Weekly Report for Week Ending March 7, 2003

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  March 11, 2003 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

Special Items:  Status of S2,   Status of Upper Limits papers, Status of SEI prototype procuement

Task managers with budget remaining on Construction accounts have been requested to provide candidate lists of materials to be procured under the Construction Cooperative Agreement.  These will be discussed during the Executive Committee Meeting on Monday, March 10, 2003.  All Construction charges must be ready to be paid by June 30, 2003.

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights
 

LSC Issues (Weiss)

Ex Comm minutes next week

LIGO I Construction/LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

*** Construction Budget Issues ***

Task managers with budget remaining on Construction accounts have been requested to provide candidate lists of materials to be procured under the Construction Cooperative Agreement.  These will be discussed during the Executive Committee Meeting on Monday, March 10, 2003.  All Construction charges must be ready to be paid by June 30, 2003.

LIGO Weekly Site Telecon (Lindquist)

There was a site teleconferences held on Thursday, March 6, 2003.  The following issues were among those discussed:

Livingston Storage Facility Inventory:  A good list of the inventory in the storage building has been prepared.  Ed Chargois will go to Livingston on Monday to identify with local staff the stuff to be excessed.

P-Card Procurements: LIGO is the only group on (or off) campus that has been authorized to acquire equipment on P-Cards.  There is some concern regarding our ability to capture this material for the Caltech equipment lists.  Ed Chargois has direct access to and is monitoring the P-Card database.

The expenditure type on fabrication accounts should always be "supplies allocable" regardless of whether the material is equipment >$5K or something else.  This is a source of continued confusion. Means are being discussed to have all materials procured under fabrication accounts to automatically be identified as supplies allocable.

Ed Jasnow has an action (action 118) to discuss with with the P-Card folks the need to update the documentation on the use of P-Cards.  LIGO is authorized to procure things using a P-Card that the rest of the Campus has not been allowed to do.  An list of exceptions needs to be provided for the LIGO rules.
Petty Cash: A draft report has been prepared by Caltech Internal Audit.  It provides some recommendations, but lacks detail.  Ed Jasnow and Florence Kaufman, working with Fred Raab, have been given the task (action 119) to prepare flow charts of the process for tracking petty cash and to identify processes that Caltech should implement.  This improvement process will likely spill over into other control systems that are not currently adequate.

Travel Reimbursement: Approximately 80 LIGO personnel have turned in the requested information needed to implement direct deposit of travel reimbursements.  Roll out of the system by Finance has been deferred from April 1 to May 1 due to "software issues."

The list of current actions revised to reflect the status of open actions assigned through March 6, 2003 may be found at ACTION LIST.

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

• Assisted the Detector Group (M. Smith) with packing and shipping of a Casing for ENV-System, serial number E15697, to PIEZOSYSTEM JENA (J. Latinski), Hopedale, MA. Account Number P205472.
• Assisted the Detector Group (H. Armandula) with packing and shipping of a Guide Rod and Wire Standoff Gluing Fixture to the LHO (B. Bland.  Account Number P204324.
• Assisted the Detector Group (H. Armandula) with packing, shipping, and preparation of US Customs Documentation for twenty (20) Storage Jars valued at $500, to the University of Glasgow (R. Jones). Account Number P20431.
• Note: In light of the past few campus episodes where laptop computers disappeared, while this has not been a problem within the LIGO community, I have installed locking devices on several computer to prevent disappearances.

>From: Linda Turner - turner@ligo.caltech.edu>

Web pages for the DCC give simple how-to's for document numbering, easy access to the latest on-line documents, and search capabilities for the DCC database. Take a look. . .

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• Met with Calum, Michael, Veronica, and George Stokes to assess requirements for DCC integration with Solid Works and a "virtual conference room" for revision collaboration and control.  A follow-up meeting was held today for further refinement of the requirements and "wish list."
• Prepared a requirements document as a precursor to a statement of work for enhancing the DCC database with the intent to streamline processes by automating several manual procedures currently in use.  Several areas have been defined: electronic document transfers, file level security for restricted access needs, reduction in manual data input by use of template grids for populating database fields, and integration of the process traveler database with the main DCC database.  George is working to define scope for each of these areas so he can estimate hours and cost for each objective.
• Ran into an assortment of conflicts in the myriad of documents submitted electronically.  Many appear to be duplicate submittals (already in docspublic) so each has to be researched to determine if these are revisions and need to be marked accordingly or if they are indeed duplicates and should be deleted.  Several others have revision discrepancies, authors missing, and number inconsistencies between pages of the same document.  Many of the documents have been submitted with name files rather than following the prescribed nomenclature so these all need to be renamed.  Others need numbers imbedded and resaved; and still others are only in .doc or .ppt format and need to be distilled to a .pdf format.  What should take an hour or two will require a substantial amount time for calls, correspondence and file manipulation before they can be processed to the archives.  This problem seems to be escalating to the status of routine rather than the exceptions. [GHS NOTE: WE HAVE TO DO BETTER HERE! PROPER SUBMISSION JUST IS NOT THAT DIFFICULT.]
• Worked with Marie Woods on the LSC schedule and prepared forms for tracking the sessions and handling presentation submittals.
• Reminder to LIGO staff:  Please make sure that as a minimum, each document submitted has a LIGO number, author's name, and date.  It's surprising how many documents are missing one of more of these essential pieces of information!

ACTIVITY

• Electronic document activity remains quite active.  Processing has become very time consuming as documents being submitted have various problems (duplicate submissions, incorrect revision numbers, files that won't open, etc.)

