Weekly Report for Week Ending November 21, 2002

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  November 25, 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:

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, November 21, 2002.  The following issues were among those discussed:

Financial Status--During October LIGO had $2.7 million actual costs.  Of this, $1.3 million covered FY 02 expenses, and $1.4 million was for FY 03.  These costs include all R&D effort, so expenses were higher than previous years.  Florence estimates that there will be an additional $700 accrued for FY 02 costs.

Livingston Staging Building--Ed Jasnow is at Livingston to close out the Brunt contract.  They are making progress.  The weather and the availability of some components may preclude finishing this week.

Hanford Laboratory Building--The most significant punch list item remaining open is for a warped metal exterior door.  The contractor is getting new doors.

The front door needs an atrium and second set of doors to keep the Hanford  environment out.  This will be placed on the Construction contingency list with an estimate of $25K.

The LDAS room has turned out well.

Traffic Control (Actions 108 and 112)--The sites have been instructed to start.  The cost is below the threshold fo a Change Board action.

Outreach (Action 113)--Mark Coles, Fred Raab, and Jill Andrews are working on a proposal.  The action remains open.
Use of Auditorium at Hanford (Action 114)--the email has been prepared and sent.  However, no formal response has been received from the NSF. Therefore, the action remains open.

The list of current actions revised to reflect the status of open actions assigned through November 21, 2002 may be found at ACTION LIST.

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

• Provided support to the Detector Group (L. Jones ) with packing and shipping of a Powered Respirator to Northern Safety Co., Frankfort, NY.  Account Number P204324.
• Price Waterhouse-Cooper has completed the LIGO Property Audit, that included on campus property, and Government Equipment (LLO, LHO, and MIT).  All property was located and no unsatisfactory finding noted.

.

>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 this week.
• 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

• All D '96 and older files have been organized and filed into shelves in the sub-basement.  The next step will be total reorganization the filing system in the DCC once again.
• Electronic document activity is steady as usual.  Filing and organization of historical documentation continues.

 


For Week Ending  11/21/02	Packages	Faxes
In	34	38
Out	9	38

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

No report this week (vacation).

Press here for ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY DATA .

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

• Transferred funds on Metropolitan Electronics and Digikey.  Closed out Yakama Industries.  Set up the new blanket order with Kineoptics.  Completed Change Order #17 to Galli and Morelli, Change Order #18 to Excel Group, and Change Order #23 to Butler.
• Worked with Irena on EGO to determine the amount of money that needs to be added so that the next payment of 75,000 euro can be made.
• Worked with Linda Turner to prepare and send out the RFQ for the copier for LIGO.  Linda submitted the specifications and we fine tuned them and sent out the RFQ package on Tuesday.  The quotes are due back by today.  So far, we have 3 of the 4 quotes requested.
• Completed the int'l mod to Goodrich which had the corrupted file.  ATC has resolved the problem and the file is now fine.
• Placed pcard orders for Lee Cardenas, and reconciled downloaded transactions.  Researched delivery information on pcard deliveries received by LIGO.
• The charges billed by JPL for the work order for the Mechanical Inspection Group were referred to Bill Tyler who found out that they were erroneously billed to Caltech.

• Completed PO’S for Stanford Research Systems, National Instrument, Point Source, Rentec Corp, and Solutions Site.

We were informed that Lab-view software had been stolen, which originally cost $1,900.00.  [Gina explained] our problem, [and National Instrument too pity on us.]  [Gina] was able to negotiate an up-graded version 6.1 for the cost of $ 395.00 with an educational discount of 35 percent, which will cost LIGO $ 256.75.  [Go Gina! -pel]

• In process a PO for Scientech Inc
• Continue to follow up on work in progress

• Prepared analysis of FTE's budgeted to amounts paid in October.
• Submitted Cost Transfer to remedy over-spend in fiscal period 2001 accounts, due to additional amount paid for Laser Safety at Livingston.  I have requested that all fiscal period 2001 accounts be closed.
• Participated in break-out session of the Site Administration meeting dealing with accounting issues.
• Submitted PTA Set-Up forms for Resonant Side Band Extraction, Task # 5.12 and Advanced Input Output System Task #5.14.

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

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

• MIT: CO No. 19, adding the fist half of FY'03 MIT LIGO budget,is in preparation. The subcontract period of performance is effective through Sept. 30, 2006.
• MLD: CO. 07, for R&D coating and metrology on additional LIGO supplied sapphire substrates, was released to Purchasing.
• Butler: CO No. 23, incorporating an annual merit increase for C. King, was released to Purchasing.
• Northrop Grumman: CO No. 32, adding funds to cover subcontractor's personnel through Jan. 31, 03, was released to Purchasing. Negotiations, to set the FY'03 billing rates are in progress.

