Weekly Report for Week Ending April 10, 2003

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  April 14, 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:  POST S2 COMISSIONING PLAN

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights
 

LSC Issues (Weiss)

no report

LIGO I Construction/LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

LIGO Weekly Site Telecon (Lindquist)

There was a very brief site teleconferences held on Thursday, April 10, 2003.  The following issues were among those discussed:

Construction Contingency Status: Florence reported the current status.  Including actual costs and commitments to dat (Florence indicates that the current open commitments are pretty firm) plus Albert's budget for computer hardware, there is only a couple of hundred thousand left to spend.  Some of that has been pretty firmly allocated (e.g., storage building at Livingston).  We will continue to monitor and report again next Monday.

Meanwhile, Livingston is preparing several Change Requests for stuff.
Dial In for Meeting Access: It was proposed that we return to a fixed telephone number and participant code for the weekly site teleconference.

The list of current actions revised to reflect the status of open actions assigned through April 10, 2003 may be found at ACTION LIST.

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

• Provided  assistance to the Detector Group (J. Romie) with packing, shipping, and preparation of US Customs Documentation for the Gin Gin Suspension Assembly to the University of Western Australia (J.Jacob), 4/9/03. Account Number P213291.
• Provided assistance to the Detector Group (J. Romie) with packing, shipping, and preparation of US Customs Documentation for the Electronic Controller Module and supporting hardware to the University of Western Australia (J.Jacob), 4/10/03.  Account Number P213291.
• Provided assistance to the Project Office with the preparation of a Purchase Requisition to Intersect Systems International to relocate a New Hire (B. Johnson) form Atlanta Ga. to LHO.  Account Number LIGO. DIR 1.1.1 NSFLIGO.FY02ON.
• Providing support to the Caltech Property Division by assisting in the campus wide inventory.

>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

Continued to monitor the submittal of LSC presentations.  According to the various session tracking forms, only 10 presentations haven't yet been submitted.  Reminder e-mails were sent out and these final stragglers will hopefully come in shortly.

Reviewed the Laser Safety Program document with Bill for final changes and finalized several laser safety forms.  These forms will be extracted from the document and prepared as stand-alone templates for web posting by the end of the week.

Converted several redesigned forms (process travelers [4], DCN, and technical paper cover sheet) into templates.  These will be added to the template area on the LIGO web page.

Processed several ASP, Aspen, and Moriond presentations.

Continue to address the myriad of submittals with problems, ie. numbering, revisions, formatting, duplicates, etc.

• 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

• Processed another handful of LSC documents that continue to trickle in.  Electronic document activity continues at a steady pace.  Created file folders, sorted and filed documentation.  Began working on organizing old charge account files again.  Eventually all these files will be scanned and converted to electronic form..
 
DCC Activity


WE 04/10/03	Packages	Faxes
In	38	55
Out	16	36

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

Press here for ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY DATA .

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

• Working on Change Order #20 to MIT, which is a rush and adds funding for six months.  Working on completing the change orders on the subcontracts for Sydney Meshkov, Star Engineering, Excel Group, Excel Engineering.
• Preparing the Change Order for Landscape Horizons for landscape maintenance at LHO.  Working on Change Order 14 to University of Florida.
• Working on the computer orders in Gina's absence.  Placing three computer orders for Stuart Anderson to Foundry Networks. Completed the computer orders to ASA and Knurr.  Have quite a few one shot purchase orders that need to be placed and completed.
• Placing and reconciling pcard orders..

No report this week.

From: Florence Kaufman <fkaufman@ligo.caltech.edu>

• Worked on updating Construction Report to reflect Change Requests and planned spending, based on information provided by the Sites and the Detector Group.
• Discovered that stipend to Visitor had been incorrectly classified as Payroll, thus incurring additional charges for Benefits and Indirect Cost.  Request has been submitted for correction.
• Worked on flow chart for petty cash procedures.
• Responded to request from Project Accounting for budget realignment required for billing to the NSF.
• Provided Stuart Anderson with additional information regarding payments on Sun Microsystems Purchase Orders.
• Adjusted Budgets on Operations Report for Staffing Adjustments per CR-030002A Revision A.
• Calculated adjustment required for MIT charges, due to change in the way MIT account numbers are mapped to CIT account numbers, per information provided by David Shoemaker.  Correction will be reflected on the Operations report for April 2003.

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

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

• AdLIGO Optics Coating Procurement: Letter of Intent, soliciting industry's interest in our forthcoming procurement for optics coating development, is in LIGO/LSC review.
• AdLIGO Mechanical Structures Procurement: The RFP was released and is in review by potential vendors. Proposers conference is scheduled end of April at Stanford Univ.
• Univ. of Florida: CO No.14, adding funds through 2006 in partial support for two new scientists (to be in residence at LLO), was released to Purchasing.
• Freq. Devices: CO No. 3, extending the performance period through Sept. 30, 2003, was released to Purchasing.
• MIT: CO No. 20, allocating second half of FY'03 funds, was released to Purchasing.

