Weekly Report for Week Ending February 5, 2004

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  February 9, 2004 will be:

 (Meeting time: 10:30 am Pacific Time)
 

1. STAFFING COMMITTEE

Special Items:

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights
 

LSC Issues (Saulson)

no report

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

Status of LSC/MOU Research Updates and Program Reports (Petrac)
USCISI

• Attach. A for 08-15-03 to 02-15-04 / in LIGO review / Lazzarini
• Attach. Z for 08-15-03 to 02-15-04 / in LIGO review / Lazzarini
• Attach. 1 for first LIGO data exchange / in LIGO review / Lazzarini

• Draft-Attach. A for 08-15-03 to 02-15-04 / in LIGO review / Lazzarini

• Attach. A for 02-15-03 to 02-15-04 / in LIGO review / Lazzarini
• Draft-Attach. A for 08-15-03 to 02-15-04 / in process for web posting

• Attach. Z for 02-15-03 to 08-15-03 / in LIGO review / Barish
• Draft-Attach. Z for 02-15-03 to 08-15-03 / in process for web posting
• Attach. Z for 08-15-03 to 02-15-04 / in LIGO review / Barish
• Draft-Attach. Z for 08-15-03 to 02-15-04 / in process for web posting
• Attach. Z for 02-15-04 to 08-15-04 / in LIGO review / Barish
• Draft-Attach. Z for 02-15-04 to 08-15-04 / in process for web posting

• Attach B for 02-15-03 to 08-15-03 / in LIGO review / Barish
• Draft-Attach. B for 02-15-03 to 08-15-03 / in process for web posting
• Attach B for 08-15-03 to 02-15-04 / in LIGO review / Barish
• Draft-Attach. B for 08-15-03 to 02-15-04 / in process for web posting

• Attach. A for 08-15-02 to 08-15-03 / signed-off
• Attach. D for 08-15-02 to 08-15-03 / signed-off
• Attach. D for 08-15-03 to 02-15-04 / signed-off
• Attach. Z for 08-15-02 to 08-15-03 / signed-off
• Attach. Z for 08-15-03 to 02-15-04 / signed-off

LIGO Weekly Site Telecon (Lindquist)
There was no site teleconference scheduled on Thursday, February 5, 2004.
The list of current actions revised to reflect the status of open actions assigned through the last update (January 8, 2004) may be found at ACTION LIST.

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

• Provided assistance to the Detector Group (H. Armandula) with packing and shipping of a Fused Silica Substrate w/bonded ears to Hobart and William Smith College (S. Penn) located at Geneva, NY.  Account Number P204296.
• Provided assistance to the Detector Group (L. Jones)  with packing and shipping of two (2) Cables: Probe Cable, 60m, for 20 mm position sensor .082"  and OD Cable,12 Condition 24 AWG, High-Flex CF9 series, to LHO (K. Ryan).  Account Number P204324.
• Prepared and submitted the required documentation Standard Form 120, to the National Science Foundation (K. Rorer)  as prescribes by the General Services Administration to turn-in a Truck, GMC S-15  VIN# 1GTBS14A2E853147, Located at LIGO Livingston Observatory.
• Attended the monthly LIGO  and Caltech property meeting.

>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

• A major thrust this week was to commence with the reorganization of the DCC.  Working more than 96 hours this past week, I accomplished the following as it pertains to moving the DCC:
• Removed documents that were already in boxes (total of 38)
• Cleared all the bookshelves in my office
• Moved multiple piles of paper that occupied the additional workspace directly inside of Cleveland's office.  Cleaned the table and prepared for the relocation of the extra computer to that desk space.  George will use this as he continues his contract work.
• Took down 7 bookshelves in anticipation of rearranging my office for better workflow (this involved the removal of 40 toggle bolts from the wall from which the standards were hung).
• Cleared off my desk!  The papers on my desk were primarily handled and processed rather than packed.  This was quite an accomplishment.
• Added over 700 documents to the LIGO database, processing them for filing.  This total included 220 files from Irene for the 2003 travel expense reports.  Additionally, over 70 MOU attachments were processed and posted on the web.  Nearly 200 invoices were also added to the database.
• Jim scanned all the contract invoices and logs from 1997 through 2000.  I reviewed all the scans and burned CDs for each year's records and shredded all hardcopies.  This helped reduce several boxes in Dorothy's office.  2001 records have been scanned but I haven't completed reviewing them.  The years 2002 and 2003 will be completed this week.
• Met with Toomas Erm in the Systems Engineering Group of the TMT project, Here on campus. Since they have started to look at the issue of documentation for the project, Richard Dekany suggested that he talk to me since we have a documentation system running for LIGO.  I walked him through our database system, our number and filing schemes, and explained our evolution from paper to digital archiving.  He may come back with some specific questions and "how-to's" as they begin planning their requirements and documentation needs.
• Continued to work on getting information and quotes on a Canon DR-9080C scanner.  Ruth sent out requests for quote to four different vendors.  By Monday we should be able to decide on the lowest bid and see what funding options there are for securing this production scanner.
• Continued to work on an upcoming article for LIGO newsletter regarding Barry's trip to Antartica for the NSB.
• Began to prepare for office reconfiguration.  This will involve an approximate cycle of 10 days to unload, move furniture in and out and move all the paper back in.  As soon as we have confirmation of the move dates, we will send out an email letting LIGO staff know of the impaired production in the DCC during that time.  We anticipate being able to continue to answer email but with a slower turn-around time for document requests or processing.
• Prepared several optional layout plans as suggested by PMA.  Did  transparent oversheet to compare our initial layout with their proposed version, showing a loss of file cabinets and no improvement on workflow.  However, did receive approval for the smaller of two track filing modules.  These will be installed in Cleveland's area and will provide addtional filing for our end-tab folders.
• Worked with George on understanding the search capability of the web DCC search tool.  Several discoveries were made that begin to explain why so many searches by LIGO staff, do not produce the desired returns.  There has been a growing frustration from both staff and collaborators, that they submitted a document but it doesn't appear in their searches.  One ot these situations can be explained by the following:  If a keyword is used for a search, rather than going to the keyword table and listing those documents associated with that word, the search tool only searches through TITLES for that word.  This does not reflect what is available and is misleading.  George is documenting other found flaws in the basic design of the searches and this should further illuminate the problems we're facing.

