Weekly Report for Week Ending January 15, 2004

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  January 19, 2004 will be:

CANCELLED DUE TO MARTIN LUTHER KING HOLIDAY

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights
 

LSC Issues (Saulson)

no report

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

Status of LSC/MOU Research Updates and Program Reports (Petrac)Balearic:Attach. A for 08-15-03 to 02-15-04 / in sign-off by the PICaRT:Attach. A for 08-15-02 to 08-15-03 / in sign-off by the PIAttach. A for 08-15-03 to 02-15-04 / in sign-off by the PIAttach. D for 08-15-02 to 08-15-03 / in sign-off by the PIAttach. D for 08-15-03 to 02-15-04 / in sign-off by the PIAttach. Z for 08-15-02 to 08-15-03 / in sign-off by the PIAttach. Z for 08-15-03 to 02-15-04 / in sign-off by the PIDominguez Hills:Draft-Attach. A for 08-15-02 to 02-15-03 / in process for web postingAttach. A for 08-15-02 to 02-15-03 / in LIGO review / LazzariniDraft-Attach. A for 02-15-02 to 08-15-03 / in process for web postingAttach. A for 02-15-02 to 08-15-03 / in LIGO review / LazzariniDraft-Attach. Z for 02-15-02 to 08-15-03 / in process for web postingAttach. Z for 02-15-02 to 08-15-03 / in LIGO review / BarishProg. Report of 08-15-02 / in process for web postingLaTech:Attach. A for 02-15-03 to 08-15-03 / signed-off / in process for web postingAttach. A for 08-15-03 to 02-15-04 / signed-off / in process for web postingAttach. Z for 02-15-03 to 08-15-03 / signed-off / in process for web postingAttach. Z for 08-15-03 to 02-15-04 / signed-off / in process for web postingSLU:Attach. A for 02-15-03 to 08-15-03 / in sign-off by the PIAttach. A for 08-15-03 to 02-15-04 / in sign-off by the PINorthwestern:Attach. A for 02-15-03 to 08-15-03 / in sign-off by the PIAttach. A for 08-15-03 to 02-15-04 / in sign-off by the PIMichigan:Draft-Attach. A for 02-15-02 to 02-15-03 / in process for web postingAttach. A for 02-15-02 to 02-15-03 / in LIGO review / LazzariniDraft-Attach. A for 02-15-03 to 08-15-03 / in process for web postingAttach. A for 08-15-02 to 02-15-03 / in LIGO review / LazzariniDraft-Attach. Z for 02-15-02 to 08-15-02 / in process for web postingAttach. Z for 02-15-02 to 08-15-02 / in LIGO review / BarishDraft-Attach. Z for 02-15-03 to 08-15-03 / in process for web postingAttach. A for 02-15-03 to 08-15-03 / in LIGO review / BarishMoscow State:Attach. B for 02-15-03 to 08-15-03 / in sign-off by the PIAttach. D for 02-15-03 to 08-15-03 / in sign-off by the PIAttach. Z for 02-15-03 to 08-15-03 / in sign-off by the PIWisconsin-Milwaukee:Draft-Attach. A for 02-15-02 to 02-15-03 / in process for web postingAttach. A for 02-15-02 to 02-15-03 / in LIGO review / LazzariniDraft-Attach. A for 02-15-03 to 08-15-03 / in process for web postingAttach. A for 02-15-03 to 08-15-03 / in LIGO review / LazzariniUniv. of Oregon:Attach. Z for 08-15-03 to 02-15-04 / signed-off / in process for web posting
 

LIGO Weekly Site Telecon (Lindquist)
We held a site teleconference on Thursday, January 15, 2004.  The following issues were discussed:

• Budgets--budgets have been approved (CR-040001) and issued.
• HEPI Piping Procurement--An RFQ has been issued.  A job walk was conducted yesterday (January 14).  Bids are due next Wwednesday (January 21).
• NSB Visit--The NSB will be meeting at the Livingston Observatory February 4, 2004.  LIGO is preparing some presentations and a tour.  There will be presentation dry runs February 3.  We discussed the bandwidth of communications between the observatories during the presentations.

From: Ed Chargois <chargois_e@ligo.caltech.edu>
Nothing significant to report.

>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 this week.

> From: Cleveland Mak <mak_c@ligo.caltech.edu>

ACTIVITY
Organized, sorted and filed documentation.

1/15/04	Packages	Faxes
In	29	35
Out	12	43

Press here to access the DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER WEB PAGE.

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

Press here for ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY DATA .

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

• Modified change order #1 to Alliance Spacesystems to add funds for the fee portion of the order and completed change order #2 to this order. Completed change order 14 to Excel Engineering. Completed change order #2 to George Stokes.
•  Met with PWC auditor on LIGO's subcontract with MIT and provided the requested information to the auditors.
•  Submitted a LIGO one-time purchase order to the DCAA auditors as requested by them.
•  Placed one-time purchase orders for the sites. Followed up on back-ordered items on orders placed for Caltech and the sites.
•  Placed and reconciled pcard orders.  Reconciliation so far for this month covers 17 transactions totalling $27,057.26.
•  Working on the rush change order #22 to MIT.  Will be walking it over this morning.

