LIGO Weekly Report

I am pleased to be able to inform you that two papers related to the LIGO S1 run are now posted on the gr-qc archive.

The paper describing the LIGO/GEO upper limit work on periodic signals can be found at the same site, with number 0308050.

Best regards,
Peter Saulson
Spokesperson, LIGO Scientific Collaboration

LIGO I Construction/LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

A site teleconference was held on on Thursday, August 14, 2003. The following issues were discussed:

Budgets--Projections indicate that the Project will spend about $31.4 million this year, leaving a carry over for FY04 of about $7 million on a cash flow basis.

The FY04 budgets for the sites have not yet been set. Both Fred Raab and Mike Zucker are reviewing the site budgets to definitize them. The Work Plan is due to the NSF August 31, and the current fiscal year ends September 30.

Civil Construction--There is an indication of activity on the glass vestibule for the LHO Laboratory, but no visible signs of progress. Ed Jasnow indicated that the final invoice, which is construction dollars, will not be paid until the vestibule is complete. John Worden indicated that he will contact Chervenell Construction.

Personnel (Visas)--Ed Jasnow will distribute his e-mail on the new interview process for visas to the sites. Foreign nationals on the LIGO staff are urged to allow sufficient time for the interview when they arrive at the airport to return to the U.S.

Hanford Facilities--The issue regarding the assumption of Otto Matherny's duties was discussed. Otto is on a permanent leave of absence until May 2005, at which time he will retire. Although John Worden will assume most of Otto's duties, Fred Raab brought up the issue of having to provide a licensed water purveyor to satisfy the requirements of the Washington State Department of Health. Otto had been grandfathered in when the new rules went into effect two years ago, but planned on taking the required courses and test by February 2004. Since he is now on a leave of absence, the question was raised regarding filling the role. It was suggested that Fred and John contact the Department, explain the situation, and follow their advice. In the meantime, Fred should designate two people to take the required five courses and the license test in February.

P-cards--P-card training for LHO will take place on Tueday, September 16. Ed Jasnow and Criselda Rodriguez-Brodeur will participate in the training.

Weber Bar Display--Fred Raab and John Worden are investigating raising the Weber bar display a few inches to make the base more finished.
The list of current actions revised to reflect the status of open actions assigned through August 7, 2003 may be found at ACTION LIST.

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. . .

ACTIVITY
Scanned a handful of documents for electronic access. Over 100 electronic documents were submitted during this period. Organized and sorted documentation.
.


08/14/03	Packages	Faxes
In	21	23
Out	16	24

ADVANCED LIGO (Cost Schedule Control Systems) T. Frey
From: Thomas Frey <tfrey@ligo.caltech.edu>

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

The following change requests have been distributed Executive Committee for possible discussion July 28, 2003.


CR-030015	FY 2003 Livingston Observatory Detector Maintenance Expenses (Increment)	R. Wooley	July 14, 2003
CR-030016	Hanford Facilities 2.2--Divide the Large Equipment Access	J. Worden	July 31, 2003

Change Request CR-030016 was discussed during the Executive Committee Meeting on August 4, 2003. Three questions were raised:

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

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

Summary of Commissioning Activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory
(compiled by M. Landry)

The week opened with decent locking on both interfereometers, however, events knocked both machines offline for some time. The 2k POY beam was improperly dumped, resulting in a shuttering of the beam for several hours on Wednesday. The 4k was downed for most
of Wednesday due to REFL EO shutter stuck in the LO state, but reporting HI. Despite these events, commissioning continued apace:

Work on the mechanical resonances and acoustic coupling on the output ports produced serveral interesting results this week. A comprehensive report on mechanical testing of the new ISCT periscope design was elogged here . Findings include that the new periscope reduce rms motion by nearly a factor of two in the 100-600Hz band, and that damping can reduce the periscope peak by a factor of five. A second report noted the reduction in 4k acoustic coupling by an order of magnitude since S2. This is thought to arise from the removal of limiting aperatures such as an EO shutter and associated small polarizers. Lastly, the meat locker enclosures were assessed regarding acoustic suppression.