ACTIVITY

• Assisted Bill Tyler in the relocation of fax machine.
• Making preparations for DCC reconfiguration.

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>

• Federal Expressed signed change order #22 to MIT.
• Obtaining quotes for a Canon Scanner including delivery, training, installation, and the first year preventive maintenance for Linda Turner.  I have received two of the four requested quotes.  One more quote is coming today, the last may possibly be a no bid.  Bids received so far look pretty good.  Prepared an Excel spreadsheet comparing pertinent factors of the different quotes which will be completed by tomorrow and submitted it to Linda Turner with the bid results.
• Placed and reconciled pcard orders for Caltech and the sites.  Followed up on rush shipments and back-ordered shipments.  Paid invoices on the credit card program for goods received.
• Placed one time standard purchase orders as requested for the sites and for Caltech.
• Closed out fully paid one-time standard purchase orders through January 31, 2004.

• Setup a new contract with Excel Engineering.
• Assisting with LIGO administration functions.
• Continuing to monitor copiers and fax machines to ensure proper operating.

• Completed and posted monthly financial report for FY2004 as of the end of January.  This report has a few changes and additions.
• Met with Ernest Ngalula of the Property Services Department to go over the 23 Fabrication Equipment Requests we had submitted for Detector fabrications.  Minor corrections were made to the forms, but the requests were approved in the amounts and for the accounts we had submitted.
• Updated account list to incorporate the new accounts.  An updated list will be posted on the LIGO Internal Bulletin Board by Veronica.
• Met with Carol Wilkinson, Phil Lindquist and Thomas Frey to determine next steps in how to report budgets, costs and performance for Advanced R&D.
• Prepared schedule of expenditures related to charges for Catherine Stebbins.
• Started working on Visitor Program report for January.
• Financial reports can be found at: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport

From: irena@ligo.caltech.edu (Irena Petrac)
[pel] 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.  We are still waiting for University of Oregon information regarding amounts owed.
From: Ed Jasnow <jasnow@ligo.caltech.edu>

• Excel was notified of their selection as the HEPI piping contractor.  It is expected that they will receive their Time & Materials contract for this work by Friday, February 6.  The estimated amount is just over $63,000.
• The three other proposers on the HEPI contract were also notified of the selection.
• A teleconference is scheduled on Thursday, February 5, with CSIRO to discuss some inconsistencies in their proposal for the optical coating research and development contract.

SUPPORT (Baldon, Lloyd, Tischler)

>Irene Baldon

• Processed the paper work twelve (12) new/revised trips.  There are eleven (11) 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.
• Completed two (2) Expense Reports and there are eighteen (18) 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 nine (9) reports more than 30 days old.
• Reconciled thrity-five (35) 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.
• Spent a considerable amount of time working with LIGO/Hanford Adm on various travel procedures and other administrative procedures.  Worked with LIGO/Livingston Adm on a number of travel questions.  Also reconciled, closed or corrected various problem for three (3) P-Card holders.
• Completed pulling all 2003 Travel folders, cleaning them up and sent them to DCC for permanent storage.  Created new 2004 folders for travel use and filed them away.
• 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 February 2, 2004.  Arranged eleven (11) new or revised teleconferences and four (4) new reservations on the LIGO Calendar.

• No report.

• Jim continued with data entry in the LIGO database and helping out in the DCC.

PAC16 details, NSF's LIGO Video telecon, PMA Renovation report

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/
 

No report this week (vacation!)
 

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

Nothing to report.

