Weekly Report for Week Ending March 27, 2003

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  March 31, 2003 will be:

 (Meeting time: 10:30 am Pacific Time)

STAFFING COMMITTEE

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights
 

LSC Issues (Weiss)

to: LSC Executive Committee
from: R. Weiss March 25, 2003
concerning: Notes from the LSC Executive Committee meeting March 19, 2003

New Spokesperson
----------------
Peter Saulson has been elected to a two year term as the new
Spokesperson of the LSC. He and I will work together through
the transition so that by the August meeting Peter will be
completely installed. During the time between the meetings he will
begin his reorganization of committee chairs, the LSC executive
committee and originate new initiatives for the Collaboration.

...

Completing the S1 papers
-------------------------
A group consisting of M. Landry, G. Gonzalez, A. Weinstein and P. Fritschel
has formed to edit and unify the papers so that they contain the same
information about the runs and the instrument.

The papers are to have been reviewed and be ready for final decisions at the
next LSC Executive Committee meeting on April 25. The first draft of the burst
upper limit paper is expected by April 14.

A letter will be written by Peter Saulson and me to all the PI of the LSC
collaborating groups to decide on the final list of authors for the papers.
The web list of LIGO I participants maintained by Irena Petrac will be the
initial source of names. One of the tasks of the PI are to include
people who are no longer in the groups but who deserve to be authors on these
first papers.

Gary is going to talk with people at the NSF about a policy to acknowledge the
agencies that have supported the research but without reference to a grant
number. For example, the NSF acknowledgement would include the support from
the Physics division of the NSF and make specific mention of the support for
the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. The intent is to avoid
a long list of grant numbers in the papers.

The papers will be submitted to Phys Rev D for publication.

APS talks
-----------
We will follow the same procedure as was done for the AAAS meeting presentations.
The viewgraphs showing new results of the analysis will be vetted by the LSC
reviewers and posted for LSC comment. Eric Katsouvinidis will play the same role
for the Collaboration at the APS as Al Lazzarini did at the AAAS meeting.

Incorporating new authors into LIGO 1
--------------------------------------
The discussion of how to involve new people in the LIGO 1 papers continued
from the prior meeting. A consensus formed around the practices of:

Allowing a new group to join in the authorship after a waiting period of 6 months.

A new person in an existing collaborating group could be proposed to the LSC
Executive Committee as an author by the PI of the group.

A person who has authorship privilege in an existing group carries the privilege
if he/she changes groups.

Peter Saulson and I will formulate a letter to be sent to the LSC Council
about the authorship policy.

Grid computing in LIGO (submitted by Alan Wiseman)
----------------------------------------------------
Grid computing is already part of some of the
LSC data analyisis pipelines, and  this trend will surely
continue.  It was suggested that the LSUG (LIGO Software Users Group)
lead the way on establishing some standards for the collaboration on
how this should be implemented.  After a brief discussion, the committee
agreed with this approach.

Next LSC Executive Committee meeting
-------------------------------------
Friday April 25, 2003 at 11AM Eastern time

LIGO I Construction/LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

There was a site teleconference held on Thursday, March 27. The following items were discussed:

• Efforts are under way by Al Horvath, Sharon Patterson and Ed Jasnow to convert the petty cash checking account at Hanford from a personal to a corporate account.
• The FY03 operations budget is going to be re-examined in light of the fact that the second half of the $33 million funding has arrived.
• The list of candidate items to spend the remaining construction funds on was examined from each site. The time constraint of June 30 may make some of the candidate items unlikely. This list will be presented at each Executive Committee meeting to examine status.
• A decision was made to re-locate the pre-fabricated storage building at Livingston from the turnaround at the mid-station to behind the water tank. This will allow the building to be alarmed while providing water for fire protection.

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

• Along with Calum, Michael, Janeen, Dennis and others from the sites, met with GoEngineer regarding the possible use of PDM Works to provide a tool for configuration management.  Several issues regarding its relationship or integration with the DCC are being explored.
• Spent last week at the LSC processing presentations from the various attendees.  This week, continued the processing of stragglers that are still being submitted.  To date, 83 presentations have been submitted, processed, and posted.  Approximately 32 presentations remain to be submitted and an email has been drafted to send to those who still need to submit their documents.  Hopefully by next week 100% will be accounted for and available for everyone's access.
• 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

• Concentrated mainly on processing documents from LSC Meeting last week at Livingston.
• Created file folders, sorted and filed documentation.

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

Press here for ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY DATA .

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

• Completed change order #16 to MCI, change order #22 to Excel Group, an internal mod to Praxair, change order 1 to Excel Engineering, an internal mod to MIT, and working on change order #21 to Waveprecision, and the new subcontract for CSRS. Working on the bank wire to the Universiti de Pisi for the summer visitor to LIGO, and completed reimbursements for LIGO employees.
• Placed and reconciled Pcard orders for individuals at Caltech and MIT. Returned items on Pcard for credit and exchange.
• Closed standard purchase orders through September 2002.

