Weekly Report for Week Ending May 1, 2003

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  May 5, 2003 will be:

 (Meeting time: 10:30 am Pacific Time)

Open meeting 10:30 - 11:30

• Announcements
• LSC Issues (Weiss)
• Comments on Weekly Report
• WBS 1 LIGO I Construction (Lindquist)
• Field Change Orders/Contingency Liens/Change Requests
• 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)
• WBS 3 and 4  Advanced R&D and LIGO II (Shoemaker)
• CHANGE CONTROL BOARD/TECHNICAL REVIEW BOARD SESSION AS NEEDED

Special Items:  MAIDEN WIND FARM PROJECT (RAAB),  NSF REVIEW OF ADVANCED LIGO (DAVID), SEI AND EPI PROJECTS (COYNE)

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights
 

LSC Issues (Weiss)

to: LSC Executive Committee
from: R. Weiss April 29, 2003
concerning: Notes from the LSC Executive Committee meeting April 25, 2003

LIGO I authorship guidelines
----------------------------
The list of LIGO I authors is being prepared and will be posted
once completed. ...

Policy for and status of the "upper limit" papers
-------------------------------------------------
It has been more difficult to pull together the papers than many of
us had imagined. Alan Wiseman has suggested that we do not impose unlikely
to be achieved deadlines since these tend to produce incomplete
drafts for which there has not been enough preparation. Instead he
now suggests the following steps:

Policy
------

1) Submission of only completed drafts
2) Place these drafts in the DCC for 1 week to allow comment by the LSC
3) Provide time (weeks) to respond to the comments and suggestions
4) Give the iterated drafts to the reviewers for comments and recommendations
5) LsC Executive committee discussion based on the reviewers recommendations

The current status of the papers:
---------------------------------
Stochastic: Work on the assignment of random and systematic errors to the
results. The paper is very close to completion.

Inspiral: Monte-Carlo simulations in process. Parts of the paper are being
rewritten.

Burst: A first draft was completed and is currently with the reviewers for
comment.

Periodic: The data for H2 is being rerun to account for the timing errors.

LSC organization of GRID computing
-----------------------------------
Patrick Brady reported on activities of the LSUG (LSC Software Users Group) and
GRID computing. The group has begun to write software to be used on the GRID for
ringdowns and periodic sources. LSUG is composed of people across the collaboration
including the LIGO Laboratory and is specifically dealing with short term scientific
computing issues to bring the GRID into current data analysis. Al Lazzarini
argues that we need also to look at longer term problems associated with GRID as
is being done by the GRIPHYN collaboration in which the LSC plays a role. The
issue is how to bring the two groups together naturally. The consensus was that
as long as both groups contain membership across the LSC the coupling will
occur and that there is not a serious problem.

DISCUSSION OF A SCIENCE RUN BETWEEN S2 AND S3
----------------------------------------------
The seismic retrofit in Livingston is now most likely to be installed after
the beginning of the New Year 2004 so that the ability to operate both day
and night in Livingston will not be possible until the spring of 2004. The S3
run is intended to give both high sensitivity and high duty cycle and will
not be carried out unless Livingston is able to operate during the day. There
are shorter term goals that could be met with a science run in the fall 2003
that would be consistent with commissioning. A discussion was started about the
aims of such a run and what would be desirable. These include:

 * a factor of 10 in reach (factor of 2+ in sensitivity)
 * close to equal sensitivity in all three interferometers
 * more stationary noise spectra and reduction in impulsive events
 * more consistent and constant calibration with time

The criteria for such a science run will be further discussed at the airport
meeting on May 1 and a decision needs to be made to allow planning for the
commissioning steps.

LSC ROLE IN THE NSF REVIEW OF THE ADVANCED LIGO PROPOSAL
---------------------------------------------------------
David Shoemaker has contacted members of the LSC who could help in
the presentations to be made to the NSF review panel that will meet in
Pasadena June 11-13.

Peter Saulson suggested that the review include a formal plan of how the
LSC contributions to the Advanced LIGO detector hardware will be managed.

LIGO Data on the GRID
-----------------------
Al Lazzarinni raised the question of access to LIGO data on the GRID by
computer scientists not interested in performing LIGO data analysis but
interested in learning how to manipulate large data sets and remote computations
on the GRID. He has written a template MOU between the LIGO Laboratory and the
computer science groups providing rules for such data use and protection of the
LIGO data.

Author Naming Conventions for the S1 and S2 papers
---------------------------------------------------
After a brief discussion it was decided to conserve space in the
journals by using only initials and last names of the LSC authors.

Next LSC Executive Committee meeting
-------------------------------------
Friday May 23, 2003 at 11AM Eastern time

LIGO I Construction/LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

LIGO Weekly Site Telecon (Lindquist)

There was no site teleconference on Thursday, May 1, 2003.

The list of current actions revised to reflect the status of open actions assigned through April 17, 2003 may be found at ACTION LIST.

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

• Provided assistance to the Detector Group (M. Smith) with packing and shipping of an Optical Instrument to the LIGO Hanford Observatory (D. Cook) via Fed-x.  Account Number P204324.
• Provided assistance to the Detector Group (G. Billingsley) with packing and shipping ten (10) Absorption Samples to Stanford University (R.Route) via Fed-x. Account Number P204296.
• Provided assistance to the Low Frequency Noise Suppression Section (R. DeSalvo) with the Preparation of a Commercial Invoice, US Customs Documentation, and Transportation Authorization for the Seismic Attenuation Tower to the University of Pisa (Prof. F. Fidecaro) via Centra Worldwide Inc.
• Provided assistance to the Detector Group (G. Billingsley) with packing, shipping, and US Customs Documentation for three (3) Glass Wafers to CSIRO (Dr. B. Oreb) via Fed-x. Account Number P204296.

