore storm.
-Prepared for hurricane Lili.
-Went over a number of logistical issues with Larry.
-Setup a couple of PC's including a laptop for Mark.

Hanford:
(Christine)
- Upgraded fortress, the LSC sandbox computer, to Solaris 8.  It's still
behind all the other computers on upgrades because the Solaris 9
drivers are not available yet for the ATM card.  The upgrade to 8 at
least means that it is now compatible with the DMT computers.  Had to
install new drivers for the ATM card and external scsi raid system.
Still waiting to hear from Sun for new drivers for the internal raid
system.  Also installed the latest version of SSH 3.2.0.
- Setup a new PC for a new operator.  Cleaned off personal files and
upgraded an old laptop that is being handed down from the old owner to a
new owner.
- Fixed some problems with the daemon config file for the latest version
of SSH.

CIT:
(Mike)
-Reloaded Irene's and Ryans computer from win98 to 2000 PRO.
-Loaded a new PC for with 2000 PRO.
-Tested new data drops that we ran to Gary Sanders office all is good.
-User Support;
That included loading additional software and troubleshooting
software/hardware glitches.

(Bruce Sears)
- General Ilog Maintenance:            (0.25 days)
        - Added users.
    - Fixed some incorrect log entries.
 
(Veronica)
- LIGO website: continued working on the Press & Media website. Posting
editing/updates as they arrive.
Working on one of DCC database script modifications.
Posted updates to several pages (Fellowships, etc).
- Project Science website: tested a newer version of the website.
Incorporated some of the new graphics into the current layout.
- LSC website: updated MOUs pages.
- CaJAGWR website: posted various updates.

(Lisa)
- Working on integrating the sun crypto accelerator into becrux.  This is quite
complex because the card has its own openssl libraries that have to be compiled
into the applications.
- Resolved a problem with the html configuration of the mailman archive pages.
Internet explorer has a known bug displaying default URL's.  I also did some
more work with the perl filters for the archives.
- Worked on some wireless bandwidth problems on the 6th floor of Millikan.  Also
did maintenance on all of the access point configurations.
- Put in an order with the telephone office to convert the first two lines of
the 800 number to ISDN.

(Larry)
- It appears that there are no more Maxtor 160GB 5200 rpm drives left at a
reasonable price. Spent some time looking for them and so far no luck.
Working on a couple of laptop and Sunblade purchases.
The order for the GigE equipment to be installed at Livingston is in the
procurement cycle.
- Cleaned up a couple of network issues. So far nothing major, mostly
workstations needing to be reset.
- Worked with Donna, Mike and Lisa on setting up a network and computers for a
small conference being held here at Caltech. Assisting the users in changing
their configurations for use on the network went smoothly in most cases.
- Worked a number of e-mail issues. Everything from user configuration, updating
aliases, blocking and unblocking hosts to helping get needed information for the
different mailing groups to update their lists.
- Checked out the power in the computer room and so far things are looking good.
Also replaced the battery in one of the UPS units.
- Finally, got to spend some time working on the VRVS system. So far the concept
of getting the presentations to broadcast directly on the VRVS broadcast does
work but the resolution is poor. Now looking at some equipment that may improve
the resolution on computer to computer capture system.
- Still working on various documents.
- Did some more trouble shooting for the DCC and a couple of other PC
webservers.
 

LIGO II/Advanced R&D (Sanders)

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

Mode Cleaner

I have been working on some optimisations for the mode cleaner prototype these week. These include a winch adjustment similar to that being currently used in LIGO I and pitch adjustment similar to the design used on the upmost mass in the MIT quadruple pendulum.

With the help of Russell Jones we have been looking at a 2x2 array eddy current damper for the Caltech triple pendulum. Drawings for a prototype version of this should be ready this week. There is a still a lot of work to do here before a set of arrays could be tested on the pendulum.

The library of clamps used to balance the blades have proved to be a success and the plan is to extend this set to 3.0 and 3.5 degree.

Mike Plissi and I have been keeping in touch this week and hope to continue work on investigating the set of cantilever blades that was started during his visit.

Recycling Mirror
We have made an introduction to the Recycling Mirror drafting in so far as we have set up a space on the SUS 3D TeamWorks page and held introductory discussions with the designers and draftsmen in Glasgow about what is required.
(The modelling, carried out by Phil Willems, is nearing a stage that drafting and detailed design work can begin)

Synchrotron Lab
A drill press is being installed this week and some other material removed in order to give us more room. Temporary storage units and a preparation and checking table are ready to be moved in. The carpentry shop have already been to measured up for the installation of shelves, lighting and some tool storage.
 