• As of this week we are submitting RFI’S (Request For Information) pertaining to the Advanced Ligo Suspensions they will be hand deliver to the vendor.
• Continue to process P O’S
• Working with Stuart Anderson on up coming large order Within the week

• Submitted a Fabrication Equipment Request and a PTA Set-Up Form for the Pre Engineered Storage Building at Livingston.
• Provided Sponsored Research with a schedule indicating how the $16.5 Award from the NSF for FY2003 should be allocated.  At Dick Seligman's request, the schedule included an estimate of the Direct and Indirect Charges at the Award level, i.e. the On-Campus Rate Award, Off Campus Rate Award and the Capital Projects Award.  Oracle now reflects the entire Award for FY2002 and FY2003 of $61 million.
• Updated the Construction Report to reflect planned spending.  From now on the Construction Report will be updated weekly, the latest version can be found on the network.
• Provided Eric Black with information regarding spending for the TNI group for the period from October 1998 through February 2003.
• Updated the  report for Visitor's account at Donna's request,. Identified travel expenditure that had been charged to the Visitor account in error by Caltech's Travel department, error will be corrected by them.
• Identified some travel expenditures that need to be reclassified to Award # NSF.000254.
• Identified some potential items that may need to be reclassified from Construction to Operations.
• Provided information for the Organization Chart being prepared by Ed Jasnow.
• Provided Ed Jasnow with a first draft of suggested changes required for Petty Cash procedures.
• Financial reports can be found at: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport

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

• No report this week.  Irena is at LSC.

CONSTRUCTION:

• Costs for the modifications to the LHO Laboratory Building are due on Friday, March 28. The costs for the steel sun shades are expected to be reduced from $42,000 to $35,000. A field change order for this work will be issued next week.
• A purchase order for the steel for the pre-fabricated storage building at LLO was issued on Thursday, March 27. Separate contracts for the concrete slab and utility hook-up will be issued shortly.

• Discussions are being held regarding the site work for the LLO access gate. An issue is allowing access while construction is underway.

SUPPORT (Baldon, Lloyd, Tischler)

>Irene Baldon

• Processed the paper work for three (3) new/revised trips.  There are thirteen (13) trips in various stages of completion before ticketing can be done and/or paper work completed.  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 fourteen (14) Expense Reports and there are zero (0) 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 they can be closed in a timely manner.
• Reconciled fifty-seven (57) 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.
• I continued to collect a few EFT stragglers and hope that more will come.  It is anticipated that this pilot program will now start up by May 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.
• Worked on the preparation and distribution of the Travel/Vacation Itinerary for March 24, 2002.  Arranged three (3) new teleconferences; arranged cancellation for two (2) meetings for this week; and entered two (2) new reservations on the LIGO Calendar.  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. Tracked and followed up on invoice problems. Reviewed and recorded payments processed by Esther the week of March 17.
• Processed the usual requisitions, change orders and payment requests.
• 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.

• Meeting with Beckett, Kondrashov, Turner re:  photo archives.
• Meeting with Beckett, Turner re: format and assembly of press kit materials.
• Formatted press kit inserts and one article.
• Shipment of press kit materials, brochures and folders to LLO. LHO, MIT.
• Addressed several space concerns re: optimal utilization of space.

Advanced LIGO (Frey)

Progress Period from 03.21 to 03.27

Weekly Advanced LIGO Project Controls meetings were not held this week.  Next meeting scheduled for Friday the 28th at 8:30am at SCR.

 For list of documents that are being used to develop Adv. LIGO Cost and Schedule, see http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/Cost_MTG_082002/

Advanced LIGO MRE Proposal (Highest Priority)

• Per direction of David Shoemaker I completed re-evaluating the status of each sub-system (Cost and Schedule) in preparation for reviews.
• Finished preparing cost detail and cost summary for ACIGA contribution.  Also provided a time line.  Working on an ACIGA cost profile for escalation.
• Finished corrections to cost book with regard to application of indirect cost to travel and change to off campus rate to 26% as directed by the OSR.
• The following is a summary of status by sub system:
• COC - Still need completed WBS dictionary and BOE.
• PSL -  No action items pending.
• AOS - Still need completed WBS dictionary and BOE.
• IO -  Still need completed WBS dictionary and BOE.
• SUS - No action items pending.
• SEI - Received revised (Version 3) data from Dennis and data input of WBS and BOE is in progress.
• ISC - Still need completed WBS dictionary and BOE.
• LDAS - No action required at this point in time.
• INSTALL - Dennis provided a revision and data input is in progress.
• DAQ - No action required at this point in time.
• PM - No action required at this point in time.
• FAC - No action required at this point in time.
• SUP - Need estimate for support equipment.  Action item to be executed by Dennis.

