Weekly Report for Week Ending September 2, 2004


 Exec. Comm. Agenda

Highlights

LSC

Administration

Hanford Observatory

Livingston Observatory

MIT

Caltech

Detector

40 Meter

TNI

LASTI

Data Analysis

Adv. LIGO Development

Past Weekly Reports


The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  September 6, 2004 will be:

 Cancelled due to the holiday


Special Announcements:

 


Weekly Report Highlights
 


LSC Issues (Saulson)


no report


LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)


 

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Petrac)

LSC Research Plans through Feb. 2005 and Prog. Reports through Aug. 2004


ACIGA
Attach. A / in LIGO review / Barish
Attach. B / in LIGO review / Barish
Attach. C / in LIGO review / Barish
Attach. D / in LIGO review / Barish
Attach. Z / in LIGO review / Barish


Balearic
Attach. A / in LIGO review / Barish
Attach. Z / in LIGO review / Barish


Carleton
Attach. A / in LIGO review / Barish
Attach. Z / in LIGO review / Barish

Caltech-CEGG
Attach. A / in LIGO review / Barish
Attach. B / in LIGO review / Barish
Attach. Z / in LIGO review / Barish

Florida
Attach. A / in LIGO review / Barish
Attach. C / in LIGO review / Barish
Attach. D / in LIGO review / Barish
Attach. Z / in LIGO review / Barish

GEO
Attach. D / in LIGO review / Shoemaker
 
IUCAA
Attach. A / to PI for sign-off
Attach. Z / to PI for sign-off
Prog. Report / in process for web posting

LSU
Attach. A / in LIGO review / Lazzarini
Attach. B. / in LIGO review / Shoemaker
Attach. Z / in LIGO review / Barish
 
Moscow State
Attach. A / in LIGO review / Whitcomb
Attach. B / in LIGO review / Whitcomb
Attach. D / in LIGO review / Whitcomb
Attach. Z / in LIGO review / Barish

Northwestern
Attach. A / to PI for sign-off
Attach. Z / to PI for sign-off
 
SLU
Attach. A / to PI for sign-off
Attach. Z / to PI for sign-off
 
Syracuse
Attach. A / in LIGO review / Barish
Attach. Z / in LIGO review / Barish 

Trinity
Attach. A / in LIGO review / Barish
Attach. Z / in LIGO review / Barish

Columbia / New applicant

MOU / pending / Saulson
Attach. A / pending / Saulson
Attach. Z / pending / Saulson 

Vassar

MOU / pending / Saulson
Attach. A / pending / Saulson
Attach. Z / pending / Saulson



SITE TELECONFERENCE (Lindquist)

A site teleconference was scheduled for Thursday, September 2, 2004.  The following issues were discussed:


The list of assigned actions updated through August 26, 2004 may be found Here.

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT (Chargois)

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


DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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


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

Week Ending August 25, 2004

Packages

Faxes

In

27

35

Out

7

17

 


COST SCHEDULE CONTROL SYSTEMS (Cunningham, Brambila, Kaufman, Salone)

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


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


From: Gina Salone <gsalone@ligo.caltech.edu


From: Florence Kaufman <fkaufman@ligo.caltech.edu


Financial reports can be found at: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport. (For passwords contact Florence)

SUBCONTRACTS MANAGEMENT (Petrac, Jasnow)

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


From: Ed Jasnow <jasnow@ligo.caltech.edu


SUPPORT (Baldon, Kammerling, Lloyd)

Irene Baldon


Sharon Kammerling


Dorothy Lloyd


PROPOSAL and REPORTS (Lindquist)

Schedule of proposals and reports planned for the remainder of the calendar year.



We have essentially completed the Annual Report with the exception of a few missing pieces.  Overall there is a lot of good stuff reported.  Most has been entered into FastLane.  I think that it is basically ready to go except for scrubbing the publications list.

A Final Report for the old LIGO Visitors grant has been submitted via FastLane.