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

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

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

No report (illness).

• 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

• Packaged and shipped 17 boxes of press kit materials to LHO, LLO, & MIT.
• Continued to address and process the problematic documents from the list that I created that have accumulated in the DCC OUT.

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

Press here for ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY DATA .

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

• Finishing up subcontract change orders that were begun last week when I was out on vacation.  Placing and reconciling pcard orders.  Received a revised rate sheet from Excel Engineering including the rate for IT support.
• The Institute is being audited by the Equalization State Board for California sales taxes going back from 1999 through 2002.

• Closely working with Janeen Romie on Advanced LIGO Suspension.
• Processing lots of Construction/Operations Orders.

• Worked on preparation of monthly financial reports.
• Prepared schedule on status of Construction Funds.
• Updated list of potential liens on Operations Funds.

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

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

• RFP for SEI Mechanical Structure: Proposers Conference was held at Stanford. In attendance were seventeen participants including representatives of our potential industrial partners. As a result of discussions we are revising our procurement plan and extending the proposal preparation period by two weeks. All interested firms have been advised accordingly.

• Efforts continue to properly and carefully spend the remaining construction funds.  All items purchased with construction funds must be either completed, or delivered and in place by June 30, 2003.   Outstanding items are LDAS computers, the LLO access gate, the LLO storage building, and the modifications to the LHO Laboratory Building.

• The petty cash checking account at LHO is going to be replaced with the use of convenience checks tied to P-cards.   LIGO will be the only oganization on campus that will be allowed to use convenience checks for anything other than travel.

SUPPORT (Baldon, Lloyd, Tischler)

>Irene Baldon

• Processed the paper work for ten (10) new/revised trips.  There are seventeen (17) 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.
• The 2003 SURF Program will be held from June 16th thru August 22nd.  This year LIGO/Caltech will have twenty (20) students, LIGO/Hanford will have seven (7), and LIGO/Livingston will have three (3), with four (4) going to Pisa, Italy.  I have started ticketing the thirty (30) coming to one of the three (3) LIGO sites and Pisa will be handling the four (4) going there.
• Completed five (5) Expense Reports and there are fifteen (15) 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.  There are nine (9) reports more than 30 days old at this time.  Completed one (1) Expense Report for a traveler who has his own P-Card but was having difficulty.
• Reconciled thirty-eight (38) 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/problems in regard to their P-Card and/or reconciliation.
• I continued to collect a few EFT stragglers and hope that more will come.  This program will definitely start May 1, 2003.  You will be receiving notification by e-mail that CT-XXXXX in the amount of $XXXXX is being direct deposited to your checking/savings account.  And if I originated your Expense Report I will be copied so that both you and I will be able to confirm the amount and then close our records.  If you have any questions/problems please contact me immediately.
• I continue to do MIT's travel to the sites for installation activities and also to assist them wherever possible.

• Processed the usual invoices, purchase requisitions, payment requests, and change orders.
• Initiated four P-card orders and completed two.
• Tracked and followed up on invoice problems.
• 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.

• Quarterly Newsletter Design meeting and follow-up, NSF Review of Adv. LIGO meeting details, Follow-up on items from last week's report.

Advanced LIGO (Frey)

Out of the office on 5.02

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

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 making changes to the Adv. LIGO baseline schedule per my meeting with David Shoemaker on April 9.
• Continued preparing revised budget sheet data.
• 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.
• Attended SUS meeting regarding group co-ordination due to P-parc funds pending release of June 03.
• Responded to questions / correspondence regarding Adv. LIGO SUS planning and costing.
• 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.

Cost Book Tool.

• ROSTER DATABASE:
• Completed execution of the mailing list export from the roster database.  Added automated process to database that just requires the push of a button to generate the 7 mailing lists needed by Irena.
• BK is continuing work on action items.
• Continued input of supervisor, dept., and specialty codes.
• Providing assistance to Irena on a as needed basis.
• Finished modifications to the Roster Database for generating an authorship list and issued a successful test to Albert L.  This is inclusive of converting a MS Word DOC file to a LaTex compatible TEX file.
• Finished work on creating a report for Irena, containing LSC Council Members and their mailing addresses.

• COST BOOK DATABASE:
• BK is continuing work on action items.
• Continued to 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.

I am scheduled to meet with Barry on Monday to discuss the NSF request for a cost increment for Operations in FY 2009 associated with operating an Advanced LIGO Detector--2009 is theoretically the first year of operations with Advanced LIGO.  I have started a model for projecting FY 2009 operating costs, and I have requested additional input from Dennis, David, Fred, Mark, Albert, etc.  However, the model is quite crude and there is little basis at this point for deviating significantly from straight escalation except for the fact that we will have installed an additional $100 to $200 million worth of equipment.

Paraphrasing a note from Tom Lucatorto: Very good news! The Office on Multidisciplinary Activities (OMA) and the Office of Informal Education (OIE) at NSF have agreed to support a LIGO video at the level which should enable us to end up with an excellent product.  OLPA (Cliff Braverman) is formulating a plan for the project including a very brief description of the project along with a time line just to give the funding sources some idea of the general outlines. We conducted a conference call with Cliff, Tom, Jill Andrews and myself.  The current plan calls for publication of a statement of work on the web in about two weeks and a total of 19 weeks for selecting a vendor.

I will need to be in close contact with the schedule for commissioning and running the detectors to permit us to take advantage of opportunities for filming interesting activities (e.g., equipment installed in the vacuum systems, people working in the portable clean rooms, actual operation, etc.)