DCC Activity


WE 03/06/03	Packages	Faxes
In	42	38
Out	13	45

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

Press here for ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY DATA .

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

• Setting up a new subcontract for Excel Engineering for the LLO auditorium. Completed the PO to Southeastern Door for the electric switches for the doors at LLO.  Completed the PO to Deselle Maggard for the electronic valve actuators for LLO.  Placed order to Pentek.  Extended the AT & T blanket and waiting for a c/o for Las R Shield.  Working with Bill Tyler and Cash Management on erroneous JPL charges to Caltech.
• Working with Janeen Hazel and Dr. Torrie on the RFQ for the fab of the Advanced LIGO Suspension.
• Placed and reconciled Pcard orders.
• Closed blanket purchase orders for BSB.

• The last few weeks have been very busy reworking Ligo PO’s for the auditor.
• There is a new requisition form issued by Tina Lowenthal.  Individuals may contact Dot or myself regarding this form and its use.
• Processing SUN Microsystems orders.
• Working with Janeen Romie on quotes from various vendors for Advanced LIGO.
• Completing invoice and expenditure assignment changes.

• Completed monthly reports as of the end of February for Operations and Construction and posted them on the network.
• Completed monthly report for the Visitor Account as of the end of February and gave it to Donna Tomlinson.
• Prepared a summary of R&D activities from all funding sources for the period from October 1, 1998 through February 28, 2003 and posted it on the network.
• Prepared a report regarding status of Albert Lazzarini's award as of the end of February.
• Prepared a report regarding status of Geg Mendell's award as of the end of February.
• Completed narrative of steps required for preparing monthly report for Operations, which will be given to Phil Lindquist (now in DCC--pel)

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

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

• RFP for AdLIGO/SEI Mechanical Structures: All companies solicited for interest in the forthcoming procurement responded positively. RFP Cover Letter is in LIGO review. Specimen Contracts are being prepared. Design requirements for SEI prototype structures are in preparation..

• Re-design of the air conditioning duct work in the LLO Staging Building high bay is under way.  This is to reduce the noise caused by the fact that the blower fan is right behind the grill.
• Estimates have been received for the double glass doors, sun shade, and carpet for the LHO Laboratory Building.  The estimate for the sun shades is higher than the LIGO estimate, but the total for all three is within the approved amount.

• The access control gate at LHO is operating well.  The camera is expected to be installed this week.
• The access control gate for LLO is undergoing a more detailed design as a result of decisions made at the presentation given on February 27.  The new design should be ready for presentation shortly.

>Irene Baldon

• After completing all reservations and necessary arrangements, processed the paper work for seventeen (17) new/revised trips.  There are nineteen (19) trips in various stages of completion before ticketing can be done and/or paper work completed.  Travel is heavy at this moment due to the LSC Meeting at LIGO/Livingston and a number of international visitors visiting one of our sites.  Also assisted a number of P-Card holders with their travel plans/reservations or revisions.  Until further notice I will be doing travel for LHO travelers.
• Completed three (3) Expense Reports and there are twenty (20) 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).
• Reconciled twenty-two (22) P-Card items which required numerous phone calls to hotels, car rentals, 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.
• Collected and turned in EFT (Electronic Funds Transmittal) forms to Travel Accounting for setup of new direct deposit of travel expense checks.  I continued to received a few stragglers and hope that more will come.  It is anticipated that this pilot program will start up by April 1, 2003.  Your cooperation in promptly returning the form to me (Irene Baldon, M.C. 18-34), filled out, with a VOIDED check or deposit slip attached, is greatly appreciated.
• 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. Tracked and followed up on invoice problems. Reviewed and recorded payments processed by Esther the week of February 24.
• Processed the usual requisitions, change orders and payment requests.
• Reconciled Petty Cash fund and submitted report for funds to be replenished.
• Continue to monitor contract and blanket order encumbrance and notify task managers when supplements are needed.
• Jim continues with data entry in the LIGO database and helping out in the DCC.

• Organizating LIGO Lab Office to better utilize space.
• Working on plans with C.Torrie for High School tour of LIGO.
• Received Division Approval for Advance LIGO -PHY 0328418 Proposal.

Advanced LIGO (Frey)

Accomplishments:

Out of the office the 28th, 3rd, 4th, and 5th.

I have been working on setting up my upgraded PC.  Installing software, network connections, etc.

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

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

The Advanced LIGO Proposal has been submitted to the NSF and most of the follow-up paperwork has been prepared and sent.  The Office of Sponsored Research is working with MIT to get a certification identifying David Shoemaker as a Co-PI..

Change Request CR-030002 to adjust the FY 2003 operating budgets to reflect actual staffing during the first quarter has been prepared.  We will update this request at the end of March to reflect a full six months of expenditures.  Meanwhile, we are reviewing the costs anticipated for the remainder of the Construction Project (before June 30, 2003), and a number of Change Requests will be prepared to close out the Cooperative Agreement.

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

• Various personnel/payroll /HR related work.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

No report this week.

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

 
Summary of S2 Science Run Activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory (compiled by M. Landry)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cumulative duty cycles of the two IFOs remain stable, in the mid sixties.  Efforts are
being made to understand the periods in which we do not lock (sometimes long hours on
H1).  Establishing the causes for long mean-times-to-lock is seldom clear, and difficult
to distinguish from simple misalignment.

Tuesday saw the crash of the T3 disk system, LDAS, and the fb3 framebuilder.  G. Mendell
and D. Barker worked to restore the system within hours.  The loss of a significant
amount of DMT trend data means monitors will be rerun to recalculate the trends.  Some
3000s of full data was lost.