CHANGE CONTROL/CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT (Lindquist)

There are no open change requests currently in the system.

The Advanced LIGO SEI group proposed to the LIGO Excomm on 23 August that the budget be increased for the ASI contract, adding on the order of $750K in funds to cover a growth in expected expenses with a slight decrease in contract scope.  This will be discussed again next week.

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)

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


Quality/Safety (Tyler)

From: Bill Tyler <tyler@ligo.caltech.edu

No report this week.

.


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



 4K IFO
-----------
Initial measurements with the photon calibrator agreed well with results of our standard IFO calibration procedure.  Recent tests however showed a divergence  with accepted calibrations.  Investigations of the photon calibrator laser indicate the polarization is adrift.

Having trouble keeping POX, POB and POY straight?  Read on to sort the changing geography. Two-omega traps noted previously in the weekly (when added to AS  photodiodes) were installed on POX, formerly POB.

WFS demod board changes were effected to reduce noise.

The TCS sprung another small leak, which appears to have been fixed.

The weekend phasecamera status was summarized. Demod boards were next tested.  A data run was made, and images made with the lower side band (which had been looking pathological) were corrected and understood with  the previous electronic transfer function measurements. Wavefront shapes were extracted.

WFS offset drift observed, a quadrant problem to be corrected.

Full power of 7.4W into the mode cleaner was attempted; the IFO fell out of  lock just as this power was achieved.  It is not clear what caused the lock loss (saturation of AS_I?) but several likely culprits were excluded.  We'll check trend plots to see what is walking away at the end of this and other locked  stretches - we don't have much experience running at reasonably high powers.

Stable high power running could lead naturally to post-commissioning running in a GRB and SN search mode in the early morning hours.  Automated data-archiving  tools are in the works that could soon make this possible.

A revised noise budget was obtained.

The H1 24.5MHz modulation index was measured, coming in somewhat lower than expected at 0.25.   RFAM levels at IOO modulator frequencies were measured.

2K IFO
------------
2K work has been minimal this week: the current ISC10 layout was photographed, and, work is gearing up on the TCS.  A 2K heating curve is a high priority on the IFO.

DAQ
------------
The LSC crashed heavily on the weekend.

 


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


The EMC retrofit at the corner station is in the home stretch, with 100% of equipment physically moved and most of the new wiring in. All the front end processors have checked out and are operating. HEPI, the PSL and LOS and SOS suspensions are now operational, and the IO systems are coming back online as we write; we expect to be locking up the mode cleaner this weekend. ASC, LSC and PEM are going to be hooked up after the Labor Day break.

Rai has completed a comprehensive overhaul of all WFS heads and demod boards, bringing all up to current spec and tuning and repairing various bugs. We are now ready to begin WFS commissioning once the wiring is checked out.

HEPI and IFO engineering (Oddvar Spjeld)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
- updated the HEPI Documentation web-site: All categories near complete with exception of Mechanical, which will be completed at the end of next week.
- working with Brian O'Reilly, Rusyl Wooley and Mike Zucker on a solution for mounting and supporting the Photon Calibrator case at LLO.

HEPI and IFO engineering (Rich Abbott)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The week has been spent tracking down and solving issues that are preventing HEPI SysID commissioning activities.  These include such things as, hydraulic offsets, weak actuators and alignments.

Made a small step forward in understanding hydraulic offsets today. We had a persistent offset that appeared on HAM3 pier4 horizontal. The problem was traced (thanks to Joe H's keen observation) to an un-modified pin valve being swapped and put into the center plate (actuator plate) of the actuator. This resulted in an inability to seat the pin valve and a bleed of pressure on one side of the piston. The swapping occurred during the pressure measurement sequence we were performing on this actuator.

An important diagnostic for checking the sealing effectivity of the pin valves in situ is to ensure all small pin valves are shut, and then to close the main large pin valve. This should shut off flow and establish equal pressures in both bellows even if the bridge is unbalanced in the hydraulic valve. Doing this and still finding that an actuator exhibits offset allows the seating of the pin valves to be viewed as the likely suspect.