Refl work included an EO shutter alignment, which has a handy reference elog for future alignments.

The 2k MC developed angular instabilities associated with higher power and a new alignment. The ISS servo is in better shape after some debugging .

An ASI servo has been commissioned for the 3rd antisymmetric port photodiode, as described here . However, the new servo had the deleterious effect of introducing broad line features at 1.445kHz and 2.98kHz (unseen in ASQ spectra yet, given the frequency noise). Gains were reallocated between AS2 and AS3.

A calibrated displacement spectrum corresponding to a 4k inspiral range of 1.5Mpc was posted on the weekend .

A photon calibrator was installed in the x-end station. A peak is seen in DARM control at the expected frequency of 113Hz as the laser modulates the cavity length. A rough calibration compares well with a previous spectrum

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

Detector/Technical Support (Coyne)

see also the Revision Technical Review Board (RTRB) status here

Seismic Upgrade Project

Jonathan Kern

At Parker's Hydraulic Valve Division last week, and was given an

hands-on introduction to the manufacturing and assembly of the

proportional valves controlling the HEPI actuators. Broached the

possibility of providing Parker with one of LIGO's calibration manifolds

so that they might deliver properly calibrated valves to us. They are

quite receptive to the idea and I am working to complete a fixture for

them ASAP. Received and QC'd 7 sets of test manifolds from Digital

Machine and parts have been sent to a dip brazer in Houston, Texas.

Checking with vendors of purchased catalog items for HEPI, to make

certain that our orders have been received properly. Received a

SolidWorks model of a proposed geophone mount from Stanford, from which

I will manufacture 2 mounts for the LASTI HEPI HAM. We've received

approval from the NSF to contract for the manufacture of machined parts

for 96 hydraulic actuators. With this approval I was able to meet with

the awardee and this morning I met with them and went over the order in

which we'd like to receive the machined parts. The shop will place

orders for material immediately, and prepare a production schedule. I

expect to have a preliminary delivery schedule by the end of this week.

Also meeting with us was the awardee of the assembly contract. Ken

Mason completed a round of updates on the EPI housing. DCN approved

here and forwarded to Stanford. Likewise updates made to the actuator

model and these sent to Stanford for approval as well.

The seismic retrofit has captured the interest of Parker and Claude

Mixon, a Senior System Engineer based in New Orleans came to visit this

afternoon. In part to learn about our installation but also to offer

their experience should we need it. In particular he hopes to provide

us with helpful advice in the care and treatment of the aqueous mixture

we'll be using at LLO.

Ken Mailand

The fluid biological growth test is showing nothing after 36 weeks.

The assembly of the dummy load network is in process at CIT, the final design has been coordinated with MIT, to mate-up with their plumbing.

The finished assembly should ship out tue.8-19.

MIT will modify the pump station base, and install the part of the plumbing that will mate to the dummy load sub-assembly.

The distribution manifolds [6] are in process all the longer lead parts have been ordered. The design is for a simplified single manifold for supply and return.

The manifolds require some machined parts, and welding, they could be ready by the end of next week, pending the arrival of the accumulators.

Rolf Bork

Alex and I are at MIT this week to install a prototype LIGO-style HEPI

control system.

- Installed L4C interface chassis, Anti-aliasing chassis, and output

driver chassis and connected associated power. Power is derived from the

previously installed SOS +/-24VDC and +/-15VDC power supplies. We also

installed new +/-5VDC to drive the AA chassis. Connection is via fuse

blocks in the SOS rack.

- Tested system by injecting signals at L4C chassis and tracing

through output driver. All hardware and software tested satisfactory. At

the end of yesterday, we connected the signals from MEPI and the signals

appear to be correct.

- Added the new HEPI channels to DAQ and verified DAQ and GDS

operation, including excitation/test points and transfer functions. Note

that actual filters still need to be loaded into the system as derived

from the DSpace system.

Sander Liu

Completed building a new low noise L4C pre-amplifier prototype. In the process of studying the effect of component variation on the performance of the pre-amplifier.

