Weekly Report for Week Ending April 8, 2004

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  April 12, 2004 will be:

 (Meeting time: 10:30 am Pacific Time)
 

1. Announcements
2. LSC Issues (Saulson)
3. Comments on Weekly Report
4. WBS 1 LIGO I Construction (Lindquist)
• Field Change Orders/Contingency Liens/Change Requests
5. WBS 2 LIGO Lab Operations
• Administration (Lindquist)
• Sites (Raab, Zucker, Shoemaker)
• Detector (Whitcomb, Coyne)
• Campus Research Facilities (Weinstein (40 Meter), Libbrecht (TNI), Zucker(LASTI))
• Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)
6. WBS 3 and 4  Advanced R&D and LIGO II (Shoemaker)
7. CHANGE CONTROL BOARD/TECHNICAL REVIEW BOARD SESSION AS NEEDED

Special Items:

Special Announcements:

To LIGO:

Thank you all for a remarkable ten years building LIGO. We can all be proud of what has been accomplished. I have learned a great deal that I will take with me to my new project. But mostly I will remember you all.

Best wishes,

Gary Sanders

Weekly Report Highlights
 

LSC Issues (Saulson)

no report

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

Status of LSC/MOU Research Updates and Program Reports (Petrac)(LSC Research Updates through Aug. 2004,and Prog. Report through Feb. 2004)

• Attach. A and Z / signed-off

• Attach. A / to PI for sign-off
• Attach. Z / signed-off

• Attach. A, D and Z / to PI for sign-off

• Attach. A and Z / to PI for sign-off

• Attach. A / in LIGO review / Barish
• Attach. Z / to PI for sign-off

• Attach. A, B, D and Z / signed-off

• Attach. A and Z / to PI for sign-off

• Attach. D ad Z / to PI for sign-off

• MOU, and Attach. D and Z /  to PI for sign-off

• Attach. A and Z / signed-off

• Attach. A / in LIGO review / Barish
• Attach. B and Z /  to PI for sign-off

• Attach. A and Z / to PI for sign-off

LIGO Weekly Site Telecon (Lindquist)
There was a site teleconference Thursday, April 8, 2004.  The following issues were among those discussed:

• Procedure Manual:  still not done, hopefully will be by next week for distribution to sites and campuses.
• Budgets:  travel seems to be underbudgeted.  Examples of causes include LSC meetings where attendance is important for many people.  It was estimated that this could represent 25 percent of travel expenses and the possibility of identifying separate lines in the travel budget was discussed.
• Property:  an inventory will be scheduled at Hanford over the next month or so.
• Travel to Sites:  historically travel to support commissioning activities has been covered by a letter from the site head requesting assistance.  It has been suggested that the TAR should be approved by the site head instead.  An email will be distributed describing the procedural change.

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

• Provided assistance to the Detector Group (H. Armandula) with packing and shipping a 3" Dia Flat (2 DEG Wedge) Optic, SN: GOSU16023, to LHO  (B. Bland).  Account NumberP204317.
• Provided assistance to the Detector Group (H. Armandula) with packing, shipping and a US Customs Commercial Invoice for twenty-one (21) Fused Substrates various sizes.  These Items are being shipped to CSIRO (Roger Netterfield) West Lindfield, Australia.  Account Number P204296
• Provided assistance to the Data Analysis Group (S. Anderson) by arranging transportation for the return of six (6) Cartons to Foundry Network (M. Lewis) at Alviso,CA . The return was at no cost to the LIGO Project.
• Provided assistance to MIT (K.Bayer) with the use of a LCD Projector for the up coming LDR Conference. Account Number P204254.
• Provided assistance to the Detector Group(L. Jones) with the packing and shipping hardware to LHO (K. Ryan)  Account Number P204324.

>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 (vacation)

ACTIVITY

04/08/04	Packages	Faxes
In	21	20
Out	13	11

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>

• Completed change order #23 to MIT which added funds for the current quarter. Routed it for appropriate signatures and approvals.
• Received change orders 16, 17 & 18 from Excel with the routing approvals. Have distributed the paperwork and submitted them to the vendor for acknowledgement.
• Working on change order #8 to Shanghai Institute of Optics for a no-cost extension.
• Working on a reimbursement purchase order for Riccardo DeSalvo.
• Prepared the requisition for the new contract with CSIRO and set up the purchase order for routing for corresponding approvals from Procurement. In the process of obtaining the required certifications.
• Placed and reconciled pcard orders for Caltech and the LIGO sites. Followed up on pending shipments.

• No report--vacation.

• No report--vacation.

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

• MIT: CO No. 23, allocating the third quarter of FY'04 funds, is in process by the CIT Purchasing. MIT was advised accordingly.
• Univ. of Oregon: CO No. 8, de-obligating residual funds on the subcontract and allowing reimbursement of all allowable cost incurred effective Sept. 30, 2003, was released to Purchasing.