Now we are going to move our attention to HAM4 pier 3 in an effort to understand the factor of 100 lower actuation gain there common to both the horizontal and vertical actuator.

EMC Support (King)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I was helping out with the re-wiring of thenew 1X8 and 1X9 racks along with debugging the large optics suspensions after their rewiring.

CDS Computing (Chethan Parameswariah)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
All Real time and epicsprocessors in the lvea were fired up last week. SUS local damping loops closed.

AWG moved to LVEA. Code change required to get the analog excitations now running in the LVEA on one of the dcu processors is here and has to be put in. 115B DAC card will be moved to l1adcupem processor and the excitation data sent over the reflective memory network.

Cleaned up fibers and ethernet cables in the MSR.

Reading through and catching up on some code.

Sorted out some problems with HEPI processor penteks. Rich A. cut the clock input lines on the A/D input cables and this fixed it.

Beam Centering video button and database added to the video system.


Safety & security (Riesen)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Nothing new to report

Livingston Facilities (Sibley)
---------------------------------------------------------------------

(Ken Yoshiki Franzen)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Took over HPLT related issues previously taken care by Rupal Amin. The people at IPG Photonics think that they have found the bug in the system and that they have fixed it. The problem was related to a missed cleaning step in the pump to fiber coupling system. After testing the laser at 110 W for 40 hours they shipped it by misstake to Caltech. The Caltech people recovered and sent it on to us at LLO. The laser arrived today and has been mounted to its rack. Rich Riesen discovered that the outer door does not lock properly when being closed so he removed the laser power keys and put a lock to the cable (according to procedure). The door will be fixed until early next week and testing will resume. Discussed safety issues with Rich Riesen regarding the group of Russian scientist which will visit LLO and work in the HPLT as early as from September 15 (depending on the laser condition and visa processing).

2) Studying the AdLIGO mode cleaner results from Amber Lynn Bullington's latest Melody model. Seems like the coating absorptions will cause serious problems if they are just a little bit over the current design value. Trying to verify the results.

3) Took some ETMX optical lever power spectra with HEPI engaged. These data will be used in order to design new filters. Tried to learn about the HEPI control system so I can be of some use for commissioning.

4) Finished the S3 PG WaveMon rerun. Studying the results.


General computing (Roddy)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
After spending many hours on the phone with Bell South this week I have learned several things about our 'net connection:

1) According to Ric Simmons at LSU, at the time of a service outage, Bell South is required to give us a reasonable estimated time of repair.  For every day/partial day beyond this estimate, we are entitled to a 25% refund for service of that month.  This is according to what he was reading at the time on the bid contract.  I will try and get a copy of this from him so that we can review it also.

2) Bell South has not been able to properly monitor this circuit since it went live in December.  This was admitted to me on the phone by the service supervisor (tier two tech support?).  The two repeaters in the circuit (one in Denham Springs and one at the Goodwood CO in Baton Rouge) are not configured properly to send SNMP traps.  This means that when the circuit goes down, Bell South does not even know it.

3) The multimode fibers on either end of the circuit are not monitored. This is pretty standard according to Bell South.  This is considered the end users responsibility.  They monitor up to the end of the Bell equipment and not beyond.

4) They were showing a PSU fault on one of the Bell pieces of equipment but it is not suspected that this was the fault from Friday, Saturday, or Tuesday.  They are still looking into this.

5) There is some maintenance/construction work going on concerning the bundle of fiber that we run through.  However, on Tuesday the work had not begun and according to the supervisor on that job, the manhole cover had not been opened yet, so it is not suspected that this was the fault.