• Follow up with vendors on RFQ’S that were sent out last week.
• Phone vendors to clear up invoice problems
• Worked with Jonathan Kern by phone to complete the RFQ
• Met with Nothrop Grumman’s representative to iron out some deferent’s
• Contacted Dennis Coyne to provide contract information
• Contacted Butler International regarding some contractual changes
• Continuing to manage contracts and make changes as necessary.

• Prepared a schedule indicating how the $16.5 million allocation of the FY04 Award should be posted in the Oracle accounts.  The process of the posting of the allocation went extremely smoothly and promptly this time.
• Worked on summarizing Advanced LIGO costs for calendar years 2000 through 2003.
• Posted the new FY04 budgets to the report for January.
• Prepared an analysis of December results compared to the new FY04 budgets.
• Prepared a PTA set up form for the Quantum Sensing effort at MIT the new account is LIGO.QUANS/5.20 NSFLIGO.FY02ON
• Financial reports can be found at: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport

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

• MIT: CO No. 22, allocating half of the agreed upon FY 2004 budget and covering MIT LIGO effort through March 31st, was released to Purchasing.
• Univ. of Florida: Invoices covering the CY' 03 LIGO effort at UF were approved for partial payment. Charges not consistent with the agreed upon budgets for the LLO support were disallowed. Univ. of Florida AR department was advised accordingly.
• Univ. of Oregon: The contract for on-site support at LHO is under review. The payment for costs incurred to date is pending an agreement as to what is owed, consistent with the contract terms.

SUPPORT (Baldon, Lloyd, Tischler)

>Irene Baldon

• Processed the paper work for eleven (11) new/revised trips.  There are approximately fifteen (15) trips in various stages of completion before ticketing can be done and/or paper work completed.  I continue to work closely with Terry Gunter and LIGO/Hanford personnel in acquainting them with travel procedures, etc.  I will continued to close out existing LHO trips and/or assisting where necessary.
• Completed fifteen (15) Expense Reports and there are thirty-eight (38) 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 these can be closed in a timely manner.  Presently there are ten (10) reports more than 30 days old.Reconciled eight (8) 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.
• I continued to cover the Project Office, Barry Barish's and Donna Tomlinson's Office when called upon.  Worked on the preparation and distribution of the Travel/Vacation Itinerary for January 12, 2004.  Arranged two (2) new or revised teleconferences and two (2) new reservations on the LIGO Calendar.

• Processed the usual invoices for payment. Tracked and followed up on invoice problems. Reviewed and recorded payments processed by Esther the week of January 5.
• 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 continued with data entry in the LIGO database and helping out in the DCC.

• Arranged future visits, welcomed and assisted arriving visitors,advertised seminars, matriculation of new LIGOite, handled several safety issues, HR related matters.
• PMA renovation report -details pending
• Press related issues--worked on Press Kits and Inserts plus the LIGO News saga.

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

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/
 

Continued development of a proposal for implementing Primavera Project Planner Enterprise.

Continue working on draft / text of implementation.
Clink on links to view the Draft Work-plan and Estimate.

The following is a summary of status by sub system:
COC - Still need completed WBS dictionary and BOE.
http://ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/COC_AdvLIGO/COC_index.html
PSL -  No action items pending.  Changes to schedule pending.
http://ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/PSL_AdvLIGO/PSL_index.html
AOS - Still need completed WBS dictionary and BOE.

IO -  Still need completed WBS dictionary and BOE.  Continued input of progress data and changes per Dave Reitze.

http://ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/IO_AdvLIGO/IO_index.html
SUS - No action items pending.  Continue working with Janeen, Jay, and Helena to input changes to the cost estimate.
http://ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/SUS_AdvLIGO/SUS_index.html

http://ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/UK_US_SUS/CP_Descope_Benne.htm - Cost benefit of removing Compensator Plate SUS from scope and converting to development labor.

Attended SUS meeting to discuss RAL scope and tasks on Tuesday the 13th at 8:30am.

http://ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/UK_US_SUS/RAL_Cost_012004.htm - Comparison of RAL numbers to our detailed estimates for variance analysis of  actual funding vs. proposed funding.

Attended SUS meeting to discuss schedule changes on Wednesday the 14th at 10:00am.

http://ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/UK_US_SUS/BSC_Hours_Rem.htm - FTE analysis of work remaining for the preliminary design phase for the BSC controls prototype based on two schedule options.

SEI - Schedule changes are pending per our meeting of November 12.  Continue input of changes per Larry Jones.
http://ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/SEI_AdvLIGO/SEI_index.html
ISC - Still need completed WBS dictionary and BOE.

LDAS - No action required at this point in time.

INSTALL - No action items pending.

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 - No action required at this point in time.

ROSTER DATABASE:
Continued input of changes / corrections regarding supervisors and departments.

COST BOOK DATABASE:
Reconciling cost account listing from cost book and schedule loading.

Working with Carol and Florence starting work setting up "crosswalk" between accounting and progress reporting.

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

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

We have received one half of our FY 2004 Operating funding from the NSF ($16.5 million).   Budgets have been prepared.

The LIGO Change Control Board met Monday, January 12, 2004 as part of the Staffing Meeting scheduled for that date.  CR-040001, which establishes the FY 2004 Operating budget, was discussed and approved.  Minutes have been distributed (LIGO -M040003-00-P).

I believe that CR-040001 replaces CR-030015 below and CR-030015 should be closed.  CR-030016 will be placed on the "watch" list.