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

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

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

• Various personnel/payroll /HR related work.  There will be a meeting of the Staffing Committee Monday, February 9, 2004.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

Working with Ryan Tischler to negotiate and obtain approval of 2004 LIGO Renovation Requests with the PMA Administrator's office.  Presently, most of the LIGO safety related requests have been accepted and resolution/corrective action authorized by PMA.  One of the major renovation requests was for PMA to provide funding/assistance with space modifications required before work could start on major modifications of the LIGO server equipment room.  This request involved modifications required of the DCC work space to accommodate the LIGO "mail room".

During this reporting period, helped with the planning for the mail room relocation, coordinated and assisted with moving the main fax machine.  Also continuing to work with PMA to implement the "approved" LIGO renovation requests.

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

Summary of Commissioning Activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory  (compiled by L.Matone)

This week, we continued to work on H1's ASC system and we restored H1's Inpiral sensitivity
back to 2.5-3Mpc (see elog). Ring down one-arm measurements for H1 and H2's were
taken (see elog) which allowed to estimate the cavity poles and ITM trasmittivity.

In WFS land, we focused primarily on the WFSs on reflection. Currently, we have WFS4 that
behaves as expected (it sees mainly the cETM and cITM angular degrees of freedom). WFS3
sees a combination of cETM, cITM and RM and we'd like to see if we can get a better
separation (we'd like to have WFS3 that sees only the RM.) The goal is obtain an angular sensing
matrix with less cross-terms than before. If we succeed, we have a chance at stabilizing the
RF phase of WFS2 which we consider to be at the root of the bandwidth problem.

The NR sideband modulation depth was increased (see elog) by 10x therefore amplifying
the WFS signals by 10x. This however introduced a line in the AS_Q spectrum at 1442Hz
(difference between ASC sideband frequency and LSC sideband frequency (see elog)).

Auxiliary loop shaping (for l- and l+) was carried out this week in order to understand
where the excess noise in these loops is coming from (see elog).
 

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

LLO (Zucker et al)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Special item: NSB Retreat at LLO
---------------------------------------------------------------------
We hosted a retreat of the U.S. National Science Board and NSF top brass
at LLO on Wednesday. This was a new experiment for the NSB: the first
time they have visited, as a group, one of the major U.S. science
facilities they voted into existence (ten years ago!).
 

By all accounts, the experiment was a resounding success. Thanks to all
the presenters, tour guides, operators, and support staff who
contributed time and energy. It's always hard to single any individual
out for special mention, but of course there's one name on everyone's
lips...
 

WAY TO GO BONNIE!
 

(OK now, about that LSC meeting next month...)

GHS note:  And Larry Wallace and Shannon Roddy did a great job on the technical elements of the presentations and video! Hoorah to them as well!
 

L1 commissioning (summary by Zucker)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Commissioning work continued to concentrate on detecting and
understanding the effects of increased power in the interferometer.
After dealing with peripheral alignment effects due to radiation
pressure (reconfigured the optical lever filters) and debugging a
saturation issue in the RF sideband monitor (a.k.a. SPOB), a locked run
at 4 watts input power finally yielded clear evidence that thermal
lensing affected our sideband coupling. There is an intensive effort to
understand the results and correlate them with the modeled behavior.
 

Meanwhile we expect even more power will help clarify the parameters, so
Peter King and co. are working to improve the modematching into the PMC
and possibly boost the laser power proper. We hope to get something like
6 W with these steps.
 

Peter and Flavio Nocera also are revisiting the intensity stabilization
servo (ISS); this new version was commissioned before S3 but we want to
understand it better before we propagate it to H2 and H1.
 

Gregg Harry and others wrapped up an exhaustive round of test mass Q
measurements.  The coarse assessment was that the mirrors tested match
expectations, but further analysis continues (specifically to relate the
findings to projected losses in the coatings, of intense interest for
Advanced LIGO).
 

Gregg and Rupal also took joint video image and integrating
scatterometer data on the cavity mirrors, to follow up on the work by
Bill Kells and company at LHO.
 

We were interrupted a bit this week by some intense microseismic
activity due to stormy weather, and by an intermittent clock cable on
the main LSC realtime front end processor.
 
 

LLO Seismic retrofit (R. Abbott)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
1.  Things are still on track for the HEPI electronics to be in house
for the second half of February.  Almost all of the design work has been
done for the electronics and the majority of parts have been received.
A large part of the board stuffing was done this week by the online
board stuffing place.  Boards will be arriving next week in time for
Dave Grimmett to work with them.
 

2.  The HEPI piping contract was awarded.  The contractor, is to be on
site for a kick off meeting on Friday 6 February, and work is to begin
on the X end station on Monday.
 

3.  The valve calibration is finally converging.  We are anticipating
the first valve to be calibrated today (5 Feb).
 

4.  Preliminary AC wiring has begun to power the pump stations in the
corner and end stations.
 

5.  Next week, we are to review the installation procedure for the HEPI
system.  Hopefully, we will be able to bless this process by late next
week so that installation is free to begin thereafter.
 