Bell South is still at a loss as to what is causing the service interuptions.  Ric Simmons at LSU suggested that we hold a meeting with the Bell folks, LSU & the state folks (since the contract is in the name of the State of Louisiana), and LIGO.  We have been live on this circuit since December and we have only had a 3 month stretch of solid uptime.  The rest of the time has been plagued with outages.

Other than working with Bell since Friday, it has been the usual round of GC stuff.

Also, I have tested some 'net based audio conferencing software with Larry and others.  This software holds hope for replacing VRVS.


Data analysis (Yakushin)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
LDAS admin:

Upgraded RLS server on ldas-gridmon and ldas machines.

Data analysis:

1) Working on S3 MDC production.
2) Got very preliminary results of waveburst triple coincidence sensitivity on S3 playground for gaussian and sine-gaussian signals:
http://www.ligo-la.caltech.edu/~igor/MDC_S3_P
The sensitivity seems to be about 2 times better for high frequencies and 5 times better for low frequencies in comparison with what we had in S2.


Detector/Technical Support (Coyne)


CDS

see also the CDS weekly meeting minutes in the commissioning archives:

CDS Software

Rolf Bork reporting

- Primarily working on software to upgrade 40m lab systems to use latest version of DAQ. This will be installed starting next Tuesday.

 

- Working on mods to LSC software to allow synchronous ramping of filter module gains and input matrix values. This is by request to support up/down scripts.

CDS Hardware

Ben Abbott

RFPD Redesign:

1) The prototype PCB is stuffed, and I have started testing.  The initial results look quite promising, with a peak-to-notch difference of ~62dB.

2) The boxes are at the anodizer tomorrow, and will be machined by Front Panel Express next week sometime.

3) Once the testing is complete, the revised PCB will be sent to PCB express, and these boards will be stuffed as soon as possible.

 

Ben Abbott

TNI: I have been working with Akira to help finish the digital servo installation that Jay designed.

 

Mohana Mageswaran

I have finished the LSC, ASC, IOO System drawings for LLO. And were sent to Rus already. I am gathering the information about the systems at 40m to create a web based documentation.

OMC

Mike Smith

I discovered that my Zemax model of the OMC was giving incorrect results because I had inadvertently check a wrong property box for one of the mirrors, which caused the physical optics propagation to stop at that surface and substitute a ray trace. After correcting that problem, I am relieved to see that the Zemax model agrees exactly with the Gaussian beam propagation models that Keita and I calculated independently. Keita also pointed out that the second beam waist in the 4-mirror cavity affects the roundtrip Guoy phase; and for that reason, the solution he proposed with the 101.3mm and 76.3mm radius mirrors is a correct solution that has identical Guoy phases for both the x and y beam waists. I am now in a position to model the entire optical system, including input mode-matching lenses.

 

Ken Mailand

The main cavity spacer and the PZT holder bracket drawing are at the CES shop, along with the 'invar 36' material,
Mike Gerfen estimated it will be finished near the end of  the week of Sept 6th. 

TCS

Ken Mailand

I have received several components for the laser chiller task (based on Phil Willems concept), and now completing the layout for the test assembly. The test setup is in the west bridge OTF  lab.

PSL

PeterKing

A pre-modecleaner is under construction to replace the one on loan to

Stanford.

 

I have been going over the prototype ISS board, in particular the

EPICS saturation monitor.  Also the state code to relieve the current shunt

dynamic range has been written, although I have some reservations about the

current limit.

Optical Contamination Cavities

Lee Cardenas, Liyuan Zhang

OTF Lab. (W. Bridge)
The chamber has two samples, white Ceramabond, and disks of TRA-BOND #2254
color light brown epoxy.  Cavity is locked.
We continue taking measurements everyday.  No Change

Absorption Test Measurement prototype   in standby

Scatterometer system  in progress!!
We are going to measure beam scattering from one of the End test mass (ETM)mirror.
So we are making a complete laser alignment y setting new optics to catch
the scattered beam.  Beam waist measurement in progress as well as mode match.