Ed Jasnow has been in Livingston all week attempting to close out the contract with Brunt Construction for the Staging Building.  A great deal  of progress was made towards finishing out the punch list, agreeing on replacing part of and finishing the auditorium floor, and arriving at a method to reduce the noise of the HVAC.

OPERATIONS:

The designs for traffic control gates at both sites are coming together, and it is anticipated that work should begin early next year.

SUPPORT (Baldon, Torres, Lloyd, Tischler)

>Irene Baldon

• Attended 2 days of Administration meetings and catch up after being out ill for a week.
• Processed the paper work for ten (10) new/revised trips and there are five (5) trips which are in various stages of completion before ticketing can be done and paper work completed.
• Completed nine (9) Expense Reports and there are eight (8) reports yet to be done.  I continue to contact travelers who have outstanding Expense Reports (more than one (1) month old) to ask for their cooperation in sending me their receipts so that I can close their trip(s).  Travel Audit has gotten tighter with outstanding trips since October 1st.
• Reconciled twenty-eight (28) P-Card items which required numerous phone calls to hotels, etc. in order to track down which traveler incurred which charge; and the pulling of 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 November 18, 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.

• Processed the usual invoices for payment and tracked and followed up on invoice problems. Reviewed and recorded payments processed the week of November 11.
• 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.
• Participated in Site Administration Meeting "Breakout Session."
• Jim continues with data entry in the LIGO database and helping out in the DCC.

• PAC 13 travel arrangements:  Will be at LLO Dec 3-6.  Obtaining details via agenda.
• Press kit folder/brochure revisions per Barry.  Meeting with him on Monday.
• Obtained more photographer quotes for Barry photo project, meeting with Veronica re: website component.
• Revising powerpoints from Site Admin meeting, submitting to DCC.
• Assisting with Dr. Koshiba's visit.
• Writing newsletter article re: Nancy Erickson.  Reviewed two new press releases.
• Travel Expense Reports -five this week which is more than usual.
• (Sat. 11/23) Volunteered for the Southern California Conference on Undergraduate Research (SCCUR) @ CIT -registration and tour of Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens.  -LIGO giving back to academics.

Advanced LIGO (Frey)

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

Advanced LIGO MRE Proposal (Highest Priority)

• Finished preparing comments and questions to discuss with Phil.
• 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.  R&D review decided that a concurrent bench effort at CIT will not fit into the budget.  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.  Assisted Calum and Mike regarding Excel formulas.
• Updated the plan with progress as of 11.15.02 and  posted to site.
• Sent out update data requests for progress as of 11.29.02.
• 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 11.21.02 on the draft detailed schedule and no WBS dictionary.
• LDAS - No data / feedback from Albert to date.
• INSTALL - Continue prepping cost data for import into cost book.  No comments as of 11.21.02.
• 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 11.15.02 and  posted to site.
• Sent out update data requests for progress as of 11.29.02.

• Updated the plan with progress as of 11.15.02 and  posted to site.
• Sent out update data requests for progress as of 11.29.02.

• Updated the plan with progress as of 11.15.02 and  posted to site.
• Sent out update data requests for progress as of 11.29.02.

ROSTER DATABASE:
• Continued to run tests to confirm that the hot fix has corrected the issue.
• Working with Larry and Barbara to set up a process by which the roster database updates selected alias lists.
• Attended meeting with Phil and others to discuss the continued maintenance of the database in light of Rita's absence.

COST BOOK DATABASE:
• Continue to verbally communicate the username and password to users.
• Will be working with BK to correct similar technical issues as roster database.

Finished preparing for my attendance at the Project Science Workshop.
• See http://131.215.125.172/workshop2/information.html for workshop details.
• Finished preparing PowerPoint slides for review by Gary and Richard.
• Executed presentation at workshop and attendance.  See http://131.215.125.172/workshop2/presentations.html

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

I have distributed a "strawman" outline for the FY 2002 annual report to selected people for suggestions.  The annual report is due to be submitted to the NSF at the end of December, covering activities from December 2001 through November 30, 2002.  This Annual Report is required for the old (Construction Funds) Cooperative Agreement, and the focus is the end of Construction, Installation, and Commissioning, not Scientific Results.  Mt objective is to keep this simple. We will be asking for contributions before theDecember holdays.

There are currently no open change requests to be considered by the LIGO Chnage Control Board, and there were no change requests addressed during the Executive Committee Meeting on Monday, November 18, 2002.