The following change requests have been submitted for consideration by the LIGO Change Control Board (possibly during the Executive Committee Meeting scheduled for Monday, May 5, 200:
 

CR-030008	Furniture for the auditorium lobby, interaction area underneath the skylight atrium in the OSB, and on the second floor interaction area of the new laboratory/office building.	M. Coles	April 29, 2003
CR-030009	Cabinets, Case Work, Furnishings at Livingston	A. Sibley	April 29, 2003

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

• Various personnel/payroll /HR related work.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

The annual safety audit of LHO was completed during the past week.  The main topic on the agenda was the status of the laser safety interlock system installation and operation at LHO (including some discussion/comparison to the LLO interlock system).  The LHO system design and operation has evolved successfully to the point where LHO is now planning to make the beam shutter feature operational.

One aspect of LHO laser safety that requires more work has to do with developing procedures for tracking the removal and replacement of port covers.  One thing that has been done is to apply labels and extra warning hardware to some ports and covers to identify those locations that have a higher risk of laser beam exposure than others (however, all ports are still considered "dangerous" and will always require appropriate safe guards).

Generally, LHO continues to display a very good safety program.  There were some new action items generated. However, most of them are related to items that LHO was already working, but needed some guidance/input from the audit team.

Contact with Physical Plant was made to start the process of obtaining cost estimates for a fire suppression system for the LIGO Server Room in Bridge Annex.
 

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

Summary of Commissioning Activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory
(compiled by D. Sigg)

The automated power reduction system was put on the 4K ifo. This will allow
us to increase the power incident to ifo after we have acquired lock and after
the auto-alignment system has been engaged. This should avoid problems
due to angular misalignment induced by radiation pressure. Elog at:
http://blue.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ilog/pub/ilog.cgi?group=detector&date_to_view=04/25/2003&anchor_to_scroll_to=2003:04:25:16:59:37-rick

The 2k POY beam has been characterized. It is far off and our earlier hope
that it may make it to the table with a larger vacuum viewport turned out to be
wrong. It looks like a fix will require to adjust the second (small) mirror of the
beam reduction telescope in order to hit all following steering mirrors. Elog at:
http://blue.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ilog/pub/ilog.cgi?group=detector&date_to_view=04/25/2003&anchor_to_scroll_to=2003:04:25:18:55:37-daniel

The trigger photodetector has been installed and calibrated at the ISCT4 port.
This should show us the maximum power dumped at the AS port, when the ifo
looses lock. This in turn will determine, if we can operate without the EO shutter.
Elog at:
http://blue.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ilog/pub/ilog.cgi?group=detector&date_to_view=04/26/2003&anchor_to_scroll_to=2003:04:25:23:40:02-peterF

In preparation of higher power operations the transimpedance gain of the QPD
sensors has been reduced. Elog at:
http://blue.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ilog/pub/ilog.cgi?group=detector&date_to_view=04/27/2003&anchor_to_scroll_to=2003:04:27:17:18:40-daniel
A status update of this work is elogged at:
http://blue.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ilog/pub/ilog.cgi?group=detector&date_to_view=04/28/2003&anchor_to_scroll_to=2003:04:28:23:22:12-peterF
Work to replace the lossy PMC is ongoing:
http://blue.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ilog/pub/ilog.cgi?group=detector&date_to_view=04/30/2003&anchor_to_scroll_to=2003:04:30:19:47:22-malik

Acoustic noise studies continued on ISCT4. Elog at:
http://blue.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ilog/pub/ilog.cgi?group=detector&date_to_view=04/30/2003&anchor_to_scroll_to=2003:05:01:11:44:32-akiteru

A new large tape library is installed by ldas this week. Ben Johnson has joined us
to support and maintain the ldas infrastructure.

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

Commissioning: New FSS board was installed on Thursday and Friday (Rich Abbot, Joe Kovalik and Andri Gretarsson). Due to the fact that LLO picks off the reference cavity beam after the premodecleaner, whereas LHO picks their beams off before the premodecleaner, the board as delivered had to be modified to compensate for this. The new board has a unity gain frequency of about 300kHz and is quite prone to latch in an oscillatory state that sometimes requires breaking of the ref. cavity lock to quench. Since the new board was installed we have had trouble getting the common mode servo running properly and that is the current focus. A new scheme to do wavefront sensing feedback on the modecleaner by feeding back on the mirrors is being implemented. The pitch loop on MC2 has been closed and the other degrees of freedom will follow. (Joe and Valera)

The main interferometer WFS loops were closed last week with low bandwidth. (Gaby, Rana and others). Since then we have been trying to increase the bandwidth and track down suspicious behavior in WFS 3. (Gaby, Andri and others).

The new Frequency Servo board was installed. It has a 300 kHz unity gain point which is higher than the 100 kHz unity gain point of the previous board. It does, however, go into oscillation and saturation more easily than the previous board. A new scheme to do wavefront sensing feedback on the modecleaner by feeding back on the mirrors is being implemented. The pitch loop on MC2 has been closed and the other degrees of freedom will follow. Joe Kovalik
 

CDS: The following is my progress report for the week of May 1st. 2003,
1) Fixed the Mode Cleaner WFS Servo software bug, now all test points work properly.
2) Developing Reset Scripts for CDS Target machines, to streamline target reboot process.
Ash

LDAS admin.
1) Visited Caltech for LDAS workshop and P-card training.
2) Replaced failed disk in T3.
3) Ordered 22 batteries for T3s.
4) 6 days ago we apparently had some power outage that rebooted some of
beowulf nodes. LDAS repaired itself and seems to be running fine now.
5) Learning DB2 performance tuning. Managed to reduce the run time of a
typical query for a waveburst table by a factor of 100 by creating the
right index.
6) Experimenting with databases at LLO and LHO talking directly to each
other through VPN.
7) Received network switch and new beowulf and datacon.