• The selected contractor for the voice coil actuator was notified of the reduced quantities now required as a result of the action of the Change Control Board last Thursday.  The revised price for the different quantities is around $148,000, down from $199,000.   Contract award is expected by April 16.
• The contract with CSIRO for the advanced optical coating has been executed by Caltech.

SUPPORT (Baldon, Lloyd, Tischler)

>Irene BaldonPLEASE NOTE:  This report covers only 4 working days.

• Processed the paper work for seven (7) new/revised trip.  There are ten (10) 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 ten (10) Expense Reports and there are thirty-one (31) 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 is are three (3) reports more than 30 days old.
• Reconciled eleven (11) 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.
• 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 April 6, 2004.  Arranged eleven (11) new or revised teleconferences and one (1) new reservation on the LIGO Calendar.

• No report--vacation.

PAC16 details, Roster Photo project, HR related issues, Travel issues, Prep for Federal Space Survey

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/

Working on the integration of project summary data created by Carol.  Due to Carol on Friday.

The following is a summary of status by sub system:
COC - http://ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/COC_AdvLIGO/COC_index.html
Still need completed WBS dictionary and BOE.

Sent update request for progress through 4/2/04.

Coordinated the update with Helena.  Should have data by Friday as requested.

PSL -  http://ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/PSL_AdvLIGO/PSL_index.html
Received data from Peter King.

Executed meeting to discuss with Peter on Friday the 2nd.

Input of changes is in progress.

AOS - Received data from Phil Willems.  Data from Mike Smith is pending.

IO -  http://ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/IO_AdvLIGO/IO_index.html

Still need completed WBS dictionary and BOE.

Sent update request for progress through 4/2/04.

Received progress data from David Reitze.

SUS - http://ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/SUS_AdvLIGO/SUS_index.html
Sent update request for progress through 4/2/04.

Met with Janeen regarding a link of work tasks to schedule tasks.  Data requested by Friday the 9th.

SEI - http://ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/SEI_AdvLIGO/SEI_index.html
Sent update request for progress through 4/2/04.

Met with Larry Jones regarding progress update.  Data requested by Friday the 9th.

Received some data from Larry.

ISC - Comments / Data pending from Dennis C. and Peter F.

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.

LASTI - http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/LASTI/lasti_index.html

Received progress data from David Ottaway.

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

Followed up with Irena regarding the future implementation of start and finish dates for LSC members for maintenance of the authorship list.

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

Continue to work 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

LIGO Video--Tom Lucas (Lucas Productions) will be visiting Caltech April 22 and 23 to interview people.  Tom is building the "plot line" for a 20-25 minute NOVA type video on LIGO under a Grant from the NSF.  I will be arranging interviews with Caltech personnel for Tom.  Tom will be traveling from Caltech to the Hanford site to participate in the "star party" currently scheduled for April 24.

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

• No report--vacation.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

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

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

After considerable time with one or the other machine in some marginal state, it was
good to see both IFOs posting decent ranges on the weekend (H1 at 4.4Mpc,
H2 at 1.2Mpc).  Team laser had brought the 4k PSL back online, but continued
tweaking through the week.

The current understanding of the least-significant byte problem is summarized here.  A
technical note will follow up in a week or so, detailing the arduous detective work.

4K IFO
Groundwork for the eventual installation of the output mode cleaner on
ISCT4 has begun.  Real estate is at a premium however, designs including
pathlengths as small as 6cm.  Work continues.

Dark and shot noises were measured in the 4k mode cleaner photodiode.  The
measurements are given here, plus proposed changes to the 4k mode cleaner board.
A TCS transfer function (thermal compensation system coupling to AS_Q) was
performed.  What remains to be determined is whether or not TCS laser noise will
cause trouble. A non-resonant 61.2MHz photodiode was readied and  installed on
ISCT1.

2K IFO
Oscillator phase noise coupling to AS_Q in the 2k is 30X lower than in that of
the 4k.  The AS_Q high frequency noise performance had always been best in
the 2k, but the source of this difference is not understood.

A WFS1 noise budget was worked out in part here, concentrating on low
frequencies, while at high frequencies, the wave front sensor path was shown to be
dark noise limited.
 

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

---------------------------------------------------------------------
 

L1
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Major progress on the HEPI installation and moving of the electronics
into RFI-tight enclosures at the X end (phase 1 of the EMC retrofit).
Also significant advances on characterization of laser intensity noise
and regeneration of the X end cryopump.
 

LLO Outreach (B. Wooley)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
63 fifth graders from St. John School visited LIGO today for hands on
science, tour and painting.  Good time had by all.
 
 

Detector commissioning (Frolov, O'Reilly, Gretarsson)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I worked on the ISS noise characterization. The calibration of the RIN
was corrected(was off by factor of 2) and consistency checks
between independent PDs(MC transmitted and REFL) were made. TheRIN
monitoring channel was found to be electronics noise limited <400Hz.
The low noise monitoring channel will be connected and used to monitor the
RIN. The estimates of the contribution of the intensity noise to ifo
output were updated based on improved RIN calibrations and measurements.
 