6.  Fit check for the actuators and housings is progressing well.
Assembly of the tripods to the actuators is in progress.
 

L1 Commissioning (Frolov)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I worked with Rai and Andri on thermal lensing studies.
The POB electronics chain was checked for RF saturations during the power
increase. The FR levels are below saturation even for the maximum current
input power. The ITM angular motion was stabilized using the DC coupled
optical levers by increasing the oplev DC gain. The thermal lensing effect
on the interferometer power build up and optical gains was investigated.
The effect is small for current power levels ~<10%. Work is underway to
improve the accuracy of the measurements.
 
 

LDAS (Yakushin)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Preparing for burst F2F meeting at UF.
 

General Computing (Roddy)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Since Mydoom.A came out on 1/27 the anti virus software on the mail
server has stopped well over 1,100 mydoom.A infected emails.  We only
had one user get infected by the virus shortly before the new virus
definitions came out.  I estimate that RAV has stopped over 5,000
infected emails since we started using it if you include sobig, klez and
the other major viruses over the last two years.
 

I upgraded the software on the PIX firewall to version 6.2 from 5.3.
Hopefully this will fix a few problems that we were experiencing.  There
are numerous bug fixes between these releases.  Within the next couple
of weeks I plan to start modifying some of the PIX configuration to take
advantage of some of the features that we are not currently using.
 

Spent a lot of time preparing for and then supporting the NSB meeting
this week.
 

Looked into a problem on the Solaris to Linux file server backups.
Turns out that using NFS v2 increases performance, but breaks ufsdump
backups via NFS.  Had to revert back to NFS v3 for the time being.  I
will have to dig a bit deeper into this problem to figure out what is
going on.
 

Contacted Solsoft to determine how well they support the Cisco 3550
series since that is now our router for our internet connection.  Turns
out that I may be able to use the PIX strictly for internal networking
and use the 3550 for public address space.  This may improve performance
of the new connection.  This will take some time to look into and
possibly implement.
 

Ordered a copper GigE switch to provide copper GigE connections to the
GC servers.  Waiting on a quote from Sun for NICs.
 
 
 
 

HPLF and L1 commissioning (R. Amin)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
 

HPLF: Earlier this week, both the Laser Midwest technician and ELS
telephoned.  They mentioned that a new fiber optic had been sent to
replace the fiber optic damaged in last week's test.  Even though ELS
has been informed that the fiber catastrophically failed while inside
the diode chamber, they believe that the diode pump bank will continue
to run correctly.  We have aired our concerns regarding debris remaining
in the pump chamber.  The new fiber should be here by early next week,
pending on US Customs.
 

Further inquires intot the status of the 100 W device are uninspiring at
best. One of ELS's engineers has indicated that neither the contracted
power nor the planned lasing efficiency has been achieved. The laser
currently is capable of ~80 W with rapidly decaying beam qualities. They
clarificatied that the working 100 W device was constructed and is run
by the University of Stuttgart, and that a comparison is being made
between their commercial laser and the academic device to find out what
is amiss.  No set deadline on delivery exists.  More information
regarding the laser will be known by Friday.
 

Oscillator phase noise: With several megajoules of assistance from Rich
Abbott and Peter Fritschel, I have taken noise spectra of the two spare
IFR 2023A oscillators in the electronics shop.  Rai Weiss will be
working with me when we document the amount of phase noise being
transmitted from the 24.5 MHz oscillator.
 

Scatterometers: I have also calibrated the LHO scatterometer photodiode
used to measure the ETMy.  These numbers have been  posted in the e-log.
 

New Faraday Isolator Hardware for LHO: The first pieces of the LHO 2k FI
have begun arriving.  All 20mm FI hardware will be kept in the LLO
Optics lab until assembly begins.  Additionally, a spare 20 mm TGG
crystal is being sent from LHO to UF for absorption analysis.  Should
this crystal pass UF absorption criteria, we will incorporate this
crystal into a second replacement input FI.
 
 

Burst data analysis (Ken Yoshiki Franzen)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Preparing data and presentation for the f2f Burst group meeting in
Gainesville. Florida.
 

ISS and PSL (Peter King)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
 

1.2 LLO
=======
    Flavio and I have been taking data on the intensity stabilization
servo, characterizing its performance with the photodetector in its current
location after the pre-modecleaner.  A broad peak between 300 Hz and 1 kHz
was observed in the noise spectrum that was not present at the time of the
initial installation.
 

    Ashfaq has completed a test sequence for communicating with the laser
power supply and fooling it into thinking that a chiller is connected.
After sorting out a relatively minor problem with the format of the chiller
response, the sequence works up to the point of putting the laser into
standby.  So far so good.  The next test will be to communicate with the
new chiller.
 