LDAS data analysis.
1) Made a few minor improvements to waveburst: a) allow user to insert
an arbitrary comment/label per set of jobs; b) search_summvars table now
contains detailed information about number of different kinds of events
in different channels.
2) Improving the TCL script to handle LDAS failures and retry a job
several times before giving up.
3) Together with Sergey Klimenko submitted a proposal to the burst group
about using waveburst for S2 analysis.
--
Igor Yakushin
 
 

LDAS:
The LDAS VPN is up and in the process of being tested. Igor's database tools are working well according to him. Everything so far is working as expected. I still need to mirror the configuration to the backup VPNs, but this will take some coordination with people at the other sites. At some point I would like to try a recompiled kernel under vmware and see if it improves the VPN performance.

GC:
Excel has made some requests to run an IIS server here so that they can interface with the buildings control computer since they are taking over maintenance of that system. I have expressed my strong objection to IIS but if they need it, I can work some solutions for them. This box will have to be heavily protected from the Internet for obvious reasons.
Added some new accounts along with the general everyday maintenance of the servers.
Working on a quote from Sun for a 280R to replace our web server. Sun was supposed to contact me a week ago and has not.
Hooking up more network connections in the new building.
Fixed a couple of email problems with the script that monitors the cryo pumps and notifies various people by email or cell phone. Some people were not getting the alerts. Allen's problem happened to be witht he cell phone company.
Quickly approaching the time when I will be forced to restructure out network and create actual DMZ and internal areas on our firewall. This will be a major headache for all, but I think it will have to be done this year.
 

Seismic Amelioration
Here is the weekly update for the seismic amelioration efforts:
Work on the modal analysis is virtually complete and I am working on a
report for review by Dennis Coyne, Joe Giaime, and Brian Lantz. Upon
completion, I will post it on my home web page for all those interested.
Marcel

OTHER:
Harry Overmeier and his wife have a brand new baby girl. Her name is Sarah (sp?).
Approximately 70 teachers and school system administrators used the LLO auditorium Tuesday for a program to recognize new parish teachers that have completed their probationary teaching period. The teachers had a brief talk about LIGO and a tour of the LIGO facility as part of the overall program for the day.
Construction work to place a traffic control gate at the entrance to the LLO property from the access road has begun.
 

Detector/Technical Support (Coyne)