Andri, Brian, and I made measurements of the effect of the PRC servo
loop offset on the cavity gain and mode shape. Started comparing results
with Erika's FFT calculations. The caculation shows qualitative agreement
with measurement of the sideband gain(SPOB) vs prc cavity offset. We
are planning to make more measurements in both State 2 and State 4(LLO
and/or LHO) and make quantitative comparisons for cavity field
distribution, power buildup, and optical gains.
 
 

LLO Seismic retrofit (R. Abbott, O. Spjeld, K. Carter and many others)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
1.  The hydraulic valves at LLO have been leak checked by Katrina and
Tom.  The results are that we are a few short (8) of what we need at LLO
to complete.  The valves that didn't meet our test requirements have
been boxed up along with details of the failure mode, and are being
shipped back to the manufacturer.
 

2.  All the electronics is installed in the X-end station.  The last
cables are being run today.  System debug will begin immediately.
 

3.  The Y-end station is complete as far as actuator installation is
concerned.  Next week, it's on to the vertex.
 

4.  The piping installation is going well.  The plan is to finish the
BSCs first so that we stay in step with the actuator installation.  The
HAM chambers are the first to be retrofitted in the LVEA.
 

5.  The HAM lifting plate is being tested this week by Joe Lacour and
Southern Enterprises.  We will have the HAM lift plate by early (Monday)
next week.
 

6.  Actuators for the HAMs are being built by Oddvar and crew in the
staging building.
 

Oddvar adds:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
 

- performed 3D-model fit check of HAM lifting plate in SolidWorks
 

- provided Southern Enterprises with machine drawings for lifting plates
 

- revised the HEPI actuator bleeding procedure
 

- requested quote from Ameriflex for the vertex flex hoses
 

- ordered necessary hardware for HEPI installation in vertex
 

- created template for location of 4-way valve mounting plate on HAM
piers
 

- worked with Joe Lacour to prepare for the lifting test (Monday, April
12)
 

- updated assembly drawings for the HAM HEPI configuration
 

- outlined the HAM Lifting Procedure
 

- started to assemble the first HAM housings
 

Katrina adds:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I am finally done leak testing the valves.  53 of the 55 calibrated valves
passed the leak test.  We now have six full sets of eight valves and five
spares.  The valves have been grouped into sets of eight and placed in the
clean room along the work bench (each valve has the number of the group it
belongs to in the corner of the tag).  The 29 rejected valves have been
prepared and boxed for shipment, and a leak test stand has been added to the
package also (I have ncluded a sheet with the serial numbers/problems
associated with the valves and an instruction sheet on how to use the leak
test stand).  The shipment should be picked up today for next day delivery.
 
 

HPLF and Detector (Rupal Amin)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
HPLF:
IPG has set a earliest shipping date for the 100 W laser.  We
expect shipping and deliver, at best, between April 19 and April 23. We
have also purchased a new BeamScan capable of handling the 100 W CW
laser.  The ship date for this device is April 23.  Hopefully this will
permit us to prepare for beam quality diagnostics while IPG's laser
engineer is en route.  The lab's laser interlock remains to be
finalized, and the lab needsto be cleaned prior to unpacking the 100 W.
 

2k IFO FI Installation Preparation:
According to EOT, the 2k Faraday
rotator is one day from completion.  It will be shipped either Friday or
Monday directly to UF for alignment and mount fitting. This rotator's
fields will be emprically measured to validate the qualitative effects
of the stray B-fields in the HAM 7 chamber.
 

Also UF determined that the halfwave plate (HWP) ordered from CVI was
not compatible with the UHV system.  This HWP will be returned and a new
pair of zero order HWPs from Karl-Lambrecht has been ordered.  These
plates will be ready for shipment to UF in 10 days.  However,
Karl-Lambrecht has courteously allowed us to borrow a scratched HWP for
mounting and fitting purposes.  This substandard waveplate will be
returned when the research grade HWPs reach UF.
 

PSL Work:
After last weeks reference cavity failure, I begain inspecting
several time series data sets for possible failure signal  precursors.
Finding none I have come to the default (and perhaps unsatisfactory)
conclusion that the reason for reference cavity failure Wednesday last
week was that I had "upset" the laser's control loops by turning the
laser on and off nearly 5 times in one day.  The ref. cavity has not
fallen out of lock since last week without operator intervention.
 

I have also today (Thursday) obtained a power budget of the PSL.  See
the LLO elog for details. Mode matching is to come early tomorrow if not
later today.
 

Photon Calibrator:
I have been assisting Doug in preparing the photon
calibrator.  This has mainly focused on testing the Nd:YLF laser and
mocking up the beamline.  New safety procedures will also be required to
safe the end stations.  These procedures are contained in the laser
safety plan.  Rusyl Wooley is also being informed of  the safety issues
and has designed a simple interlock that will prevent unintentional
laser discharge while the calibrator is being serviced.
 

