Weekly Report for Week Ending October 31, 2002

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  November 4, 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

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)

• There are no open Change Requests

Special Items:

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights
 

LSC Issues (Weiss)

No report.

LIGO I Construction/LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

There was a site teleconference held on Thursday, October 31, 2002. The following issues were among those discussed:

Budgets and Costs--The Office of Sponsored Research has reported that they have received an amendment to our Operations Cooperative Agreement adding $16.5 million in funding for the first half of FY 2003.  We have provided them the information required to generate a "resume" allocating the funds.

Livingston Staging Building--The contractor is still working punch list items.  He has been given until next Monday to complete the work.

Hanford Laboratory Building--Hanford personnel have moved in.  The contractor is working a few punch list items.

Hanford umbleweed Removal--the contractor for tumbleweed removal is going out of business.  The work will be transferred to Landscape Horizons, the current erosion control contractor for the new building.

Traffic Control--Hanford had no additional data.  Livingston has a quote for $11K to widen the road and put an island in the middle.  $14K is estimated for the hardware.

The list of current actions revised to reflect the status of open actions assigned through October 31, 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

• Researched several fax machines and finalized procurement of a Ricoh machine.  It was delivered last week and will add several nice features for the staff's use, including 11x14 size, duplex, and eventually, fax-to-email.
• Helped organize and assemble all presentations for the NSF Review last week.
• Due to the age of our large Mita 6090 copy machine, spent time with the service maintenance representives in trying to get it fixed.  After several replaced parts, and the scarcity of the remaining part needed, began researching the possibility of  replacing it.  It is 9 years old and is no longer part-supported by Mita.
• Worked very hard in working through numerous piles of  accummulated backlog of documents.  Brought the day-to-day documents current and began attacking piles left by Stan Whitcomb, and several other scientists.  Additionally, sorted through a four-drawer file cabinet and tossed duplicates or unnecessary papers, entered those that were important and passed along about 100 publications for Gary's review.  This effort represented documents primarily from the 80's and early 90's.  Just during the month of October over 1,000 documents were entered into the system.  The breakdown by category follows:

• Due to the increase in document prepared for filing, purchased three additional open-stack file bookcases for the sub-basement.  These arrived today and will be anchored for earthquake safety by tomorrow.  We will then begin unloading older G and D files from the DCC and put them into the sub-basement.  This will hopefully free up filing space for approximately the next six months.

• 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

• More historical documentation was filed into the shelves.  The amount of "historical" documentation is a bit overwhelming and will require total reorganization of the DCC files over the next month.  Filing space has become almost nonexistent and that will require us to move some documentation into the subbasement storage over the next few weeks to accommodate the constant flow of new files coming in.
• Electronic document activity has perked up once again.  Submissions for this period been very steady.
• Time was spent dealing with new fax machine, which included organization, programming of numbers into the machine, creating dialing lists, etc....
  DCC Activity


WE 10/31/02	Packages	Faxes
In	23	30
Out	8	25

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

Press here for ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY DATA .

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

• Completed the extensions on several blankets to GP Manufacturing, City of Pasadena, and Pacific Bell.  Working on setting up a new blanket P.O. for Jailand Ralls.  Transferred funds on Metropolitan Electric.  Transferred funds on MIT to allow payment of September invoice.
• Received a list of credit card purchases and purchase orders to pull for Property. 
• Working on a change order to Support Services, setting up two new blankets for LIGO Livingston.
• Working with Bill Tyler and JPL to resolve the discrepancy on the JPL workorder with Raytheon.  Set up a new requisition to add funds for 6 mos.

• Provided Sponsored Research with a schedule indicating how the $16.5 million that has thus far been awarded for FY2003 should be allocated. 
• Prepared PTA Set Up Requests for two new account numbers - LIGO.MITTC 5.9 NSFLIGO.FY02OF for MIT Thermal Compensation R&D and LIGO.INOUT 5.14 NSFLIGO.FY02ON for the Advanced Input Output System. 
• Submitted 5 Cost Transfers to relieve the over-spent of approximately $7500 in Fiscal Period 2001 Award.  After these Cost Transfers are recorded, we will finally be able to close all Fiscal Period 2001 accounts. 
• Provided Project Accounting with funding realignments required for FY2002 OPS accounts and Construction accounts. 
• Requested correction of incorrect equipment expenditure types for a couple of  PO's, corrections were required because of the new LIGO equipment expenditure types which started on October 1.
  