• Received notice from Eric Black the TNI will be re-baselined as directed by the advisory committee.

• ROSTER DATABASE:
• Working with Larry and Barbara to set up a process by which the roster database updates selected alias lists.
• BK is continuing work on action items.
• Continued input of supervisor, dept., and specialty codes.
• Finish testing web pages provided by BK that allow reporting of Roster Data by Dept, Supervisor, Discipline, and Specialty.

• COST BOOK DATABASE:
• BK is continuing work on action items.
• Posted updated cost sheet views that provide a button to access the WBS Def., BOE, and Schedule Task list.

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

We are starting work on the Quarterly Progress Report for the Construction Cooperative Agreement.  The fiscal quarter for this cooperative agreement ended at the end of February.  Irena has taken the lead for assembling as much material as she can from the weekly status reports.  Some additional input may be required.  Since this is the second to last report, we do not plan to make it too complicated (basically everything is done except for buying some computer and detector equipment).

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 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)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This week saw decent performance on both interferometers, with duty cycles of
0.79 (H1) and 0.65 (H2), and an H1 range in excess of 400kpc at times.

Several forays out onto 4k AS port were made through the week.  Evidence continues to
mount regarding the coupling of acoustic noise into the AS port table, see:
http://blue.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ilog/pub/ilog.cgi?group=detector&date_to_view=03/24/2003&anchor_to_scroll_to=2003:03:24:10:25:14-nergis

Furthermore, an AS port iris was removed, and the lens in front of the LSC photodiodes
was changed to yield a smaller spot size.  While it is not clear if such modifications
or simply alignment is responsible, ranges on H1 have trended for the better, as noted
above.

S2 web pages were added to the CIT CVS archive, see Keith Riles' elog:
http://blue.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ilog/pub/ilog.cgi?group=detector&date_to_view=03/27/2003&anchor_to_scroll_to=2003:03:27:20:13:52-keithr
 

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

Interferometer: The LLO interferometer continues to operate in science mode approximately 40% of the time. We are able to operate in science mode for more than one hour of continuous runnung most weekday mornings, in spite of the much larger day time seismic motion. Wednesday morning, a controller failed around 6 am, perhaps coincident with the train arrival. The board was repaired and replaced in service Wednesday morning.

Set up an OSLO gaussian beam propagation model for ISCT4. Once S2 is over, measurements can be made of the components on the table in order to see if there are problems with scattering from apertures. (Joe Kovalik)

CDS:
1) Completed the initial version of CDS target monitoring program.
2) Working on the design of the CDS Digital Suspension Watchdog
implementation
Ash

LDAS admin:
1) Replaced two failed disks on t3-2 and rebuilt /frame10 file system.
2) Configured ldas-jobs backup.
3) Tape robot is in the LDAS room now. The installation is scheduled for
Monday.
LDAS data analysis:
1) Made a presentation about the current state of waveburst DSO at the
LSC meeting.
2) Modifying waveburst to allow less strict coincidence.
Igor

GC:
This week has mostly been spent picking up from the LSC and getting projectors, laptops, and other items ready to ship.
Set up a printer in the new building.
Looking into a networking problem on my dhcp server. The problem has been fixed, but I am still trying to determine the exact cause. If the second network interface is shut down on this machine, the problems go away.
Started cleaning up the communications room. Most of the unnecessary items in that room have been moved to a lab in the new building. I have to go through all of this stuff and throw out some of it.
Ordered a new blade 2000 workstation from Sun for the new building.
Shannon

Seismic Amelioration
Here is the weekly update for the seismic amelioration efforts:
I have scanned in all of the inertial sensor documentation and forwarded it
to Larry Jones as a PDF. The documentation lacked enough information to
accurately recreate the sensor in 3d digital format so I also supplied
drawings of the sensors to be distributed with the Advanced LIGO Seismic RFQ
package. I have supplied the models in SolidWorks 2001 plus format on my
website at:
www.ligo-la.caltech.edu/~mhammond/sensors
To date, the L4-C and the STS-2 files are on the website and the GS-13
should be there by the weeks end.
Marcel

Other: We are planning an end-of run and Rana farewell celebration for one day during week of April 14. All invited.
 