Laser Safety Documents:
I aided Rich Riesen in the final modifications to
the LLO Laser Safety Plan. This document is now ready for review and
should contain all essential information including eye examination,
goggles, hazard areas, etc.
 
 
 

AdL optical modeling (Ken Yoshiki Franzen)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Continued my study of the Melody AdLIGO mode cleaner model. I am
checking and testing the code written by Ray Beausoleil and Amber Lynn
Bullington as requested by the UF LIGO group. So far the model looks
rather promising even though the mirror-field mismatch and astigmatism
is not yet implemented for the curved mirror.
 
 

General Computing (Roddy)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
* Current bandwidth usage can be seen at
http://teche.ligo-la.caltech.edu/mrtg/LLO-Router/130.39.245.1_1.html
 

* Archived bandwidth usage can be seen at
http://teche.ligo-la.caltech.edu/mrtg/archive/ under the dated folder
for the week of interest.
 

* moved the mail server, file server, support web server, and another
machine to a new rack in the computer users room.  Also moved the Gb
switch into the new rack.  There is  a larger UPS in the rack also which
should run the servers for ~20-40 minutes instead of ~5 for the old one.
 

* Set up a new laptop for Bonnie.
 

* Moved all of the shared application installation files from a CD
server to our main file server.
 

* Made further firewall changes for LDAS.  This is to support the new
servers LDAS has installed at LLO.
 

* Spent a considerable amount of time installing the new rack and
rearranging the computer users room to accommodate the new rack and UPS
in the computer users room.  This has been needed for a long time.
Finally I can move all of the servers out of the Comm room and into a
proper rack.  There is one rack in the room now, later this week a
second rack will be available.  Both racks will now have better UPSs and
network switches.  I will have to order a new KVM however.
 

* Working on providing more network ports to the new building.  I have
finally run out of switch ports there.  This is causing a problem since
I need a couple more wall jacks activated.  I am working on  a short
term solution since delivery on a fiber I need is several weeks out.
 

* Setting up a couple of rack mount computers for the Intellution
software.  These will be shipped to the contractor and returned with the
necessary software installed.
 
 

Data Analysis (Yakushin)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Debugging the new MDC frames script for LIGO and LIGO-TAMA analysis.
 

2) Together with S. Klimenko and M. Rakhmanov preparing GDDAW-8
presentation on waveburst for publication in Classical and Quantum
Gravity.
 

3) Helping Michele Zanolin to learn to use waveburst for the internal
burst group software review.
 
 

Vacuum Equipment (MZ for Rus Wooley, Rai Weiss and Joe Langdale)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The second (X end) 80K cryopump was successfully regenerated. This
one evidently harbored substantially more water vapor that the Y end,
which is puzzling. After recooling the station base pressure and residual
gas spectrum are substantially better, as was found for Y. Also it again looks
like there is a significant (~ 20%) reduction in the LN2 consumption rate,
presumably due to the reduced IR emissivity of the now clean, ice-free
trap surface.
 

Plan is to reopen both ends Friday for a long
weekend of full-IFO commissioning (microseism permitting).
 

CDS support (Ash Khan)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Documented the Ref Cavity Tidal servo Autotracker software.
 

2) Developed a test software to find, why the Y-End front-end code runs
slower than the X-End. The result will be posted once the X-End is up and
running.
 

3) Updated the reboot procedure of l1adcupem controller.
 

Detector/Technical Support (Coyne)