  
• Financial reports can be found at: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport

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

• Univ. of Oregon: CO #09, adding FY' 03 funds for the on-site support at LHO, is being processed by Purchasing.
• Univ. of Florida: CO #12, for a no-cost extension of the performance period through Sept. 30, 2003, was released to Purchasing. All the construction/IO tasks are completed. Residual funds are in the process of being de-obligated.
• MIT: CO #19, allocating the first half of funds budgeted for FY'03, is pending  MIT's input regarding the exact amount of FY'02 carry over.
• SEI Prototype: The Letter of Interest for the planned procurement of LASTI prototypes is in preparation. The plan is to contact all firms on the bidders list for the initial Advanced SEI Mechanical Structure design and fabrication effort. In addition, HYTEC will also be included.

• As a result of meetings last week at Livingston between Michael Ragusa, president of Brunt Construction, and Ed Jasnow, final efforts are being made to complete the LLO Staging Building.  Brunt subcontractors are re-working the doors, windows, concrete, and are examining the HVAC.  Additionally, the manufacturer of the wooden auditorium floor will assess the condition of that floor on Thursday.  Ed Jasnow and Gerry Stapfer will participate in that review by phone.
• Yakama Industries, the company that has been removing and baling the tumbleweeds at LHO, is going out of business.  They have sold their baling equipment to the company currently performing landscape maintenance at LHO, Landscape Horizons.  We intend to add the removal of tumbleweeds from the entire site to the Landscape Horizons contract.

• The site administrative assistants will be coming to Caltech on November 14 for a series of meetings on various Caltech administrative issues.

SUPPORT (Baldon, Torres, Lloyd, Tischler)

>Irene Baldon

• Processed the paper work for seven (70) new/revised trips and there are six (6) trips which are in various stages of completion before ticketing can be done and paper work completed.  
• Completed twelve (12) Expense Reports, one (1) Relocation and there are six (6) 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 the new fiscal year (October 1st).  
• Reconciled twenty (20) 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.  
• Notified LIGO personnel of the new/revised FY 2003 Domestic Per Diem Rates, Meal and Incidental Expense Breakdown, Relocation Per Diem rates for each family member and pointed out that there have been numerous changes in the domestic rates, including several cities which LIGO travelers frequent regularly.  These rates took affect on October 1, 2002.  You are to use the FY 2002 rates for any trip taken and completed prior to October 1st.  If your trip extends beyond October 1, 2002, please use both rates for the appropriate dates involved.  You can look/copy these new rates at http://www.policyworks.gov/org/main/mt/homepage/mtt/perdiem/download03.html.  
• Worked on the preparation and distribution of the Travel/Vacation Itinerary for October 28, 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. For the total number of incoming invoices received for this period see "Cost Schedule Control Systems" report by Esther Cunningham.  Reviewed and recorded payments processed by Esther for the weeks of October 14-25.
• 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.
• Began updating PO Log Books.
  
• Jim continues with data entry in the LIGO database.

• Scanned documents from: Hobart & William Smith, Texas-Brownsville, Loyola, and Salish Kootenai.  Submitted these to the DCC for eventual posting on the web.
• Updated the LSC database with info for the organizations from their respective Attachments Z.  While in the database, I corrected an address submitted by Penn State.
• Formatted documents from Northwestern U., then posted on the small web page for review.
• Made a few Pcard purchases, then chased paper work to reconcile some others.  Followed up on a delayed order.
• Changes this week to the LIGO roster were to MIT, mostly room number changes because they recently moved offices..

• Site Administration Meeting details, reviewing more photos of LIGO group, addressing Press Folder/Brochure details with graphic designer.

Advanced LIGO (Frey)

Working from home on Friday the 1st.  I will be checking email and voice mail.

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.
  • 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 10.31.02 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 10.31.02.
  • All other subsystems have yet to be scheduled for their first review.  These dates are pending per direction from Gary Sanders and Dennis Coyne.

Cost Book Tool.

• ROSTER DATABASE:
  • Resolved technical issue with one of the data input forms.  Barbara K. found a knowledge base article that relates directly to our problem.  Barbara also rebuilt the data file for us.  See http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q304548 for details.  
  • Related to the technical issue, I initiated a tech call to Microsoft for the hot fix.  This issue occurs when you have Access 2000 on you machine and upgrade any application, besides Access, to a 2002 version.  In my case I installed MS Project 2002, and that upgraded the visual basic that comes with all office products.  Access 2000 is not compatible with the version of VB that comes with the latest MS applications.  MS provided a hot fix that is applied after upgrading Office 2000 to SR2.  If you are subject to this situation, you can download the fix at http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/access_hotfix/5095_ENU_i386_zip.zip.
  • I will run tests next week 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.

• 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.

Continued assignment from Gary to develop material for the Project Science Seminar.

• Continue to prepare for my attendance at the Project Science Workshop.  