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

• Various personnel/payroll /HR related work.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

Arranged for a briefing (LDAS and PMA personnel) regarding operation of the new fire suppression system recently installed in room 215 Synchrotron. This system uses compressed gas (CO2) for fire suppression by reducing the O2 content in the room.  The author can testify to no ill effects after discharge of the system other than excessive sound during gas discharge (similar to standing behind a 757 at takeoff).  A vendor representative explained how the system operates, the alarm sequence (with demonstration) and override provisions (without gas discharge).

Worked with C. Scislowicz (Caltech safety) to assess the potential safety risks associated with a proposed hydraulic fluid for a new hydraulic isolation system.  We recommended that the system demo test at MIT could proceed as long as MIT's laboratory safety policies were satisfied. We also recommended that once these tests were successfully completed, that a "safer" (less flammable) hydraulic fluid and supplier should be selected from the "Factory Mutual Research Approval Guide-Flammable Liquid Equipment" list.
 

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...)
 

Lots of WFS work  going on this week. Josh has been modifying heads to stop internal oscillations. H2 operation has been restored. Improved spectrum was seen on H1.
 

2K IFO (H2)
-----------
Optical-lever (OL) photodiodes were uniformly up to current rev. A problem with locking was identified as an improper setting for the MCF/MCL crossover in the mode cleaner, causing an instability, so locking is now restored but still flaky at times. WFS1 operation was restored. The new, partially digital, common-mode servo was engaged for the first time. A new optical-lever laser is being tested on ETMY after successfully passing testing in the Optics Lab. The new laser (new vendor) promises to ease supply pipeline problems we have experienced in the past.  Repairs to ETM dewhitening boards to improve hardware reliability (intermittent jumper problem) and kill 1.5 MHz oscillations were made. The CARM drives to the ETMs and drives to FMs (used by MICH and PRC control loops) were recalibrated.
 

4K IFO (H1)
-----------
Josh brought OL photodiodes uniformly up to current rev. Also updated photodiode interface boards. WFS1 was installed and turned on, after some troubleshooting we are seeing good reduction of alingment fluctuations. WFS2 is being installed and tested on POX, instead of designed implementation on REFL. The investigation of optical lever peaks induced by mechanical excitation of the optical lever structures led to the observation that peaks could be shifted in frequency and lowered in amplitude by torquing bolts. We await instructions on tighening these bolts to a uniform spec.
 

We got a particularly good alignment for reducing AS_I fluctuations and this allowed us to increase ASPD light more than we could in the past. The resulting spectrum dips to about 8-9e-18 m/rHz at approximately 300 Hz, running with about 8 times the light transmission to ASPD used in S1.
 

Facilities
------------
The last remaining problem with the punch list for the new building is the entry doors, which are warped and will be replaced. The new soft-start water-well pumping system has been installed and tested. A significant source of lock loss in S1 was traced to the seismic jolt from the sudden turn-on of the well pump. A soft-start system was installed to reduce the jolt. Now a person standing at the pump can barely detect the pump start, whereas before it could be felt. We will see if we can get a more quantitative ruling from the seismometers.
 

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

Interferometer Commissioning: We are setting up the phase camera and measuring the x pick-off beam. Work continues on the commissioning of the WFS. We are also making progress in the implementation of the tidal servo system. It was discovered that the optical lever piers in the LVEA were not assembled correctly when they were originally installed.  The bolts connecting the upper and lower parts of the pier were found to be only hand tight. Once these were tightened and the solid connection (the aluminum tube) between the vacuum tube and photodiode case was removed, there was a significant reduction in the power spectrum of the optical lever displacement. Greg Harry is here working on the measurement of the modes and Q's of the suspended optics and making good progress.

HEPI / LASTI Ameriflex provided replacement bellows in 2 days, and we completed assembly of the first 2 actuators for MIT Saturday afternoon, and delivered them to MIT Monday morning. 2 more were completed yesterday and delivered today (11/20). We should deliver the final 4 by Monday, December 2. L4C brackets completed and sent for anodizing. (Hammond,Kern)

Optics / Laser Spent a lot of time with the Laser Safety Interlock system this week. We found an idiosyncrasy the logic, which resulted in an alarm if an individual working on a laser table completely closed, and then reopened a table. This while they were properly authorized to be there. Thursday the installer is returning to reprogram the tables as separate areas which will prevent this. Issued multiple Laser Access cards and, conducted walkthroughs with 4 new basic trained persons. (Kern)

LDAS admin:
1) Generated RDS from LLO S1 data. fb2 can write to /frame11, /frame20, /frame12 again and overwrite full S1 frames.
2) Upgraded DB2 to 7.2 at MIT