Open Change Requests:

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 to Facilitate Movement of Large Items (currently assigned to FY 2004 liens list)	J. Worden	July 31, 2003

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

• Various personnel/payroll /HR related work.  There was a staffing meeting on January 12, 2004.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

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

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

Post run activities such as calibrations and PEM injections shared time during a
curiously mobile freeze with multiple commissioning efforts on the 4k.  Full calibrations were
obtained on both IFOs, including hardware measurements of sensing and output chains; input
for more realistic models.  An improvement was made in DC calibration methods.

Operators segued into a new shift schedule, with daily 17h coverage from 8am-1am.

4K IFO commissioning
We saw more evidence that incursions into the 4k AS table resulted in glitchiness that
decayed away to stable running after several hours.  A camera was set up on the AS port
and glitches in the AS_Q spectrum appeared to be correlated with the passage of dust
through the beam.

A spectrum analyzer was used to record AS_Q up to 100kHz, and a calibration was
estimated to yield a broadband displacement spectrum.

The latest 4k noise budget is shown here.  BS DAC noise was thought to be dominant
at 50-80Hz, while MICH noise was the major contributor between 25-50Hz.
In order to address the beamsplitter noise , the BS coil driver and associated dewhitening filter
were changed.  However, this change suprisingly did not have the expected effect on the noise
curve. The BS contribution was expected to drop by a factor of seven, but such a change was
not seen in calibrated AS_Q.  The POB path was later reworked, but again, targeted
POB noise remained.  On the sensing side, ASPD2 and 3 received whitening board mods.
While this work was not expected to have a measurable effect on the current strain
curve, it will be needed later.

Strangely, accelerometers mounted on BSC crossbeam structures see more noise than
seismometers on the ground (e.g. 50X more in horizontal direction ~10-60Hz, and 3-10X
more above 30Hz).  Pier resonances are not anticipated at these frequencies, but people
are suspicious of accelerometer mounting plates.

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

---------------------------------------------------------------------
L1 Interferometer
--------------------------------------------------------------------
After completing the S3 data run we resumed interferometer commissioning
as we begin staging for the hydraulic pre-isolator
(HEPI) installation. Among the very promising early commissioning results,
the L1 interferometer was operated stably at double the previous record
input power (approximately 3.5 W); studies of thermal effects are underway
to inform the adaptive thermal compensation (ATC) effort in prototype
test at LHO.  In another experiment, large forces were applied to
test masses in "low noise" operating mode to look for nonlinear energy
release noise mechanisms (of a form similar to the Barkhausen effect
in permanent ferromagnets).
 

Safety/security (Rich Riesen)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Both end station cranes have been inspected and minor repairs were
performed.
 

 When moving the Genie lift into the staging for the final crane
inspection, it started malfunctioning.  I put the unit out of service and
called the Genie repair people.  The tech. (on site) and Genie Corp. (via
phone) determined it was a faulty valve on the main boom.  The valve has
been ordered and will be replaced tomorrow.  I have rescheduled the crane
inspection for Tuesday (1-20-04)
 

Found 2 bad door sensors at the X-end, they are on order and will be
replaced upon arrival.  The X-end entrance door is still chattering in the
wind and will be realigned when the door sensors are replaced.
 

The Laser Safety System server crashed last night.  I rebooted the system
and its back up and fully functional. Found no apparent reason for the
server to crash.
 

Found no safety concerns during my weekly site tour.
 

Had the shift operator lock the IFO in the PRM state, performed the weekly
IR scan on all 4 tables and the PSL.  Found no errant beams.
 

Continuing work with Ed Chargois and GSA on property issues
 

LLO, a Community Resource (Bonnie Wooley)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
75 retired military personnel toured LLO on Thursday and 47 fourth graders
will tour and paint tomorrow.  We're reaching out to all ages in our
community!
 

L1 Calibration and Community Enrichment (O'Reilly)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Last weekend performed calibrations for S3. Test Mass calibrations,
were performed in several different ways in an effort to get greater
accuracy.
 

Thursday gave a talk to a group of retired veterans who toured the LIGO
site.
 

LDAS (Yakushin)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
LDAS admin:
 

During post S3 maintenance shutdown of LDAS:
1) temporary QFS license on dataserver was replaced by a permanent one;
 

2) latest UFS patch was installed on gateway and /export was remounted with
noatime option;
 

3) new linux kernel was installed on all the nodes and servers except for IDE RAIDs
that must be first upgraded to RH9;
 

4) some fiber cables were rerouted;
 

5) it was verified that fb2 has permanent QFS license and the same QFS
version as LDAS.
 

LDAS data analysis:
 

Tried using Lagrange interpolation for line removal in waveburst. At first
glance that does not work well.
 
 
 

General Computing (Roddy)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Received the two projectors for the auditorium today.  Still following
up on mounts, spare bulbs, wired remote and extensions for the cabling.
 

Received the new GigE switch and installed it on Monday.  Waiting on LSU
to configure their end.  The additional two cards for the PIX shipped
yesterday so I am expecting them shortly.  I will also have to order
some fibers today to go between the new hardware.  I have temporary
fibers in place to get us running but they are excessively long.
 

Replacing a computer that is starting to develop some hard drive
problems.  The machine is also the DHCP server and so must be taken care
of before it fails.
 

In general most of this week has been spent trying to spec projectors,
cables, etc. for the meeting coming up.
 