  • See http://131.215.125.172/workshop2/information.html for workshop details.

  • Continue to prepare PowerPoint slides for review by Gary and Richard.

Development of the Advanced LIGO Project Controls Guidebook continues.

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

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

Nothing to report.

No change requests are currently open.
 

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)

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

Interferometer Commissioning: After some diagnostic work on the coil controllers and balancing the output matrices at DC for the suspended masses, the interferometer is once again exhibiting stable locking behavior. We are now working on implementation of the common mode servo. (all)

All the WFS are now reinstalled, retuned and characterized. The only electronics work left is the end-to-end test of the WFS2 RF.  This was delayed because the demod board is still faulty and needs another visit to the EE lab.  We are just beginning to recommission WFS1 using interferometer light and will progress to the symmetric port as soon as the demod board is repaired.   Attention is also beginning to turn to the mode cleaner WFS which we are calling WFS M2 and WFS M2 to distinguish them from the other WFS.  The yaw picomoter stearing light into WFS M2 was broken and a new one should arrive tomorrow.  (Andri)

Continue testing and tuning the WFS electronics with Andri. Have verified that all electronics are functional but WFS2 demod board. Work on configuration tool (graphical interface to burt). Can read/write from/to epics a list of channels. More work needed to make the restoring safe for the optics. (Valera.)

Went to Inspiral Upper Limits group face-to-face in Penn State. Work is continuing on vibrational noise in the optical lever supports. We tried using lead-shot filled bags to weight the pier bases and see if this had any effect on the motion. Harry also tightened the floor bolts yesterday and Orlando is seeing if anything changed. Gaby has more accelerometers which we are going to get from LSU today (Thursday). (Brian)

CDS: LLOFb2 was hard down with boot problems. A sun tech support guy was called in to fix. Found memory problems that forced the memory testing at boot to look at a different location that was non-existent. Installed One Sun Blade 2000 in the control room as control 5 with 3 flat panel monitors. Solved problems with the projector interface when running with flat panel monitors. Fonts on new solaris 9 are giving us problems and I am looking into it. Also replaced control 0 in the control room with Sun Blade 1000 running 3 flat panel monitors. Tried the xinerama mode for the above machines. Of the 3 graphics card, one is a m64 - PGX graphics card and the other two are the powerful XVR-500's. In xinerama mode the XVR-500's take the least common configuration of the three graphics card. LLOFb0's minute-trend disk was 98% full. This data should stay forever. So moved some of the old channels that were not being acuired now to a safe place. With this change it is back down at 92% full. I have ordered a A1000 disk array and will put in place soon. Added the Optical Lever channels to the master.config file and reconfigured the DAQ. (Chethan)

LDAS data analysis: Visiting UFL for collaborating on WaveDSO with Sergei Klimenko. In the first approximation finished the whole data pipeline from TCL LDAS job script to LAL. (Igor)

HEPI / LASTI: We are still dealing with assembly problems with the HEPI actuator. We completed the second unit late last week and found after all our pains that we have a single, small leak. The bellows were individually tested in a fixture which permitted them to be pressurized to 90psi, and then immersed in water. Crude but effective in the shop. This time we took extra care to stagger the welds and use minimum heat. The unit looks beautiful but we ended up with a single, small leak at the actuator plate and as before it is leaking between the bellows and the weld assist band. All indications point to marginal welding performed by HYSPAN. With the probability of a weak weld that is thermally stressed by assembly we're proceeding down several paths. Gerry Stapfer suggested a low temperature tin-silver eutectic solder to repair the leaks. I've ordered the alloy and will attempt repair when it arrives. I've also sent some suspect bellows to a vacuum brazing firm, in the attempt to strengthen the weld joint with a braze alloy. They completed a first article this afternoon and are sending it for inspection tomorrow. The most promising solution is to replace the bellows with those of a different manufacturer. I've located a firm known as Ameriflex, who have been very helpful. We had a telecon with an engineer Monday afternoon and agreed upon an ring attachment that was acceptable to Stanford. Corwin Hardham in turn modeled it at Stanford and we (Marcel) checked it against our model and sent a drawing to Ameriflex on Tuesday. Within an hour I received a quote, and gave them the OK to proceed. I've heard from their production manager and they plan to ship our replacement bellows on Nov 8, 10 days after receipt. This is pretty unbelievable given our experience with the previous manufacturer. We plan to wait until receiving the new bellows and have both products in hand (brazed HYSPAN and new Ameriflex) before deciding which one to use. We are completing all of the assembly work on the 2 next units, sans bellows. By working over the weekend (and successfully leak testing) we should begin delivering actuators to MIT about Nov 12. Katrina Carter, Joe Langdale and Gary Traylor volunteered to help Marcel and me measure the constants on machines springs destined for LASTI. They completed 2 today, which are now enroute. We've yet to receive 4 additional springs which were promised Monday. ETD is now tomorrow (Thursday) and with help we will measure and ship by week's end. ETF / Advanced LIGO pod bases Still working on the simplified base and flexure to support the GS-13 geophone on the ETF without benefit of a pod. Marcel is detailing that and will supply to Joe Giaime for production in the LSU Physics shop. (Hammond,Kern)