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

• Commissioning (Miyakawa, Vass, Ward, Kawamura):
• Osamu and Rob locked the Michelson (l-) using the 166 MHz RFPD at the AP. They are now working on locking the PRC (l+) using double demodulation at the SP.
• Rob and Osamu are studying Matt Evans' thesis and InputMatrix code, in order to generalize it for dual recycling.
• Fumiko and Osamu have analyzed the MC transmitted beam using the Tropel optical spectrum analyzer. They measure a transmitted modulation depth of 0.13 for the 33 MHz sidebands and 0.06 for the 166 MHz sidebands, with all EPICS sliders set to maximum. they will work on increasing the modulation depth for the 166 MHz.
• PSL (Miyakawa, Vass, Ward):
• Osamu re-aligned the beam from the (new) NPRO to the power amplifier. The power out of the MOPA is now up to 12.1 watts, and intensity fluctuations are now much reduced. He also re-aligned the beam into the frequency reference cavity and the PMC. The PSL is now performing very well!
• We are still operating with our MOPA cover off to keep the NPRO from heating up.
• Steve has ordered a heat sink on the new NPRO and will install it as soon as it arrives.
• We intend to adjust the PSL slow loop temperature change in the EPICS state code.
• Optical sensing (Kawazoe, Sakata):
• After tuning up the PSL, Osamu re-optimized the mode cleaner wavefront sensor beamline and digital alignment control system; it is now working well.
• Shihori and Osamu have installed and aligned electro-optic shutters on the AP, SP, and MCR beamlines. The trigger photodiodes were wired from the auxilliary rack; this proved to be dangerous, and a couple of photodiodes have been fried. We are now running power to these trigger photodiodes using matched power supplies; SP and MCR beamlines have these, and a third will be installed soon on the AP beamline.
• Shihori and Osamu have checked out 12 of 13 beamline QPDs, from photodetector through the entire electronics chain to EPICS displays. All are working well. One more QPD is required for the POB beamline. Ben is acquiring it (and a spare).
• Rob is almost finished laying out and aligning the POB beamline. He awaits a QPD and a CCD camera.
• Osamu and Rob have installed and tested mechanical shutters on the SP, AP, MCR, POX, POY, MCT, and PSL input beamlines. EPICS control of the SP, AP, MCR shutters have been tested; EPICS control of the PSL shutter will be tested soon. EPICS code to shutter the PSL during vacuum transitions will be implemented soon. Mechanical shutters for the other beamlines are controlled manually (as opposed to EPICS).
• Electronics (B. Abbott, Heefner, Taylor, Mageswaran):
• Jay has generated a block diagram and requirements for the LSC as it relates to signal recycling. There will be 11 LSC RFPDs feeding I&Q demod boards; a 22x8 input matrix; and an 8x8 output matrix (including a path from CM -> MC).
• Ben continues to check out some varying monitoring readout of a couple (at least) of PSL channels (PMC transmitted DCPD and FSS transmitted DCPD) and now believes that the signals are being pulled down by a weak short to some other signal(s). He has a spare 3123 which he will test during the next PSL down time.
• Ben helped Rob repair a particularly stubborn oscillation on one of the RFPDs. Adding the 1.5K resistor didn't do any good, so he tried the Inductor-Resistor fix, and it worked very well.
• Ben received two signal generators (IFR 2024's) that he ordered for the LSC double demodulation, and has brought them to the 40m. Bob Taylor has made shelves to mount them between 1Y2-24, and 1Y2-28. This should make minimal impact on the existing rack drawings.
• Todd has delivered the four I&Q Demod boards that are needed for double demodulation, and Ben brought those over today. We now have 13 I&Q Demod boards, and much work is required to wire them up for use. Ben will take the lead.
• Bob has installed heliac cable for some long cable runs from RFPDs to I&Q demod boards, and will order and install heliac cable for all remaining long RF runs.
• Ben is planning a redesign of the LSC RFPDs for higher frequency operation.
• We plan to do a careful search for 60 Hz pickup in our LSC crate, which is anomalously large.
• Mohana and Shihori continue to work on setting alarm limits on all EPICS channels in the EPICS alarm handler.
• Digital suspension controllers (Sakata, B. Abbott, Heefner):
• The EPICS readback of the coils for ETMX were reading anomalously large values, although the optic was being damped just fine. Ben compared the database for ETMX with the one for ETMY, and found that the ETMX database was wrong (not known how or why) and that a recent reboot (not known when) caused the problem to surface and come to Osamu's attention. Ben fixed the database, rebooted, and all appears to be well.
• Safety (all): A 40m lab safety document T040092 has been completed and submitted to DCC.
• South Annex Bake Ovens (Taylor):
• Bob continues work on new oven C.

Bob is building 40 or 50 OSEM diode boards for Janeen and for the 40m.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

no report

LASTI (Ottaway)

no report

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)
Weekly Physics meeting
--------------------------
We discussed sophisticated noise plotting into the existing LinLIGO
transfer
function model developed by Matt and the resolution problem for focussed
beam in FFT calculations.
 

Dual recycling field calculation
---------------------------------------
(Hiro) Still major effort was to complete this. The discrepancy between
 e2e primitive calculation and the matlab code using this fast summation
 is consistent with the accuracy of the approximation. Matlab code now
 has modulator / demodulator, and all necessary tools for simulation on
 matlab is ready.
 

 A LIGO note based on a mathematica analysis, T040062-00 has been
completed.
 This note, together with matlab code, e2e box files and some test
 results, will be available in the e2e home page.
 

Resolution for focussed beam
---------------------------------
(Biplab) Tried some adaptive method for increasing the beam resolution
for
 focussing beam in FFT way of propagation.
 

Code development and maintenance
----------------------------------
(Hiro)
 In order to support fast higher precision (higher than double) to cover
 wider dynamic range in the simulation, software tools were explored.
Two tools were available:  doubledouble
 (http://members.lycos.co.uk/keithmbriggs/doubledouble.html) by Briggs
 cannot be compiled by the latest gcc (was developed by gcc 2.7.2.1, and
 the author acknowledged this issue). The other was, qd
 (http://crd.lbl.gov/~dhbailey/mpdist/index.html) by LBNL group, worked
 but generates a slow code compared the native quad precision on intel
 linux box. We need to revisit this issue again to find a better
solution.
 