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

• Suspended optics:
• Steve and Osamu rehung both ETMs after baking. Two more pairs of EQ stop screws are being cleaned and baked, and then these two suspensions will be ready for installation.
• Steve and Helena have bonded the guide rods and magnet standoffs to our PRM and SRM, and they're ready for balancing.
• All 4 of these remaining suspended optics should be ready for installation by the end of next week.
• PSL and ISS (O. Miyakawa, B. Abbott, R. Abbott, F. Nocera, D. Ugolini, S. Vass, C. Mow-Lowry):
• Conor and Dennis re-aligned and mode-matched the PMC; the transmission is around 60%.
• They have searched for power loss between the laser output (8.9 W) and the PMC input (6.2 W). Most (all?) of the loss is in the HWP and beam cube used to attenuate the power. It can attenuate down to zero, but when opened up, has poor transmission. They will investigate aligning it better.
• Conor will attempt to measure the FRC pole by dithering the laser current shunt.
• The mods to the FSS have reportedly caused problems at LLO, so we are putting our plans for implementing those mods at the 40m on hold until the dust settles.
• Now that Conor has fixed the double-passing of the beam through the AOM, Osamu will re-measure the VCO noise.
• Ben and Flavio have assembled and functionally tested the new ISS PD. It seems to work fine, and Flavio has brought it to the PSL lab for further testing and incorporation into the ISS there.
• 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 is now in the midst of troubleshooting and fixing the the DSC rewiring. The AA chassis still has problems, and 3 of 8 blown whitening boards have been fixed. Sander and Todd are on it. Hope to have the system up and working any day now!
• Once everything is back up, it will be interesting to see whether we need to re-diagonalize all the MC suspension controllers. Dennis will show Conor how to do it.
• Bob has just about finished wiring the mode cleaner WFS system (1Y2). Some issues were found with the high voltage wiring, but it will be done today.
• Rolf and company have all the code up and running in 1Y2, for the mode cleaner WFS ASC, analog LSC inputs, and fast PSL and MC signals.
• Alexei continues preparation for commissioning the MC WFS system. We have reviewed all the new screens that Rolf and company have put together, and are addressing problems and issues.
• From Rolf: Continued installation of 40m systems. All controls now installed and under test. One problem has been that the suspension VME software would die (or appear to) after anywhere from 5 minutes to 5 days. We installed a bus analyzer and found that the new 2Gbit network card was hanging up, continuously replying on the bus with Target Device Not Ready - Retry. Unfortunately for us, this is not a bus error, therefore the processor PCI interface chip will forever retry and not return to the code. We found this was happening on a read cycle after we did 16 writes to the card, but again, not always as it can run for some time. We contacted the vendor and after sending a few bus analyzer traces to them, they were able to recreate the problem in their lab and are working on it. In the meantime, by changing our code from writing to the network card to instead command the card to become the bus master and read from the CPU memory, we are able to get around the problem.
• The fast PSL and MC signals have been moved from 1Y7 to 1Y2, but the latter only digitizes at 2kHz. We are considering keeping the MCF signals in 1Y7 to keep the 16kHz sampling. Rolf is checking whether it's possible to read in a few channels at 16kHz.
• Alexei and Bob have measured the MC WFS RF cables; they are all the same length to 1 cm. They fixed some problems with HV to the WFSs, and can now see signals from the WFSs.
• Lisa continues to learn how to develop EPICS screens and software, practicing on the 1X1 video switch.
• Ben will arrange for power to the little racks that hold the EOS electronics.
• Optical sensing (Smith, Ourjoumtsev, Goggin, Miyakawa):
• OPTICS PARTS LIST, Orders pending: Repair of damaged tilt platform S/N 70416 with drive amplifier from Piezo Jena expected delivery 5/1; 1 q-switch E/O shutter from Fast Pulse; 1 Brewster's angle polarizer for SPS anamorphic prism steering mirror from KLC.
• FARADAY ISOLATOR: Mike and Alexei aligned the Brewster's angle Faraday isolator and measured >96% transmissivity (dominated by non-AR-coated internal surfaces of the polarizing beam splitter), and (much?) better than 4e-4 extinction ratio. Alexei beam-scanned the input and output alignment beam and found no evidence of beam distortion. It is now being disassembled for cleaning and baking.
• OPTICAL LEVER ASSY: Assembly on hold.
• MODE MATCHING TELESCOPE: IR autocollimator alignment equipment is set up and working. SORL Primary mirror was manufactured out of specification, 0.12 too short; however, a standard 0.125 spacer washer has been purchased to adjust for the short length. Mike is now aligning it, and it looks good.
• PZT VAC STEERING MIRROR Awaiting repair of damaged PZT tilt platform. Mike will get the wiring requirements to Jay.
• Mike and Steve will look into installing a camera and in-vac mirror to view the beam as it exits the mode cleaner and enters the Faraday Isolator; probably the tightest squeeze in the vacuum chambers.
• We need new pulsers to operate our electro-optic shutters properly, so we will trade in our 3kV models for 6kV ones (more money, of course).
• Facilities and vacuum envelope (Ugolini, Vass, Jones):
• Steve began pumping on the main volume with the newly-reinstalled maglev turbopump (TP1), and saw a burst of SO2 on the RGA. It died away, and appears to have been a coincidence. Bursts of SO2 have been seen before, and they die away afer a few hours of pumping. The maglev is working fine.
• The east end ion pump (EEIP) has a bad fan on the controller, explaining why it was running hot. Steve will fix it.
• Still waiting for a replacement controller board for cold cathode gauge #3 (CC3).
• Still waiting for replacement parts for the HEPA filter fan on the PSL enclosure.
• Steve has developed Carpal Tunnel syndrome. He brought in the "Ergo-lady", who gave him many suggestions. She will bring in the chair-and-desk guy, who will probably tell us that all our chairs need replacing.
• Speaking of which, Steve will look into getting new desks and chairs for the expected hoardes of summer students and visitors.
• South Annex Bake Ovens (Taylor, Cardenas): Bob is ready to clean and bake the MMT and Faraday isolator, as soon as they're fully checked out.

Osamu has had a significant breakthrough in understanding the dual-recycling summation cavity for E2E, and thinks that the remainder of the development work will be straightforward. He says that Hiro is happy.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

We have made some substantial progress at the TNI since our last report. Stan Whitcomb came down to the lab and helped us do some diagnostics on the instrument, mostly looking at coherences between NAC and SAC, between the arm cavities and the mode cleaner, and between signals tapped at different points in the mode-cleaner servo. We came to the conclusion that one prominent noise source in the instrument was laser-frequency noise coming from electronic noise in the mode-cleaner servo. After doing a quick, back-of-the-envelope calculation, we decided that turning up the power would reduce this electronic-noise-limited laser-frequency noise by a factor proportional to the increase in power. Akira Villar, our new graduate student, built a new notch filter to take care of a 22.897kHz body mode that had been cropping up in SAC's output mirror, and he built a couple of voltage dividers to cut down on the electronic gain in the arm-cavity servos. (Many thanks, yet again, to Flavio Nocera for help with the notch filters!) We wanted to cut the electronic gain in the arm-cavity servos down so we could increase the photodiode response and, hopefully, reduce the total noise. (Again, back-of-the-envelope calculations showed that this should help.)
 

The notch filter worked nicely, and we were able to go to full power in the instrument for the first time in almost a year. This is mostly thanks to the new, very robust servos we developed last year. Many months of hard work improving the duty cycle and acquisition time of the instrument, with no gains in sensitivity to encourage us, are finally beginning to pay off! Bringing up the power did improve the laser-frequency noise, and that alone improved the sensitivity in the arm cavities by about a factor of two around 1kHz.
 

Unfortunately, we were unable to increase the discriminant in the arm cavities. The voltage dividers worked well in isolation, but depending on where we placed them in the loop, they "ate" phase, dynamic range, or even gain depending on which element they fed a signal into. We will have to make changes to the arm-cavity servo filters on a lower level to get room to increase the discriminant.
 

Bringing up the power in all three cavities had one, unexpected benefit. The coherence between NAC's and SAC's error signals got cleaned up at high frequencies, essentially becoming unity between 10kHz and 60kHz. This allowed us to implement common-mode rejection and bring the total noise floor of the instrument, the difference between the two arm-cavity signals, down by a factor of ten over a wide range of frequencies. The differential-mode noise is almost completely flat at 2e-18 m/rHz from 1kHz all the way to 60kHz. This is exactly what we should expect, based on the electronic noise in NAC's photodiode. Increasing both NAC's and SAC's discriminants should bring this noise level down.
 