Detector/Technical Support (Coyne)

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

• Osamu is studying the effect of seismic and acoustic noise (at MC2) on the MC lock stability. He estimated the contribution of seismic and acoustic noise to the MC frequency noise, and it quantitively explains the noise spectrum below 30 Hz (but he's still working on refining this). Seismic noise at the 40m is 10 times noisier than typical seismic motin of 10^(-7)/f^(-2).
• Osamu finds that lock is lost after an impulsive event (deep-knee bends near MC2, shouting, etc) with low frequencies, below a few Hz. Lock is lost when the MC frequency loop error signal runs out of dynamic range. The MC length loop does have enough dynamic range, but not enough gain. The proposed cure is to increase the length path gain at low frequencies, which is difficult because of a 7 Hz oscillation in that path at high gain, which Osamu does not yet understand. He will continue to investigate the MCL path.
• The MC beamtube appears to act like a microphone, amplifying acoustic noise at the MC2 table. The MC2 table itself may also be behaving this way, with a resonance at ~ 50 Hz.
• Steve put a box of sand around the MC beamtube to damp acoustic noise from propagating into MC2; Osamu finds that it does indeed reduce vibrations at the MC2 table by 5-20 dB between 10-500 Hz.
• Two notable acoustic noise sources are the dry scroll pumps and the HEPA filter on the PSL enclosure. These generate +20 dB noise peaks at the MC2 table, at 830 and 500 Hz, respectively. These don't seem to affect the lock, and Osamu does not think these are a problem.
• Dennis is working on implementing a resonant gain stage in the MC length path, at the bounce frequency of 16.3 Hz. So far, it just causes the MC to lose lock; Dennis continues to tune the parameters. (The work is hampered by the fact that we still don't have fast MC signals in DTT/DAQ; but we will, soon).
• An earthquake (4.8M) a couple of days ago knocked all the suspensions out of whack, and the watchdogs that limit the actuation appear to have worked correctly.

• Ben continues to work with Flavio and Rich on the testing of the Intensity Stabilization Servo (ISS) at the 40m.
• Ben continues to stuff the ISS DC photodiode PCB board.

• Ben has consulted with Richard M about how to get fast signals from ISS and MC into DAQ. He has a second DAQ interface board, and there should be sufficient empty channels in our DAQ Lemo Intfc Board to accomodate them.
• Ben has begun stuffing the end racks (mostly DSC stuff for the ETMs) in order to get an idea of what we have, and what we need. Bob will start working on the cross-connects for these racks.
• Steve and Bob have made implemented protective trays and cable strain relief for the 3 installed satellite amplifiers.
• Ben is testing 7 more satellite amplifiers for the core optics DSCs.
• Completion of the vertex core optics DSC system (rack 1Y4) awaits Penteks, Pentiums, and software. We aim to have a working system in 2 weeks.
• Ben continues to design the interface between the Glasgow suspension electronics and CIT electronics. The Dspace whitening interface and interface boards were finished and were sent to PCB Express last week.

• OPTICS PARTS LIST, Orders pending: 29 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 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 from Piezosystems Jena; 1.5 in and 2 in fixed vacuum mirror mounts and an adapter spacer from ASCO; Faraday Isolator mechanical parts from CA Machine Co.
• FARADAY ISOLATOR: Awaiting parts.
• IFO MODE-MATCHING TELESCOPE: Detail working drawings for telescope housing are complete; however, the remote focus mechanism will be re-designed for a more cost-effective approach. Aiming for a complete system in 1 month.
• LIGO: Working with Dennis Rose to analyze all potential stray laser beams in the 2K and 4K IFOs that might damage the COC suspension wires and/or electronic cables.

• Our BS, ITMx, and ITMy, are suspended and sitting on the South Annex clean room flow bench.
• Steve, Dennis and Osamu will swap out dirty OSEMs for new clean ones in these 3 suspended optics, next week.
• Janeen is making drawing changes for 40m TM suspension optimizations. Will continue and then gets the parts reworked.
• Bob continues to build and clean OSEMs.