High winds returned Wednesday and Thursday, limiting duty cycles on both IFOs.  2k MC
offsets were shown to be due to radiation pressure:
http://blue.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ilog/pub/ilog.cgi?group=detector&date_to_view=03/04/2003&anchor_to_scroll_to=2003:03:04:19:04:20-daniel

New H1 lock record: forty-one hours.

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

S2: The interferometer runs well at night. We continue to have a duty factor of about 43%, dictated almost entirely by seismic noise. Wednesday night and early Thursday morning was the most sensitive run yet, due to a decrease in the low frequency noise. We were able to accumulate several hours of data with a SenseMon range of 1.2 Mpc. As  this report is being prepared, we are recovering from a site-wide power outage of a few seconds due to a severe thunderstorm in the area. We are slowly restoring the operation of all of the computers and electronics on the site.

LDAS admin
1) Restored databases after the crash at LHO.
2) Applied patches to LDAS Solaris machines at LLO.
3) Received L700 tape robot today.
LDAS data analysis.
Studying sensitivity of Waveburst on S1 playground data by running simulations with injected signal.
Igor Yakushin

GC: Fixed some print problems on the building controls computer. Installed some security patches on our mail server and several other machines in response to the new sendmail vulnerability. I still have a couple of machines to patch. Ordered a laptop for Chethan. Ordered a Matlab and compiler license for Chethan. Working on getting me listed as the contact name with Mathmatica and Matlab instead of Tom. I will also be the name on record for all of the licenses with Wolfram and Matlab. Working on some projector problems. We tried a new projector in the control room and the bulb blew after a few days. These projectors are not designed for continuous use, but I am concerned that the bulb blew after ~100 hours. However the display quality of the projectors seems to be superior to the LCD. Installed some wireless access points in the new building and in the auditorium. This should provide coverage to all of the office areas. Working with a contractor to get an audio conferencing device installed in the auditorium. This will provide the audio for any video-conferenced presentations for the LSC. Have a Canon rep that is supposed to send us a demo of a visualizer so that we can try it out during the LSC meeting. He has two models and I am not sure which one he will be able to send us. Doing lots of prep work fo rthe LSC meeting. Hooked up some of the network jacks in the new building. Discovered a problem with the sendmail configuration after the patch. I am still working on this issue. I believe that the mail server may now be acting as an open relay. This is not good and needs to be taken care of ASAP. Ordered a rack style cabinet to go in the auditorium. The delivery does not look good on this item though, so I may have to find another solution.

Site Issues: An order to stop work on the LLO staging building, as well as all other work on site, was hand delivered today by Ray Terral of the Livingston Parish Building Department  to the site. Ed has been informed and has counseled us to continue work and he will consult with Sandy Pool. Craig Sauviac, the architect of the build out, has also been informed and a copy of the letter and marked up drawings delivered to him for his analysis. (Sibley)[ GHS note: After brief review, we have decided to stop work and to consult with the Livingston Parish Building Dept. re requirements to resume work under their new rules.]

Seismic Amelioration: Work on 3D digital content continues. I hope to have a scheme that will illustrate the different beam piers by next week (i.e. short tube-HEPI/MEPI or long tube-LIGO 1 for HAM and HEPI/MEPI or LIGO 1.) This will make the search for the different configurations much easier. I have also revisited efforts to summarize doubelstart counterwound spring analysis. I took one SCI-Mon training shift last Friday and will be taking two this week. I feel that this is important to help me familiarize myself with the interferometer. Marcel
 

Detector/Technical Support (Coyne)