 
 

LLO Seismic retrofit (J. Kern)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Ken Mailand is at LLO this week directing the assembly of the HEPI pump
carts. The vendor selected to manufacture the welded frames delivered them
on Monday, and the work was so deficient that I rejected them outright.  We
decided rather than risking permitting the contractor to rebuild the frames,
that we would revoke the PO and award the work to the next bidder.  Ken and
I visited an alternate shop the following morning and after explaining Ken's
requirements we are satisfied that they will get it right the first time. PR
submitted to Dennis, stock has been ordered and we expect to receive a first
article next week.  Parts arrived with much surface work requiring
completion; we arranged that anodizing, nickel and silver plating be done
locally.  All has been returned to Ken's satisfaction and the 7 pump
assemblies should be completed by Friday.  Ken will return to LLO on Jun 28
to supervise final integration into the new frames.
 

The vendor manufacturing the HEPI housings is late, and continues to excuse
his tardiness on subcontractors.  Many e-mails and telephone calls have
resulted in a written commitment of housings in his shop for fit check by
Feb 4. Four invitees appeared at LLO Wednesday for a job walk, along with Ed
Jasnow.  Multiple change orders prepared for Dennis to accommodate small
modifications in existing POs and contracts.
 

Valve test calibration cart nearly completed, thanks to Oddvar and Danny
Sellers.
 
 
 

LLO Seismic retrofit (O. Spjeld)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
- Have nearly completed the assembly of the valve test calibration
stand. Excellent progress and results thanks to Danny at the LLO
work-shop. Leak test, installation of electronics and computer with I/O
card expected to be complete by end of week.  Waiting for support from
Katrina to get Labview running and Colin / Stanford to get started on
valve calibration.
 

- Arranged for shipping of hardware and parts required for installation
of (8) actuators to MIT for their existing BSCs.
 

- Attended HEPI Mechanical Piping job-walk on Wednesday 1/14.
 

- Follow-up of critical parts: Boot Installation Fixtures and Quarter
Round Displacement Flags.  Delivery at the end of this week or early
next week.
 

- Re-writing the HEPI Installation Procedure to reflect changes caused
by revised hardware and the alternative installation preference.
 

- Continuous effort on completing assembly drawings prior to EPI fit
check at Southbridge early/mid-February.
 
 
 

HPLF, S3 Detector Studies (R. Amin)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
HPLF: Ken and I have started unpacking all of our equipment and started
setting up. ELS's maintainence contractor has been contacted. Their
estimate for arrival on-site is the 29th of January.  This contractor
has informed us that they will need one day to verify laser performance
and to teach the users how to operate/diagnose the equipment. ELS's
group in Germany has yet to contact me with regards to the contracted
100 W device. Apparently they were having personnel turnovers in their
American group. I expect them to call or e-mail today or tomorrow at the
very latest. Otherwise, I will be requesting an update via telephone.
 

RF Phase Noise: I have been working closely with Rich Abbott and Ken
Watts regarding the determination of phase noise in our EOM drivers (IFR
oscillator boxes).  I am still learning how to conduct a "good"
estimation of phase noise using two IFR oscillators beating against each
other.
 

Lock Loss: I am continuing to collect data regarding lock loss.  I have
requested that the operators mark in their log entries when the mode
cleaner or IFO fails for no apparent reason.  So far MC1 has not shown
the glitch that was symptomatic of Nov 17-18's failures. This is rather
disconcerting since I still need to learn about the failure modes of the
MC controllers and the FSS board.  I still believe the two are connected
to IFO lock loss.
 
 

HPLF and Burst Analysis (Franzen)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Preparing the HPLF by unpacking and sorting equipment.
 

2) Added some new results to my WaveBurst veto analysis. Find details on
http://www.ligo-la.caltech.edu/~franzen/WBveto2.html
 
 

CDS support (Ash Khan)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
 

1) Consolidated the ISS Autolocker and the PSL pico motor controller
code into one system, resulting in a saving of one MV162 controller.
 

2) Upgrading the Atomic Clock and GPS monitoring at par with Hanford.
 
 

Detector/Technical Support (Coyne)