2.2 PSL
=======
    During the course of re-aligning the 10-W laser, it was observed that
the output windows on both the main and sample beam distort the beam shape
by more than what would be expected from a planar window.  The reason could
be that the center of the windows does not coincide with the optical height
and as a result the beam exits the windows near the edge of the window.
The edge of the window is a little distorted from being epoxied, or sealed,
into its metal holder.  As a result the beam gets distorted.  The output
windows were subsequently removed.
 
 

CDS support (Ash Khan)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Developed a communication interface between the laser power supply and
the Chiller, to be used as a replacement for the old Chiller.
 

2) Created a new RedBook Web page showing the list of the CDS controllers in
Alphabatical order, as well as, location and desction and added a procedure
for the Burtgooey.
 

3) Rebooted l1lscl0 nearly 10 times in the last 5 days.
 

Detector/Technical Support (Coyne)

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

• Commissioning (Miyakawa, Kawamura, Sakata):
• We are vented for the installation of the two suspended recycling mirrors.
• We are carefully monitoring all oplev and OSEM signals as we work. Everything appears to be pretty stable.
• The PSL beam (low power) is flashing through the mode cleaner, to the ITMs and back to the SP and AP ports. This beam is being used to align all optics.
• Steve, Osamu and Robert replaced an in-vac prism mirror with a regular 2" mirror, and will use the prism mirror to correct for the astigmatism in the SP beam in air, where it can be more easily aligned.
• Then they installed two mirrors to bring the beam from BS -> ITMY out to a nearby optical table.
• The distances between vertex suspended optics are being measured with a ruler. We aim to install the power- and signal-recycling mirror suspensions with a tolerance of a couple of mm with respect to the ITMs.
• Next is to install the PRM and SRM suspended optics and oplev beamlines, and align everything.
• We decided to not center the beam better on ITMX. It is a bout 1cm from the center of the optic. Since it's not really a problem, and would be a big chore to correct, we decided not to bother.
• After we pump down, we will re-establish the Fabry-Perot Michelson (FPMI), with misaligned power- and signal-recycling mirrors. Our original plan was to first commission a LIGO-1-like power-recycled FPMI. But we decided that we would not learn anything valuable from that exercise, and that it would be more efficient to go straight to a dual-recycled Michelson (without Fabry-Perot arms, at first). Opinions on this are welcome.
• Electronics (B. Abbott, Heefner, Taylor, Nocera, Mageswaran)
• The 2 Omega I&Q demod boards needed for the SPOB signal should be ready within the week.
• Mohana is working on the EPICS alarms and vacuum interlock.
• AJW, Jay and Alex have been looking at the LSC front end code (Rolf) and lock acquisition code (Matt), and are discussing the mods needed for the dual-recycling experiment.
• A considerable amount of additional electronics (LSC RFPD's, double-demod boards, and associated wiring) still need to be specified, designed, and built.
• The STACIS system still is down, awaiting some attention.
• Digital suspension controllers (Sakata, Goggin, B. Abbott, Heefner)
• Shihori is documenting her diagonalization of the suspension controller input (OSEM) matrix. She is also planning her diagonalization of the output (coil) matrix.
• Simulations:
• Seiji has released a note on Signal Extraction Matrix of the 40m Detuned RSE Prototype, T040010-00-R.pdf. This note explores different variations on the 5x5 signal extraction matrix for Detuned RSE: comparison of differential demodulation and double demodulation, dependence of each DOF on demod phases, allocation of ports for optimal signals, comparison of different PO ports, and cavity length tolerances.
• Seiji continues to use Finesse to explore how the signals for the short DOFs (PRC, SRC, MICH) change during lock acquisition, in order to develop an efficient lock acquisition procedure.
• Safety (all): Following up on the action items from the safety inspection of 1/13/04:
• Bob ordered steel-toed safety boot covers for crane operation, but they're too small, so they will be returned for larger sizes.
• Steve installed drip trays under the vacuum roughing pumps.
• South Annex Bake Ovens (Taylor):
Bob continues to work with Larry Jones and Dennis Coyne on the design of a new 12" bake oven for the lab, aimed at achieving AdvLIGO cleanliness specs.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

This week we carefully measured the shot noise in differential mode and confirmed our earlier estimate. We find our shot noise limit to be 3.7e-19m/rHz. This is below our previous electronic-noise limit of 5e-19m/rHz, but not by much. It does make our thermal noise measurement a little clearer, though, at high frequencies.
 

We also measured the power transmitted out the back of the cavities and found it to be 25 mW, a factor of four lower than the 100 mW we had assumed for our initial shot-noise estimates. This, along with a very rough estimate of the effect of less-than-perfect visibility, gives us a shot noise estimate of about 1.3e-19 m/rHz, much closer to our observed level than before but still somewhat low. This still assumes that we are getting the full 1e4 finesse in the arm cavities, which we have not yet measured.
 

We also fit our newest noise curves to a combination of coating thermal noise and our measured shot noise limit. We find that the thermal noise floor is slightly different from what we observed before the mirrors were removed and reinstalled, but the difference is not great. Attached is the latest noise curve along with a fit.