• The ion pumps continue to belch out on occasion; CC1 pressure is observed to jump up for a few minutes every once in a while. It's not a serious problem.
• Dennis will try to get RGA information into the DAQ system.
• Dennis has fixed the hair-trigger software interlocks on the vacuum system, eliminating spurious trips.
• Dennis installed a long ethernet cable to read out the STACIS SV controller; now all controllers are being read out and logged.
• One STACIS seismic isolator (SENW-x) is failing; this is the third such failure since the system was installed. Also, one of the controllers (now at the east end) is reading faults from all three feet, even though the isolators are fine and the EPICS readings are normal. Dennis will pursue this.

• Bob is putting his new oven F through its paces.
• Bob is repairing temperature controllers to ensure a full complement for all 5 bake ovens.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

PSL (Adhikariu, McKenzie, Rollins, Ottaway)

Found the PMC control was flaky, and traced it to a blown demodulator.  Replacement with a spare appeared to affect operation of the new FSS; investigation is in progress. 

EPI design and installation (Mason, MacInnis)

The plumbing continues for the HEPI pre-isolators. Tubing has been run from the pump room to the large manifold below the BSC chamber.

Myron has lifted one side of the BSC crossbeams for fit checking a housing assembly. If everything looks good we will bring it down and attach the springs. Mike Hennessey from Stanford will be visiting next week to help with the installation of the HEPI assemblies on the remaining piers.

Additional FEA stiffness modeling was done on the MEPI housing assembly to help Rich and Dennis with the overall model.

MEPI Characterization and Test (Ottaway, Coyne, Mittleman)

We upgraded one the dSpace memory from 256K to 1M, this should enable us to take long swept sine data segments.  Upgrading the other memory would allow us to run more complicated or higher sampling rate simulink programs.

We also retrofitted a 1 micro-farad capacitor onto all of the current driver boards (following Rich Abbotts instructions) which should now make the current monitors operate correctly.

The control effort hasn't accomplished as much as we would have like last week due to the NSF and thermal lensing reviews.

HEPI Fabrication (Kern, Hammond)

We're still dealing with assembly problems if the HEPI actuator.  We completed the second unit late last week and found after all our pains that we have a single, small leak. The bellows were individually tested in a fixture which permitted them to be pressurized to 90psi, and then immersed in water.  Crude but effective in the shop.  This time we took extra care to stagger the welds and use minimum heat.  The unit looks beautiful but we ended up with a single, small leak at the actuator plate and as before it is leaking between the bellows and the weld assist band. All indications point to marginal welding performed by HYSPAN. With the probability of a weak weld that is thermally stressed by assembly we're proceeding down several paths.

Gerry Stapfer suggested a low temperature tin-silver eutectic solder to repair the leaks.  I've ordered the alloy and will attempt repair when it arrives. I've also sent some suspect bellows to a vacuum brazing firm, in the attempt to strengthen the weld joint with a braze alloy.  They completed a first article this afternoon and are sending it for inspection tomorrow.  The most promising solution is to replace the bellows with those of a different manufacturer.  I've located a firm known as Ameriflex, who have been very helpful.  We had a telecon with an engineer Monday afternoon and agreed upon an ring attachment that was acceptable to Stanford.  Corwin Hardham in turn modeled it at Stanford and we (Marcel) checked it against our model and sent a drawing to Ameriflex on Tuesday.  Within an hour I received a quote, and gave them the OK to proceed.  I've heard from their production manager and they plan to ship our replacement bellows on Nov 8, 10 days after receipt. 

This is pretty unbelievable given our experience with the previous manufacturer.  We plan to wait until receiving the new bellows and have both products in hand (brazed HYSPAN and new Ameriflex) before deciding which one to use.

We are completing all of the assembly work on the 2 next units, sans bellows.  By working over the weekend (and successfully leak testing) we should begin delivering actuators to MIT about Nov 12.

Katrina Carter, Joe Langdale and Gary Traylor volunteered to help Marcel and me measure the constants on machines springs destined for LASTI.  They completed 2 today, which are now enroute.  We've yet to receive 4 additional springs which were promised Monday.  ETD is now tomorrow (Thursday) and with help we will measure and ship by week's end. 

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)

Software Systems (Blackburn)

A schedule was distributed for the next LDAS release this week. It outlines a code freeze late this week with the release late next week. This release  of LDAS will be used to carry out the LIGO/GriPhyN Applications demonstration at the Super Computing 2002 Conference in the middle of this month. It also incorporates the first release of LDAS based on the new version 6 frame specification.

The bulk of software development this week has been focused on getting all of LDAS to work coherently with the new frameCPP I/O library and to support the new metadata associated with the greatly enhanced FrProc structure in that specification. This has also involved developing frame handlers for LDAS that are based on the frame specification's table of contents.