LDAS data analysis:
Working on database output from WaveDSO
Igor Yakushin

GC:
With the assistance of Larry Wallace, installed the new network switches. We now have a gigabit backbone with 100 mbit ports to all workstations. The only exceptions are a couple of machines, such as the machines in the LVEA.
Continuing to work on the firewall configuration.
Met with Charlie McMahon, and Terry Doub today to discuss issues with LSU's network. Making a bit of headway with a couple of issues. Some issues are still up in the air.
Attended the annual LSU computing meeting on campus today. There are a couple of issues that may affect LIGO, but nothing major. LSU is installing an IDS system at the border router. This may be an issue, though it will probably be transparent. They will start blocking port scans in the near future. This will be a huge step in protecting their network. This includes our subnet. I will be meeting with Terry and Charlie again concerning some more issues with the network. * No new news on getting a better network connection to LLO. We are still stuck at two T1s.
found out that it is relatively easy to get an account on LSU's beowulf cluster. Anyone that is interested can contact me. This is the 2nd fastest cluster in the world owned by an academic institution. 17th fastest overall in the world.
Ordered a Cisco VPN for the LLO network. I have the initial configuration installed on it, but I will need a couple of weeks before I make it available. I have a lot of testing to do on the unit.
(Shannon Roddy)
 

Detector/Technical Support (Coyne)

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

• Core IFO: We continue to work towards constructing a short-arm Michelson with our three newly suspended optics (BS, ITMx, ITMy). The suspended optics are ready to go. Currently, there's much effort towards getting the digital suspension controllers for those optics going. Mike Smith is assembling a faraday isolator and crude mode matching telescope.
• Suspended mass mode cleaner (Ugolini, Miyakawa, Vass, Abbott):
• After re-aligning our two IOO pockels cells, Osamu got the MC visibility up to 91.7%.
• Osamu is reviewing all the RF signals in the MC controls rack, and determined the optimal signal strength for the local oscillator into the MC servo to get the strongest and cleanest error signal.
• Osamu optimized the gain on the PSL frequency stability servo (FSS). He turned the gain up a bit from where it was before. This allowed him to turn up the MC servo gain in both paths. As a result, the mode cleaner servo UGF could be pushed up from ~ 50 kHz to 67 kHz, with a phase margin of 28degrees. The resultant frequency noise is now a few dB lower.
• The PSL frequency noise as measured by the MC (in loop) is now close to specs, but there remains excess noise: seismic, from 10-30 Hz; acoustic, from 30-300 Hz; (believed to be) acoustic, from 300-3000 Hz; and electronic, above 4 kHz. Osamu will continue to investigate.
• Dennis and Ben made another phase shifting cable for the MC servo This one is longer, as we were 180 deg. off for the last one. We can now lock using this cable; but it's a temporary BNC-to-SMA; a proper permanent (3m long) cable will be made soon.
• Ben has made a path for the mode cleaner fast signals into DAQ. Filters on the AA DAQ interface board have been switched to 16 kHz. Some of the gains need to be adjusted to deal with the signals at hand. And, one more 4-pin-lemo cable needs to be run. One channel, at least, is being correctly read out, and a DTT spectrum looked right. However, it looks like one half of an ISC110b ADC (16 of 32 channels) is dead.
• Core digital suspension controllers, and other Electronics (B. Abbott, Taylor):
• Rolf says that Alex will work towards getting digital suspension controller software up and running for our vertex core suspensions. He's already putting 2 VME pentiums through their paces. The DAQS system will have to be upgraded (in particular, the test point manager in DAQSCTRL0, so that we can excite pitch and yaw degrees of freedom with GDS). The SOS control software will also be upgraded. And, he will arrange to have EPICS screens automatically generated for the 40m, as well as for the sites.
• Rolf tells us that we can't control 5 vertex core optics (BS, PRM, SRM, ITMx, ITMy) with only 2 front-end output crates, as we originally thought. Ben is rearranging some of the crates in the 1Y4 and 1Y5 racks to allow another output crate.
• Rolf tells us that we can extract data from the DSC reflective memory into EPICS, using a Sun EPICS server (this is a new and welcome development). We will get a new Blade 100, and are scrambling to find 2 reflective memory PCI cards (VMIPCI-5579) for the DAQS and DSC reflective memory networks. An alternative is to use our under-utilized br40m, which already has a DAQS reflective memory PCI card.
• Rolf tells us that we will want to upgrade to 2 Giga Baud Reflective Memory with Fiber Optic connections (Our current RM network is 250 MB). We'll need on the order of 10 cards, at ~ $2K/card.
• Ben has finished testing the epics control of the core optics DSC rack, after fixing some problems.
• Bob has moved crates from the south end (1Y9) rack to the east end (1X4) rack, which has been wired and powered. Now he's working on the south end rack.
• Dennis has almost completed and checked out the EPICS database for the EPICS control (C1MOSAUX) in the core optics DSC rack (1Y4). It successfully exhanges information with the watchdog code in 1Y5.
• All of the Pentiums for 1Y4 are now in hand, and the Penteks should be by the end of next week. All cables, satellite amplifier boxes, etc, are ready.
• Optical sensing (Smith):
• OPTICS PARTS LIST, Orders pending: 3 each, 1in mirror mounts are pending from Newport; 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 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 from Piezosystems Jena; 1.5 in and 2in fixed vacuum mirror mounts from ASCO are expected by 11/16/02.
• FARADAY ISOLATOR: Faraday Isolator mechanical parts were check-assembled and are ready for cleaning and baking. The half-wave plates were received from KLC, but they will be sent back for re-work since they were not manufactured to vacuum-compatibility standards.
• IFO MODE-MATCHING TELESCOPE: Working drawings for the telescope mechanical parts are complete and were released to the DCC. An RFQ package was sent to two machine shops for bid.
• OPTICAL LAYOUT: An ASAP ray model of the 40m IFO optical beams is complete except for the two end chambers. Ghost beams were generated and beam dumps, baffles, and pick-off mirrors were placed and oriented in the ASAP model. An evaluation copy of Hijaak, file conversion software, was obtained in order to convert the ASAP graphic files to a DWG drawing file that can be imported into the ACAD 40m optical layout.
• Alignment: Mike has all the equipment for initial alignment of the 40m core IFO and sensing beams, including an 850-nm laser with a reticule pattern.
• Optics (Billingsley, Armandula), suspensions (Romie), OSEMs (Bob):
• Our BS, ITMx, and ITMy, are suspended and sitting on the South Annex clean room flow bench. They have clean OSEMs, are balanced and have been damped successfully, and are ready for installation as soon as our DSC system is ready for them.
• Janeen made small changes to the 40m test mass suspension top assembly drawing.
• Bob continues to assemble and test OSEMs for the remaining 40m suspensions, and for other projects. Janeen is using one of the 40m SOS's for earthquake stop testing.
• Facilities and vacuum envelope (Ugolini, Vass, Jones):
• Our PEM EPICS server cpu (particle counter, STACIS, weather station) was crashing daily. Dennis commented-out the reading of the weather station, which is half broken and useless anyway, and the crshes have disappeared.
• Steve reports that the vacuum system has been running in "vibration-free" mode (ion pumps only) for 22 days, with no problems, and AMU 41 peak has been low (previously, the IP's were belching on occasion; this has stopped happening).
• The vacuum controls crate lost power shortly after midnight on November 20. This appears to have been caused by the UPS system tripping off. Steve notes that the battery was due to be replaced 2 months ago. The hardware interlocks all worked correctly, and the vacuum system experienced no problems. Steve has taken the UPS out of the system. He'll replace the battery, but it is not clear whether we want this thing back in! We will investigate UPS systems for other places around the lab.
South Annex Bake Ovens (Taylor, Cardenas): Bob is scheduling many bake jobs for the coming months, including parts for the Faraday Isolator and MMT, in-vacuum mirrors, OSEMs, and 6 loads for Janeen.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