CDS

see also 8/13 weekly CDS meeting minutes in the commissioning archives:

CDS Software

Rolf

Issued a memo to the LSC (L030119-01) alerting the data analysts to the fact that there is a (recoverable) error (swapped samples) for some of the S2 data channels.

CDS Hardware

Rich Abbott reporting

1. Worked with Gabby on solving a signal inversion problem associated with the wavefront sensors. The problem was most likely caused by a poor connection to the input of the Pentek 6102

2. Working with Rusyl on the choice and testing of RFI feed throughs.

3. Worked with Peter King on diagnosing the apparent multi-mode operation of the laser. Noted that the transfer function of the phase correcting EOM in the FSS varies significantly as a function of the slow actuator voltage. Much of the unstable performance could be attributed to the change in phase of this transfer function. I have no idea as to how the slow actuator communicates with the phase correcting EOM, but we will look more tomorrow. It is not unusual for things like this to be a red herring and simply attributable to something else.

Ben Abbott

The stands and boxes for the ISS PDs are finished being fabricated, anodized and silkscreened. I will go and pick them up on Friday.

PSL

PeterKing

The high power photodetector boards have come in from PCBExpress.

I tried a different a different beam pointing servo configuration,

incorporating a high voltage amplifier to drive the PZTs. Unfortunately

the bandwidth was limited by a ~300 Hz mechanical resonance in the mirror

mount. The peak-to-peak fluctuations were reduced from +/- 0.25 mm to

about 0.005 mm

Errant Beam Blocks

Ken Mailand

The MC1 and MC3 baffles are being re made to eliminate any possibility of the beam striking a wire when the baffle is rotated at a high angle to the SOS. The baffles will go into the high temp bake next week the final outside service.

Optical Metrology

Lee Cardenas, Liyuan Zhang

OTF Lab. (W. Bridge)

Contamination Cavity # 1

We took out the Aluminum wire spool for the OSEM.

Results from the plots for absorption, ring down and thermal lensing will be released (Dr.Zhang)

Cleaned mirrors installed, alignment, mode match done and cavity is locked.

Visibility is ~ 60%improvement on mode match and alignment in progress in order to get

the cavity visibility needed (~ 85-90% ) for ring down and beat frequency measurements.

·New test sample PEEK wire spool for the OSEM is ready and it will go in as soon as the cavity is ready.

·Another sample collected. Solder joints for the OSEM assembly is in preparation as more samples needed.

Absorption Test Measurement prototypein standby ( New laser coming soon?)

Scatterometer system

Complete Modification in Progress. Continue meeting with Mike Gerfen to coordinate new base design

(Main shop) to hold the new Sapphire ITM mirror (~13" dia. X ~7 3/4 thick).

The new optical train plate for the RTS scanner is completed with some other modifications that has been done as

to accommodatemirror base design and fabrication is in progress.

Modification of the base holder to adapt a rotating base for the 6"Dia. X 3" thick Sapphire mirror is in progress right now.

This sapphire mirror substrate is under test for its surface birefringence (polarization rotation).

OTF Lab at Lauritsen ROOM 38

Cavity #3

It is pumping withtwo new mirrors from REO .

mode match completed and alignment completed and cavity is locked.

cavity visibility is ~55% so far. We find out that these mirrors have higher beam scattering,

therefore, We can not achieve the cavity visibility desired (~85-90% )

We will change the mirrors again. this time we'll use the new REO mirrors that Helena Armandula ordered,

and cleaned them.All these efforts are in progress.

Cavity #2 Test cavity in STANDBY.

We will be installing a new cavity with cleaned mirrors as soon as we learn from the other cavities which set of mirrors

we'll need to install.