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

• Overall status and near-term plans:
• We pumped back down last Friday. There were a variety of problems (see below), but none too serious.
• All 6 suspended optics (MC1, MC2, MC3, BS, ITMx, ITMy) are installed in their chambers, and are being damped by the DSC system.
• The PSL and mode cleaner are performing reasonably well; details below.
• We are preparing to completely rebuild our DSC system as discussed below. Hope to complete this within one month.
• We are preparing to suspend our remaining optics: ETMx, ETMy, PRM, SRM. Hope to complete this within one month.
• IFO sensing optical trains are all installed; details below.
• Suspended optics:
• Dennis, Bob, and Ben are setting up oplev QPDs and cables to readout the optical levers on all the core optics.
• Ben has designed a rigid and insulated table mount for the oplev QPDs; 7 of them are being manufactured now, and will be done by next week.
• Bob is acquiring, and cleaning and baking, the remaining missing parts to complete the remaining suspensions (for ETMx and ETMy, and PRM and SRM) and two MOS's (for ETMx and ETMy).
• OSEMs for these suspensions have long been ready, but Bob discovered that the screw holes in the back were 180degrees away from their correct positions. This is not a problem; the OSEMs themselves can be rotated to compensate.
• Steve has acquired some indium wire, and will investigate its use to replace the viton and springs in the suspension earthquake stops.
• Suspended mass mode cleaner (Ugolini, Miyakawa, Vass, Abbott):
• After pumpdown, Osamu and Dennis re-established MC lock. The MC2 length control (MCL) is going through a Pentek now, instead of an ISC110B. There was a sign flip due to this change, which was compensated for with a jumper on the MCS board.
• The Pentek Interface Board introduced some new filtering, which reduces the phase difference between the MCL and MCF loops. Osamu measured the new OLTF and time delay, and is modeling and understanding the differences. The phase improvement helps lock acquisition and the stability of lock.
• However, the changes necessitate the addition of (software) filtering in the MCL loop to keep its high gain at low frequencies, while giving more authority to MCF (and thus the frequency stabilization) at higher frequencies. Osamu will attempt to implement the same filtering that is now done at the sites.
• Osamu sees a different noise spectrum with these changes: (a) above 400 Hz, the noise spectrum is the same as before; (b) the peak due to the 180degree phase difference between MCL and MCF at the cross-over frequency of 30 Hz is gone; (c) instead, there is a new large peak at the new cross-over frequency of 100 Hz. This should go away when additional filtering is added to MCL; (d) Line harmonics at 120 and 180 Hz are now much larger; not understood why.
• However, we will soon be completely rebuilding the DSC system, which should improve the 60-Hz-harmonics pickup greatly.
• Ben and Jay fixed problems with the switching of the universal dewhitening boards, and they now no longer introduce excess noise in the 40-60 Hz region.
• Ben and Bob are working on the cabling for the the WFS ASC for the MC. They're almost done. Some needed connectors were ordered and should be in sometime soon.
• Lori is still working on the MC WFS ASC software (at Wilson House). The sites want this system as well (right after S2). Jay and Rolf await specifications for this system for the sites, which will require a review.
• Core digital suspension controllers (DSC), and other Electronics (B. Abbott, Heefner, Bork, Taylor):
• From Rolf: Continued work on using a PC in conjunction with a VME crate to run the suspensions on the 40m. We pretty much have a full system running now and have done some initial testing. It looks like on the VME side, we can do all the I/O plus data acquisition for 8 optics with one VME crate. There is no longer a distinction on the VME side of large or small optics, so we can run all 40m lab vertex optics with this one crate. The fact that the VME crate also does handles all the DAQ channels (sensor/coil readouts) eliminates the need for a separate DAQ VME crate.
• On the PC side, it look like one 2.5GHz P4 box can run all the control algorithms for 5 optics and still get its output to the VME unit in time. We ran it is high as 6 optics, but I/O timing with the VME unit became border line. Ben has ordered a dual 2.8GHz Xeon processor unit, which should be in late next week. We hope to be able to run all the 40m lab optics (10) with this one box.
• In the course of the next week or two, we need to do some finishing and clean up work on the software. This includes getting all the white/dewhite and run/acquire switching in. We also want to use this system to test if we can trap ICS110B ADC channel hopping (by forcing it to jump). If we can trap it in some fashion, then this trap code would be also applied to DAQ and watchdog timer software.
• Jay and Ben are working on drawing up all the rewiring necessary to implement this new DSC design. No new hardware is required; in fact, the new design makes efficient use of the existing hardware, freeing up quite a few modules... which we need for the LSC system!
• Jay is drawing up a LIGO-I-like LSC system for the 40m dual-recycled IFO, including 8 I/Q demod boards from LSC PD's.
• Rolf is developing a number of ways to improve I/O in the LSC system, offloading the work to the VME IO bridge chip, freeing up the CPU for LSC filtering alone. He will test this scheme at the 40m in a couple of weeks.
• Jay and Rolf borrowed a Pentek from our DSC system to run some tests; as a result, we had to move the BS to the SRM DSC, temporarily.
• Ben sent back the blown RAID array disk to IBM.
• PSL and ISS (O. Miyakawa, B. Abbott, R. Abbott, F. Nocera, D. Ugolini, S. Vass):
• Dennis and Osamu are attempting to measure the phase noise of our VCO, in situ. They are struggling with some apparent instability...
• Osamu is developing plans to modify the gain and dynamic range of our VCO, to compensate for the increased seismic noise at the 40m relative to the sites.
• Osamu and Alexei are improving the FRC alignment.
• Rich moved the ISS hardware from the 40 to Peter King's lab for further development. Our PSL table was shaking too much!
• We are also planning on implementing mods to the FSS that are recommended by Rick Savage, and mods to the MCS recommended by Daniel Sigg.
• Optical sensing (Smith, Ourjoumtsev, Goggin, Miyakawa):
• Alexei and Lisa completed the installation of the optics for the POB, POX, TRX, and TRY sensing beamlines. Now, all sensing beamlines needed for the first phase of the 40m experiment are in place. A long list of missing parts (LSC PDs, WFSs, monitoring QPDs, EOSs, MM lenses, OSAs, cameras) has been compiled and will be chased down by Mike Smith and Ben Abbott.
• Alexei will soon begin the assembly and commissioning of electro-optic shutters (EOSs) for the MCR, AP and SP beams.
• OPTICS PARTS LIST, Orders pending: Input mode-matching telescope off-axis parabolic mirrors are expected 3/10/03 from SORL; drive electronics to drive the x and y axes of the 2nd PZT vacuum IFO steering mirror are expected 3/3/03 from Piezo-Jena; repair of two damaged tilt platforms expected week of 4/7. Re-worked IFO MMT parts and light-weight PZT steering mirror holder are pending.
• FARADAY ISOLATOR: A discussion with Karl Lambrecht revealed that glan laser polarizing prisms have uncoated air-gap surfaces not at Brewster's angle, and therefore a reflection loss of a few percent for each of the four air gap surfaces is to be expected, which will result in a transmissivity of around 90-94 %. In addition, since the polarizing prisms are designed for broadband usage, in order to meet the total internal reflection angles at near IR wavelengths the prism entrance angle must be tilted in the horizontal plane. These facts explain the behavior of our tested Faraday isolator, which required that we tilt the polarizer horizontally in order to achieve a decent extinction ratio. Osamu also pointed out that the beam from the NPRO laser that we used to measure the extinction ratio was fairly divergent, and seemed to have a halo of scattered light around the main beam, which would degrade the measured extinction ratio.