Detector/Technical Support (Coyne)

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

• 40m Laboratory Upgrade Progress Report to the Technical Advisory Committee, March 19, 2003, LIGO-G030033-00-R, O. Miyakawa; and response of the TAC (K. Strain, M. Zucker).
• Also at the LSC meeting, Dennis Ugolini's application for Trinity University to join the LSC we approved.
• Dennis and Osamu are both on shift at LHO all next week.
• Conor Mow-Lowry from ANU is joining the 40m team for a 5-month visit. Make him welcome!
• Suspended optics:
• Oplev QPDs for the 3 installed core optics (BS, ITMx, ITMy) are in place and see signals, through to the interface boards. Four more Oplev QPDs are ready for installation. The interface boards are part of the DSC system, which is being completely re-wired this week.
• Steve and Helena have glued magnets onto dumbbells for the two ETMs, in preparation for suspending them in the next week or 2.
• Bob has completely assembled the two MOS's for the ETMs, and the two SOS's for the PRM and SRM. A few more vented EQ stop screws are still in the shop. Janeen will carefully inspect the suspensions, soon.
• Mark Barton is testing the silver-tipped EQ stops being developed by Steve.
• PSL and ISS (O. Miyakawa, B. Abbott, R. Abbott, F. Nocera, D. Ugolini, S. Vass):
• Osamu turned up the laser power to maximum, about 7 watts, into the PMC. Only ~ 3 W was transmitted through the PMC. Osamu and Conor will work on improving the transmissivity.
• Osamu tried tuning the PMC servo notch filter, changing it from 35 kHz to 31.5 kHz, to resuce the frequency noise applied on the beam by the PMC (and measured by the MC). It didn't help. The PMC is being excited by acoustic noise; Osamu suspects the vacuum pumps.
• The beam on the FSS RFPD is jittering, causing the signal to fluctuate. Osamu, Alexei and Conor will investigate.
• 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.
• Suspended mass mode cleaner (Ugolini, Miyakawa, Vass, Abbott):
• Osamu measured the cross-over frequency between the MCL and MCF servo paths, with the new (Pentek) path for the MCL signal. It's still at 26 Hz, but the phase margin has increased from 10degrees to 95degrees. The new noise curve no longer has a peak at 26Hz.
• Osamu installed software compensating filters for the filtering in the Pentek Interface board, and measured the transfer function to verify that they were doing the right thing.
• Osamu turned up the PSL power to maximum (~ 3 W out of the PMC). After attenuating the sensor beams into the photodiodes and cameras, he re-measured the frequency noise, and found it to be unchanged with respect to low-power (~ 300 mW).
• Osamu studied the MC2 suspension sensing noise, and the damping Q, for various settings of the position (and P,Y) gain G. He measured Q ~ 4/G. He finds that sensor noise sets in for gain > 0.3, or Q ~ 12. Jay seemed to recall that the sites operate with Q in that range, as well.
• Osamu then measured the PSL frequency noise for different damping gains, and finds a strong contribution to the overall noise, in the ~100-200 Hz region, for gains > 0.3. He finds G = 0.1 to be optimal. However, the MC won't lock robustly with such low gain. We can imagine acquiring lock with higher gain, then reducing it for low-noise detection operation.
• Osamu also noticed a dramatic drop in the 60-Hz-harmonics noise when the damping gain was turned down.
• Osamu turned on the hardware dewhitening, and the sensor noise went down. But, the univ-dewhite board introduces an offset, so lock is not stable. Jay says something is wrong, and he and Ben will look into it (after the DSC re-wire).
• Alexei made some beautiful measurements of the MC finesse. He actuated on the laser current shunt, and observed the effect on the light intensity before, and after, the MC. Both magnitude and phase of the resulting transfer function are consistent with a finesse between 1400 and 1460 (design is 1550).
• We have found our missing WFS's, and Alexei installed them in the MCR beamline. A couple of Guoy phase telescope lenses are still missing, Alexei and Mike will hunt. Ben and Bob are almost done with the cabling for the the WFS ASC for the MC.
• Core digital suspension controllers (DSC), and other Electronics (B. Abbott, Heefner, Bork, Taylor):
• Ben has finished the wiring diagrams, system drawings, and cross connect list for the DSC re-layout. Ben and Bob are now in the process of ripping apart our DSC system, and rebuilding and re-wiring it.
• From Rolf: -- VME/PC digital suspensions (DSC): We ran into a problem with the dual Xeon processor PC. Something comes in every 64 seconds and causes a 200usec delay in our code. This is not seen when our code runs on a Pentium 4 unit. After several days of searching for the problem, we opted to finish the software and run on Pentium 4 boxes for now. We'll come back to the Xeon problem as time permits. At some point, we also want to investigate why our code runs slower on the 2.8GHz Xeon than on the 2.6GHz P4.

Otherwise, on the PC side, the code is complete and undergoing further testing. On the VME side, the DAQ for sensors/coils was added and tested. So, by early next week, we should be ready to move the system into place at the 40m lab.
• From Rolf: -- Digital IO WFS: The VME side is up and running. In the 40m lab version, this VME unit will also do the DAQ for PSL channels and any other DAQ channel connections in the IO area. Work on that part of the software is in progress.