LASTI (Zucker)

LASTI (Allen, Coyne, Mason, MacInnis,
Mittleman, Ottaway, Rollins, Shoemaker, Zucker)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
 

MEPI Progress (Ottaway, Mittleman, Rankin, Zuo, Nayfeh, Allen)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We installed and tested two damping systems on the HAM support
structure.
 

A tuned mass damper was placed on one of the HAM stiffening beams in order to damp the 51Hz vertical motion.  The results can be seen on the LASTI ilog for April 28. The peak in the relevant modal transfer function (Y-direction) was reduced by a factor of 5.
 

Two piezoelectric damping packs (originally marketed for
high-performance snow skis) were glued to the other HAM stiffening
beam. So far these do not seem to be very effective at reducing the 51Hz
peak.
 

We have also been working on the low frequency characterization of the
HAM plant and control system.
 

Dave O did a crash test on MEPI when the system was set to an
offsett of 0.2 mm and dropped. A peak velocity on the optics table of 0.5 mm/s was observed. This was predominantly at the stack mode frequency of 1.6 Hz.
 

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

-------------
LDAS Software
-------------

Work continues on supporting RDSs with multiple interferometers. With
the basic coding complete, testing is being done with LDAS raw frames
to ensure backwards compatibility and to validate new functionality.

The output directory for RDS creation can now be protected to prevent
multiple users from creating RDSs with the same pattern.

Progress has also been made in supporting the newer version of autoconf
and automake. For the 0.7.0 release of LDAS, these tools will be
upgraded as to ease compilation of the standalone wrapper under either
RedHat 7.3 or RedHat 9.0.

The base64 support in LIGO_LW is going through final testing and should
become part of CVS by the end of today. Several of the APIs were
modified to support this functionality.

Improvements to the metadataAPI insertion code resulted in an increase
of performance of 30%. These changes were all at the TCL level.

The controlMonitorAPI client is being modified to support system
validation testing. This will provide a means by which an LDAS
administrator can verify that their installation of LDAS can perform
the basic functions. The scripts for verification come directly from
the scripts LDAS uses in its own integrated system testing.

The dischcacheAPI now supports multiple matches scored by precedence
of ::MOUNT_PT entries and it supports matching of
multiple-interferometer frame files.

Philip Charlton:
    Still working on creating S2 RDS. Have now done about 45% of
    LHO and 35% of LLO. New tape drives were installed yesterday and this
    should help speed the process.

    LDAS coding:

      added "sum" function to datacon

      extended statistics code to work on complex data

      fixed bug in "oelslr" function which gave bad error message
      for an invalid argument

      checked in and validated code from Antony Searle (ANU) for new
      signal generators

      made many changes to web documentation (corrections and additions)
 

--------------------------
LDAS System Administration
--------------------------

Caltech
-------
(Dan Kozak)

* Continued to manage SAM-QFS resources to facilitate create of RDS frames.

* Worked with STK to get new drive wall and 4 new 9940B tape drives
  installed--DONE!  This involved a non-trivial amount of HPSS wrangling.

* Configured new drives for use with SAM-QFS.  They're in use now, but
  due to the 9940Bs writing higher density than the 9940As, more work
  will be required to fully integrate them.

* Upgraded all T3 RAID units at LHO to pSOS v. 1.18.02.

* Upgraded LHO's dataserver & gateway to SAN-4.2.

* Upgraded LHO's dataserver to full SAM-QFS (from standalone QFS),
  version 4.0.26L.

* Upgraded LHO's gateway to latest version of standalone QFS (4.0.26L).

(Al Wilson)

* Getting ready for the arrival of the new Beowulf nodes.

* Clearing space, setting up racks, testing configuration for RH9.0.

(Stuart Anderson)

* Meeting with Caltech Engineers to obtain an additional electrical
  panel and another 12 Tons of cooling for the large Beowulf cluster
  to be installed at Caltech.

* Switched archiving of LHO and LLO trend frames from HPSS to SAM-QFS.
  No new LIGO data should be written to HPSS.

* Received the 232 GigE port Beowulf network switch for LDAS-CIT.

* Received 6 new dual 3GHz/4GB P4 Xeon boxes for LDAS Beowulf and Datacon
  server upgrades of LDAS-TEST, LDAS-DEV, and LDAS-CIT.

* Placed order with Bill Tyler for additional rack equipment for
  Caltech and MIT.

* Finalized the T3 contract with Caltech purchasing and the Vendor in order
  to obtain contract service to replace the batteries in the 11 T3 units at
  Caltech.

* Tracking the last large LDAS construction account procurements.
 

MIT
---
(Keith Bayer)

* Moved LDR to /export partition after filling up /usr1.

* Looked into ENOMEM error msg on pc raid unit.

* Tweaking LDR to prioritize certain segments of data to MIT.

* Received new datacon and beowulf P4's from ASA.

* Working on upgrading power for cluster nodes in ldas lab.

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

* Visited Caltech for LDAS workshop and P-card training.

* Replaced failed disk in T3.

* Ordered 22 batteries for T3s.

* 6 days ago we apparently had some power outage that rebooted some of
  beowulf nodes. LDAS repaired itself and seems to be running fine now.

* Learning DB2 performance tuning. Managed to reduce the run time of a
  typical query for a waveburst table by a factor of 100 by creating the
  right index.

* Experimenting with databases at LLO and LHO talking directly to each
  other through VPN.

* Received network switch and new beowulf and datacon.

(Shannon Roddy)

* Much of this week has been spent getting the VPN up between the sites
  for LDAS.  The VPN is up between MIT, LHO and CIT.  LLO will be up
  tonight.