SUPPORT (Baldon, Lloyd, Tischler)

>Irene Baldon

• Processed the paper work for five (5) new/revised trips.  There are ten (10) 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 sixteen (16) Expense Reports and there are three (3) 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.  Completed one (1) Expense Report for a traveler who has his own P-Card.
• Reconciled fifteen (15) 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 April 7, 2003.  Arranged five (5) new teleconferences; and entered three (3) new reservations on the LIGO Calendar.  Also 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 31.
• 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..

• Completed newsletter article for March/April.  Meeting with L.Turner, B.Tyler re: laser eye exam documents.
• GAF will deliver press kit inserts to be sent to MIT, LHO, LLO

Advanced LIGO (Frey)

Weekly Advanced LIGO Project Controls meetings were not held this week.  Next meeting scheduled for April 15 to discuss LDAS, DAQ, and Support Equipment.

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)

• Finished work on revisions / corrections to the Adv. LIGO cost profiles.
• Met with David Shoemaker via phone on Wednesday and we went through the entire schedule.  Action items for each subsystem were determined and meeting minutes are being prepared.
• Prepared a Budget Summary as requested by the NSF.  Met with Phil and Gary on Tuesday to discuss.
• 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.
• Prepared cost book data in Excel for ACIGA as requested by David Shoemaker.
• 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.

• Met with Eric and we agreed on a course of action until more information is available.

• Direction regarding plan revision is pending.

• ROSTER DATABASE:
• Working with Larry and Irena 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.
• Providing assistance to Irena on a as needed basis.

• COST BOOK DATABASE:
• BK is continuing work on action items.
• Started work on preparing format for hard copy version to be submitted for NSF reviews.

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 Construction project quarterly report for the end of February was scheduled to be submitted at the end of March.  Irena has been working on this, but has been distrtacted by a number of other priority issues: LSC, contract activities for seismic isolation, core optics, etc.  We have discussed priorities, and the quarterly report is still slipping.
Dave Beckett and I have been gathering and editing materials for a brochure discussing the current state of LIGO and the plans for Advanced R&D.  Drafts have been sent to Governement Publications folks.

The following Change Requests were discussed and approved during the meeting of the LIGO Executive Committee on April 7, 2003:
 

Request No.	Description	Requester	Date
CR-030002 Revision A	Adjust FY 2003 Operations Budgets to reflect actual staffing levels	P. Lindquist	April 2, 2003
CR-030003	Implement an OC3 Wide Area Network Link fro Hanford via ESnet	A. Lazzarini/L Wallace	April 2, 2003
CR-030005	Furnish laboratories in the new Laboratopry Building at Hanford	R. Savage	April 2, 2003

Draft minutes have been prepared (LIGO-M030077-00-P) pending the receipt of materials from Albert and Rick.  Basically the task managers are authorized to proceed.

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

• Various personnel/payroll /HR related work.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

The LLO Incident Report and the Accident and Incident Investigation Report forms can now be accessed at the LIGO Internal Bulletin Board under Templates and Forms.

During the process of completing the update and revision of the LIGO Laser Safety Plan, each of the two eye examination clinics was contacted and asked to review the revised LIGO laser eye exam protocol and to verify that they could conduct all of the eye exams required.
The Caltech Safety office was advised by the Center for Occupation Health that they are no longer doing laser eye exams.  With this disappointing news, Barbara Cruz (of the Caltech Safety Office) did volunteer that they had one other contract medical clinic that she would contact to see if they could do the laser eye exams. Their response was yes, they could, and would be interested in doing these eye exams for LIGO.

Once again, we have two clinics that will do the laser eye exams in accordance with the requirements of the LIGO Laser Safety Plan and the ANSI Z136.5-2000.  LIGO QA has contacted both clinics and reviewed with them the eye exam requirements to assure that there are no misunderstandings regarding what is expected by LIGO.  The two clinics are: Pasadena Eye Medical Group and St George Medical Clinic (new for LIGO).  Both are near to Caltech.  Linda Turner has also prepared new eye exam request forms that will be "administrated" (mostly) by Ryan and Cindy.

The draft of the revised LIGO Laser Safety Plan will be distributed for approval early next week.

Meanwhile, the updated and revised LIGO Vacuum Compatibility, Cleaning Methods and Qualification Procedures (LIGO-E960022) specification is now posted on the LIGO Internal Bulletin Board for easy access by all of LIGO.  Please take a look and use the forms included. The forms included in this specification will also be assigned LIGO form numbers and posted separately for convenience.  The specification still needs the formal sign-off and release process completed.  Please advise Helena Armandula, Linda Turner or Bill Tyler if there are corrections or changes still needed.

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

Summary of S2 Science Run Activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory (compiled by M. Landry)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This last week of S2 has been mainly quiet, with stable IFO performance and typical duty cycles
and inspiral ranges.  As the run closes out, we are making final diagnostic measurements.