 This is an issue discussed at the March simulation meeting, and this
 was informed to Andrea Vicere of Virgo who is going to summarize the
 minute of the meeting.
 

(Melody) Modeler:
 Modifying the build scripts to change some default options and provide
 more user feedback.
 

 Continuing with the technical documentation for FUNC_X.
 

Alfi
-----------
(Bruce)
        - Redesign and implementation of connection and
          parser objects for use with new bundle/bundler objects.
 

LIGO Data Analysis System
 

Software Systems (Blackburn)
We have now rebuilt all of LDCG and LDAS using the GCC 3.3.3
compiler. Previously, only the C++ componentes of LDCG and LDAS
were compiled with the GCC 3.3.3 compiler. We are now testing
LDAS against this rebuild. All loop-script tests are running
as expected but we are still in the midst of performing the
broader system level tests. There are some indications that
LDAS is running a bit faster after this rebuild.
 

We completed testing of the timecheck flag in the createRDS
command and added a new check option to this command to allow
verification that the dataValid flag found in the FrADC data
channels are non-zero. Users may set to flag to allow non-
zero values, but the default is to through an exception if the
dataValid metadata is non-zero in the input data. This next
release of LDAS will have three new flags for quality assurance
of the input data as part of the createRDS command:
{-framechecksum, -frametimecheck, and -framedatavalid}.
 

We created a webpage that automatically captures and presents
the results of the nightly builds of LDAS. This webpage will
be linked off the main LDAS homepages shortly.
 

The standalone dataConditionAPI library is nearing readiness
for this release. The code will be alpha in nature, but we
expect to have a demo program to go along with distribution
as part of the LDAS 1.1.0 release.
 

We reduced minimum overhead associated with running a call
chain in the datacond API by 900 milliseconds. This was a
beneficial side effect of the code mods for logging the long
running thread, and it seems to have resulted in measureably
increased system performance.
 

The new spam filtering software installed by general computing
was complaining about the spamicity rating of the LDAS user
account email notification system. We made modifications to
this software to lower the rating below the current threshold
of 5 (prior to the changes the rating was 5.5). In addition,
similar changes were made to lower the emails from running
LDAS system from their previous level of 2.6 down to a level
of 0.5.
 

Added functionality to the database statistics plots in the
controlMonitorAPI to allow filtering results on particular
types of LDAS jobs.
 

Discovered that the major source of the long standing memory
leaks in the dataConditionAPI are a result of using the
database options {dbspectrum, dbqualitychannel, dbntuples,
dbquery}. This result came too late to allow fixing the
code for the 1.1.0 release, but it is great to finally have
a path to follow in tracking this problem. NOTE: some of
these commands have been seen to leak ~100KB/job.
 

We have now run the loop-scripts on a tandem system based
on the new DB2 8.1 database server. No unexpected issues
have been identified and we have now passed on the details
of using DB2 to Igor (at his request) for him to reopen the
effort of establishing a database federation/replication
solution for the project.
 

Worked on resolving about a dozen problem reports this week
of which about half were closed out.
 

The yearly LIGO-Griphyn face-to-face meeting took place at
ISI last week. The focus was on preparation and scheduling
for this year's supercomputing conference. The short summary
of the plan is to continue the effort on the periodic sources
and bring onboard inspiral searches for this year. A strong
effort will be made to handoff to the lsc community many of
the tasks that in the past required expertise from the ISI
computer scientist.
 

Hardware Systems (Anderson)
Caltech
-------
(Dan Kozak)
* Continued to try to track down SAM-QFS staging problem
  (staging stops working).
* Fixed problem with SAM-QFS taking drives offline.
* Began testing latest SAM-QFS patch using samtest with 9940A
  drives and T3 disks.
* Identified corrupt file in archive that seems to have been
  damaged during a grid-ftp transfer from LLO.  Replaced it
  with good copy from LLO.
* Worked with Sun to replace failed CPU in samtest.
* Continued deleting files in HPSS.
 

(Hari Pulapaka)
* Finished with setting up LDR data find server on ldas-gridmon.
* Adding new entries in the rls server for the LDR data find.
* Experimenting with psyco, a module for increasing python's
  speed (JIT).
* Helping out Keith and Igor with VDT setup at the sites.
 

(Al Wilson)
* Switching the datacahes to use the command line interface for
  media checking rather then web based tool.
* Setting up BB to read the output from the CLI.
* Clearing Problem reports.
* Ldasbox1 - Ed reported the box1,2 both are running at 800MHz
  not at 2.4GHz, still looking into this problem.
 

(Stuart Anderson)
* Renewed the Sun T3 contract for 53 units.
* Renewed the Foundry contract for the large copper GigE switches.
* Continuing to interleave the S2 and S3 level-1 RDS frames
  across the internal node disks in the LDAS-CIT cluster.
* Started testing Linux kernel 2.6.5 for NFS server performance.
* Installed new 19" equipment rack in 605 Millikan.
 