I have redesigned the Faraday isolator to incorporate Brewster's angle polarizers, which we know from the measured LIGO COS output Faraday isolator performance, that will have a much higher throughput and extinction ratio than the normal glan laser polarizer. The astigmatism of the reflected output beam from the Brewster's angle polarizer will be compensated by using a Brewster's angle prism steering mirror, which exactly undoes the horizontal magnification of the output beam profile caused by the Brewster's angle polarizer. Hope to complete the redesign in a week, and have the device rebuilt and ready for installation in a month.
• OPTICAL LEVER ASSY: Reworked parts were received and are awaiting checking and assembly.
• IFO STEERING MIRRORS: The IFO beam displacement PZT steering mirror was moved from the MMT2 mirror to a separate mirror holder placed on the table next to the mode-matching telescope (MMT). This required two additional folding mirrors to jog the output beam from the MMT to the re-located PZT steering mirror and back to the original beam path, adding an additional optical path length from the MMT to the IFO beam waist. Greater than 99.9% mode-matching of the MMT output beam into the IFO beam waist can still be obtained with the increased path length by a slight change in the defocus of the MMT. This was checked, independently, by Alexei.
• Mike is working on a new design for baffles, using AR-coated aluminum rather than black glass.
• Facilities and vacuum envelope (Ugolini, Vass, Jones):
• The 40m was pumped back down on Friday.
• The maglev TP1 failed, and appears to be dead. It is 10 years old; one of the very few devices remaining from the old vacuum system. Steve is talking with the manufacturer to see if a quick fix is available. Else, a repair, if possible, will be at least $4K. A new replacement is $16K.
• Without TP1, Dennis and Steve pumped from 500 to 25 mtorr using TP2 and TP3 (through TP1). That took a couple of days!
• Then, the cryopump CP1 took over and has brought us down to 1.8e-6 torr and falling.
• In the process of doing this unusual procedure, a software interlock was tripped off an an unanticipated way, shutting VC1 (the valve in front of CP1). It didn't cause any problems. Nonetheless, Dennis has rewritten the software interlock code to make it much simpler and better behaved, and will install it at the next convenient opportunity.
• CC1 has been observed to fluctuate a lot. Steve had installed a new CC1, and switch to using it; it fluctuates much less.
• Steve switched on the ion pumps, but the SE IP belched nastily. This had been observed before. Steve is arranging to run 3 of the 4 ion pumps, leaving out the SE.
• Steve replaced the filament on the RGA and on CC4; both are behaving reasonably now.
• Our new in-vacuum cables, which have a non-insulated copper braiding, are lying on the optical tables and the floor of the chamber. They exit through pin 25 of the feedthrough. That will be left dangling (not grounded), so as to avoid ground loops.
• South Annex Bake Ovens (Taylor, Cardenas):
• Bob sent baked HAM spacers to Ken at MIT.
• Bob continues to work on OSEMs for GinGin.
• Bob has placed the new RGA in service, and compared it with the old RGA. All looks good, and this will eliminate the major source of downtime in the lab.

Bob is baking out a chamber for Lee.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

Below is the latest sensitivity curve for the TNI, obtained with our newly tuned photodiodes and some moderate suppression of scattered light. (We were able to reduce the scattered light contribution, but we have not yet been able to eliminate it.)

Notice that NAC's noise floor has come down by quite a bit between 300 Hz and 10 kHz. Around 1 kHz the improvement is about a factor of five. The two arm cavities now have identical noise floors from 10 to 50 Hz, and from 300 Hz to about 20 kHz.

LASTI (Zucker)

no report

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)
E2E Physics meeting
--------------------
We discussed the various peaks and bumps in current sensitivity curves
from all IFOs and their possible origins. The structure in the 90-100hz range
originating from the WFS system and in the 20-25hz originating from mich signal
were discussed at length. There was also discussion if errors in nspob
light measurement due to BS alignment adjustment could be the reason
behind some discrepancies in calibration.
 

SimLIGO Noise Curve
---------------------
(Matt) Working to understand the SimLIGO noise curve. Currently studying
 the bilinear/non-linear coupling of noise to high frequencies (greater
 than 200Hz) that results from low frequency deviations of AS_Q
 (typically generated by seismic motion). Also looking into DAC and ADC
 noise couplings in the presence of WFS and QPD alignment/centering servos.
 

Code development and maintenance
---------------------------------
(Ed Maros) Helped Biplab with installing e2e on his laptop.
 

(Melody) Continued working on optimizing the modeler's functions analyzer.
 

Alfi
-----
(Bruce)
 - Debugging new implementation of junctions.
 

LIGO Data Analysis System
 

Software Systems (Blackburn)
A new version of LDAS was pushed to the sites this week. LHO and LLO are now
running version 0.6.20. We will later today be installing this version on the
LDAS TEST and CIT systems. This version does not fix the frameAPI core dump
issue, but it has an improved reliability in the mpiAPI (back to the levels
seen in S1 of less than 1 failure in 10000). The diskcacheAPI should be a
bit better in its performance also. The main motivation for installing this
version at the sites was to overlap with the Solaris Operating System Upgrade
requested by the LDAS Hardware Group so as to minimize the number of times
and duration of down time for LDAS at the sites.
 