Cheryl Vorvick investigated how hardware offsets were preventing the WFS loops from being closed
and sometimes knocked the 4k out of lock.  See the description and the annotated plot at
http://blue.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ilog/pub/ilog.cgi?group=detector&date_to_view=04/08/2003&anchor_to_scroll_to=2003:04:08:16:06:40-Vorvick

The last 24 hours have seen little science-mode activity on all three interferometers.  The
mother of all injection runs took place last night; see Peter Shawhan's elog at :
http://blue.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ilog/pub/ilog.cgi?group=detector&date_to_view=04/10/2003&anchor_to_scroll_to=2003:04:10:09:23:02-pshawhan
In addition to the typical battery of burst, stochastic and inspiral waveforms, new ringdown
waveforms and simulated pulsar signals (monitored with Greg Mendell's online LDAS DSO) were
injected into all three IFOs.  Once astrophysical hardware injections were completed, the third
and final S2 calibration run began at both sites, occupying the instruments much of Thursday.

Duty cycles for the week were as follows:  H1 (71%), and H2 (62%); these numbers have been
limited somewhat by the recent studies noted above.

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

Interferometer Operation During S2: The LLO interferometer continues to operate routinely during the night, but poorly during the day due to seismic noise. The cumulative duty factor is around 37%. Injections Wednesday evening (conducted simultaneously at both sites) went very well, with all three interferometers locking throughout the period.

LDAS admin: Received tapes for the new tape robot, ordered and received two UPS for the new tape robot, received two racks for the new beowulf
nodes. LDAS data analysis: still working on single pixel clusters and coincidence with time-frequency window in waveburst. Took two owl scimon shifts on Monday and Tuesday nights. (Igor)

LDAS: Received a quote on some dual processor Athlons to see if it was even worthwhile to evaluate them for the next beowulf. However, it does not look feasible.
Waiting for the run to end to put the VPN between sites in place. I expect it will go smoothly. (Shannon)

CDS: Tested Matlab 'DataGet' program on solaris and got hongyu to fix a bug. Ported Matlab 'DataGet' program to Linux after porting D.J Bersteins "libtai" library with LIGO utc-to-gps and gps-to-utc functions. Compiled and tested on RH linux 8.0. Working on a Post S2 list of things to do. Preparing to change london to user access and make it a pure web server. Also adding a new machine "river" with individual user accounts. Chethan

Seismic Amelioration:  I have been looking at schemes to lighten the offload springs for the EPI system. I have been able to reduce the weight by 7% without taking an appreciable hit on the factor of safety. (from 3.81 to 3.76) The ultimate hope is, of course, to drive the first frequency as high up as possible. I will start the mode shape analysis early next week. (Marcel)

GC: Put a call into Foundry to talk about getting quieter fans for the switches at the end stations. The support person I spoke to suggested just disconnecting the fans. He says there is a temperature sensor in the unit that will shut it doown if there is any danger of overheating. I am not sure how confident I am in this solution, but we will probably try it after the run is over. Working with Jonathan on some as yet unsolved Pcard problems. This is creating a hassle for him. After talking to Ciro at Caltech, it looks like in the long run more people will be affected by this. Another round of the usual - License purchases, security patches, etc. (Shannon)

Other: There will be an end-of-run party and send off celebration for Rana on Wednesday afternoon at LLO with hot crawfish and other traditional food. Everyone is invited. Andri Gretarsson is a father! His wife and his new daughter Cassiopaeia are doing well.
 

Detector/Technical Support (Coyne)