LASTI (Ottaway)

We spent most of this week installing the BSC hydrualic actuators and
working out a procedure for the Livingston installation.
 

A new revised LASTI schedule for the next two years was done taking into
account the new Lab budget.

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)
LinLIGO
------------
(Matt) Finished work on update to LinLIGO's optical model. Comparison
 between this version and the "Readout and Control" paper is good,
 though the paper addresses only some of the matrix elements and is
 limited to a small set of symmetric optical configurations.
 

Matlab tools for FFT studies
-------------------------------
(Biplab) Matlab tools for calculating signals from FFT's grid outputs
 for fields are now ready. Accuracy limits of these are understood.
 [Related to that: Hiro and I detected a bug in an E2E code that
  determines if two numbers are same within the accuracy of resolution.
  This bug was responsible for creating some major confusions in
  validation tests of these Matlab tools. Fortunately, this didnot
affect
  our previous e2e results including those from SimLIGO.]
 

FFT files for as-built LIGO
-------------------------------
(Biplab) Gave as-built input files and phase maps (that we used last
 summer to study effects of phase-maps on LIGO sensitivity) to
 Kenneth Ganezer of UC Dominguez Hills for use in his studies of
 thermal effects.
 

Mechanical Simulation
-----------------------
(Virginio)
Calculated a state space representation of the LIGO suspension including
the violin modes.The representation is obtained on a  model of the
suspension
which represent the wires using a finite partition. Some asymmetries on
the wires are also introduced. Dissipation mechanisms are simulated
considering the usual viscous damping ( time domain model) .
Derivation of the Lagrangian, the stiff mass damping (et cetera )
matrices
has been done using a library of routines developed in the maple 9.01
framework. Providing the Lagrangian and the set of generalized
coordinates
the library is able to compute the proper matrices in numerical and
analytical form.
 

The aim of this work is to better understand the excitation mechanisms
of
the violin modes.
 

Debugging and Validation of the representation will be done using the
new
state space primitive for LTI system implemented on e2e.
 

Code development and maintenance
----------------------------------
(Hiro) modeler code:
 Modification of modeler to support a simulation of systems described by
 State Space Model using ABCD matrix is completed.
 A new primitive, statespace, has been added. It is possible to use quad
 precision internally to achieve a better accuracy, just like the
 digital_filter primitive.
 Old matrix class is replaced by a new template based matrix class.
 The gcc compiler requirement will be 3.3.1 or newer from this release
 on.
 A new version of modeler package (1.8.3) will be released soon.
 

 The matrix class can use expression template method, but, for now, the
 code generated is too slow compared with the primitive implementation.
 Hiro gave several articles and a simple example implementation to
 Melody, asking to look into this issue. For now, the version used in
 modeler does not use expression template.
 

(Melody)
 C++ FUNC:
 Finalized code development.  Currently writing a technical document
 to describe dynamic linking and how it is being used in E2E.
 

 Examining performance issues with our implementation of a Matrix class
 using expression templates
 

(Ed Maros)
   1. Completed work on e2e code to support 3.3.x compilers.
   2. Fixed minor issue in documentation generation that
      prevented compilation of FlatTex tool.
 

Alfi
-----------
(Bruce)
        - Work on stabilizing and improving bundlers.
        - Added new E2E/Alfi data types.
        - Fixing box file parser semi-colon handling(PR 441).
 

LIGO Data Analysis System
 

Software Systems (Blackburn)
 

The new diskcacheAPI has now been well tested with this past weekend's
test runs on LDAS-DEV adn LDAS-TEST. With this new diskCachAPI we are
now able to bump up the job rate through LDAS by about 30%. The LDAS-DEV
system was able to run at 2000 jobs per hour all night and we think we
have a bit more head room before hitting another bottleneck.
 

A pre-release version of LDAS has now been built and the full suite of
system tests performed against it. Several minor issues with the new
diskCacheAPI have been found and 4 out of 6 of these have already been
fixed. Of the two remaining, one is certain to be fixed and the other
needs a more thorough investigation before determining if it requires
fixing for this release. We are currently targeting Thursday Feb 12th
for the release assuming no new issues are discoverd in system tests.
 

The memory leak reported for the frameAPI over the last two weeks has
shown a new and unusual behavior. At 1500 jobs per hour the system can
go for 12 to 36 hours without leaking memory. At the newly acheived
2000  jobs per hour the memory leak is immediate and about 5.7 KB/job.
We are using the public domain leak checker, valgrind, to look for
causes of these leaks in mini-standalone processes based on the frameCPP
and frameAPI code. A few very minor issues with the code have been
found with valgrind, but nothing that points to the full memory leak.
 

A new test script has been developed to use the inspiral DSO to look
at all the S2 data as part of a long running system test. A couple of
minor issues still remain (such as missing sensemon frames) before it
will be possible to run this test against all S2 data for LHO and LLO.
 