The PC side is nearing the point of initial testing. This unit may show up at the 40m lab later than next week, but is not required for initial DSC operations (required MCL signal is already present from IO WFS VME).
• From Jay: --- 40 Meter ASC/LSC: System drawings have been started and should be complete by 4/4/03.
• Our SR785, which arrived broken, has been repaired by the manufacturer, and returned.
• Optical sensing (Smith, Ourjoumtsev, Goggin, Miyakawa):
• OPTICS PARTS LIST, Received parts: 5 CX-ST50 CCD cameras from Aegis for the ISC tables; insulating bushing from Accurate Screw Machine for the LSC photodiode assy; 1 q-switch E/O shutter from Fast Pulse; 3 Brewster's angle polarizers for input Faraday isolator and SPS anamorphic prism steering mirror; QPD riser mounts and insulator from ASCO.
• Orders pending: Input mode-matching telescope off-axis parabolic mirrors are expected first week in April from SORL; repair of two damaged tilt platforms expected first week in April from Piezo Jena; 1 q-switch E/O shutter from Fast Pulse.
• FARADAY ISOLATOR: In process of detailing the redesigned polarizer mounts for the Faraday isolator with Brewster's angle polarizers.
• OPTICAL LEVER ASSY: Reworked parts were received and are awaiting checking and assembly.
• IFO STEERING MIRRORS: Parts are awaiting checking.
• MODE MATCHING TELESCOPE: The wrong curvature spherical mirrors were received for the interim MMT; they were sent back, and replacement mirrors are expected in a few weeks. The COS autocollimator alignment equipment, which will be used for aligning the MMT, was presumed missing in action, but the shipping container from LLO was finally discovered in the 40 m lab masquerading as a scope stand. All the COS alignment equipment is accounted for except for a power cable and a 10V, 2A power supply to run the 4 W 940nm alignment autocollimator laser.
• Alexei has installed the EOS optics on the MCR and SP beamlines. He also installed CCD cameras on all the beamlines, and Bob is running video cables from them to the video switch in rack 1X1, and from the switch to the control room. Dennis will get the video switch state code and EPICS screens from the sites, and install them.
• Steve ordered a 100 mw YAG laser from CrystalLaser for optical sensing beam alignment.
• Facilities and vacuum envelope (Ugolini, Vass, Jones):
• The maglev TP1, which failed during last month's pumpdown, refuses to fail at the manufacturer. They are sending it back.
• Our second new dry scroll pump is making squeeking noises, just as the first one did before it failed.
• Steve regenerated the cryopump, and calibrated the new RGA filament.
• Steve and Bob installed several camera mounts and cameras that view the suspended optics, and new viewport covers and illuminators. We now have very nice views of the MC1, MC3, BS, and ITMx optics. The remaining cameras and illuminators will go in soon.
• South Annex Bake Ovens (Taylor, Cardenas):
• Bob is baking a chamber for Lee.
• Bob has a new set of clean tools for use in the South Annex cleanroom.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

 
Since our last weekly report, we have done some work re-estimating our
expected thermal noise levels based on previously reported coating
loss measurements (Harry, et al.) and on some relatively new calculations
of substrate thermal noise in mirrors with inhomogeneous losses
(Yamamoto, et al.). Below is a plot showing our current sensitivity, along
with these up-to-date estimates of both coating and bulk thermal noise.

LASTI (Zucker)

LASTI (Abbott, Allen, Ballmer, Coyne, Harry, Lantz, Mason, MacInnis,
Mittleman, Ottaway, Rankin, Rollins, Zucker)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MEPI:  After modifying pier #1 to stabilize the pier (we removed the
shims between the actuator housing and the pier base and replaced them
with plate. We put a freeze on plant and control modifications to test
the current system performance.  Much of this is documented on the
LASTI ilog on March 21.  We also did a robustness test in were the
controls were left running over night and for a full afternoon (during
which a time when there was pile driving at a nearby construction
site). The controls passed both tests without reaching any of the
programmed safety limits.  The data from these runs are being analyzed
to improve the performance.  We also did another round of high
frequency (>50Hz) resonance characterization and found that most of the
modes between 50-90Hz have significant pier rocking (on piers #2,3
and4) and so have decided to remove the base shims on the 3 remaining
piers.

HEPI:  We found that the load is tracking absolute pressure
fluctuations in the hydraulic supply line. The differential pressure
across the actuators is regulated and does not show these
fluctuations.  This effect is currently being investigated.  We are
preparing 4 geophones to be installed on the BSC optical table as
further witness seismometers in preparation for Brian Lantz's visit to
MIT next week.

Other notes:  Myron completed the geophone installation Thursday night
so we are good to go.

Rich Abbott will visit the week of 4/7 to help debug the pressure
controller and other electronics issues.