no report

LASTI (Zucker)

no report

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)
E2E Physics meeting
-------------------------
Luca and Matt from LHO and Virginio, Hiro and Biplab from CIT discussed
pros and cons of using SimLIGO for WFS, mode mismatch and Frequency response
studies.

SimLIGO
---------
Valera Frolov from LLO is interested in obtaining the WFS sensing matrix from
SimLIGO and comparing it with measurement and then playing with model
parameters to understand the disagreement. Matt will give her a SimLIGO setup
designed specifically for measuring the WFS sensing matrix.

Frequency Response
----------------
(Biplab, Hiro) Continued working on improvement of the Frequency response
of the power recycled Michelson cavity formulation.

Alfi
-----
(Bruce)
- Box unload implementation completed (PR 249).
- Box reload implementation being completed (PR 249).

(Melody)
- Continued working on the modeler to read the revised file format
   and implement discussed optimizations.

LIGO Data Analysis System

Software Systems (Blackburn)
LDAS was successfully used in the Super Computing 2002 Conference for
demonstration of using a hybrid of LDAS and Grid Technology to carry out
directed pulsar searches. Over 58 pulsar searches were carried out in this
hybrid system involving 330 tasks and 469 data transfers between Grid
enabled centers (including LDAS). The job statistics can be viewed for the
moment at http://smarty.isi.edu:8680/cgi-bin/final.pl (Lazzarini: CREDITS FOR THIS ACHIEVEMENT GO TO KENT, PETER,
PHIL EHRENS, the other LDAS team members who supported this effort from the Lab. In addition SCOTT KORANDA at UWM and the ISI Computer Science team who has been working with us should be recognized: they invested a lot in this effort and it has been successful through there hard work.)