* Also been working with the electricians on some network wiring issues in
  the new building, some of it involving the LDAS room and GC connections.

* The LDAS VPN is up and in the process of being tested.  Igor's database
  tools are working well according to him.  Everything so far is working
  as expected.  I still need to mirror the configuration to the backup
  VPNs, but this will take some coordination with people at the other
  sites.  At some point I would like to try a recompiled kernel under
  vmware and see if it improves the VPN performance.

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

* Ben Johnson has started as an Assistant Engineer, assisting with LDAS at LHO.

* Supported the installation of the StorageTek L700e Tape Library System
  at LHO.  The installation was completed by StorageTek on 04/23/03.

* Assisted with the assembly of 3 racks to support the upcoming
  installation of the new beowulf cluster at LHO.

* Finished setting up LDAS VPN boxes at LHO for Shannon Roddy to
  configure.  (There was a problem with the GC network connection to the
  boxes, and the spare box needed temporary IP addresses so that both
  boxes could be plugged into the network at the same time.)

* Working with Ben Johnson to rebuild and test the repaired beowulf
  nodes returned from ASA.

* Arranged to have Sun replace the batteries in all of our T3s which
  have reached their 2 year lifetime. Sun has ordered the batteries,
  but they are on back order.

* Worked with Dan Kozak and Ben Johnson to upgrade the QFS licenses,
  SAN, and the T3 raid controller firmware on the LDAS system at LHO.
  One QFS license is still needed, and the system is still down pending
  work on the AC.

* Continuing to prepare for the installation of the new beowulf cluster at LHO.
 
* Assisting Igor with the transfer of ndas data from CIT to LLO.

(Ben Johnson)

* Assisted in the assembly of three computer racks for the upcoming
  beowulf cluster.

* Assisted in the hardware installation of the new StorageTek L700e
  tape library.  Installation completed on 4/23/2003.

* Worked to diagnose continuing problems with an ASA Computers beowulf
  node. Set up self as LHO contact person for this problem.

* Assisting Dave Barker with installation of weather station
  monitoring/operator alarms in the LDAS computer room.

* Working with Dave Barker on the temperature monitoring software for
  the LDAS computer room.

* Assisting Greg Mendell with bringing up and shutting down the LDAS
  system at LHO. This is due to the expected work on the cooling system
  this week.

* Responded to disk full error on LHO metaserver.

* Performing burn-in tests on three beowulf nodes. Wrote new script to
  perform md5sums on burntest output files.
 

-----------------
General Computing
-----------------

MIT:
(Keith)
-Investigating IPsec for our wireless network
-Testing MIT network speeds to another location on campus
-Investigating RedHat up2date utility for laptop users

Livingston:
(Shannon)
-Excel has made some requests to run an IIS server here so that they can
interface with the buildings control computer since they are taking over
maintenance of that system.  I have expressed my strong objection to IIS
but if they need it, I can work some solutions for them.  This box will
have to be heavily protected from the Internet for obvious reasons.
-Added some new accounts along with the general everyday maintenance of
the servers.
-Working on a quote from Sun for a 280R to replace our web server.  Sun
was supposed to contact me a week ago and has not.
-Hooking up more network connections in the new building.
-Fixed a couple of email problems with the script that monitors the cryo
pumps and notifies various people by e-mail or cell phone.  Some people
were not getting the alerts.  Allen's problem happened to be with the
cell phone company.
-Quickly approaching the time when I will be forced to restructure out
network and create actual DMZ and internal areas on our firewall.  This
will be a major headache for all, but I think it will have to be done
this year.

Hanford:
(Christine)
- Narrowing in on what equipment is needed for the GigE network
upgrade.  The quotes from the vendors included quite a lot of extra
equipment and it has taken quite a bit of time and research to figure
out exactly what is needed and what is not.
- Had to reboot our router a few times because of "out of memory"
errors.  Can't wait for the new router to arrive.  Also, had to change
the access list for the TRINET computer.
- The usual user support for on-site and off-site users.

CIT:
(Mike)
-Worked on the PC located in the conference room, setting it up with the
VRVS software. There was a problem with the audio not working with VRVS
software. I ended up down loading updated drivers from the manufactures
website. This corrected the problem.
-Updated ghost images on Irene Baldon & the PC in the conference room.
-Loaded a new laptop for Phil Willems & Bill Kells. This included GC
software and additional engineering packages. Plus I transferred over Bill
Kells old data over for him.
-Setup a VRVS meeting in the SCR for a LIGO seminar. I had multiple
problems with this setup and now know that I must give myself more time for
setting up future meetings.
-Reloading an engineering workstation for Calum & Janeen.
-Loading a laptop for Erica D'Ambrosio; I have a few more applications
that I have to load and get a ghost image of this laptop for a quick recovery.
- M79, The ghost server is having some Operating System problems and have ran
out of disk space. This did corrupt some data. I am in the process of
reloading this server. After I have completed working on this server I will
be updating all our windows workstations.
-Updated ghost images on the following servers: Amaldi, Antares, Pherkab,
Pc72.

(Lisa)
-Finished the www.ligo build.  It is ready for Larry to look over.
- More user e-mail support.  Most of the discomfort of moving over to becrux
seems to have passed now.
- Did monthly backups.  This required a rewrite of the monthly backup scripts
(again) to accommodate the unpredicted growth of a few home accounts.  Here I
ask
that the few people who regularly fill up their home account with things that
are more appropriately placed on a local disk space, please be more
conscientious.