Stefan Ballmer started working with Rich, Jay and Jonathan this week to
build up a prototype VME crate so we can swiftly port the dSPACE EPI
control system into a site-compatible VME format for production. He is
stuck in a holding pattern scrounging for VME boards; we may have to
wait until S2 is over to borrow some locked-down site spares before he
can boot up. We have already cannibalized the LASTI DAQ crate.

Dave O is off to Australia for a grand tour, Gregg Harry is helping to
fill in while he's gone.

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)
 

Simulation and Modeling (Yamamoto)
* Three dimensional suspended mass model -- Virginio has summarized a
proposal about the improvements of the 3d mirror mass module, including
the violin and bounce modes. He is going to present it, together with
the implication in the LIGO simulation, to e2e group meeting tomorrow,
and it will be discussed how the 3d mass module will be improved.
 

* Radiation pressure -- Hiro implemented the radiation pressure effect
in e2e. It is being tested and will be compared with results in Bill's
and Daniel's notes.
 

* LLO seismic motion -- Matt is working to complete the matlab code to
convert the measured seismic motions to a parameterzed form e2e can use.
This is going to be used to generate the day and night LLO seismic
motion to test the lock capability at LLO.
 

* Simulation code -- Melody has been working to optimize the expression
parser code of e2e. This code is taking major fraction of SimLIGO CPU
time. Reasonable improvements, 10% to 80% reduction, has been achieved.
She is working on the improvements of the syntax of the parser.
 

* Installation script -- The installation of e2e was found to be faulty
and Ed Maros is looking into it.
 

* alfi5 -- Bruce has been working on the improvements of the junction
feature of alfi. The new version released is much easier to attach
junctions, and the maintenance of boxes with many connections are
easier with some automated cleaning feature.
Data stream named "BUNDLE" is maintained in modeler code as a distinct
data type, which is essentially an "unknown stream" for alfi. This
makes it hard to use BUNDLE in alfi, although it is a crucial feature
for complicated system like SimLIGO. Bruce has started working to make
alfi cake care of BUNDLE.
 

* Computers -- Two Intel boxes, 3GHz x 2 in each unit, have been
delivered by HPC and Virginio is working to make them functioning,
discussing with Larry and Stuart. One box, ren.ligo.caltech.edu has
been properly setup, but another one has some trouble. These are
intended to be used as a simulation crunching machine, and are placed
in WB 355 and WB 358.
 

LIGO Data Analysis System
 

Software Systems (Blackburn)
The frameAPI is nolonger coredumping randomly. There were two places in
the
code which were finally identified and fixed last week. This is
extremely
good news as we have been tracking down the causes of these core dumps
for
close to three months.
 

Several attempts at enhancing the performance of the frameAPI for
Solaris were
made. Most resulted in code that would segfault. The one that did
succeed was
inlining of the filters library, but the enhancement of 5% was
insufficient to
warrent the risk for an interum release.
 

Conversion to the latest version of SWIG has started. As of now, all the
%typemaps directives have been rewritten and work has started on
rewriting the
%exceptions directives.
 

Several new failure modes were discovered in the eventMonitorAPI this
week.
One was due to non-ILWD data being ingested from a putStandAlone
command and
the other was due to an exception not being handled. These have been
fixed.
 

A new menu has been added to the controlMonitorAPI to allow super users
to
test a subset of the jobs used in our software validation process. This
will
facilitate development and installation of LDAS.
 

Our struggle to improve the performance and reliability of the mpiAPI
has
continued with some significant progress this week. The last two
changes:
 

 *(PSE) Changed lamboot wrapper in mpiAPI to use a non-blocking
        model that allows concurrent lamboots and prevents lamboot
        from blocking the mpiAPI if a catastrophic error occurs.
 

 *(PSE) Added lam::killLamd function to mpiAPI to kill a blocked
        lamd involved in a lamd/wrapperAPI/mpirun deadlock. This
        allows the wrapperAPI to return an error message that will
        be properly interpreted by the mpiAPI and prevent the API
        from blocking indefinitely.
 

Have made the greatest improvements in reliability seen since the search
for the relatively high probability of jobs getting stuck in this API
began with the 0.6.0 release.
 

We evaluated MPICH releases to determine if it was worth considering a
migration away from our current MPI environment (LAM). It looks as
though
this would not be a good idea at this time, and in fact, the two may be
on a path that brings them closer together from the perspective of how
we
use them in LDAS.
 

We have annouced a target date to the LSC for the next release of LDAS
for
mid to late May of 2003. This release will primarily address the issues
that
have been identified during the science run.
 

We also assisted an LSC member in getting LDAS running on his laptop
computer
this week. It is very reassuring that this is still a possibility given
how
large LDAS has grown to be with each new release.
 