Worked on improving the performance of the controlMonitorAPI while filtering
on the log files in an LDAS system. Added support to remember a user's
access credentials for a fixed length of time. This information is no longer
required to be reentered during a system control session. Began the
migration towards using the faster plotting package BLT.
All of LDCG and LDAS are currently being ported to the new GCC compiler
3.2.1 for the next release. LDCG is now compliant with the new compiler and
LDAS is slowly being reworked to handle the changes strstream and
stringstream classes.

The FrStatData structure is now fully supported in the frameCPP library. The
support for compression is underway. A bug in the handling of FrDetector
data from frames was discovered in the translation of that data to ILWD and
fixed.

The dataConditionAPI effort focused on documentation and developing a new
action which allows users to specify the target sample rate in a resampling
step.

Added a new stageData user command to allow users to stage input data sets
for their LDAS jobs onto an LDAS system. This will be widely available in
the next LDAS release.

Made many of the verbose monitoring messages in LDAS logs optional to
decrease the background noise in the log files and improve performance.
Made sure that all emergency sockets on APIs required connections from
within the private network.

Support for gaps in frame queries was discovered to be improperly handled by
the test suite. This caused a bug to get into the 0.5.0 release when data
with gaps is allowed. This has been corrected in the test suite and the bug
is being fixed.

Worked closely with the sites and LSC to upgrade to the new release of LDAS
and to the new database server from IBM.
Hardware Systems (Anderson)
Caltech
-------
(Dan Kozak)

* HPSS: Continued cataloging the LIGO presence on 3590 tapes, also did
        account creations and general HPSS support (since James is at SC2002).

* Got some quotes for another 1000 9940 tapes.

* No luck getting a response from Sun/LSC vis a vis our SAM-QFS eval license.
  Will take it to the next level.

* No luck getting StorageTek to cough up a correct invoice for maint. on
  the 9940 drives.  Ditto.

(Al Wilson)

* Repaired datacache7, one RAID was running in degraded mode. Found a bad
  drive carrier and replaced it with one of the unused ones on the sixth floor.

* Ldas-pcdev1 network connection died over the weekend. While I was
  troubleshooting, it magically fixed the problem. Very Strange. I will
  continue to keep a eye on this.

* Metaserver on the CIT system had what appeared to be a memory problem.
  Called sun out. The final score was One CPU PCB, and two memory dimms.

* Found some files that needed to be updated for cfdef, on the MIT 7.3 upgrade.

* Setting up cfdef for Big brother files.

(Stuart Anderson)

* Helped with the LDAS system upgrade at MIT which is now running the
  latest LDAS release (0.5.0).

* Testing OpenSSL, OpenSSH, and Apache security updates on LDAS-DEV.

* Started working with Larry Wallace and Lisa Bogue to use a central
  Laboratory wide Certificate Authority for signing SSL enabled web
  server certificates.

* Finished configuring ldasbox1 as a full stand-a-long LDAS server system
  for one of the LDAS programmers.

* Started working with Sun engineers to understand the large number V880
  memory failures experienced over the last year.

MIT
---
(Keith Bayer)

* Upgraded cluster machines to RH7.3

* Upgrade Dell servers to RH7.3

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

* Generated RDS from LLO S1 data. fb2 can write to /frame11, /frame20,
  /frame12 again and overwrite full S1 frames.

* Upgraded DB2 to 7.2 at MIT

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

* Worked with Caltech to regenerate the RDS data for S1 at LHO using
  LDAS and the rdsloop.tcl driver script. I was able to run 3-4 copies of
  the script in parallel, with no problems.
  The script ran on GPS times 714150000 to 715618848 and
  completed in 6.5 times real time.  The remaining task is to generate the
  RDS data for the post S1 injection times.

* Disk 4 has failed on t3-4 at LHO (indicated by a slowly blinking
  amber drive status light, a "fru stat" and syslog messages). I've called
  Sun and they are sending a replacement disk.
  The T3s are raid 5 boxes, and tolerate a single disk failure
  without loss of data.  The disk should be automatically reconstructed
  upon replacement.

* Started setting up a Sun Ultra 10 on the LHO GC network to act as the
  ldas-jobs server.  This box will run scripts to drive LDAS jobs, with a
  control interface to the web and the control room. Unfortunately, the
  hard drive has failed on this box; a replacement drive will be ordered
  soon.

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)
Shawhan:
Still working on the inspiral upper limit analysis.