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

• Conor gave a well-received LIGO seminar on QND and squeezed-light work at Australia National University.
• Suspended optics:
• Steve helped Helena in preparing an optic for GinGin.
• Steve and Helena are suspending one ETM this week, and will do the 2nd ETM next week. The two recycling mirrors will follow. All four suspensions are ready to go.
• Jay got us a new stand-alone SOS controller for this work.
• Bob is ready to bake the optics after gluing.
• PSL and ISS (O. Miyakawa, B. Abbott, R. Abbott, F. Nocera, D. Ugolini, S. Vass, C. Mow-Lowry):
• Conor and Dennis made some significant changes to the beam going into the frequency reference cavity (FRC). Conor fixed several problems with the beam through the AOM; he increased the RF drive to the AOM through the VCO, aligned the beam as close as possible to the PZT side of the AOM, and discovered that the beam was not being double passed, so he fixed that. The power going to the FRC was thus increased from 5 to 17 mW. This required the power to the reflected RFPD to be attenuated by a factor 3 to compensate.
• He and Dennis then re-aligned the beam to the FRC, and fiddled with the mode-matching lenses. The visibility peaked at 50%. This is much lower than before, but before, the reflected beam was not being focused on to the reflected RFPD; it was only sampling the inner TEM00 part of the reflected beam. They will investigate whether the limited visability is due to poor mode matching or due to HOM's coming from the laser (which probably could use a tune-up). This is important, because HOM's from the laser may be the cause of the relatively poor transmission through the PMC.
• Osamu then played with the FSS gain, and remeasured the in-loop frequency noise. It was 3x worse than before, with a huge peak at 30 kHz (the cross-over frequency for the slow and fast FSS loops) and a pi phase shift at low frequencies. Osamu, Conor and Dennis will go over all the changes that have been made to the FSS, and try to figure out what has gone wrong.
• Then, they'll move on to the PMC, and, if necessary, tune up the laser.
• Ben's new stands for the ISS PD are in the machine shop being fabricated. They should be done early next week.
• Ben has sent in the PCB for the ISS PD transimpedance heads, and the satellite boxes. The heads should be here by Friday, and the boxes' PCB should be back by Tuesday. The whole thing should be ready to go to Livingston for testing, the week of the 21st.
• Suspended mass mode cleaner (Ugolini, Miyakawa, Vass, Abbott): The Digital Suspension Controllers are in the process of being rebuilt, so there's been no work on the MC.
• Core digital suspension controllers (DSC), MC WFS, and other Electronics (B. Abbott, Heefner, Bork, Taylor):
• Ben and Bob should be finished with rewiring the DSC system by the end of this week.
• New DSC controls, from Rolf:
• Most of the new VMIC 2Gb/sec reflected memory boards arrived. The PC and VME code was updated to make use of these new cards, which involved writing some new driver code.
• The suspension control software is complete. We will go with two Pentium 4 PCs (each running 4 optics) and one VME crate, which does the I/O and DAQ for 8 optics in the initial installation.
• The IO WFS software is complete. Last task was to port the digital signal processing part to a PC, which completed Tuesday.
• Since we had all the parts in our development lab, we hooked all the systems together and ran timing tests, injecting timing signals at various points and checking them on a scope. All of the timing looks good.
• We are now in the process of moving the whole system into the 40m lab. With any luck, we should up and running next week.
• Rolf and Alex Ivanov have installed one of the 2 controls linux PCs for the new DSC system (a third will be needed for the ETMs), and a VME pentium to serve EPICS channels (this will move to a dual-CPU linux PC, once the EPICS port to Linux is complete). They are in process of commissioning the software. The fiber runs are temporary (while we wait for longer ones), and a few 2Gbit reflective memory boards are still on order and expected any day now.
• Mode cleaner (IO) ASC and LSC: Jay reports that rack wiring and installation is 90% complete. Remaining VME components (3 penteks) will be installed by the end of this week. The controls linux PC should be in, soon. Current holdup is lack of long fibers to connect the reflective memory loops to the DSC, DAQs, and controls PCs.
• Main IFO ASC and LSC: Jay reports that the rack and wiring diagrams are 90% complete. All that needs to be added are any QPDs used for beam centering.
• Jay, Ben and Bob have met and agreed to running and labelling cables they way it is done at the sites. A log book will be maintained for any changes to cabling, and any cables that are not plugged in correctly will be summarily removed.
• Optical sensing (Smith, Ourjoumtsev, Goggin, Miyakawa):
• OPTICS PARTS LIST, Received parts: Input mode-matching telescope off-axis parabolic mirrors were received from SORL, Guoy phase lenses for IMCR were received from CVI, replacement power connector for the 4 W 940 nm laser was received from Applied Optics.
• Orders pending: Repair of two damaged tilt platforms expected 4/15 from Piezo Jena; 1 q-switch E/O shutter from Fast Pulse; 1 Brewster's angle polarizer for SPS anamorphic prism steering mirror from KLC; Brewster's angle polarizer mounts for the Faraday isolator are in process; alternative spherical mirrors for MMT are expected from CVI in a few weeks.
• FARADAY ISOLATOR: Awaiting the polarizer mounts. Should get them next week. Then, final checkout of the system, extinction ratio, etc. Then, on to Bob for cleaning and baking, and installation.
• OPTICAL LEVER ASSY: Reworked parts were received and are awaiting checking and assembly.
• IFO STEERING MIRRORS: Awaiting one PZT tilt platform. Should arrive next week.
• MODE MATCHING TELESCOPE Replacement power connector for the missing power cable for the 4 W 940nm alignment autocollimator laser was received, and a power cable was made by Paul R. Received parabolic telescope mirrors, will do alignment week of 4/14. Then, on to Bob for cleaning and baking, and installation.
• Alexei has made more measurement of the properties of our first electro-optic shutter (EOS), but managed to burn out the HV pulser in the process (at a lower HV than it was supposed to be rated for). We have 2 more, and the broken one will be sent back for repair.
• The EOS transmitted power follows the predicted cosine curve, but peak transmission occurs at 50% more HV than expected. This may be due to the way Alexei has wired up the q-switch, and he is trying to get the attention of folks at the site who've done this before.
• Meanwhile, Alexei is preparing a 2nd EOS assembly. A third awaits a back-ordered Q-switch. And, two more EOS controllers are in progress at Wilson House.
• Facilities and vacuum envelope (Ugolini, Vass, Jones):
• Dennis is getting ethernet cables and hubs into the remaining racks that need it, including our auxiliary rack 1X1. He noticed that 1X1 will have to be rebuilt, because the rails are in the wrong place, so that the door won't close.
• Dennis has set up the screens for the video switch in our auxiliary rack, and is setting up the EPICS cpu in that rack to control it (and the EOSs, mechanical shutters, illuminators, etc).
• Steve is installing the remaining camera mounts and viewports.
• The maglev turbopump came back from the manufacturer, who couldn't reproduce its failure. Steve will put it back in when he gets a chance.
• South Annex Bake Ovens (Taylor, Cardenas):
• Bob has finished some OSEMs for Hanford, and shipped them out.
• Bob is doing some airbaking of aluminum pieces for Ken Mailand, to try to darken them for use as baffles.