Philip Charlton:
 

The memory leak in the PSD action appears to have been fixed. I also
went
through the datacon to look for similar errors occurring in other parts
of
the code. There are a few, but none appear critical. I've noted them and
woiuld prefer to fix them in 0.7.0 rather than doing them in the next
sub-release, for reasons of risk minimization. Stuart noticed another
memory leak in the datacon when running Isaac was running a different
mix
of jobs in the overnight testing. I've obtained the new tests from Isaac
and will be comparing them with the old ones, and running both sets on a
standalone box to see where the leak is.
 

I've spent a significant amount of time this week and last week on a new
FCT paper with Rick Jenet and Massimo Tinto. We had committed to doing
this a long time ago but it was put off until Rick started his position
at JPL, and now it has been revived. I expect to be spending part of my
time on it over the next few weeks.
 

Hardware Systems (Anderson)
 

Caltech
-------
(Al Wilson)
 

* Installed a new video card in M90. The old one was having problems in
X
  window.
 

* M50 had a bad hard drive. Replaced and rebuilding system.
 

* Getting ready for the release of RH9.0. Also updating System Imager
  files for cloning nodes.
 

* Reset LDAS HW  temperature limits in Big Brother. Set to 5 (deg. F)
lower at Caltech.
 

(Stuart Anderson)
 

* Selected final 2 Beowulf node configurations for unit testing before
  ordering the large clusters. One on order and gathering quotes for
  the other.
 

* Negotiating with vendor(s) on remaining Fibre Channel equipment.
 

* Negotiating with vendor(s) on Gigabit Ethernet switches for the large
  compute clusters.
 

MIT
---
(Keith Bayer)
 

* Built LDR and have started electronic paperwork for certificates.
 

* PC Raid quote have been redone as my first choice vendor
  has had difficulty answering questions regarding our
  hardware - now going with 2nd choice vendor.
 

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

* Replaced two failed disks on t3-2 and rebuilt /frame10 file system.
 

* Configured ldas-jobs backup.
 

* Tape robot is in the LDAS room now. The installation is scheduled for
  Monday.
 

Hanford
-------
(Greg Mendell)
 

* The hard drive on the ldas-jobs box failed on March 14.  I replaced
  the drive and returned the box to service on the same day.
 

* Disk 2 on t3-7 failed on March 15 2003. This was handled properly by
  the t3 raid controller with no interruption of services to the disk.
Sun
  replaced the disk on March 18 2003.
 

* Raw S2 data has been continually streaming to Caltech on tape from
  the sites with no problems. RDS frames continue to be generated at the
  sites.  At LHO I fall behind from real-time by about 3 hrs per day.
  However, this is remedied by running a parallel copy of the createrds
  script to catch up when ever I fall more than a few days behind.
 

* Finished installing a computer on the GC and LDAS networks that will
  become a VPN gateway to LDAS at LHO.
 

* An L700 StoregeTek Tape Library system, tapes, and SAMFS licenses
  have arrived at LHO.  This will be installed post S2 to complete the
  data archiving scheme for the site.
 

* Two repaired beowulf nodes have returned from ASA computers.  I have
  not yet had a chance to reinstall them and rerun tests on them.
 

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)
Charlton:
The FCT group has commenced writing a new FCT paper with the intention
of submitting it to PRD. At the moment there are contributions from
Massimo Tinto, Rick Jenet and myself, and we will also be including
work done
by Jeff Edlund, Linqing Wen and Teviet Creighton.
 

I'm currently writing up the details of how the FCT results differ
numerically from the matched filter approach. This will also include
some results concerning the efficiency of recovering SNR using the FCT
versus matched filtering.
 

Mendell:
1) Attended the March 2003 LSC meeting at LLO. Working with the PULG
group to produce a draft S1 paper.
 

2) Generated 1 day of SFTs from S2 data.  Working to enhance and debug
the knownpulsardemod.loop.tcl script. A minor bug caused some SFTs not
to be generated, even when in science mode. The bug is understood and
can be easily fixed. Working to enhance to the script to request SFT
data from LDAS when there are gaps in the SFT data. This can be done
currently, but is only practical when requesting a small number of SFTs
Right now I'm working on what the practical limit is, but expect
enhancements will be needed to request data from 1000's of SFTs per LDAS
job.
 

Reilly:
Most of this week was spent on generating the appropriate
code get the estimated psds used for calculating the optimal
filter used in the stochastic data analysis. I was able to get
my script to run and write out the psd for each data stream,
the csd, and the coherence. The next step will be to make
maps of the psds and to generate a time average plot (at finer
resolution) of the coherence as a function of frequency.
I now have the psd results for each of the three ifo pairs.
I need to generate some matlab post processing tools to
create maps from these.
 

At the grid telecon this week I was reminded that I still need
to get them detailed information about the data products at
intermediate  steps of the stochastic analysis. I will try to do
this today or tomorrow.
 