Unfortunately, the night before the scheduled upgrade, the LHO LDAS system
suffered a major hardware failure. One of the most critical T3 RAID boxes
crashed causing the loss of the LDAS database and the loss of metadata for the
full complement of T3 RAID boxes at the sites. Fortunately we were able to
recover the database but our 3 hour scheduled down time was stretched out to
about 8 hours. In addition, the procedure used to restore the database at the
sites required us to introduce an alias for the database to get everything
back to the state necessary to run jobs which use the database. Unfortunately,
this alias is not mapped into the user space of utility programs used by our
database webpage generation tools so the webpages were not visible. We have
now added a secondary (external to LDAS) application tool to generate these
webpages until the database itself can be properly constructed without the
new alias.
 

LDAS is now fully functional with the SAM/QFS tape storage system here at
Caltech. It is now possible to issue job requests to LDAS which require
moving data off of tape first. This is all transparent to the user with the
exception that it takes longer for jobs to run when requests require reading
data off of tape. This experience has given us several ideas for ways to fine
tune LDAS to better work with a tape storage unit (pre-staging of data for
example), but the fact that it works is most obvious in our ability to create
the RDS frames from the S2 raw frame data stored on tape!
 

We think we may now have finished the removal of all variable names using the
reserved namespace of _* and *_t from LDAS and the objectspace C++ library.
As reported last week these are reserved for compiler variables and should
not be part of user code. It is estimated that more than 500 files in LDAS
had to be modified to make this change. Only time will tell if this clears
up any long standing issues that have been difficult to fix in the past.
 

We also think we have a clue about the source of the frameAPI core dumps.
On the LDAS-DEV system we have not seen these core dumps in roughly 4 weeks.
However, they happen regularly at MIT and on weekends at the sites. We have
traced these failing systems to be related by the use of RDS frames in jobs.
In addition, there is a strong tendency to have the same RDS opened more
than once in these systems. This provides important clues in the part of
code that needs to be reviewed in searching for the bug.
 

We have set up a tandem LDAS system using two test boxes to better simulate
the conditions associated with the core dumps in the frameAPI and provide a
test platform for code experimentation in order to accelerate our search for
the problem lines of code.
 

We are working on an asyncronous lamboot handler for the mpiAPI which will
greatly reduce the time needed to start up LDAS on large clusters.
 

As with previous weeks, we have continued to support the science run whenever
the need exists.
 

(Philip Charlton)
 

With Stuart's help, got the DSOrun web page up and running on the
ldas-jobs machine. Commenced producing reduced data sets for LLO and LHO.
So far we have reduced 36 hours of LHO and 70 hours of LLO. The poor rate
is due to a number of factors:
 

  - slowness of getting data from tape
  - processing time is more than real-time, especially for large LHO files
  - problems with the RDS script. It does not deal efficiently with cases
  when the output data files are already found to be in the output
  directory. May need to update to Greg's new script.
 

Worked on problem of ",," vs. ",_," in output() action. These should
both have the same behaviour, but didn't. I tested Phil's fix on ldasbox1.
It fixes the problem but introduces a new one, since now it produces two
identical result files, thus renaming the old one with .bak. (No changes
have been put into CVS yet).
 

Worked on memory leaks in datacon. Running a single script over many
hours on ldasbox1 seems to indicate that there is a leak in either the
psd() action or in code which outputs the result of a psd().
 

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

* Received and installed permanent SAM-QFS (with 6000 tape slots = 1,200,000 MB) license
  on ldas-archive.
 

* Exported all tapes and re-imported them in bar code order.  Verified
  that tapes that SAM reported as unused in fact had no data on them (a
  bug in the auditslot program causes a completely unused [no header]
  tape to show that it is 100% used).  Dealt with media errors and
  unlabeled tapes that were reported during this process.
 

* Continued archiving of S2 data.
 

* Monitored SAM-QFS system while it was both archiving new S2 data and
  staging back from tape data that was being requested by the CIT system's
  frameAPI.
 

* Determined the exact syntax/behavior of the SAM-QFS stage command to be
  used in the diskcacheAPI so that it could give a "hint" to the SAM-QFS
  software about which files would be needed shortly.
 

* Assisted in the recovery (primarily running samfsck and remounting) of
  the QFS filesystems at LHO after a T3 failure.
 

(Al Wilson)
 

* Got the graphing plug-in working in BB. But just one small problem, it
  generates tons of email!! So it is still a work in progress.
 

* Moved Moe (replacement for m90) into rm 602. M90 is still on-line
 

* Trying to get some beta software from 3ware. They tell me that it will
  allow monitoring of the raid assy from the command line. (we will see)
 

* Had a V880 (dev system - Dataserver) with our old friend the memory
  problem. Sun replaced 3 Dimm's  They tell me that they will have a FIN
  soon.
 

(Stuart Anderson)
 

* Tested Solaris 9 kernel patch and found it to solve the slow NFS
  performance from Linux NFS servers.
 

* Upgraded all of the LDAS Solaris servers at Caltech (except ldas-sw)
  to the latest recommended patch cluster.
 

* Continuing to archive S2 data into SAM-QFS and monitor its performance
  when it is overloaded with multiple read and write requests with the
  current configuration of only two tape drives. It has run very well
  under these circumstances.
 

* Rebuilding many of the desktop applications in /ldcg with the new
  gcc-3.2.2 compiler to stay in synch with the compiler used by the
  current development release of LDAS (0.6.20).
 

MIT
---
(Keith Bayer)
 

* Moving/deleting data to make room for S1.
* Investigating LDR.
* Finishing up network troubleshooting diagnostics.
* Getting last quote for pc raid from Aztek computing.
* pc raid scsi timeouts apparently fixed (molex power cable loose).
 

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

* Restored databases after the crash at LHO.
* Applied patches to LDAS Solaris machines at LLO.
* Received L700 tape robot today.
 