Bob has readied all the ovens for baking the suspended optics, and the MMT and Faraday isolator.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

no report

LASTI (Zucker)

LASTI (Abbott, Allen, Ballmer, Coyne, Harry, Hardham, Lantz, Mason, MacInnis, Mittleman, Ottaway, Rankin, Rollins, Zucker)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
 

PSL (Jamie)
--------------
Jamie continues to improve his AdLIGO intensity stabilization
prototype. With Rich Abbott's help, he implemented the latest
rev's to the Lightwave power supply and current shunt actuator;
these greatly improved the stability and reproducibility of
his results. He also has installed an air current shield around
the PMC and the sensing and out-of-loop monitoring photodiodes.
 

EPI Design (Ken)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
A modal analysis of the HAM crossbeams and stiffeners was done to
duplicate the existing structure and to see the effects of additional stiffening. A similar modal analysis was created
for the BSC piers. The top of the BSC piers currently sway at approximately 25 hz. Structual modifications are being modeled to eliminate this problem.
 

EPI Electronics (Rich A, Jon, Rich M., Mike)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Went through the substantial amount of redlines and rev's to the drawings now comprising the HEPI and MEPI systems. Jon will propagate
these back into the design CAD files and organize them under a
project drawing tree to better position ourselves for flat out
production when it all hits the fan.
 

EPI VME Controls Port (Stefan)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Stefan has collected enough guidance from
Jay Heefner, Rich Abbott, Dave Barker and Alex Ivanov to build a block
diagram and scarf VME modules and CPU's. He has started to assemble a new VME crate directly above the existing MEPI dSpace control system
and is setting up its software infrastructure while we wait for the remaining hardware modules.
 

HEPI Characterization (Brian, Corwin, Bill, Dennis, Rich A)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Lantz and Corwin Hardham are visiting from Stanford, making
improvements to the loop and better characterizing resonances of the
HEPI system. Documentation for the upcoming review has been started.
 

Rich Abbott and Brian traced the previously reported spurious
pressure fluctuations to electrical pickup; it is now unclear
whether the measured physical effects themselves were
real or an artifact. Steps to cure the problem have
been taken and the lessons rolled into design considerations for
the next generation pump controller.
 

MEPI (Rich, Gregg, Rich A, Bill, Dennis)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We are finishing up another round of system ID after last week's plant
modifications. These consisted of changing the spacers between the
actuator housing and the piers from shims to plate, and adding
additional clamps at this interface. The modification have reduced the
rocking in the actuator housing that was observed in most of the modes
above 50Hz. There is still some residual pier rocking which, in at least
one mode, is actual movement of the pier (i.e. it could be connected to
the ground more firmly). There is still one troublesome mode at 51.3Hz,
which consists of a flexing in the stiffening beams and rocking of the
gullwings. Ken now has an FEA model which almost matches the
observations, the predicted frequency being 52.4Hz. The model claims
that this is the second lowest frequency mode; we have not observed the
predicted lowest frequency mode and are currently investigating this. In
any case, with an accurate model it should be much easier to predict
the effects of the various stiffening or damping measures under
consideration.

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)
E2E Physics meeting
--------------------
We (Matt,Virginio,Malik,Hiro,Biplab) discussed the linear noise model,
the 4k Schnupp asymmetry problem, mode-matching and setting of reflection-angles
for various optics in SimLIGO.
 

4k Schnupp asymmetry problem
------------------------------
(Matt) I conferred with Daniel Sigg on a possible solution to the 4k
 Schnupp asymmetry problem.  I proposed a control system that utilizes
 the non-resonant sidebands to produce a signal for the common mode servo
 and the pick-off for PRC and MICH.  This eliminates the need for REFL_I
 in detection mode, thereby circumventing both the concerns about critical
 or indeterminant sideband coupling with improved mode-matching, and the
 emerging REFL_Q problem. This proposal has not undergone detailed testing
 (e.g., model work), but Daniel agrees that it looks promising.
 