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

• Safety (all):
• There was a safety inspection of the 40m lab on Tuesday, January 13. Several items that were called out last year had not been addressed; All of these issues are now being addressed, aggressively, belatedly.
• Bob has ordered a lockout-tagout kit, and will set up the system. All personnel will be trained in its use.
• Steve and Bob are investigating more formal crane operation certification.
• Bob is ordering steel-toed safety boots for all crane operators (Steve, Bob, Osamu).
• Steve is ordering, and will install, drip trays under vacuum roughing pumps.
• Bob is modifying the emergency procedure for the South Annex bake-out facility in case of fire, equipment overheating/failure or loss of electrical power, based on comments from the safety inspectors.
• Bob had the South Annex fume hoods calibrated, and they are within specs.
• An audible fire alarm will be installed in the back room of the South Annex.
• Commissioning (Miyakawa, Kawamura, Sakura):
• We are planning to vent for the installation of the two suspended recycling mirrors, next week. More detail below. The current work is all preparation for this installation.
• Steve is completing the installation and commissioning of all the QPDs for beam monitoring, especially the ones that monitor the initial pointing of the beam just before it hits the PRM.
• A mechanical shutter has, at long last, been installed on the PSL periscope. EPICS control of this shutter, including an interlock to the vacuum state, will be implemented by Jay soon. Steve and Osamu will install three more mechanical shutters in the API table, for the MCR, SP, and AP beamlines.
• The 166 MHz pockels cell has been installed on the PSL table. All wiring is in place, the pockels cell has been energized; modulation depth checked with a scope; signals appear at the 166 MHz I&Q demod board (at the SP beamline); and into the digital LSC system. The signal generator has been phase-locked to be exactly 5x the 33 MHz signal.
• Osamu used the 166 MHz sidebands to measure the Michelson Schnupp asymmetry. He put a HWP before the 166 MHz pockels cell to induce AM as well as PM onto the light, and measured the transmission of the AM at the dark port. From this he calculated the Schnupp asymmetry to be (0.39+-0.05) meters, or (6+-5) cm lower than design (the design will tolerate a difference of up to 10 cm). The large errors are due to difficulty in measuring the AM in the presence of beats at lower frequencies. Osamu is working on a different, more sensitive method.
• However, the 166 MHz RF PD seems to have sustained some damage, and Osamu is working on getting a replacement PD.
• Osamu has developed a procedure for aligning the PSL beam into the Mode Cleaner (in vacuum or in air) using the MC error signal as a guide. This should make it much easier to use the PSL beam, in air, to align the interferometer during installation.
• Osamu checked that we are able to robustly lock the arms (using POX and POY) even at 8% of our usual input power, thereby simulating the situation when the PRM is installed (but misaligned so that the power recycling cavity is not in resonance). Indeed, we can; however, the DC output is very low, and is in the digitization noise. Jay will look into increasing the gain on the PD board.
• We will check out the damping of the PRM and SRM on the bench in the South Annex, using the real satellite amplifiers and digital suspension controllers; only the in-situ cables will remain to be tested during installation.
• Steve has assembled all of the vacuum mirrors needed for installation (Lee Cardenas will assemple a few more in the next few days), for the pickoff beam, the oplevs, and the video views. He has also ordered more laser diodes for the oplevs. He has all the clean air tanks for the vent.
• Steve and Bob will prepare clean glass dishes to hold the in-vac cables, so that the ground braids aren't electrically shorted to the chamber.
• Osamu has assembled a detailed installation procedure / checklist.
• Electronics (B. Abbott, Heefner, Taylor, Nocera, Mageswaran)
• Jay retuned an LSC PD and I&Q demod board for operation at 166MHz. The higher frequency required us to use a smaller active area PD. The PD and demod board are installed and operational in the SPD2 position. (But see above; it is already damaged).
• Jay installed 2 more power supplies in parallel with the +/-15V supplies to raise the maximum current to 8 amps. Requested sorenson power supplies from LLO to be used to handle future power supply needs.
• Jay is fabricating another 2 Omega I&Q demod board for SPOB.
• Work on ASC readout (especially the QPDs) is in progress.
• Mohana is implementing the EPICS control of the in-vac steering mirrors. These will help us to re-establish correct initial pointing, during and after the installation.
• Mohana is also implementing the EPICS control of the mechanical shutters, and the interlock with the vacuum.
• Most of the VME cpus went down over last weekend for some unknown reason. After a few failed attempts, Jay and Alex got them all back up.
• DTT has not been working well. Alex and Daniel Sigg have found bugs in the code (related to timing); they fixed one and are working on another.
• The STACIS system still is down, awaiting some attention. Rob Ward is starting to look at it.
• South Annex Bake Ovens (Taylor):
• Bob obtained a new RGA for his bake ovens.
• The SRS RGA was removed from the 40m and is now in Bob's lab.
• Bob has reviewed the draft specs on vacuum cleanliness for Advanced LIGO, from Dennis Coyne.
• Bob continues to work with Larry Jones on making the mods to his ovens to mean the Advanced LIGO cleanliness specs; looks do-able.

See safety issues, above.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

Since reinstalling the fused silica masses in the South Arm Cavity, we have pumped out, recovered alignment, and taken data. Initial observations show the same coating thermal noise signal as before, which gives us confidence that we can replace the mirrors without compromising our sensitivity. This was a point we had worried about several months ago, and this result is a big relief to us!
 

We managed to improve our best high-frequency sensitivity slightly, from 5e-19 m/rHz to 4.1e-19 m/rHz, by adjusting the visibility of all three cavities and by tapping the error signal before the notch filters, rather than after.

LASTI (Ottaway)

LASTI Weekly Report (Ottaway, Mason, Smith, McInnes, Sarin, Allen)
 

System Identification Design
 

We have finished the system identification work on the HAM plant with
stiffening beam. See the LASTI ilog (http://emvogil-3.mit.edu/ilog/), for
January 9th for pictures. This was done with both the dSpace and LIGO VME
systems. Some results are on the January 15th entry to the LASTI ilog.
   On Tuesday we released one of the two SOSs, which are mounted on the
HAM table and installed the local damping. The dSpace system now
incorporates a safety, which is triggered by the output of the SOS damping
system
 

HEPI Installation
We have recieved 8 hydraulic actuators and began installation of the
actuators to the LASTI BSC chamber. Two vertical and one horizontal
actuators have been installed. The remaining will be completed by early
next week. We are still waiting for Parker control valves to begin
pumping and  operating the system.
 

Laser Thermal Compensator
All mechanical parts such as the laser enclosure, camera box, and beam
delivery componants have been designed and are on order. The expected
delivery is 1/30/04.
 