MIT
---
(Keith Bayer)
* 4 more 20amp power circuits being brought into ldas lab.
* Working on VDT install on cluster nodes.
* Working on Condor install on cluster nodes.
* Working on resetting LDR database with current datasets at MIT.
 

Hanford
-------
(Ben Johnson)
* Worked with Al Wilson to set up routine media scans on the
  IDE RAID units at LHO. I'll write up some cronjobs that will
  run the scans this Sunday.
* Replaced a failed disk in the new IDE RAID here. This was
  done in a cold swap fashion, but some command line features
  were tested. They appear to work as expected.
* A summary of findings for the data corruption problem was posted
  in the LHO e-log this past Friday, April 2. Continuing work on
  final analysis of the problem in addition to the final report.
 

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)
 

Creighton:
This past week I attended the GriPhyN/LIGO face-to-face at ISI, and
have been poking at an analysis of signals from thermal-instability
r-mode bursts from recycled neutron stars.
 

Shawhan:
* Finished paper for GWDAW proceedings about a new waveform consistency
test for inspiral searches (work done with Evan Ochsner [SURF student]
last summer)
 

Sutton;
1. Kicking-off the code review for WaveBurst.  (This is the first
review of
the untriggered burst codes.)   Michele Zanolin and I are conducting the
review.   We began with a telecon with the Burst review committee (Riles
et al) and with Klimenko et al to plan the review.
2. Continuing collaboration with Yakushin to organize the production of
MDC
frames for S2 LIGO and LIGO-TAMA analyses.
3a. Drafted and circulated an article on the plans for LIGO-TAMA for
submission to the GWDAW proceedings.
3b. Also doing Monte Carlo simulations of the LIGO-TAMA network
efficiencies as a function of the efficiencies of the individual LIGO &
TAMA
IFOs.  This is intended as guidance for tuning of the LIGO-TAMA
analysis.
 

Sylvestre:
o I have completed running over the S2 injection frames for
sine-gaussians
using TFClusters. The frames had a (known) problem, but this shows that
the method works. It takes ~3 days to produce a list of events that can
be
used by the r-Statistics.
 

o I have been doing some preliminary work on a new scheme to extract
waveform information from our time series. This might be useful for
consistency checks on events passing cross-correlation tests, for
instance.
 

o I have also been cleaning up some of my codes, in preparation for the
code review of the TFClusters ETG.
 

Weinstein:
- Working on issues related to inspiral analysis review.
 

Yakushin;
1) Debugging the new MDC frames script for LIGO and LIGO-TAMA analysis.
2) Together with S. Klimenko and M. Rakhmanov preparing GDDAW-8
presentation on waveburst for publication in Classical and Quantum
Gravity.
3) Helping Michele Zanolin to learn to use waveburst for the internal
burst group software review.
 

Lazzarini:
Working on time-dependent stochastic background detection.
 

General Computing (Wallace)
MIT:
(Keith)
-Experimenting with AIT3 compression for tape backups
-Investigated network loss in NW22 (circuit breaker tripped
in plasma student office that also affects power to our
fiber link transceiver in adjacent router closet.
 

Livingston:
(Shannon)
-Current bandwidth usage can be seen at
http://teche.ligo-la.caltech.edu/mrtg/LLO-Router/130.39.245.1_1.html
-Archived bandwidth usage can be seen at
http://teche.ligo-la.caltech.edu/mrtg/archive/ under the dated folder
for the week of interest.
-Moved the mail server, file server, support web server, and another
machine to a new rack in the computer users room.  Also moved the Gb
switch into the new rack.  There is  a larger UPS in the rack also
which should run the servers for ~20-40 minutes instead of ~5 for the
old one.
-Setup a new laptop for Bonnie.
-Moved all of the shared application installation files from a CD
server to our main file server.
-Made further firewall changes for LDAS.  This is to support the new
servers LDAS has installed at LLO.
-Spent a considerable amount of time installing the new rack and
rearranging the computer users room to accommodate the new rack and UPS
in the computer users room.  This has been needed for a long time.
Finally I can move all of the servers out of the Comm room and into a
proper rack.  There is one rack in the room now, later this week a
second rack will be available.  Both racks will now have better UPSs
and network switches.  I will have to order a new KVM however.
-Working on providing more network ports to the new building.  I have
finally run out of switch ports there.  This is causing a problem since
I need a couple more wall jacks activated.  I am working on  a short
term solution since delivery on a fiber I need is several weeks out.
-Setting up a couple of rack mount computers for the Intellution
software.  These will be shipped to the contractor and returned with
the necessary software installed.
 