LLO LVEA seismic analysis
---------------------------
(Hiro) Sany Yoshida summarized his analysis of the LLO LVEA seismic motions
 and wrote a note, which will be submitted as a DCC note.
 This analysis, motion and coherence as a function of frequency and
 separation, provides a very useful input for the e2e modeling of the
 LLO. Also included is the correlation between the seismic motion and MC
 output beam pointing. Due to the placement of MC mirrors, MC ASC and LSC
 cannot control the output beam direction. This will be analyzed by e2e.
 

Seismic model
---------------
 Hiro received the matlab code from Matt to create the coherence matrix
 for the seismic simulation.
 Hiro started using LLO data with the help from Sany Yoshida and Doug
 Lormand to create the e2e module to simulate the LLO seismic motion.
 

Linear Noise Model in Matlab
------------------------------
(Matt) I built linear noise model (for use in Matlab) with modular
 structure similar to that of E2E. This model allows for subsystem reuse
 (e.g., for suspension systems) and multiple versions (e.g., for different
 IFOs and changing electronics). I plan to use this model in conjunction
 with SimLIGO in an attempt to develop a more detailed understanding of
 the noise spectra seen at the sites.
 

Mode matching in recycling cavity
----------------------------------
(Biplab) Investigated if changing the input beam waist position could
 reduce the total mismatch effect in a not-yet-hot-enough recycling cavity
 and reduce the generation of Sideband higher order modes. The effect
 turned out to be very small due to almost "opposite" nature of mismatch
 at two mirrors involved (ITM and RM) in a range of plus-minus 10% of
 Rayleigh range for the waist-position [Change in this range has negligible
 effect on Carrier build-up].
 

Radiation pressure module
---------------------------
(Hiro) More test was done and was committed to CVS. This will be included
 in the next release. Those who can access e2e CVS can just cvs update to
 get this function.
 

Code development and maintenance
---------------------------------
(Melody)
 - Tested the optimizations using SimLIGO. Currently cleaning up the code
   and getting ready to hand it over to Hiro.
 -  Working on a new if-then-else construct for the modeler.
 

(Ed Maros) Started working on some installation issues that are present
  with RH 8.0 distributions.
 

Alfi
-----
(Bruce)
 - Continued cleaning up and redesign Ports and Junctions to be based on
   the same superclass, the same one that Bundler will also then be
   subclassed from.
 

New Linux Box - "Ren"
----------------------
(Virginio) The e2e 1.7.11 version has been compiled in the linux box ren
 using the e2e account. Tested modeler with the latest SimLIGO version and
 it worked. The e2e home folder is accessible from the e2e group.
 The binaries are located into the ~/e2e/bin folder (the e2e folder is a
 symbolic link to the latest version).
 

LIGO Data Analysis System
 

Software Systems (Blackburn)
We are currently testing the code base in CVS for a new interim release of LDAS
in the 0.6.xx series which will resolve the problems identified in the Science
Run associated with the frameAPI and mpiAPI. These fixes will improve the LSC's
ability to conduct scientific investigations with LDAS prior to the next full
release of LDAS (0.7.0) scheduled for late May. This new interim version will
be placed on LDAS-TEST after the test suite is completed on LDAS-DEV for a full
weekend of testing. We will push the new version to the sites after the Science
Run completes early next week so as to not interfere with the ongoing activities
associated with the run.
 

A bug was discovered in the LDAS account extension code used to quickly
provide a three month extension to accounts about to expire. This bug was
isolated and fixed in the managerAPI after tracing through the secure web
page cgi, the controlMonitorAPI server and finally the managerAPI.
 

The migration to the latest version of SWIG (Simple Wrapper Interface Generator)
used by LDAS to interface C++ code with TCL code continues this week. This new
SWIG has changed significantly and much of the interface code must be reworked.
It is necessary for us to migrate to this new SWIG in order to migrate to the
new TCL/TK release (which fix several issues we have with TCL). Currently, we
have succeeded in carrying a dataPipeline through to the eventMonitorAPI with
the new SWIG. This upgrade will be added to CVS after the interim release.
 

The XML C++ Parsing I/O library (Xerces) upgrade has almost been completed this
week. This required significant modification to the lightWeightAPI and a minor
change to the eventMonitorAPI to complete the upgrade. Testing with the new
Xerces library has completed on a standalone LDAS system and will be added to
the CVS after the interim release.
 

A new username/password validation interface is being added the the managerAPI's
emergency socket to be able to log user actions and enforce disclosure of the
user modifying the system.
 

A three hour meeting was held this week to review the state of problem reports
in the LDAS problem tracking system (GNATS). There were 209 current problems
filed in the system at the start of the meeting. Many actions items were
assigned in the meeting and the list has been reduced by close to 40 problem
reports since the meeting with many more likely to be resolved in the near term.
 

A new menu in the controlMonitorAPI will allow super users to test LDAS systems
from a GUI interface. This new menu is based on the system level tests current
carried out in our preparation for a release and requires organization of the
test scripts and the Make distribution rules in the LDAS build process with the
controlMonitorAPI's client software. A meeting between the tester, builder and
the code developers to sort out the integration details was held this week. The
new menu will be part of the 0.7.0 release of LDAS in late May.
 