The Quantronix 60 watt laser  NO CHANGE

OTF Lab at Lauritsen ROOM 38        NO CHANGE!
Cavity #3
Chamber is pumping with (6) disks of TRA-BOND #2151 color blue epoxy and
 (4) disks of TRA-BOND #2902 color silver epoxy.  The cavity is locked.
We continue taking daily measurements.  

Cavity #2
Taken to the shop to weld the leg support in place, still waiting in this one.
New chamber is in place as well as the small 6" inches in diameter chamber
which will be dedicated for the samples only so we do not have to
disturb the laser alignment. Gathering all the components to build it up.

PSL Laser lab   Laser  in standby

 


 

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)



Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)


The computer-controlled servo electronics are now up and running, and the boosts can now be engaged at the click of a mouse button. Many thanks to Jay Heefner for his help!


LASTI (Ottaway)


Drawings were created of the test stand needed to assemble, test, and install  the quad suspension. In addition a 3D rendering of the installation process was completed to verify clearances to install the seismic isolation with the upper half of the quad into the LASTI BSC chamber.
http://emvogil-3.mit.edu/~kmason/LASTI_9_1_2004/seismic_quad%20tooling/

Drawings of the existing suspension installation tooling were marked up to show the changes needed to increase the capacity to raise the position the lower half of the quad into the LASTI BSC chamber.

The clean room was moved from the y-mid station at LASTI to the y-end station in preparation for the installation of the optics table on solid spools into the chamber.

Additional work was done on the adaptive feedforward system. Work has continued using a geophone mounted directly under the HAM to measure the ground motion at higher frequencies. Rich has shown a reduction in the transfer function and coherence to 20 Hz when the system is operated in a single degree of freedom mode (vertical). Additional degrees of freedom cannot be run in this mode because of limits on computing power. A corresponding reduction in the power spectrum was not quite as impressive, most likely due to cross coupling through the plant. For more details see LASTI ILOG August 27th.


Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)


 Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)
E2E Weekly Physics Meeting
---------------------------------
Biplab gave a talk on "Mirror phasemaps and WFS signals". After that we discussed an issue raised by Hiro on the difference between eigenstates of sidebands and carrier upon reflection from arm-cavity input mirrors. Viewgraphs available at
http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~e2e/ME2ET/Minutes04/040902/

Mirror phasemaps & WFS signals
------------------------------------
(Biplab) The manual angular correction using WaveFront Sensor(WFS) signals calculated from FFT output beams (for H1 interferometer with actual mirror maps) finally worked well and pitch angular offsets could be reduced from a level of ~1E-8 rad (offsets equivalent to asymmetries in mirror phasemaps) to below 1E-10 rad. The WFS matrix was calculated by taking average of two matrices for plus and minus 1E-8 rad angular perturbations. The corrections of pitch offsets (and the consequent reduction in WFS signals)  do not necessarily reduce/affect the asymmetries in output beam profiles of carrier and sidebands to the same  extent at the WFS locations. These and other aspects of this D.C.-corrected H1 interferometer are being studied.  The final aim is to know if/how this affects the shot-noise sensitivity.

MiniLIGO & Site-related Work
---------------------------------
(Matt)
 I have been working on two things, one of them site related, one of them simulation related.  The simulation work is on a version of MiniLIGO (which I call TestLIGO) that uses a different locking scheme.  This scheme involves using DC signals to lock MICH at mid-fringe, which makes the recycling cavity low-finesse.  The error signal for this (AS_DC/POB_DC) is always good and thus state 2 can be captured and held easily from any initial state. I have not managed to achieve full lock with this scheme. This work has potential to aid both LIGO 1 and Advanced LIGO and I hope to present a working version in one of my talks at the Roma conference.

The site related work that I have been doing involves the construction of small C++ programs that can be run from Expect scripts to robustly automate a variety of tasks which depend on access to real time data (e.g., diagonalization, UGF setting, smart script pausing, etc.).  I hope to have this work mostly done before my trip to LLO on the 13th so that it can be applied while I am there.