Laser Thermal Compensator Pre-Commissioning
 

The CO2 laser projector was assembled at MIT and tested. We successfully
projected a CO2 annulus pattern at a target 30m away. A 635nm crosshairs
was also projected through the system and was aligned onto the CO2
illumination spot using a thermal imaging camera.
 

Phase Camera
Two phase camera were shipped to the LHO minus the control and readout
box. These will be completed early next week and will be shipped to LHO
 
 
 

Staff Changes
 

This week we welcomed to the LASTI team Laurent Ruet, from INSA, France
who is spending
nine months with us prior to commencing his PhD. He will be working on
mechanical control problems and will be initially working with Rich on the
excess seismic noise at the top of the Piers on a BSC compared with the
ground.
Also this week will be Jamie Rollins last week full time in the LASTI
team. He is off to broaden his knowledge of digital controls and robotics
working in the artificial inteligence group at MIT. Good Luck Jamie !

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Yamamoto)
***  Noise model (M. Evans)
 

Continues work on update to LinLIGO's optical model.  The new version
is still unfinished, but will include Twiddle style matrix inversion
(as opposed to previous versions by-hand field propagation), and some
simplified mode-overlap computation.
 

*** Modeler code :
 

>> State Space model support in e2e (V. Sannibale, H.Yamamoto)
 

Virginio and Hiro are working to implement the State Space model
support in the e2e environment.
The engine code is almost done. Once implemented, one system is
represented by a ABCD matrix
defined in a file, and the primitive reads the file and acts as a
linear system. This is along the line
of the consensus how mechanical systems are simulated. This approach
makes it easy to collaborate
with subgroups working on SUS and SEI, and MSE can define a system
using the State Space Matrix.
 

>> C++ FUNC: (m>Araya)
 

 Working on getting the compile/link options from the system which will
 be used in building the shared library.  Also, updating the install
 document to remove unneeded setup instructions.
 

>> Thread support in the kernel level (B.Sears)
 

When Hiro went to LLO, he has a conversation with Ash Khan who sent us
an exert from his book about
Linux how to use thread more efficiently by writing a kernel for it.
Bruce has started looking into it.
With the standard configuration, somehow the overhead is too large and
cannot use the thread efficiently.
The same inefficiency issue was observed when Hiro tried to use fftw
with multiple threads.
 

*** alfi (B.Sears)
 

Bruce continued to work to update the alfi document.
Two new projects are starting to make alfi easier to use.
(1) make macro easier to trace
(2) Settings can be defined in the box level.
The actual coding will be lead by Bruce, while discussion is going on
among alfi users, including Matt and Hiro.
 

*** FFT (H.Yamamoto)
 

Hiro started to work on the dual recycling FFT code. The aim is
(1) speed up (x 100 ?) so that it can be used on e2e-linux boxes
(2) update to date : up-to-date design and signals
(3) easier to maintain
 

*** Dual recycling formulation (H.Yamamoto)
 

Virgo people are interested in the formulation of the field calculation
in a dual recycling Michelson cavity.
Hiro is going to finish the Mathematica code and will write a LIGO note.
 

*** Radiation Pressure (H.Yamamoto)
 

Hiro is simulating the FP cavity with LSC/ASC to understand the effect
of the radiation pressure under the realistic condition.
 

*** Computer configuration (V.Sannibale, L.Wallace)
 

The setup of the 5 e2e linux boxes have been changed so that all users
boot up using the home directory in the GC harddisk.
This makes it much easier to have important files backed up and to
maintain codes for SUN and Linux.
 

LIGO Data Analysis System
 

Software Systems (Blackburn)
The new C++ enhancements continue to develop with impressive potential
for improved performance ( order 1000 times faster than TCl on Linux )
and better threadedness to allow simaltaneous support for frame file
discover and user command query resolution. We expect to finish the
bulk of the development towards the end of this week to early next
week. Integration of the new C++ interfaces into TCL has also begun and
should be finished mid to late next week. The remainging C++ development
tasks are to support read/write of the binary cache file to disk and
support for the Unix filesystems one second time stamp resolution which
requires extra passes on directories to update cache information.
 

The build process scripts for LDAS have now been updated to support the
newer FFTW 3 release. Philip Charlton has made the necessary changes to
the dataConditionAPI to test out and use this version of this open
Fourier
transform library (see Philips report below).
 

The STLPort library has been modified by us to support enabling and
disabling of memory mapped i/o in the file_buffer<> templated class. A
new interface also supports specifying at runtime the size of the buffer
to use. Preliminary tests suggest that we may be able to speed up the
frame i/o in LDAS in the upcoming 1.0.0 release by tuning these new
entries into the STLPort library. Further testing is now under way to
determine the extent of the performance boost in a typical real world
analysis run. We are using burst group datapipeline jobs to test the
performance for a pass through the S2 RDS data on IDE Raid file systems.
 

Continued work on the controlMonitorAPI's support for log plots. It now
looks like there is a bug in the BLT graphics package for logX plots,
while
the logY plotting works just fine. The BLT developers have been
contacted
about this but no response as of yet. We will disable support for logX
in
the next release of LDAS.
 

We discovered a bug in the LAM MPI package associated with the
communication
daemons (lamd) used to communicate between processes in the MPI
environment.
If a DSO segfaults while a communication is taking place (seen while
running
the TFcluster and Slope datapipelines), the buffered memory
communicated in
the MPI world is never cleaned up, resulting in a memory leak. After
several
communications with the LAM developers, they confirmed that this was in
fact
the case!
 