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

2.1 Engineering and R&D

    The free-running length noise of the optically contacted
pre-modecleaner was estimated by locking NPRO #259 to the pre-modecleaner.
This at least represents an upper bound of what the length noise would be.
For frequencies less than 1 kHz, a factor of 2 to 2.5 improvement was
observed.  At around 10 kHz, the length noise appeared the same as that for
an epoxied pre-modecleaner.  However the measurement from 10 kHz and above
looks odd because it's flat, suggesting some noise floor rather than the
true noise.  Thus far I have not been able to track down the source of the
noise floor.  The lowest body resonance observed is around 13 kHz compared
to the epoxied body's 10 kHz.

2.2 AdLIGO PSL

    Ivo Zawischa released another set of laser selection criteria with
some minor changes.  It looks like locking a pre-modecleaner style cavity
to the candidate high power laser may not be convenient because of issues
to deal with a suitable Pockels cell.  This is the selection criteria
proposed to measure the beam quality of the 100-W laser.  Updates might be
discussed at the next Lasers Working Group telecon.
 

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

AdLIGO Suspensions
Worked on budgets and viewgraphs for the Tech. Review 10/8.
Working on Norna's questions for her PPARC meeting.
Working on mode cleaner tasks and setting up the lab with Calum.

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

    This week I finished coding and debugging a set of control system
models that I had been working on and published them on my models page.
There's on with a full LIGO-I-style diagonalizing controller, a simpler
one where the control signal for each actuator is derived from the
colocated sensor, and an eddy current version. All have detailed
modelling of sensor and actuator geometry, and, where relevant, the ADC
and DAC converters.
 

From: Riccardo DeSalvo <desalvo@ligo.caltech.edu>

Barbara and Maddalena leaving, back in Pisa.

Alessandro
Managed to low temperature braze over Ni-P electrode-less layer using appropriate etchant and flux. The use of sputtering seems now superfluous.
Working on how to deposit thin, uniform and well localized layers. Now we can think about building real structures.

Stoyan
Tested the new splat pistons. They do not work properly, apparently the stems are too magnetic and the piston recoil before generating good cooling. Need more thinking.
Running low on splat heads, ordered new alumina precipitation hardened copper.
Working on simplified 2D flex joint model, finding problems.

Massimo, Mario (Pisa)
Finished LVDTs for new stress strain fixture, sending to Caltech

Maddalena, Barbara, Stoyan, …..
Splatting to generate more samples replacing the ones used in testing. The splatter has grown unreliable. Riccardo tuned splatter mechanics which now is more reliably and effectively producing glassy samples.

Barbara
Investigated on the two peaks identified in the DTA data before it became unreliable. Confirmed precipitation of crystallites out of the alloy on X-ray scattering of samples baked at temperatures (700, 750 and 930oC) below, between and above the two peaks. Observed growth and narrowing of the peaks for longer and hotter bakes. However some crystallisation was observed even for oven temperatures lower than the first DTA peak. Realised that the oven heating elements (white hot) directly irradiate the MoRuB film sample and heat it up by black body radiation well above the nominal oven temperature. Need to repeat measurements while shielding the samples from the resistors black body radiation or eliminate the problem in some other way.

Hareem
Still working on DTA tuning.

Maddalena, Allison
Found that Vickers hardness grows up to 16%, then flattens out. Observed in literature that above 16% the fracture toughness decreases. The MoRuB at 16-17% is the obvious working point for flex joints.
Three explanations proposed by Bill about the hardness growth followed by the plateau.
1) there is not enough Boron to force full crystallization below 16%. If true some crystallites should be present in MoRuB 14 and 15. The presence of softer crystals would explain the lower hardness at low B concentration. This possibility was rapidly ruled out by x-ray scan of the samples that showed absence of crystals, well below the percent.
2) Boron is progressively filling the interstices between Mo and Ru impeding interstice collapse under stress and rendering the glass stiffer for growing B concentrations. Above 16% the excess of Boron would form precipitates in the glassy matrix thus being ineffective in rendering the material tougher, but introducing progressive fragility.
3) Same as before, but at B concentrations above 16%, after saturating the interstices, a different stochyometry, Boron rich, glass would form and make a sort of froth. The majority of MoRuB16 glass would be responsible for the saturated hardness, while the froth of the second glass would be at the source of the fragility.
Both theories are equivalent from the user point of view and indicate the same optimal B concentration. It would be interesting though to distinguish between the two.
Allison will repeat and confirm Barbara measurements in the following weeks.

Xavier
Analysing heat conductivity data.
More work on flex joint shapes.
 

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