Hanford
-------
(Greg Mendell)
 

* A failure on a LDAS Sun t3 occurred just before 14:19 PST on Mar 04
  2003.  At this point fb3, DMT trends, and LDAS lost the ability to access the LHO  T3 disk cache.  The
  failure mode was that t3-26 froze -- a previously unseen and unexpected failure. I tshoudl be noted that over the year-plus we have ahd the T3 caches a number of drives have failed with no consequence. This particular failure mode was pernicious in that an entire ARRAY of T3s froze all at once. No server
  could see the disks on this t3 (i.e. via ls, df, format). One could not
  ping or telnet to the T3 unit.
 

  At first inspection all disk lights were green; however the RAID controller board light "on line"
  light on the back of T3 was amber. (A steady amber light indicates the
  controller is in the middle of a shutdown, reset, or reboot).  After
  umounting disks from servers, the T3 was power cycled.  The disk lights
  on disk 1 went off for a few seconds, while the "on line" light changed to
  green.  The "on line" light then went amber  again, and disk 1's lights changed to
  green.  The T3 was power cycled a second time.  This time the "on line" stayed
  green, but disk 6 started blinking its amber light, indicating a disk failure.  All other disks,
  including disk 1, remained green. The T3 was reset, and it returned to
  this same state. A fru stat showed disk 6 was missing.  After 20 or so
  minutes a fru stat finally showed a fault on disk 6. This is what we had seen in past disk failures.
 

  At this point the T3 was once again accessible.  Mendell ran fsck from metaserver on these
  disks. while Dan Kozak (from Caltech) ran the qfs version of fsck on other disks that had
  the QFS metadata on T3-26.  (Because the QFS metadata was on T3-26, I/O on
  all other 20-odd  T3s failed when this single unit failed).
Unfortunately, some of the
  directories undergoing I/O at the time of the failure were lost, include
  many of the DMT trends from the beginning of S2.  Very little raw data
  was lost (and this was due to a prior, unrelated failure on the CDS RAID box
  attached to fb0, see below).
 

  Sun replace the failed drive (drive 6) on T3-26 this morning (03/06/03)
  and suggested we apply firmware patch 109115.  Sun believes T3s have
  been known to hang and show resets before this patch version.
However,
  it was not clear from the syslogs that the T3 had tried to reset at the
  time of the failure.  Also, we have had four or five previous disk
  failures on the T3s at LHO without incident. (These are RAID 5 units
  that are designed to keep working with a single disk failure.)  Of course,
  we will apply the firmware upgrade the next opportunity we have.
 

  All the T3s were back up by Tue 04 2003 evening.  The ldas database had
  to be restored at LHO (by Igor and Caltech). We also applied planned
  Solaris 9 patches to the LDAS Sun servers, and LDAS installed a patched
  version of its software. LDAS was backup by Wed 05 2003 evening.
 

* Notes on raw data lost:
 

  When the T3 disks crashed fb3 lost its disk cache.  It took 6.6711 hours
  to get the disks back up, and fb3 was down during this time.  However,
  fb0 uses independent disks, and kept on acquiring data and building frames.  Barker removed
  fb3 from the state vector that determines science mode. Mendell switched the
  tapecontrol script to get its data from fb0 instead of fb3.  Thus, all the raw data
  during science mode stretches has been recorded on tape.  This data will
  appear at Caltech.  However, fb0 overwrites its data every 13 hours, so
  it is no longer on disk.  Having recovered from fb0 the missing data
  from fb3's 6.6711 hours of downtime, the tapecontrol script is once
  again getting it data from fb3.
 

  Dave Barker writes:
  Summary of data available on fb0 and fb3:
 

  fb0 only lost full frame data between:
 

  Mar 4 14:42 H-R-730852928-16.gwf
  Mar 4 15:38 H-R-730856272-16.gwf
 

  [Note the reason for the missing fb0 frames is that it had its own independent RAID
  failure a day or so before the T3 failure andwe  could not write minute
  trends.  Dave tried to fix that when fb3 went down.  Thus, there is a 3344s
  gap when both fb0 and fb3 were down and no frames could be created.]
 

  fb3 lost full frame data between:
 

  Mar 4 13:04 H-R-730847056-16.gwf
  Mar 4 19:44 H-R-730871072-16.gwf
 

Lazzarini note: obviously this was a painful lesson and we are studying the experience to guarantee this failure mode does not get us a second time.
The planned upgrade to SAM-QFS and 6mo-12mo robotic lookback at each site that will become avaialble shortly after S2 ends should eliminate the risk to which we are presently exposed.
 

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)
Weinstein:
- Continuing to study hardware burst injections.
- Continuing to study the effect of HPF, whitening, and
  base-band filtering in datacond.
- Monitoring S2 online burst searches.
- Compiling a list of systematic errors associated with
  the S1 untriggered burst analysis.
 

Mendell:
I've been busy with S2 scimon shifts and working on hardware failures.
However, I hope to start generating SFTs with the knownpulsardemod DSO
soon.
 

Kaice Reilly:
Last Friday I finished the time-frequency CC maps.
I have begun to make the CC maps an optional part of the
upper limit analysis.  Joe and I spent some time discussing
the next step. We, as well as others have concluded that
it will be interesting to look at a difference of the CC value
and the expected value or a ratio of the two. It is prohibitive
(time-wise) to generate a full map of this difference or ratio, so
I will most likely only do it for one job. We assume that this
will be ok because the CC maps indicate that the processes
are "constant" over the S1 run.  I have been reading through
the LAL wrapper documentation and the relevant papers
in order to get a better understanding of the details involved
in the stochastic data analysis.
 