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

LASTI

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Raghu and Hiro made a good progress in developing the algorithm and
code to extend the limited measured area (15cm diameter) to the full
mirror map (24cm diameter). The test of the algorithm was done using
smaller region (10cm) to see if the outer are (10 to 15cm region) can
be restored. The results was yes and no. The extrapolation was mild,
and no harm due to the large power of rho is observed, this is positive.
Negative news is that, any specific structure which is isolated outside
of the fit region cannot be reproduced. This does not improve by using
larger number of Zernike modes. Using too many modes is rather harmful
to produce peculiar pattern in the extrapolated region, But no algorithm
will be able to predict this kind of structure. The difference between
the measured data and the fit is uniform within 15cm region, so this
pattern of noise is used to fill the entire 24cm region, on top of the
fit using Zernike polynomial. The contrast defect predicted for LLO was
worse than the real measurement. This could be caused by the fact
that the tilt component of the phasemap was not fully subtracted (from
the FFT software point of view) and the next run with this fully patched
mirror map will apply tilt removal procedure before the run.

Interpretation of the result of the FFT run caused some confusion
regarding the shot noise limited sensitivity. This is summarized by Bill.

Biplab finished FFT runs for the cold state of H1 using lab-measured
optics loss values given by Bill.

Hiro used a simple FP model with radiation pressure to study the case
corresponding to the Danniel's calculation. Danniel's calculation takes
only the yaw pendulum into account, so z and pitch DOF are disabled in the
simulation. (FP is the LIGO I arm) The FP stability was tested using
different input powers, with the suspension point moving at 10^-7
radian at DC and falling down as f^-2. If there is no ASC, the system
becomes unstable above 100 W, or 10K in arm. But once a simple ASC is
engaged, the FP cavity becomes stable up to 7k W input or 0.7 MW in arm.
When the power goes up more, the unstable mode is excited and the system
becomes unstable. Here, stable means that the mirror rotates at theta = 0,
and unstable means the mirror tilts to other angle,
~10^-7 radian and rotates at around that DC tilted equilibrium.

Xiao studied the radiation pressure effect and found that similar
phenomena can happen in the current LIGO I configuration. He also found
that 1% level of OSEM asymmetry can induce a DC tilt of the order of 1e-7
radian. All of these depends on the details of the ASC design, but this is
an interesting observation. Xiao is going to give a talk at LHO on
August 14th, together with other SURF students.

Jeff has completed his modeling of the optical path length change due
to the GW signal, directly modifying the phase of the propagating laser
field in a cavity. He is also giving a talk at LHO on August 14th.

Generated H2 IFO WFS signal matrix in hot state and gave it to Virginio
who is working on H2 WFS. Working with Luca on WFS loops of H1.

Code development and maintenance (Ed Maros)
-------------------------------------------

1. Fixed several issues concerning code compilation so cvs
checkouts would compile.
2. Added missing header file to AdlibMM/Makefile.am so tarballs
would compile.

(Ed and Biplab)
Updated code at Hanford. It would be available from ~e2e/Current/e2e-1.7.12

(Melody)
--------

- Modifying the e2e source code to dynamically create C++ source from
   FUNC_xxx equation modules, which would be compiled, combined to a shared
   library, and used during runtime execution. Currently working on source
   file creation.

(Blackburn)
GCC has released a new compiler (3.3.1). We began the process of testing
the rebuild of LDCG using this new compiler and an automated script known
as "Sinstall". Several issue came up including the annoucement that GNU's
primary software distribution server was hacked into. We know have enough
of LDCG rebuilt with the new compiler to start building LDAS. Too soon to
report on compiling or running LDAS with the new compiler.

Continued to fix problems with iterators and other container methods in
the total code base. LDAS is gradually running more smoothly (reliably)
as these changes are made. There is still a lot of work to do in this
area.

The frameCPP version 6 dictionary class was reworked this week to non-
iterator based keys in an effort to resolve some of the core dumps seen
in this code base.

The diskcacheAPI was seen to occasionally create 50 or more threads when
a new file system was added to LDAS with lots of subdirectories. This was
causing other processes on the same box to struggle for CPU cycles. To
resolve this a thread throttle was added to the TCL layer of this API.

A relatively large effort went into improving documentation this week.
We have begun removing email addresses to prevent crawlers from spamming
LDAS staff and also improved the accuracy of documention for the runLDAS
script and the managerAPI's protocol with client software.