Several issues with the new dataStandalone and putStandAlone user commands which will be at the core of the LDAS contribution to the LIGO/GriPhyN  Applications demo were discovered this week. They are being addressed and we hope to have all the bugs worked out in a couple of days; This would put the finishing touches on the new functionality for the next LDAS release.

The current performance of LDAS with the new frameCPP is about 50% of the maximum achieved in earlier pre-release code based on the old frameCPP. It is known that this is all contained within the frameAPI and mostlikely the new "table-of-contents" handlers which are very inefficient in memory management. There is not sufficient time in the schedule to rework these handlers so the performance will be somewhat less than desired in this release of LDAS.

Two minor changes were made in the wrapperAPI so that in its stand-alone configuration (remoteAPI) it would more easily integrate with the Grid tools being used for the Super Computing 2002 demo.

Hardware Systems (Anderson)

• Mostly just HPSS (migration off of Redwoods) this week.  We're down to 65 Redwood tapes with data still on them as of this writing.  When these are completed, there will be a little bit of mop up work vis a vis trying to read tapes that had problems when we first tried to copy data off of them.
  

• Moved pctest1 to 215 sync and reconfigured it to replace the old beowulf machine in LDAS-CIT. It has GigE connects as well as a two CPUs.

• Rebuilt M27 with redhat 7.3. During the rebuild process, it was discovered the cfdef rules for "workstation" machines is in need of a overhaul.  So I am currently correcting this.

• Called cybernetics for the coverage info for are tape robot. Waiting for the response.

• GST came and picked up the bad parts and computer. Waiting for their response on when we will have it back.
  

• Continuing discussions with Sun regarding SAM-QFS licensing fees after receiving favorable comments from the NSF review panel last week.

• Re-started mirroring of all trend frames and 1% of full frames from LLO which had been disabled since S1. Re-start at LHO will wait until after the LDAS move to the new building next week.

• Help support getting more of the LDAS stand-a-lone servers up and running as productive test/development for each of the LDAS programmers.

• Integrated all of the S1 frame data into the LDAS-DEV system--currently all 3 LDAS systems at Caltech can see the full S1 frame data from the IDE RAID system.

• Mirrored 3 hours of GEO S1 reduced data to all LIGO Lab LDAS systems.

• Investigated command line interface to 3ware raid cards.

• Moved improved GEO data onto server (Stuart replicated to all sites).

• I have a starting point for the pf firewall script on the LDAS VPN.  Now it is a matter of automating the configuration I have.  I hope to have an "alpha" script by Monday.

• Installed the VPN in the rack where it will stay.

• The main activity this week is the preparations to move LDAS at LHO from the staging building to the new building. S1 data will not be available at LHO during this move. Only a limited amount of data (the last 12-13 hrs) will be available in the LHO control room during the move, since the move involves the T3 disks used by the framebuilders.  The move will start the morning of Sat Nov 2, when I beginning shutting down the LDASsystem and disconnected cables. Once the move is completed and cables are reconnected S1 data will be available again, and the framebuilders will have their usual disk cache's restored. Hopefully this will be by early next week.
  

• Spent a week at IUCAA in Pune, India working with Sanjeev Dhurandhar and Anand Sengupta on the Extended Hierarchical Search algorithm for binary inspirals.

• Did a quick study of burst network detection efficiency, including GEO.
• Continuing to work on implementing time-dependent calibration info (when available) into burst pipeline.
• Writing some sections of the burst S1 paper.

• Visiting UFL for collaborating on WaveDSO with Sergei Klimenko.
• In the first approximation finished the whole data pipeline from TCL LDAS job script to LAL.

• More work was done with the PULG group to debug LALDemod as part of our preparing a report on our progress with the S1 data. See the PULG web page, http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/pulgroup/, and the S1 investigations link (which is password protected).
• Coding to use the calibration data in the knownpulsardemod DSO is underway, and hopefully will be finished by the end of today.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT:
(Keith)

• Spec-ing out equipment for wireless in NW22
• Spec-ing out upgrade for NW17 wireless architecture
• Continued testing on packet loss / bw from LIGO subnet
• Troubleshot backup problem on file server
• Purchasing another laptop plus several harddrives

• Worked some issues with VRVS Monday and Tuesday.  I am not sure what was blocking IP discovery, but I spent Monday afternoon working with LSU to find out why it was not working.  LSU was having the same problem, so I know that it was not a problem on my local network.  By Tuesday mid-morning, it was working again.
• Spoke with Ric Simmons at LSU to get a status update on possible upgrades to our connection to LSU.  Several months ago Larry Wallace and I had a meeting with Ric Simmons and Charlie McMahon to discuss our options.  Unfortunately the ideas that they came up with at that time do not look like they will pan out.
• Read more documentation on RAV anti virus and anti-SPAM for our mail server.  This looks like it is a good product and should be evaluated.  Especially since the volume of SPAM seems to be increasing.