Made a minor modification to the TCL socket communications procedure
which
has resulted in a noticeable speedup at the system level.
 

Added code to the managerAPI to allow users to override the system wide
timeouts for jobs. This code is still under unit tests and may not be in
the next release.
 

Identified a bug in the mpiAPI which caused it to not detect at start up
time that the MPI communications environment had failed with fictious
nodes
were added to the system.
 

Repeated the complete suite of system tests on the development version
of
LDAS with no unexpected differences.
 

Philip Charlton reports:
 

* Have finished converting LDAS to use FFTW version 3 and removed all
support for version 2. This included unit & integration testing using
the dataconditioning API on both Sun and Linux hardware with the
tandem-v
system. Remaining task is to re-verify on tandem-v, ldas-dev and
ldas-test
using the nightly build.
 

* Generated new test data and integration-level test scripts specific to
FFTW3.
 

* Fixed PR2230, which was a bug in the double-precision IIR linear
filtering code that incorrectly used a single-precision intermediate
variable at one spot.
 

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

* Got permanent SAM-QFS licenses installed on LHO/LLO dataservers.
 

* Shipped last tapes with L0 data from S3.
 

* Shipped last tapes with L1 data from S3 (between sites).
 

* Discovered one actual bad frame (investigation ongoing).
 

* Cleared up "missing piece of filesystem" case with Sun (got them
  straightened out on what the problem was and how it should be
pursued).
 

* Got sendmail working on datacacheX (can't remember which one)..
 
 

(Hari Pulapaka)
 

* Enabled Ganglia on the CIT cluster.
 

* Updated node41 to include new packages for NIS, Ganglia and also its
  Condor Configurations.
 

* Wrote a program to update the locked segment bit for all the data
  published here at CIT (S3 L1 and L2 frames).
 

* Published the S2 Burst MDC frames.
 

* Spent time debugging the cause of frequent RLS server crashes.
  Submitted a bug report to the globus developers.
 

* Verified that all the data (L3 RDS) generated during S3 from the
  sites has been transferred to CIT, and also ran some spot checks for
the
  integrity of the transferred data.
 
 

(Al Wilson)
 

* Returned node41 to service. And have captured a image for
systemimager.
 

* Setting up two of the new computers on the sixth floor. One for Ed to
use as
  a development machine for the upcoming TCL-Globus work and the other
to
  replace ldas-pcdev1.
 

* After getting the mediascan working on the IDE raid systems. It was
found
  that we needed to replace several disks. Datacache2,3,4 were the bulk
of the
  replacements. No data where lost.
 
 

(Stuart Anderson)
 

* Reconfigured the remaining set of product T3 RAID units at Caltech to
  have an internal hot-spare disk drive.
 

* Finished upgrading the LDAS Linux machines at Caltech to the
  kernel 2.4.20-28.9SMP.
 

* Started discussing various Ethernet switch upgrade paths with vendor
  to get additional ports and/or internal bandwidth.
 

* Obtained a software fix from Sun for a run-away CPU usage problem with
  their new PCI video card (XVR-100).
 
 
 

MIT
---
(Keith Bayer)
 

* Received SATA PCraid unit from ASA.
 
 
 

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

* During post S3 maintenance shutdown of LDAS:
 

  1) Temporary QFS license on dataserver was replaced by a permanent
one;
 

  2) Latest UFS patch was installed on gateway and /export was remounted
     with noatime option;
 

  3) New linux kernel was installed on all the nodes and servers except
     for IDE RAIDs that must be first upgraded to RH9;
 

  4) Some fiber cables were rerouted;
 

  5) It was verified that fb2 has permanent QFS license and the same QFS
     version as LDAS.
 
 
 

Hanford
-------
(Greg Mendell)
 

* A report on gaps in S3 LHO data, prepared Jan 09 2004, is at the
  following URL:
 
http://www.ldas.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ldas_outgoing/archiver/ S3END_GapReport09Jan2004_LHO.txt.
  Only gaps between 751651200 GPS = Oct 31 2003 07:59:47 PST and
  757713616 = Jan 09 2004 12:00:03 PST are shown.  There are 14 gaps in
the
  data. These all appear to be due to DAQ problems during the run.
 

* A report on gaps in S3 LLO data, prepared Jan 09 2004 and revised  Jan
  12 2004, is at the following URL:
 
http://www.ldas.ligo-la.caltech.edu/ldas_outgoing/archiver/ S3END_GapReport09Jan2004_LLO.txt.
  Only gaps between 751651200 GPS = Oct 31 2003 07:59:47 PST and
  757706400 = Jan 09 2004 09:59:47 PST are shown.  There are 18 gaps in
the
  data. These all appear to be due to DAQ problems during the run.
 

* Thus, the createrds process at the sites was completely successful
for S3
  and the createrdsGUI.tcl script and LDAS createRDS jobs were very
robust!
 
 

(Ben Johnson)
 

* I have been archiving special post-S3 calibration/injection segments
  for both observatories this past week.
 

* Trying to get the LDAS room temperature probe working properly (for
  reporting to CDS). Channel A still works, Channel B does not.
 

* Shipped last of "S3 proper" data this week. Raw data on 1/13, RDS
  data on 1/15.
 