A new user command is now working on the development system which allows
users to delete their own data products once they have copied these of
the LDAS system with URL technology. The new user command is called
rmJobFiles.

Changed logic in managerAPI used to detect host server's name to better
support running the managerAPI on a gateway server.

This week we made significant progress in re-running our standard suite
of system tests. This has fall considerably behind this summer and as a
result a couple of test were discovered to fail that worked in the last
release.

(Hari Pulapaka)
* I have taken over the administration of the rls server on ldas-archive,
and there was a problem where the rls-server was stuck in a loop and all
the client requests were timed out. So I was looking into this, but it is
already logged in a bug and is fixed with the next version of rls-server.

* I have been trying to install VDT-1.1.10, but VDT 1.1.10 is not supported
on RH 9.0. The VDT team might support 1.1.10 in some time, but till then
we can either install each individual component or make our head node RH 7.3

* So I have been installing and testing globus, rls-server and gsi-openssh
on a test RH 9.0 machine. Installing Rls-server was a really long process
and I think this is where the advantage of having VDT will come to the fore.

(Stuart Anderson)
* Worked on an IDE-RAID server that had a double disk failure with the
resulting loss of 1TB of S2 RDS data. These data are currently being
transferred back to the rebuilt RAID system using LDR from UWM.

* Tracking down problem with one of the dual-Xeon software development
servers crashing on a daily basis. It appears to be a problem with
the unit running out of memory and the kernel making bad choices.

* Obtaining price quotes to buy another 4 tape drives for the central
archive to increase the number of drives from 6 to 10. The current
use pattern is keeping all current 6 drives busy.

* Fixed a problem with the large 210 node cluster that appears to
have been caused by a search code using too much memory and crashing
some of the nodes. This has been addressed by setting a per user/per
processes maximum memory limit (limit vmemoryuse).

(Ben Johnson)
* Module 9 of switch (nodes 65->80) went offline off and on last
Friday. Moved the module to slot 7, and have run several inter module
netburn tests since. No problems have occurred since.

* tekoa/datagateway2 froze on Sunday, August 10. Updated the kernel to
Redhat's 2.4.20-19.7 uniprocessor kernel.

* Continuing work on script for tape archiving process for the upcoming
science run. Most of the substance of the disk2disk copy script is
finished, but it still needs to be fully fleshed out and fully
debugged.... Afterwards, I will begin work on an error handler/log
analyzer script, which monitors the status of the disk2disk copy process
and alerts/emails as necessary.

* LDAS is down since Sunday night for AC replacement work that is still in
progress. I was told that I can restart LDAS Friday morning.

(Keith Bayer)
* New datacon / beowulf completed burn tests on RH7.3.
* Working on power distribution for lab.
* Received power watt meter from Caltech.
* A/C service breakers replaced at panel (35amp from 30amp).
* Pointed LDR to free disk space to continue S2 2x RDS download
(averaging 3+MB/s from UWM).
* Moved 'borrowed by cds' test cluster pc back into ldas lab.

(Creighton)
This week I finished modifications to the template placement code to
account for regions of degenerate parameter metrics, and have started
testing/debugging.

(Reilly)
I have started a run through the H1L1 coincidences during S2 with the
goal of producing a plot of the theoretical sigma of the CC statistic
as a function of time throughout the S2 run. I made an initial plot of
this for the first 174 jobs of H1H2 coinicidences. For most of the week
I have been debugging the stochastic DSO. Several problems have
come up with ldas which have made the process a bit slow. I am
currently stuck on getting things into and out of the database when
running the wrapper in standAlone mode.

(Shawhan)
Investigated veto safety by looking at S2 hardware injections and seeing
if they show up in auxiliary sensing channels. I confirmed that signals
show up quite strongly in AS_I, but not in REFL_I, REFL_Q, POB_I, or POB_Q,
so these latter four channels should be usable for vetoes. Details may be
found at http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~pshawhan/s2/veto/safety.