Yakushin:
 

Studying sensitivity of Waveburst on S1 playground data by running
simulations with injected signal.
 

General Computing (Wallace)
MIT:
(Keith)
-Troubleshooting Tania's desktop (memory errors)
-Troubleshooting Erik's desktop (hdd errors)
-Setting up a new user (Jon Allen) on gc and spare laptop
-Spec-ing out new laptop for Jon Allen
-Patched sendmail on all gc computers
 

Livingston:
(Shannon)
-Fixed some print problems on the building controls computer.
-Installed some security patches on our mail server and several other
machines in response to the new sendmail vulnerability.  I still have a
couple of machines to patch.
-Ordered a laptop for Chethan.  Ordered a Matlab and compiler license for
Chethan.
-Working on getting me listed as the contact name with Mathmatica and
Matlab instead of Tom.  I will also be the name on record for all of the
licenses with Wolfram and Matlab.
-Working on some projector problems.  We tried a new projector in the
control room and the bulb blew after a few days.  These projectors are
not designed for continuous use, but I am concerned that the bulb blew
after ~100 hours.  However the display quality of the projectors seems
to be superior to the LCD.
-Installed some wireless access points in the new building and in the
auditorium.  This should provide coverage to all of the office areas.
-Working with a contractor to get an audio conferencing device installed
in the auditorium.  This will provide the audio for any video
conferenced presentations for the LSC.
-Have a Canon rep that is supposed to send us a demo of a visualizer so
that we can try it out during the LSC meeting.  He has two models and I
am not sure which one he will be able to send us.
-Doing lots of prep work fo rthe LSC meeting.
-Hooked up some of the network jacks in the new building.
-Discovered a problem with the sendmail configuration after the patch.
I
am still working on this issue.  I believe that the mail server may now
be acting as an open relay.  This is not good and needs to be taken care
of ASAP.
-Ordered a rack style cabinet to go in the auditorium.  The delivery does
not look good on this item though, so I may have to find another solution.
 

Hanford:
(Christine)
Nothing to report.
 

CIT:
(Mike)
-Pulled out some temporary mini switches in the third floor closet and
swapped them out with a replacement edge switch for Larry.
-Cleaned up a laptop for the loaner pool and have it ready for the next
prominent user.
-Setup for a meeting using the new VRVS software 3.0 that is recommended
by VRVS technical support group to their updated software for VRVS. I did
this but came across multiple problems and couldn't get the audio or video
due to runtime errors and other unknown OS errors. I did get the video to
work, but had to run the audio on our backup computer. I need to work on
this some more to be ready for the next meeting.
-Reloaded Thomas Frey's computer that was running win98 that was having
multiple software problems that I corrected until I could have the time to
update his computer to 2000 Pro & a hardware upgrade. This operation is
complete and is back up in his office.
-Had a lot of tech support that included email, networking & printing
issues; plus loading additional software for some users.
-Pictor, I had to update the flex LM license server for Ansys software.
Amaldi, I compacted the database.
 

(Veronica)
- LSC website: continuous updates of the March meeting webpage as the new
information arrives. Generated and posted an expanded and printable
version of the agenda.
Rewrote and posted pages for the spokesperson voting. Updated Talks page.
- LIGO website: extensive work on videos of Rita Colwell's presentation at
AAAS. The original files were encoded using a codec that was missing from
the libraries of both RealPlayer and QuickTime, so no playback was
possible. Downloaded the codec and compressed the three videos for 3
various bandwidths each to ensure easy access. The videos are now posted
with the rest of AAAS presentations. Investigated a possible problem
with Rai Weiss' file (it appears to be on the user's end).
Working with George and Linda on modifications to the DCC database; the
backend changes will include a new layer for restricted-access documents
for various workgroups.
Working with Digital Media Center on digitising LIGO VHS tapes; tested the
newly encoded batch on our camcorder.
Posted various updates throughout the website.
- CaJAGWR website: recorded and compressed the talk by Braginsky. Working
on the smil combo of video and synchronized visuals. Posted updates at the
website.
- Planning for redesign of the Advanced LIGO website.
 

(Lisa)
- Patched a sendmail exploit on acrux and becrux.
- Installed licensed copies of RAV milter on acrux and becrux.  Began
looking at ways to customize RAV to do better spam blocking.
Currently, it is
catching about 500 spams/day.
- Finished the inventory of active sun workstations and servers.
- Did a full system dump of canopus.
- Did monthly backups.
- Contacted opengroup about a quote for motif.  Opened a discussion with
ITS about purchasing a caltech site license for motif.
 

(Larry)
-Plenty of procurement related items. The Foundry maintenance contract
renewal has to be retransmitted. Helped a number of people on getting
quotes for different systems and related equipment.
Lisa is working the Motif issue. The edu site license appears to be the
way to go at this time.
Received the licenses for RAV which Lisa now has installed.
Received the licenses for the Calcium calendar tool. Checking out
additional functionality for that tool. Our site license allows unlimited
users but it can only be installed on one server.
-Helped out the DCC on a few items. Requests for additional functionality
is being checked into.
-Worked a number of security items.
Most of the mail servers on the project have had the necessary patches
installed. Lisa was able to get the CIT servers patched with limited down
time.
Updated virus-scan on a couple of PC's and cleaned up a couple of
machines.
Ten+ sites a day are being added to the e-mail block list.
-So far at the security conference copywrite issues has been one of the
hot topics. The Gov't is taking the lead in a number of items but they are
also working closely with industry and global partners. Global network
security has become a high priority.
----------------
 

Advanced LIGO Development (Shoemaker)

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