Mendell;
1) The main work the last week has been to get the knownpulsardemod DSO
and driver scripts to work with the 0.5.0 release of LDAS.  Several
problems remain, but I should today be able to try several proposed
fixes.

2) Work with the PULG group on our a report of our progress with the S1
data

Creighton:
Finished debugging SkyCoordinates routines in LAL, and provided
a test program for astronomical coordinate transformations,
geodetic <-> geocentric coordinate transformations, and
GPS time <-> UTC time <-> sidereal time transformations.

Weinstein:
- made plots, and wrote words, for the burst group report.
- started organizing code for cvs repository of burst code.

Lazzarini:
Completed an X62 analysis of the HW and SW injections for the stochastic
background analysis. Determined that the hardware injections suffered from an apparent 1.2 - 1.5 msec
timing offset w.r.t. GPS time stamps. Part of the source of this offset may be due to documented timing offsets measurements
in the GPS timing monitors during S1; however, it appears that the determined offset cannot all be explained by this.

General Computing (Wallace)
MIT:
(Keith)
-Installed new harddrive / os on lap pc to ship to LLO
-Purchased shrinkwrap software for laptops
-Configuring Sparc5 box for wireless NAT router in NW22
-Testing SSL wrapper on POP e-mail server

Livingston:
(Shannon)
-Attending LSU network meeting. Will report on it next week.
-Working on Solsoft pkg. for Cisco configurations.
-Purchased VPN unit for connections on the GC side of the house.
-Installed the new GigE backbone. There has been a noticeable improvement
in local network performance.
-Checking with LSU to go over a couple of network performance issues on
the WAN side of the house.
 

Hanford:
(Christine)
- Created some "how to" web pages for users using a software package
that snapshots screens, windows or regions then provides an editor to
annotate the snapshots.  Started redoing all my web page documentation
using this software.
- Added access to the new color printer on all the Sun workstations and
all the guest PCs.  Helped several people install the new printer driver
on their PCs.
- Purchased several items for people.  Purchased a larger disk for
Fred's laptop.  I will be trying out some new software to create and
restore a disk image over the network.
- Lots of user support

CIT:
(Lisa)
- Built and installed a blade 100 to replace Syd's old sparc5
- Worked on some problems with the cron jobs on canopus
- Fixed the incident reporting mailing list and mailman archives
- Updated the wireless APs
- Worked on getting the backups to work on the windows servers after
installation of the firewall software
- Loaded OS 9 on blade2000
- Looked into a problem with the pop services on acrux.  There is a timing
problem that occurs sporadically with remote connections.  Becrux has a newer
version of the pop daemon.  I am still testing to see if the problem is resolved
with the newer version of the code.

(Mike)
-Reconfigured and updated two laptops for Helena & Ryan for travel.
-Updated security on all windows workstations running 2000 Pro.
-Spent a lot of time configuring firewall software on all servers.
-Loaded a new server with 2000 Server OS to replace the current Elba
server that is hosting the Elba Website running on NTSRV 4.0. I am still in
testing phase and hope to have the updated server in place before the end
of the week.
-Went around and took inventory on all printing accessories to place an
order that was seriously behind.
-Performed a lot of user support this week that included mostly software
& some networking problems that I took care of.
-Re-ghosted three NTSRV's and will be ghosting the rest of our servers
before this week is up.

(Veronica)
- Project Science: Posted transparencies from last week's workshop. Some
required conversion to pdf. Burned the presentations files onto a CD for a
backup.
- GNATS database: this took most of the time in the first half of the
week. Worked on Szabi's request to modify and expand the GDS part of the
database. Keep working on the Detector Hardware and CDS parts, per Dennis
Coyne's request.
- CaJAGWR: Updated the website; provided some administrative support.
- LIGO website: posting updates to the Aspen 2003 GWADW website. Updated
various webpages. Working on Albert's request for setting up a
restricted-access area for certain LSC documents. This will require
modifications to several DCC databases to allow searching for these
documents and to mark up those to which access is restricted. This is
still a work in progress.

(Larry)
-Worked with Shannon on setting up the new GigE backbone at the Livingston
Observatory. Overall things went well.
-Still working on WAN network performance issues. Waiting for a reply from
PNNL on some tests they were to run this week. Shannon is checking on some
performance issues with LSU. Ran a few more tests between MIT and Livingston
and still no change in performance.
-Turned a number of old computer systems and related items over to Caltech
property. Ed C. is now working on the paperwork to make it happen.
-Installed another UPS unit in the main computer room and redistributed some
of the power loads.
-Assisted DCC on a number of different issues.
-Setup a new temporary web service for the LSC. After the holiday a new more
permanent solution will be installed.
-Worked a couple of PC h/w issues. Nothing major.
-Working on a number of PC, SUN, and S/W purchases. Resolved a number of past
purchases.
-Still working a number of document issues related to policy and computer
security.
-Performed a great deal of regular user support, making account changes,
moving equipment, the usual items.
 