A new (smarter) script is being developed by Philip Charlton to produce the
RDS frames on the LDAS-CIT system. This new script resolves many of the failure
modes in the scripts developed in the past for generating RDS frames. It is
expected to go on-line by Friday of this week, allowing the generation and
hence the transfer of RDS data to the Tier II centers to begin in full.
 

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

* Got ldas-archive running again.  There seem to have been two failures.
  One was a stuck 9940 tape of the form we'd seen before (if the leader
  block isn't seated right originally, the tape won't load correctly).
  The other was a hang of the T3 housing the data for /site (testsite).
  As best I can tell, this caused the entire FC network to hang in such a
  way that when ldas-archive was rebooted it couldn't see any FC
  devices.  Once the T3 was power cycled, it came up and began RAID
  reconstruction.  The fact that this completed successfully (2 hours
  later) leads me to believe that there wasn't a real hardware failure.
  Once the T3 was back up (online for both FC and Ethernet), a cfgadm -c
  configure c4 allowed ldas-archive to see all of the FC devices and to
  start archiving data to tape again.
 

* Manually checked 100+ 9940 tapes to make sure that their leader blocks
  are seated correctly.  This involves ejecting them from the silo,
  examining each one and then reloading them.  I'm going to continue this
  at intervals until I've checked all the rest of the prelabeled tapes,
  as they didn't receive much inspection when they arrived.
 

* Locked some S2 data on disk for Julien Sylvestre to improve
  performance.  This involved manually staging the data and then running
  release -n on the files so that their disk space would not be
  released.
 

* Got back to setting up a SAM-QFS multiwriter test.
 

(Al Wilson)
 

* With the arrival of the new Beowulf nodes. I have been testing the new
  release of systemimager 3.1. in the preliminary test it looks like it
  has been improved and will work great.
 

* Also I am testing kickstart and install procedures for the new release
  of RH9.0.  The testing has just started and will continue over the next
  couple of weeks.
 

* Two new racks are assembled in 215. They are awaiting the single rack
  unit Beowulf nodes.
 

(Stuart Anderson)
 

* Successfully finished the 72hour memory test and copper Gigabit Ethernet
  performance tests on the 3 beowulf candidate test nodes.
 

* Submitted the purchase request for the large Beowulf clusters
  (420 dual-processor nodes).
 

* Submitted the purchase request for the large Beowulf Gigabit Ethernet
  switches.
 

* Continuing to refine the configuration and pricing for the remaining LDAS
  servers and disk storage, including a backup frame builder disk cache.
 

MIT
---
(Keith Bayer)
 

* Working up power requirements for NW17-017.
 

* LDR reinstallation received certificates (personal/host/service).
 

* Patched linux pc's.
 

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

* Received tapes for the new tape robot, ordered and received two UPS
  for the new tape robot, received two racks for the new beowulf nodes.
 

(Shannon Roddy)
 

* Received a quote on some dual processor Athlons to see if it was even
  worthwhile to evaluate them for the next beowulf.  However, it does not
  look feasible.
 

* Waiting for the run to end to put the VPN between sites in place.  I
  expect it will go smoothly.
 

Hanford
-------
(Greg Mendell)
 

* The primary sys admin focus continues to be keeping tapecontrol,
  createrds, and LDAS running at LHO.  Two createrds scripts are currently
  running to catch up and the S2 rds frames should be completed within a
  few hours after the end of S2.  The last shipment of tapes with S2 raw
  data will go out to Caltech on Monday, April 14.
 

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)
Weinstein:
- Continuing to work on burst paper, figures, etc.
- Prepared list of burst HW injections.
- Looking at the HW injections.
 

Mendell:
1) Continuing to generated 2048 s calibrated SFTs for H1 for S2 data
between Feb 22 2003 and the present.
 

2) Finished the first version of a command line tool called getFstat
that streamlines running knownpulsardemod DSO jobs that output the F
statistic (requires an ldas password and ligotools to run).  The script
will allow nonexperts to run my DSO.
 

3) Working to analyze the 6-8 hours of pulsar hardware injections done
last night (Apr 09 2003).  Posted preliminary results to the pulgroup
email list.
 

Reilly(Caltech)
I spent the end of last week doing shifts at Livingston.
This week I worked with Joe and(Albert on some Stochastic
data analysis issues. Eventually I convinced myself of the correct
way to create the plot of the average coherence for the
full S1 production data set.  Finished the H1 H2 plot yesterday.
The H1 L1 and H2 L1 finely resolved coherence have now
been calculated. Expect plots later today or tomorrow.
 

At the griphynligo  telecon yesterday it was decided that
future changes in the stochastic DSO are not significant
enough to prevent moving forward with work
to use grid technology for stochastic analysis.
 