Weinstein:
- gave talks on calibration and hardware injections
  for the burst group, at LSC meeting
- writing sections of the burst paper
- working with Fritschel and Landry on detector sections
  in the upper limits papers
- preparing new hardware burst injections proposal
- attempting to take scimon shifts from the
  Caltech remote control room
 

Shawhan:
* Examined some of the events which pass the S1 inspiral upper limit
analysis
    pipeline with the largest SNR.
* Worked with Anand Sengupta on his method to determine contours of
constant
    minimal match level when laying out a bank of templates for the
coarse
    stage of a hierarchical inspiral search.
* Spent some time exploring the effect of choice of prior on one's
confidence
    in claiming a detection of a nonzero value of an event rate, in a
    Bayesian analysis.
 

Yakushin:
LDAS data analysis:
1) Made a presentation about the current state of waveburst DSO at the
LSC meeting.
2) Modifying waveburst to allow less strict coincidence.
 

General Computing (Wallace)
MIT:
(Keith)
-Patched gc network boxes with updated OpenSSL/OpenSSH distributions
-Worked on Win2K patch problems (lost 1 pc laptop due to patch
 incompatibilities)
-Ordering extra circuit for gc computer room
-Sfs - secure nfs is working well on Linux but won't run on Solaris
 
 

Livingston:
(Shannon)
-This week has mostly been spent picking up from the LSC and getting
projectors,
laptops, and other items ready to ship.
-Set up a printer in the new building.
-Looking into a networking problem on my dhcp server.  The problem has
been
fixed, but I am still trying to determine the exact cause.  If the
second
network interface is shut down on this machine, the problems go away.
-Started cleaning up the communications room.  Most of the unnecessary
items in
that room have been moved to a lab in the new building.  I have to go
through
all of this stuff and throw out some of it.
-Ordered a new blade 2000 workstation from Sun for the new building.
-Tracked down a false positive from a network security alert from LSU.
 

Hanford:
(Christine)
- Started installing base software configuration on a new laptop.
- Tried to fix a Windows 98 boot problem on an old laptop.
- Started looking at buying gigE network equipment before June.
- Set up some new user accounts, modified some others.
- Helped visitors with computer problems and other misc. user support.
 

CIT:
(Mike)
-Performed multiple tests to get vrvs working again after an upgrade to
their current package. (Ligo Seminar Meeting)
-Set up a meeting for a demo of PDM-works.
-The PC in the conference room had some hardware problems. I fixed this
problem and it is now up and running once again.
-Worked a lot this week upgrading Solidworks from 2001+ to 2003, which
has been
a long process. I loaded 4 computers and have two more to load.
-Started loading one new PC for Barry Barish and two old PC's to swap
out
the back house of Wilson House.
-This week there was a lot of tech support that included printing
problems,
hardware, software and a few networking issues.
 

(Lisa)
- Built a wireless AP for Wilson House.
- Monitored the spam filters on the mail servers and made appropriate
changes.
- Built gacrux as a development web server
- Setup a new account and fixed problems with a visitor's account.
- Restored a directory tree for Calum.  This was in relation to
incompatibilities with solid works versions.
- Attended a meeting regarding PDMWorks, a data vault for solid works,
that is
being considered for purchase.  There are some serious security issues
with this
product.
- Resolved a problem with the 800 number and the modem pool.
 

(Veronica)
- LIGO website: various updates. Looking into a setup for capturing
digital video footage and compressing it into format ready for
streaming.
This will come handy as early as next week for the upcoming LIGO
seminar.
- LSC website: posting the bulk of the March meeting transparencies, as
well as several updates to the website.
- CaJAGWR website: posted seminars updates, a video/slideshow combo of
last seminar.
 

(Bruce)
-(BS) Ilog maintenance.                         (0.5 day)
        - Added users and distributed slightly updated version (presents
          lists in better order) to the 4 sites.
 

(Larry)
-The purchasing related work has really gone up this past week. The
CISCO order
for Hanford is finally going through, it took a little verbal
communication to
get the problem cleared.
There are a number of orders in and going in to replace broken notebook
and
desktop computers.
A couple of maintenance contracts are still being hammered out.
Misc. supply items and replacement parts are also on order.
-Worked a number of security issues and forwarded one to Albert and
Gary to take
care of. Along this same line I want to reiterate that the GC usage
policy needs
to be followed. Passwords and accounts are not to be shared. Those here
at
Caltech need to keep an eye on systems in their offices and if you
would like to
lock down your system, contact Ed Chargois.
-Working with Albert on getting the new network WAN connection in at
Hanford.
-Built a new system and internal web service.
-Working on a new schedule to perform a internal computer security
audit.
-As a note we are blocking 300-500 unwanted e-mail messages per day. So
far
we've had only a few false positives. Not all unwanted e-mail will be
blocked
but it looks like a good percentage of it is.
 

Advanced LIGO Development (Shoemaker)

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