Began putting together a skeleton of the configuration scripts for the
TCL/Globus project. This skeleton will allow our TCL/Globus wrapping to
integrate easily with other scripting language wrappers over Globus.
We have made arrangement to visit with the developers of the PyGlobus
package at LBL on the 24th of February. There we plan to identify common
grounds for making TCL/Globus and PyGlobus an integrated solution.
 

Hardware Systems (Anderson)
Caltech
-------
(Hari Pulapaka)
 

* Installed the new RH9 ldas-grid.
* Moved all user accounts on ldas-grid from group based to individual
  user based accounts on NIS.
* Modified the Condor configuration on the nodes so that jobs are not
  pre-emptively killed, maximum number of jobs increased, jobs run with
a
  nice level of 10 and always start on the nodes immediately.
* Also learning about SWIG and building a small prototype for ftp-ing a
  directory using pyGlobus.
 

(Al Wilson)
 

* Moved the new RH9 ldas-grid machine into the live system.
* Changed limits of BB for cit. Set warning level for /usr1 to 95% and
danger
  to 97%.
* Repaired one of the new dual-Xeon 1RU machines on 6th floor. Now
running
  memtest. If all goes well Burntest over the weekend.
* Swapped node128 and node8 (test) The old node128 will not boot.
Continuing
  to troubleshoot
* Node128 (old node8) has been set to hyper-treading off for performance
  testing of the Inspiral search code.
* Replaced disk3 in datacache6.
 

(Stuart Anderson)
 

* Help testing LADS-1.0.0 release due in 1-2 weeks.
* Worked with Foundry to solve a major problem with the core Ethernet
switch
  for the LDAS-CIT cluster.
* Started working on evaluation of the next Operating system to use for
  the Intel clusters in the post Red Hat Linux era, e.g., Fedora,
  Red Hat Enterprise Linux, ...
 

MIT
---
(Keith Bayer)
 

* Syncing data off of pcraid2 so I can do final board swap.
* Pcraid6 passed burntest.
* Copied MDC data via LDR (impressive 6-9MB/s bandwidth from Caltech!).
 

Hanford
-------
(Greg Mendell)
* I have verfied that the S3 pemCRoss RDS frames reported on last week
  (and under /samrds/S3/pemCross/HL-RDS_R_L2-75[15-77], visible to
  fortress, at LHO) contain no gaps other than those due to times when
the
  DAQ system failed to produce raw frame data.  The
LDAS/createrdsGUI.tcl
  RDS generation process was very successful.
* The LDAS beowulf cluster at LHO has been running waveburst DSO jobs
  at capacity for the last week. This raised the room temperature
several
  degrees F. I have set up independent temperature monitors on gateway
and
  dataserver. See:
 
http://www.ldas.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ldas_outgoing/tempmonitor/ gateway.txt
  and
 
http://www.ldas.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ldas_outgoing/tempmonitor/ dataserver.txt.
  These are useful for viewing trends, and as a backup to the CDS
  temperature alarm system. (The CDS temperature alarm for the LDAS room
  is currently broken. Ben is working to replace/repair it.)
(Ben Johnson)
 

* The air filter was finally re-installed in the 5-ton AC unit on Jan
30 2004.
   It was removed long ago while for the move to its current location.
* /backups filesystem (t3-26) now available on all servers via NFS, at
LHO.
* Worked on SAMFS@dataserver stall on Feb 2 2004. It was similar to the
  incident in mid January and required a reboot of gateway and
dataserver.
  Ping tests between the hosts are now running.
* Continued work on the data glitch problem with Vern Sandberg and Dave
Barker.
 

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)
Mendell/LAndry:
Mike Landry and I are continuing to work on the StackSlide code.
Currently we are focused, in parallel, on three main issues: validation
of the code, benchmarking it to learn what parameter space we can
realistically run on with available computational resources, and the
analysis pipeline. This week I am writing code to organize results in
xml files.
 

Shawhan:
* Ran the inspiral search code on the S2 playground data from H1 and H2,
in order to take a look at correlated glitches which may look like
coincident inspiral candidates.
* Updated the LIGOtools 'segments package', including the 'segwizard'
utility.
* Preparing several LIGOtools packages for release.
 

Lazzarini:
Formatted and posted official S3 h[f] curves to DCC. see S3 section:
http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~lazz/distribution/LSC_Data/  -> S3
 

Working with Joe Romano and Stan to complete the draft of our H1-H2
combined
channel paper.
 