Yakushin:
LDAS data analysis: still working on single pixel clusters and
coincidence with time-frequency window in waveburst.
 

Shawhan
 

* Studied the effect of the epoch veto in the inspiral upper limit analysis; found that we
were making a mistake in implementing it.
* Took scimon shifts at Hanford.
* Did a bunch of hardware signal injection studies.
 

Lazzarini:
Have almost completed the study of the effect of systematic calibration errors (variations in *alpha*) on the estimated value of Omega_GW for the stochastic background analysis. This will allow us to complete the error analysis section of the paper.
 

General Computing (Wallace)
MIT:
(Keith)
-Getting extra 30Amp circuit brought into gc computer room
-Spec'd out/ordered laptop for Ken Mason
-Ordered spare computer equipment parts
-Investigated printer troubles on pc
-Attended phone conference for 'neoteris' firewall product w/ LHO
 
 

Livingston:
(Shannon)
-Put a call into Foundry to talk about getting quieter fans for the
switches at the end stations. The support person I spoke to suggested
just disconnecting the fans. He says there is a temperature sensor in
the unit that will shut it down if there is any danger of overheating.
I am not sure how confident I am in this solution, but we will probably
try it after the run is over.
-Working with Jonathan on some as yet unsolved Pcard problems.  This is
creating a hassle for him.  After talking to Ciro at Caltech, it looks
like in the long run more people will be affected by this.
-Another round of the usual - License purchases, security patches, etc.
 
 

Hanford:
(Christine)
- Attended a web conference and demo for a remote access firewall
product.
- Solicited quotes from Cisco, 3Com and Foundry for the GigE network
upgrade.  Met with the Foundry rep. at our site for a walk through of
the network.
- Helped with a new laptop software install.  Ordered another Matlab
license for Linux.
- Dealt with some purchasing problems.  Misc. user support.
 
 

CIT:
(Mike)
-Loaded a new Dell PC for the optics lab; this included loading all General
Computing software, security and setting up user accounts.
-Swapped out Paul's old computer with a new Dell computer and loaded all
updated GC software, plus I transferred his old data over and configured
his printers.
-Started loading Ben's new computer, this is a new Dell running XP and
loading all GC software plus some additional software packages that I have
to load.
-Started loading a new computer for a student who is going to be
assigned to be working at Wilson House. This computer is also running XP.
-Setup a computer for a Dr. Cantley a visitor from Glasgow. This computer
needed to run some engineering packages such as Solid Works and Ansys.
After I started loading it turned out that the Operating System was
corrupted, therefore I had my work cut out to get this workstation running
correctly.
-Setup a meeting for LIGO seminar that included more testing to clear up
the output of the audio. This last meeting went pretty well, in regards to the
audio/video.
-Worked some more on the new replacement server for PICTOR; I am still
getting this ready to swap out. It looks like I will be swapping this
server real soon.
 

(Veronica)
- LIGO web: installed a webpage for the APS April meeting.
Most time was spent working on the draft for the Advanced LIGO website.
Posted updates to Internal Bulletin Board.
Working on a DCC issue of adding a new document category to the search
engine.
Posting updates to various webpages. Processed a video for one of the
Aspen presentations.
- LSC website: posting the March meeting talks as they arrive. Posted
updates to the website.
- CaJAGWR website: updates to the website.
 

(Lisa)
- Spent most of my time working on the replacement server for
www.ligo.caltech.edu.  There is an issue with how user url's will be handled
that needs to be resolved.  There is also a question with the mount points for
document access.
- Looked into a problem for CDS regarding regular hangs they are seeing on a
system.
- Did root partition dumps.
- Patched the mail servers against the latest sendmail exploit.
- Rebooted all the servers.
 

(Larry)
-Worked a couple of security issues. Most dealing with patches and getting the
e-mail header information needed to block some of the spam.
-Worked a number of DCC issues. Most were files having permission problems.
Worked on some of the DCC cleanup that Linda asked for.
-Put in the WAN connection PR for Hanford. The change request was approved and
the PR was put on motion soon after. Gina now has the paperwork and has made
initial contact with the IPS provider for the WAN connection.
-Helped a number of people out with PC problems. So far most of the problems
have been rogue processes. Killing the process and restarting it has fixed the
problem in most cases. Also, went through to see where we need to upgrade some
of the older PC's with units being turned over to GC from LDAS in the July time
frame.
-Started working a ansys setup issue but I've been side-tracked and will not get
back to it until next week.
-Worked a number of procurements. Resolved a couple of maintenance issues and
have a few more to go. Placed a number of orders for computers and related
items.
-Installed another UPS and have the router connected to it. The unit has been
tested several times to make sure it can handle the load from the router and so
far it has passed the tests.
-Worked a couple of web issues but nothing major. The move to the new web server
has started. Users will soon be asked to start moving their home web pages to a
new location, that announcement should be made next week, as soon as a few
logistical items are worked out.
 

Advanced LIGO Development (Shoemaker)

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