Hanford:
(Christine)
- Network bandwidth usage can be seen at
http://apex.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/~christin/mrtg/ 198.129.208.1_198.129.78.122.html
- Completed installing software on the license server.  I'll be ready to
swap over by the end of the week.
- Installed Win2k on a laptop and on a dell server for CDS.  Helped with
network problems on the laptop and other software problems on the
server.
- Spoke with a PNNL representative about the change in network
connection from OC3 to GigE.  Looks like PNNL/ESnet are planning to give
us a GigE connection at PNNL and wanted to make sure I had the correct
adapter card for my router.
- No word on when our extra pair of fibers will be connected at PNNL.
The phone company who will be doing the work is busy with a major
hardware swap out at their office.
- Fixed some network and printer problems on one of the community Sun
computers.
- Misc. user support.
 

CIT:
(Mike)
-Loaded Solid Works on Mike Smith's workstation. This took a lot of
time,
due to incompatibility issues. I found some updated drivers for the
problem
video card, that worked.
-Finished up loading a new laptop for Peter Shawhan. I loaded all GC
software and setup network and security settings.
-Worked on the color printer, located up on Millikan. This printer had
many
problems with transfer belt and power cycle errors. I have this printer
back up and running. The black & white printer also had many problems
that
I corrected.
-I worked on a laptop for Magdalena & Barbara Simoni. They had many
problems with Adobe & Microsoft office. After making many adjustments, I
finally figured out how to get this software to work again.
-I swapped out a color (hp4500n) printer that is located on the 2ed of
W/B.
I swapped this out with a spare 4500 printer. This also included me
having
to swap hardware from the old printer, in order to get the spare printer
working. This is now back up and running.
-Worked on Fumiko Kawazoe's workstation. This required a rebuild plus
hardware upgrade. This computer would not stay booted, it just continued
rebooting itself. I upgraded some of the hardware, with parts from a
surplus computer and transferred over users data. She is back in
business.
-Loaded a new workstation for Calum Torrie. This reload is very time
consuming, due to the multiple engineering packages that are required
for
this type of workstation. I then transferred all this users data over,
from
old workstation. I also swapped out his old setup/workstation and setup
the
new workstation in his cubicle.
-Installed a FlexLm Server for Algor. This license server is running on
(pictor)
-I worked on the NTSVR's updating critical updates and then looking into
event viewer for system errors. I also made some backup changes on M91
the
media server. I coordinated this with Veronica/Larry.
-Worked on other misc. user support.
 

(Veronica)
- LSC website: Started working on a website for the upcoming LSC June
meeting. Looking into ways to integrate an ecommerce application system
for online payments set up at MIT into the website.
- CaJAGWR website: Updates to the seminars page. A follow-up on the
video
of the last CaJAGWR/PCGM seminar; the video was shot in High8 format. I
had it converted to miniDV. I then recaptured and compressed it and
posted
a pointer to the video stream.
- LIGO website: Did a massive amount of media backups for files older
than
one year, which were captured directly onto hard disks and for which no
tape footage exists that could be used as a backup. Updates to various
pages and usual upkeep.
 

(Lisa)
- Updated the canit software on both mailserver. I have been spending
2-4 hours
of every day, this past week, customizing the filters and looking for
false
positives.
-Spent some time working on my tcl script to program the AP-2000.  I
need to
get this script in place before finishing the rollout or maintenance
will be a
real problem.
- Spent more time working out the glitches with the mailman server
following the
mailserver work.
 

(Larry)
-We have had a number of requests for new accounts. There are people
from the
LSC as well as students for this years SURF program all needing
accounts. So,
far no major problems but as a reminder everyone not directly part of
LIGO needs
to have a sponsor and everyone needs to signoff on the LIGO GC computer
policy,
before receiving and account.
We have started working on some of the logistics to try and make sure
we have
computers for the incoming SURF students and visitors.
-Went through the E2E computers again. One unit is going to need a
rebuild. It
is running but doesn't appear to be too stable. All of the units are
having
timing issues so some sort of NTP service will be setup on the systems.
The decision has been made to have a separate application server as
part of the
server cluster.
-Mathematica has come up with a font problem. Running it on a local SUN
box has
no issues but trying to run it remotely does. The exceed s/w has a
known problem
and Mathematica has some fonts that need to be installed with the
exceed s/w.
Albert has put in a trouble call for a similar problem when trying to
run
remotely using ssh. We've run a number of tests and found that if you
have run
mathematica locally and then remotely, you do get some error messages
but things
do run the way they are suppose to. We will continue working on the
problem.
-Worked a little with some of the problems with IDEAS. It appears that
Caltech
no longer has a site license for the pkg., a call has been put in to
see what we
can do about getting the application license. Dennis C. has been
working a
number of other issues to get his analysis to work properly with the
pkg.
-Worked a number of orders for different people.
Assisted Lisa and Cleveland in shipping back a couple for computers
used for a
trade-in purchase.
-Assisted a number of users with different issues. Most of the problems
turned
out to be typos.
-Still working on the computer room expansion. PMA is working on
getting in some
quotes for the work. Did a little more work on the racks in the new
area if the
computer room.
 

Advanced LIGO Development (Shoemaker)

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