(Yakushin)
Still working on parallelizing waveburst. It turned out that in order
to benifit from that and avoid bottlenecks in mpiAPI communication,
ligolwAPI, and eventmonAPI, I would have to do the output manually to
disk bypassing part of the standard LDAS pipeline. Preliminary
experiments seem to indicate that otherwise all the benefit of
parallelizing would be taken away by overhead.

Advanced LIGO Development (Shoemaker)

Suspension

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

In between sessions at the AdvLIGO SUS meeting in Glasgow, I've created
versions of my quad and triple Mathematica suspension models with uneven
force constants in the blade springs to check on the effect of assymetry
for Justin Greenhalgh.

Pre-stabilized Laser

From: Peter King <pking@ligo.caltech.edu>

Benno sent me a copy of the LZH laser costing estimate. Whilst I have
not had a good look at it, I will be going through it to rustle up loose
ends and the costs to be divided between AEI/LZH and the LIGO Lab..

Core Optics

From: GariLynn Billingsley <Billingsley_G@ligo.caltech.edu>

The RTS scanner is being modified to allow for absorption measurement and to accommodate Advanced LIGO sized optics. A 30W laser is due to arrive mid-August, Lee Cardenas and Mike Gerfen are in the process of making the mechanical modifications.

GariLynn has taken a couple of shots at measuring the change in radius of curvature of a coated thin Q sample. The data is not making sense yet, but there are a couple of more things to try. The trick is in being sure to separate the Interferometer drift from the real data.

LASTI RM blanks are in.

GariLynn attended the international optics symposium in San Diego last week. Hot new items are EUV and X-ray lithography, magnetorhealogical finishing (MRF), and advances in nano-technology. We have been considering MRF as a means of removing the final polishing layer, leaving a low damage surface on the optic face. To date, no one who does MRF polishing has the level of metrology needed to fabricate LIGO optics. If the process turns out to be promising, metrology can be bought.

Another interesting technique has come out of LLNL in the EUV coatings arena. They use IBD, as we do, but have another Ion source to smooth the coating layers in between deposition of layers. This technique relieves the polisher of achieving both figure and microroughness simultaneously, leaving them to concentrate on figure. The microroughness can then be improved during the coating process. LLNL is working with a lot of different materials, and has developed the ability to analyze those materials. It should be worthwhile to open up a dialogue with them about their experiences.

From: Bill Kells <kells@ligo.caltech.edu>

The message for
this report concerns LIGO I commissioning results,
but also has a strong implication for AdL optics
performance.

Over the last few months we (I, and recently joined
by Hiro and Biplab) have had time to digest and
review (with respect to older, pathfinder and
LIGO I optics fabrication data) various results on
as built LIGO I performance. The best of this has
been from H1. Although the qualitative conclusions had
been clear [to me] for some time (for instance I had
given a seminar in the Spring on the H1, H2 visibility
and scatterometer measurements), these have just now been
nicely summarized in an initial round of "as built"
LIGO I FFT simulations (Yes! at long last). THis was finalized
by Hiro and Biplab's (and summer students) effort to
creat FFT versions of the TM metrology HR phase maps.

The results are no suprise. The SRD value of 30 as a likely
recycling gain was based on pathfinder and pre-pathfinder mirror
data. As the actual fabrication proceeded it was clear that
the "as built" mirrors were consistantly much better (both in
surface figure and scattering roughness. This translates into
very significantly lower arm cavity effetive loss and thus higher
recycling gain. For instance FFT runs for H1 using the best known
TM mirror metrology numbers give G~94. So, with respect to SRD the
LIGO I ifosare performing well. However with respect to "as built"
metrology the performance is poor.

In situ measurements at LHO (most solidly H1: arm visibilities; maximum
achieved recycling gain; and extrapolated individual TM scatterometer
data) are all consistant with much higher (>5 times "as built" metrology)
HR effective loss (~50-80 ppm/HR surface).

For LIGO I we appear to be in good shape, since the goal was so conservative.
However we are anticipating mirror losses closely consistant with best
metrology for AdL design.

Auxiliary Optics

From: Michael Smith <smith@ligo.caltech.edu>

PHOTON DRIVE R&D
Tom Essinger-Hileman has aligned an optical system with 4 bounces from the MC2 mirror, with the addition of 8 bounces if necessary, and is awaiting the locking of the mode cleaner to complete his photon acuation of the mode cleaner cavityi.