General Computing (Wallace)
MIT:
(Keith)
-Building replacement wireless router for NW17
-Finished upgrading new mailserver - will make
 swap next week
Installed replacement cheapo inkjet for color 11x17 prints
-Trying to find replacement hp4550 duplexer (they don't
 make them anymore) for NW22
 

Livingston:
(Shannon)
-Since Mydoom.A came out on 1/27 the anti virus software on the mail
server has stopped well over 1,100 mydoom.A infected emails.  We only
had one user get infected by the virus shortly before the new virus
definitions came out.  I estimate that RAV has stopped over 5,000
infected emails since we started using it if you include sobig, klez
and the other major viruses over the last two years.
-Upgraded the software on the PIX firewall to version 6.2 from 5.3.
Hopefully this will fix a few problems that we were experiencing.
There are numerous bug fixes between these releases.  Within the next
couple of weeks I plan to start modifying some of the PIX
configuration to take advantage of some of the features that we are
not currently using.
-Spent a lot of time preparing for and then supporting the NSB meeting
this
week.
-Looked into a problem on the Solaris to Linux file server backups.
Turns out that using NFS v2 increases performance, but breaks ufsdump
backups via NFS.  Had to revert back to NFS v3 for the time being.  I
will have to dig a bit deeper into this problem to figure out what is
going on.
-Contacted Solsoft to determine how well they support the Cisco 3550
series since that is now our router for our internet connection.
Turns out that I may be able to use the PIX strictly for internal
networking and use the 3550 for public address space.  This may
improve performance of the new connection.  This will take some time
to look into and possibly implement.
-Ordered a copper GigE switch to provide copper GigE connections to the
GC servers.  Waiting on a quote from Sun for NICs.
 

(Larry)
-Assisted Shannon in debugging a couple of network problems. We still
have a few
minor items we did not get to on this trip. Mostly documentation
related tasks.
-Overall the setup/presentation for the NSB conference went well. We
learned a
number of things from this setup.
There were issues with the different presentations being loaded on a
single box.
Since a few of the presentations had special features developed on a
certain
level of s/w they did not work properly on a different version of the
s/w.  We
did get everything working on a single box but there was some time spent
debugging the issues. We did find that the Windows OS and different
video
drivers to be our biggest problem.
We are now looking into a video hub/switch so speakers can use their own
computer if needed without removing the main presentation computer. We
are also
looking into a video booster because of the long video cable run.
More work is also needed on audio setups for the teleconferencing that
was used.
 

Hanford:
(Christine)
- Installed new labview software on the unix license server.
- Fixed some ssh problems on the Control Room GC unix computer.
- Took care of some sendmail error messages and some offsite use of our
mail server.
- Finished installing the new wireless access points.  Have noticed big
fluctuations in signal strength on all the access points.  I'm
investigating why this is happening.
- Updating the support license for my backup software.
- Misc. user support.
 

CIT:
(Mike)
-Backed up all NTSRV's; end of month ghost backups.
-Helped DCC relocate a few workstations to make room for new mail room
setup.
-Working on an Ansys 8.0 issue, trying to get a new feature called
workbench to run on multiple clients with our current license. This is
looking like a licensing issue that Ansys tech people will have to
correct.
They claim that it should work. I have tried every which to get this
work
but (no luck)
-Worked with Irena Petrac, regarding a Microsoft Office issue. (Very
time
consuming) but resolved the problem.
-Called Dell's tech support to get a loaner laptop fixed. I spent a lot
of
time on the phone going through a diagnostics with Dell's tech support.
This required a motherboard replacement.  Dell has come out to replace
the
motherboard. I am finishing up loading this laptop with GC software, to
put
back into the loaner pool.
-I worked on Ruth Brambila's computer. She is complaining about it
being to
slow. I am loading a more updated PC for her.
-This week I updated the following ghost images: Cindy A., Florence
Kaufman, Dot Lloyd, Gina Salone, and Donna Tomlinson.
 

(Larry)
-Worked a few procurement issues. It looks like I have a number of
items to work
on when I return to Caltech.
-Assisted the group in a few minor items. Some disk clean, user account
setup
and modifications.
-Most of this week was spent working on the NSB meeting. From my point
of view
everyone involved handled things really well and there was a large group
involved. Kudos to Bonnie and the Livingston group, those attending the
conference/mtg gave out a number of compliments on how well things went
and were
appreciative of all the work they put in.

GHS:  I AGREE. EVERYONE DID A GREAT JOB!
 

(Lisa)
- Did monthly backups.
- Swapped hardware for betelgeuse and jump-started it to Solaris 9.
- Installed AP2000's on the 6th floor of Millikan.  There was a lot of
user
support following this.
- Troubleshooting on wireless connection for Peter Shawhan.  Determined
that he
needed to have his card replaced.  It looks like notebooks that run
particularly
hot are prone to have their wireless cards die in the 1-2yr age range.
There is
another notebook besides Peter's that I suspect is having early
symptoms of
hardware failure.
- Created a half dozen mailman mailing lists for advanced ligo use.
 

(Veronica)
- LIGO website: Updates to various pages.
Compressed a set of mpeg movies for Riccardo's SWG presentation.
- LSC website: Updating MOUs. Working on the GWDAW webpage. Posting
updates to the LSC March meeting website as they arrive. Working on the
repair of the progress report submittal web application. This starts
with getting closely familiar with WeBase documentation. Finished an
image of a map of the LSC Collaboration; continue working on the online
version of the map.
- CaJAGWR website: Updates to the website and user support.
 

Advanced LIGO Development (Shoemaker)

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