(Veronica)
-LIGO website: posted various updates. Looking into a DCC database to
see if a missing document indicates a problem.
Most time was spent working on a website for the upcoming Advanced LIGO
NSF review.
Continue capturing the footage of the LIGO miniDV video archive into files
for non-degradable archiving.
- LSC website: posted a few updates, the usual upkeep.
- CaJAGWR website: posted updates, working on a smil combo of the last
talk.

(Larry)
-Worked a number of procurement issues. The paperwork and checking on items is a
never ending task. A number of the past orders has started arriving, including
the equipment for LDAS.
-Worked a number of DCC issues. Most related to document transfers and file
fixes.
-Spent a deal of time working on a s/w licensing issue. Most of the items have
been cleared up and the rest of the concerns are being dealt with by Dennis and
others.
-Spent time working on some VRVS issues.
-Re-tested one of the servers for security holes. Still have a few more items to
change before it gets put out.
-Worked with Lisa on getting a number of accounts cleaned up.
-Assisted in a number of equipment moves and installations. Working on more
modifications to the server room.
-The regular user assistance. Just as a note we are spending 1-2 hours a day
going over the e-mail logs checking for false positives and related items.
Putting a filter on my Caltech account has helped a great deal on eliminating
the spam that was getting through to my account on the LIGO mail server.

_______________
 

E2E MODELLING:
_______________
 

SimLIGO results
-----------------
(Matt)
 This week I wrote a draft technical note concerning the implications of
 thermal lensing and the 4k asymmetry for lock acquisition and lock
 robustness.  The note, T030089, also proposed a solution to the problems
 presented.  I tested the proposed solution, use of the non-resonant
 sidebands to generate an LSC signal for CARM, in SimLIGO.  The test showed
 that this control scheme is robust, at least in simulation.
 

LLO seismic modeling
----------------------
 Qualitative and quantitative seismic modeling of LLO is still going,
 being carried out by Hiro, Sany and Tiffany. A LIGO document will be
 released in a few weeks.
 

Dynamical misalignment
------------------------
(Biplab) A few more points regarding differences between e2e and Daniel's
 results have been sorted out but one major concern for us is the absence of
 a zero signal notch in transfer function (from say differential ETM to
 dark port) at half the FSR.
 

Dual recycling Michelson cavity- summation model formulation
------------------------------------------------------------
(Hiro) Based on the discussion with Hiro, Osamu could find an analytic
 formula necessary to complete the summation cavity module of a dual
 recycling Michelson cavity. With this expression, the internal field of
 a cavity can be expressed using a finite number of terms - number being
 depending on the accuracy required. This formulation will be used in an
 e2e primitive which can speed up the simulation speed by a factor of 100.
 Also important in this calculation is that all physics quantities are
 treated using a linear approximation. This allows the simulation of
 frequency noise and the common mode servo.
 This formulation will be used in all the summation cavities in the
 future version of e2e. The explicit formula for the dual recycling
 summation cavity was the last missing one. The details will be
 documented in a LIGO document.
 

Code development and maintenance
---------------------------------
e2e distribution:
 Hiro, Bruce and Ed worked to setup a new e2e distribution kit. So far,
 e2e tarball contained both the simulation software and GUI software
 (alfi). From the next release on, a tarball contains only the
 simulation software, and the README file included explains how to get
 the latest alfi. This is done because of two reasons. One is that alfi5
 is updated more frequently, and Bruce has setup to download the latest
 one automatically using JAVA Web Start. Second is, it comes out to be
 too complicated that one installer script is  used to install both
 g++-based softwares and JAVA-based software.
 

(Biplab) A bug in recycling summation module is fixed. This bug
 (in recycling_sum.cc) was giving a wrong sign to the "distance to waist"
 value [for the modal basis] of the dark port output light.
 So, in SimLIGO, the WFS signals obtained so far after the
 dark port light passes thru telescopes were not correct.
 Signals calculated (e.g. by me for comparing with Daniel's results) just
 at the dark port were correct though because this basis parameter does
 not affect the amplitude of lights coming out of dark port.
 When the dark-port light was propagated by telescope, wrong guoy phase
 was added to the beam and as a consequence a wrong signal was calculated
 on interference.
 After the bug-fixing, Matt could make the WFS work again with new signals.
 

(Hiro) Working on updating the simulation code to speed up by improving
 the expression parser and to set the user have more control on the output
 data.
 

(Ed Maros)
   1. Enhanced the building process for the e2e code.
   2. Eliminated the building of JAlfi, Alfi, or Adlib.
 

Alfi
-----
(Bruce)
        - Cleaning old code which depended on casting to Port and
          Junction objects instead of using the new GenericPort
          superclass for these.
        - Fixed several bugs created by forementioned code cleanup.
(Melody)
        -  Worked on fixing some problems with the cut/copy/paste feature.

-------------
Data Analysis
-------------

Teviet Creighton:
I have been doing a detailed study of precision issues in my LAL
time-domain filtering routines.  The PUL group reported ``nonlinear''
results from these routines, which turned out to be digital precision
noise due to the large dynamic range of the pre-filtered data (thus
multiplying the pre-filtered data by a constant yielded slightly
different output than multiplying the post-filtered data by the same
constant).  I am now performing tests to see whether this can be
reduced at all by applying a double-precision filter to
single-precision data.
 

Igor Yakushin:
1) Made a few minor improvements to waveburst: a) allow user to insert
an arbitrary comment/label per set of jobs; b) search_summvars table now
contains detailed information about number of different kinds of events
in different channels.
2) Improving the TCL script to handle LDAS failures and retry a job
several times before giving up.
3) Together with Sergey Klimenko submitted a proposal to the burst group
about using waveburst for S2 analysis.

Advanced LIGO Development (Shoemaker)

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