Aidan Crook has designed the filter for the additional photon actuation servo loop. Ben is making a hardware filter. Aidan and Tom will test the photon actuation control of the mode cleaner after it is locked.

Other Laboratory R&D

LASTI WEEKLY 8/14/03RichMittleman

MEPI

Now that Bill Rankin has left MEPI has been mothballed.

MIT Quadruple Prototype

Andrew has straightened out the electronics problems and is now taking transfer functions from actuators between the two penultimate masses and the bottom mass.

HEPI

We have installed a second reaction mass driver, on pier #4. The transfer function to the pier top is not the same as what was previously measured on pier #3. We are currently investigating the possibility that the difference is due to a different mounting platform (data and details are on the LASTI Ilog).

The plumbers are currently working on the hydraulic lines for the other three chambers.

From: HareemTariq <htariq@ligo.caltech.edu>

Weekly - 4th Aug to 8th Aug:
Allyson:
Simone is x-raying the samples and most look pretty much glassy. There is
a small strange peak that seems to appear in quite a few of the x-rays and
now I have to talk to Bill about them because samples probably have
crystalline contamination. The SEM is having a slight problem too and I
hope to have that looked at shortly so I can begin measuring.

Mike:
Finishing paper and some vacation.

Charles:
I helped Francesco with the stress-strain machine, showed him how to
solder the LVDTs' wires, and ordered the missing parts. We also took care
of the compressed air for cooling down the heated rod. I characterized the
ringing obtained from filtering a Gaussian Pulse with different filters
used on the real signal.

Francesco:
I made some good splats of MoRuB (B19,B20,B21,B22,B18) that can be sent to
the X ray test. For the analytical prediction of thermal noise for the
joint, I am consulting some books on elasticity theory and waiting for the
ANSYS simulation of strain energy.
I'm also putting together all the pieces of the stress strain machine,
charles and I have completed the assembly of the mechanical parts and now
remains to make the electrical control system for the heating rope.

Greg:
Finished x-raying previous casts. Started preparing and casting samples
to measure other mechanical properties (tensile strength, compression
test).

Chiara:
I did measurements on samples of metglass using copper tape and soldering
copper leads on it. Results are not good as maybe there is no proper
thermal contact between copper tape and sample or between solder and
copper tape!
So now I want to do measurements with copper tape and epoxy to understand
where is the problem.

Xavier:
Done with 80% load, Max angle and Effective Bending Length for 10 microns
thick, 20 microns thick and 40 microns thick blade considering 10% of 7GPa
as a Yield point.
Starting on Strain Energy Study.

Enrico:
Finishing the report.

Simone:
I assisted Chris remeltingPdNiCuP alloy, using induction coil technique
in order to purify his sample with B2O3. I began working with DSC,
scanning my sample from 473K to 923K to observe all the thermal transition
in that range of temperature [a glass transition, a peak of
crystallization, a small peak of melting, a big peak of melting
accompanied a peak of reorganization]. All those transitions happen before
873K. At 873K a strange peak is observed, it must be a contamination of
the Pt plats {it was just reported by other operators in the DSC
composition book. I have ordered 1 oz [something like 30 gr] of Pd to
produce the amount of alloy I need at the lower price on KITCO. I have
started scanning isothermally the samples Chris gave me, to find a good
temperature of scan. 638K or lower should be good [it is about 20K before
Tx recorded on a 0.67K/s scan], a higher temperature don^t give a good
signal [crystallization just occurs before the instrument begins to work
isothermally]. Finally I got a good scan at 633 K. I heated one sample for
6 minutes at 633K, which should correspond to 17 % of cristallinity.

Hareem:
Was on vacation for half of the week. Numata-san wrote part of his code in
C using Borland's C++ builder. LIGO does not support this platform
currently and I cannot find any machine around, which I can use
either. Looking into resolving the matter.

Weekly Report for Week Ending August 14, 2003

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