LIGO II/Advanced R&D (Sanders)

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

I fitted the interferometric sensor experiment out with a infrared
monitor to view the fringes and a motorized drive to vary the internal
arm length smoothly. After a lot of scanning back and forth I finally
found the sweet spot that makes the arm lengths equal enough to give good
fringes with the internal LED source.
 

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

We have received the Gin Gin test masses from Wave Precision.  These will be coated in the near future.  The HR coating runs will have only one optic in each (the AR can be shared.)  If there is anyone who would like to put something in the run to be coated, please contact GariLynn or Helena.
E021063-A  ITM, transmission 1000 ± 500 ppm
E021064-A  ETM, transmission < 50 ppm
The specs and associated drawings can all be found at:
http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~gari/Gingin/
 

From: Phil Willems <willems@ligo.caltech.edu>

ADLIGO Suspension design
------------------------

Developed a revised recycling mirror design that is about 15cm shorter than the
previous design, allowing a lot more flexibility in the position of the RM
optics (it just barely fit before, and the folded IFO layout had not been
finalized).  This design employs metal wire suspensions, an option here thanks
to the relaxed requirements for these optics, and a truncated metallic
penultimate mass.  This design has been distributed to other suspenders for
review.

A set of positions and orientations for all the magnets on cavity optics in the
HAM chambers (as best we know them) has been compiled and sent to the SEI team
in preparation for a measurement of the stray magnetic fields from the SEI that
might interfere with suspensions operation.

Sapphire Q
----------

We are revamping the fused silica Q apparatus to measure sapphire Q's again.
This should be easy but much of the equipment has wandered around and needs to
be gathered together again.  We are setting up with an old sapphire to prepare
for the 40kg monsters due soon at Caltech.
 

From: ctorrie <ctorrie@ligo.caltech.edu>

SolidWorks
Janeen, Mike and I attended a Q.&A. session at GO Engineer. During the session we got help on related dimensions, bill of materials and drawing trees. Most of this work is covered in the advanced course, that we plan to attend in January.
 

Mode Cleaner
Helena, Mike and I have been working on the assembly of the 2 suspensions, this should hopefully be completed by this time next week.
Mike and I have been working on the various sub-assemblies.
 

Recycling Mirror
Norna, Caroline and I have been looking at the latest revision of the RM MATLAB model released by Phil and we hope to have finished looking at this by tomorrow.
 

Mike Lloyd and I have completed the converting of the set of MC files to a new RM folder. The last stage is to shake down all of the assemblies to ensure this method of conversion has worked.
 

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

Advanced LIGO SUS

Silicate bonding

We'll start loading a 1/2" dia. fused silica / SF4 bond; completed the modification of a fixture for that purpose.

Had the surface of a sapphire / silica bond characterized across the bonding joint with a surface profilometer.
The bonded parts will be loaded to test for creep. The fixtures for the test are ready.
 

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

2.2 AdvLIGO PSL

    A Laser-Zentrum-Hannover (LZH) NPRO laser has been locked with the PSL
frequency electronics.  Some field changes were required due to a small
difference between a LZH NPRO and the Lightwave Electronics NPRO that
we're more familiar with and the bandwidth of the reference cavity employed
at the University of Hannover.  The FAST actuator on the LZH NPRO is about
2 MHz/V and is unipolar.  In its normal configuration at the University of
Hannover they use a high voltage amplifier for the FAST actuator whereas at
LIGO we do not.

The controls for the frequency servo and frequency reference have been
exercised and work as expected.  There is a problem with the 50 Hz mains
showing up in various signals but there are some problems with the
grounding in the building that we are working in.  As for providing
technology transfer, I feel it has been a successful exercise.  Thanks to
Rolf Bork and Dave Barker for some remote EPICS/vxWorks related support.

The wiring harness diagram was modified to reflect some in-the-field
changes.  The updated diagram was submitted to the DCC.
 

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

LIGO I
Working on the earthquake stop requirements document and associated calculations.
New osem assemblies have been sent from the coil winding company. There are 153 in all. Bob Taylor will start assembly of these osems soon.

Gingin
Working on the ITM suspension design.

40m
Made small changes to the 40m TM top assembly drawing.

AdLIGO Suspensions
Working with Norna, Phil and Calum on the max. length of a quad pendulum suspension for the LASTI BSC seismic RFP.

Supporting MC suspension work.
 

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