* On the LHO system shutdown 1/14: patched /export UFS and added
  noatime mount parameter; SAM/QFS permanent install went fine; /dev/hdb
  has been replaced and reconstructed on metaserver; Upgraded the linux
  kernel in defiance and the linux cluster to RH's 2.4.20-28.9
 

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)
Mendell:
Mike Landry and I hope to finish debugging the basic sliding routine in
the stackslide search by next week.  I have added a routine that finds
clusters of peaks in the output from the sliding routine, and code that
report on the frequency, amplitude, snr, and width of the peaks. We are
working on methods to veto instrument lines.  We also are working on
routines to output results in xml format suitable for insertion into the
DB2 meta-database.
 

Shawhan:
* Backed up log files from S3 science run, and did bookkeeping of data
segments
 

* Did bookkeeping of S3 data segments
 

* Evaluated a new class of potential veto triggers, generated by Natalia
Zotov's "PTmon" monitor, for possible use in the S2 inspiral analysis.
 

Yakushin:
Tried using Lagrange interpolation for line removal in waveburst. At
first glance that does not work well.
 

General Computing (Wallace)
MIT:
(Keith)
-Testing sendmail server with SSL+authentication
-Submitted matlab orders for 2004
-Setup new grad student Laurent Ruet on gc
-Alleviated disk space crisis on gc for another month
 

Livingston:
(Shannon)
-Received the two projectors for the auditorium today.  Still following
up on mounts, spare bulbs, wired remote and extensions for the cabling.
-Received the new GigE switch and installed it on Monday.  Waiting on
LSU to configure their end.  The additional two cards for the PIX
shipped yesterday so I am expecting them shortly.  I will also have to
order some fibers today to go between the new hardware.  I have
temporary fibers in place to get us running but they are excessively
long.
-Replacing a computer that is starting to develop some hard drive
problems.  The machine is also the DHCP server and so must be taken
care of before it fails.
-In general most of this week has been spent trying to spec projectors,
cables, etc. and working logistical issues for the upcoming meeting.
 

Hanford:
(Christine)
- Purchased several software upgrades and computer upgrades.
- Upgraded a Win98 PC to Win2k.
- Helped a user with some network problems.
 

CIT:
(Mike)
-Loaded two laptops for the NSB meeting in Livingston.
-Ghosted Hareem's computer and am now getting started on reloading this
computer as visitors workstation.
-Running multiple test with PDMWorks. Testing off site data connections
to
our test PDMWorks server, from multiple users. So far everything seems
to
be working.
-Loaded solid works 2003 and PDMWorks client for Janeen.
-Updated the Flex LM server for Ansys.
-Worked on the Ansys Flexlm server. This server/users were having
problems
reading the updated license. This is now working correctly.
-Setup Dennis Coyne's workstation to connect to the scanner down here in
Bridge Annex.
-Loaded a PC for Riccardo De'Salvo's group that included adding
additional
hardware and transferring users data over from old computer to this
updated PC.
-This week I have quite a bit of user support that included e-mail,
hardware, printing, and software issues.
 

(Lisa)
- Spent most of the week working with the new orinoco/proxim ap-2000
wireless
access points.  I believe I found a way to automate updates to the mac
access
list using expect.  Expect is a new scripting language for me, so it's
going to
take a couple of days to get the automation in place.
- Worked on the mailservers.  Worked on the canit filters.
- Created a new account and other misc. user support.
- Helped out the 40meter with a problem on the martian network.
 

(Larry)
-Went through a number of purchases. We will soon be receiving a
SUNBlade 1500.
This unit we will be testing to see if it is a viable replacement for
the SUN
desktop units.
Received a few new Orinoco Access Points. These will be distributed in
Millikan
and Bridge.
-Working on new restricted access WEB server. This server will be for
those
wanting to setup passwords for restricted access to their web pages.
-Rebuilt three computers for the E2E group.
-Added a few more options to the Remote Control Room computer. We will
setup the
second computer system once the table for the unit is located.
-Performed some trouble shooting for a number of PC's. We have a couple
of units
that have fans going out on them. We have also found that the font
libraries
under the Exceed program do not work with Mathematica. We are working
on getting
a patch for the problem.
-Working on the logistics for the scheduled power outage at Bridge. The
essential equipment will be kept on-line but the sandboxes and a number
of other
units will be taken down for a 24 hour period.
-Working with the Livingston group on the a variety of tasks.
-Spent a little time working on webcams and video conferencing. We will
be doing
more related work this coming week.
 

(Veronica)
- LIGO website: Set up and monitored two seminars. Updated the Past and
Next Seminars webpages accordingly. Assisted the speakers with setting
up
their presentations.
Prepared a high-resolution image for a popular science publisher,
another
one for DCC.
Updated the roster database.
Assisted Donna with browser compatibility issues of one of her webpages.
The problem may be due to the use of a plugin suited for certain
range of browsers. Recommended that plain text navigation be added as
a backup.
Per a request from Kip Thorne, discussed with JoAnn Boyd the ways of
setting up an online document submit form with a database backend for
TAPIR publications.
Posted updates to various pages throughout the website.
- LSC website: Posting MOUs as they arrive. Working on an image map of
collaborating institutions.
- CaJAGWR website: Videotaped the last seminar and compressed the video
for web posting. Updated the website. Provided logistical support.
 

Advanced LIGO Development (Shoemaker)

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