• Did some more network testing.  The internal network is providing 8 to 9 Mb/s between all computers.  The network to Caltech, as well as MIT, is providing 5 to 6 Mb/s out but only .4 to 1 Mb/s in.  No further word from PNNL on their DOE router problem.
• The main tape backup unit suffered a dead power supply on Wed.  The tape library is still under warranty, so it will be replaced.  I removed it from the server and packaged it for shipping.  Turn around time from the manufacturer is 10 business days.  Meanwhile, I am backing up the user accounts to disk.
• Purchased some computer supplies for the new building.  Set up a GC PC in the Control Room for the Operators.  Repaired the digital camera card reader on another PC.  Helped users with various problems.

• Finished reloading the engineering workstation for Dennis Coyne, with various engineering software plus general computing software.
• I just about have the simba workstation reloaded this is one of the lab computers that I had to salvage due to a power failure that burnt out some of the hardware.
• Cleaned a computer in Synchrotron that was infected with a virus. I am still working on this computer this is looking like a possible reload.
• Setup a print server in Synchrotron and connected computers to this workstation for printing services.
• Lisa and I swapped over all computers in Synchrotron from Caltech's subnet over to the ligo 115 subnet.  Plus I ran a few cable drops to connect computers to the LIGO switch.
• Loaded a new laptop for Szabolcs that included all GC software plus a variety of engineering packages.
• Loading both with General Computing software and hardware upgrades on a PC workstation and a laptop.
• Doing daily NT administration checking security logs, system failures such as hardware/software problems. Everything seems to be running okay. I still have four servers to upgrade to 2000 server. (Time Permitting)
• Setup a meeting for LIGO seminar in the science conference room.

• LSC website: worked on the progress report database; updated the database for the new reporting period.
• LIGO website: reworked the webpage for 2002 SURF projects; posting the abstracts of this Summer's work on the web. Preparing a webpage for the 2003 projects announcement.  Posted a new webpage with the 2002 NSF Review presentations.  Working on cgi scripts for the GC incident report form.  Started working on the webpages for the Aspen 2003 Winter conference.
• CaJAGWR website: edited a video of Milos Milosavljevic's talk; cut  out a segment in the middle of the video file; posted the file at the website.  Requested a virtual name host cajagwr.caltech.edu at the ITS, a url that's shorter and easier to remember.
• Project Science website: posting updates as they arrive.

• More work on the STARTTLS pop/imap services on becrux.  I have a version that works with an older version of openssl, but not with the latest version.  This can be put aside for now but will need to be revisited.
• Worked with Mike to move the computers in the synchatron over to the 115 subnet.
• Burned 8Gb of data from a users home account off to cd so that I could free up that disk space on the server.
• Did monthly backups.

• Resolved a number of PC issues. Driver updates appears to have resolved the problem.
• Worked on the network performance issues at all locations. Still no update on the Hanford problem other than what Christine has reported.  LSC has informed us that the cable company will not be able to make the connection we were looking for. However, they are putting a little more pressure on Bellsouth to get their pricing a little more competitive.   They are still working on the recent performance problem.  Nothing to add to the MIT issue that others have not already reported.
• The amount of SPAM mail has been increasing across the board. A good part of it is coming from e-mail accounts at the local institutions, which can't be blocked by the LIGO mail servers for various reasons. The local filters being used is blocking a large amount but we are still looking for more tools to improve the filtering. Also, looking into a number of tools for virus-scan on the mail server.
• Worked a couple of purchase issues. Still have not received quotes from SUN.  Getting new quotes from Foundry and waiting for the ship dates of equipment purchased for Livingston. Ordered a battery replacement for one of the UPS units that is now having problems as well as ordering another UPS unit to accommodate the additional load in the server room.
• Reworked some of the network cabling and power in the server room. Also, still working on rebuilds of some of the servers.
• Started working on the rewrite of the security plan.
• Worked a few more issues for the DCC. Looking into a DVD burner for their archiving in place of the CD burner.

LIGO II/Advanced R&D (Sanders)

Core Optics
(From: GariLynn Billingsley <Billingsley_G@ligo.caltech.edu>)

No report this week.

Advanced LIGO Coatings
(From: Helena Armandula <ahelena@ligo.caltech.edu>)

After receiving an invitation from Ramin Lalezari, formerly the Vice-President of REO, to visit his new company, Advanced Thin Films, I was there last Tuesday.  The State of Colorado has created the Colorado Advanced Photonics Technology (CAPT) Center on the Higher Education Advanced Technology (HEAT) Center Campus at Lowry.  Ramin's lab is in the CAPT Center.  Actually this facility was designed and built by REO during their expansion days, and they never got to use it. The university took over the facility and equipped with state-of-the-art characterization equipment left behind by many companies from the failed telecommunication business.  Ramin's company acquired a large IBS coating chamber with simple rotation that he has already characterized and is producing coatings.  At this time they are manufacturing a planetary rotator that should be finished by the end of the year.  One of his active partners is an ex REO coating engineer. He has other two silent partners with extensive experience, more than 30 years, in the coating field.  They rent clean room space from the university as well as access to the available equipment at the center.  They have a variety of good ovens and microscopes including an Atomic Force Microscope; an ellipsometer, an interferometer, spectrophotometers, they are in the process of building a ring down cavity. Besides they have numerous clean benches, general DI water and point of use DI water units under clean benches.  They have excellent potential to provide good coatings; they are mainly interested in R and D work, and of course, they are looking for business.  http://www.captcenter.org/about/Default.htm

MLD
Received two SiO2/Al2O3 coated substrates, one thin and one thick. The parts have been shipped to Glasgow and MIT.  The coating has not been annealed. "Q" measurements will be taken before and after annealing.

SMA
We have planned a meeting, tentatively for Nov. 7th, with Jean-Marie Mackowski at Stanford.  Jean-Marie will be in the States attending a conference.  During the meeting we'll be discussing possibilities for future coating development work. 

Adv LIGO Core Optics:
(Erika D’Ambrosio)

No report this week.

Advanced LIGO Suspensions
(From: Janeen Romie <romie_j@ligo.caltech.edu>)

• Working on mode cleaner design tasks, specifically, small updates to the earthquake stop brackets and osem brackets. MC height adapters should be delivered 10/31.
• Working with Larry Jones on the LASTI cabling PO. Also working with Larry and the suspension group on determining the maximum quad pendulum suspension length. This information is needed for the seismic prototype RFP, due near the end of November.
• Magnets for the suspension prototypes have been lost somewhere outside of England. The vendor MagDev have filled out a form to have Royal Mail track it. We have enough for the MC and RM prototypes, however.

 Mode Cleaner:
(From: ctorrie <ctorrie@ligo.caltech.edu> )

• Janeen, Helena and I have been working on the assembly of the 2 prototype suspensions.  Several of the updated aspects like the pitch adjustment and winch system have already been tested on the bench and seem to operate as required.
• We have been taking a lot of photographs this week and these can be seen at http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~ctorrie/ligotriple.html, and by clicking on the recent diary dates.
• Helena and I have been testing the assembly of the upper mass and the coil and have started to build up .jpg pictures and photographs of th e procedure.We have been taking a lot of photographs this week and these can be seen at http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~ctorrie/ligotriple.html, and by clicking on the recent diary dates. The photographer and I sent a couple of hours with Bob Taylor documenting aspects of the LIGO 1 OSEM, that will be used for global control for the LASTI prototypes.
• Drawings for an eddy current damper prototype are now in workshop.
• In the Synchrotron laboratory we now have several new cabinets that will aid with the transfer of dirty suspension parts for cleaning and re-assembly  in the 40m annex.

 Electronics:

(Jay Heefner)
No report.

40m Suspensions:
(From: Janeen Romie <romie_j@ligo.caltech.edu>)

• I've started making changes to the drawings. Will continue and then gets the parts reworked.
  

Prestabilized Laser (PSL):
(From: Peter King <pking@ligo.caltech.edu>)

• Checked that the two EEPROMs that the University of Hannover requested functioned properly by booting up a Motorola IOC.
• I received word that the hardware shipped a couple of weeks ago made it to Benno Willke's office intact.

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

This week I worked on reconfiguring Mal Gray's interferometric position sensor to use a corner reflector as a sensing target instead of a simple mirror. The sensor is a Michelson interferometer in which one arm is internal to the sensor and the other extends to a mirror on the object whose position is to be sensed. The end mirror of the internal arm is servoed to keep the arm lengths matched, and the feedback signal is a measure of position. The defect of the original design that we're trying to address is excessive sensitivity to angular motion of the target. We get around this by folding the external arm using a corner cube on the target and a static end mirror on the outside of the sensor housing. I've set up the new configuration and with the help of Phil Willems I got it aligned well enough to produce interference fringes using an external laser, but not yet with the internal LED source (which has a much poorer coherence length of only about 30 microns).

Low Frequency Seismic Isolation:
(From: Hareem Tariq <htariq@ligo.caltech.edu>)

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