FFT work
----------
(Hiro) The cause of sideband imbalance in the Michelson cavity is being investigated. Phil made phase maps representing the beam splitter thermal lensing effect. The code is being modified to use these phase maps. The FFT code is modified to add functionalities and easy of use for these studies and the WFS work done by Biplab.

FFT phase map
-------------------------
 Xiao and Hiro worked to write a documentation (T040156) of creating the phase map input files for FFT, including the algorithm of smooth extrapolation to unmeasured region.

Code maintenance
---------------------
(Hiro) e2e code is being updated for better conformance with the C++
 standard (in other words, newer version of gcc)

Alfi
-------
(Melody) Continuing modifications to display the FUNC_X variables in a friendlier user interface.   Currently working on the simple view which parses the C++ code in the MemberDecl primitive setting.

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)

Mendell:
The StackSlide code has been updated with a new option to output the Loudest Event (highest StackSlide power) for each template (each sky position and set of spindown parameters in a search). For comparison with Hough and Power Flux I've posted the StackSlide S2 L1 Loudest Events for each sky position for the 352.75-353 Hz band.  See the PULG S2 investigations page (pulg password required):
http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/cgi-bin/enote.pl? nb=puls2stackslide&action=view&page=13

Shawhan:

* Spending lots of time organizing the S3 untriggered burst search.
* Configured the 'getFrames' utility to be able to retrieve S3 h(t) 
frames
(produced by Xavier Siemens), and also GEO data.  See
http://www.ldas-sw.ligo.caltech.edu/ligotools/dataflow/UDN_List.html
for the UDNs and available time ranges.
* Working on checking the observation time of the S2 binary neutron star
inspiral analysis.
* Contributed a cgi-bin script to let people request a username/password
for the LIGO Gnatsweb problem-reporting system:
https://ldas-sw.ligo.caltech.edu/cgi-bin/gnatsweb_account.cgi

Yakushin:
1) Working on S3 MDC production.
2) Got very preliminary results of waveburst triple coincidence 
sensitivity on S3 playground for gaussian and sine-gaussian signals:
http://www.ligo-la.caltech.edu/~igor/MDC_S3_P
The sensitivity seems to be about 2 times better for high frequencies 
and 5 times better for low frequencies in comparison with what we had 
in S2.

Sutton:
This week I have been performing the nonzero-lag analysis on the full LIGO-TAMA data set to determine background rates vs thresholds for the analysis.  I have forwarded background coincidences to Cadonati for r-statistic processing.  With Lazzarini I have been formulating a procedure for comparing our standard burst search results (rate upper limit and efficiency estimates) to the excess events reported by the Explorer-Nautilus group.  The essential ingredients are the model waveform, the angular distribution of sources over the sky, and a distribution for the source amplitudes.  We have agreed on everything except the best amplitude distribution, which we're working on.  I am also looking at whether we can do the comparison with the S2 LIGO-TAMA data set; our sensitivity may not be quite good enough. Together with with various burst group members, I have been formulating plans for S3 bursts searches.  Finally, I'm working on the calibration tool for the DMT, with Zweizig.

Lazzarini:
Working with Joe Romano, Fritschel to finalize the S3 H1H2 numbers for
stochastic backgrounds.

LIGO Data Analysis System

Software Systems (Blackburn)
The 1.2.0 release of LDAS took place on Tuesday. After running for a couple of days at the observatories an issue with performance was discovered which slows down the diskCacheAPI by a factor of about 5 to 10X. This has also been seen at MIT and LLO, but not at CIT, TEST or DEV. It has been determined that the effected systems have duplicate frame data sets stored in multiple subdirectories under the diskCacheAPI's directory mount point list and that this is triggering a bug in the diskCacheAPI that isn't seen on systems that do not store multiple copies of the same frame in different directories. A fix to this problem is being worked on, but the diskCacheAPI is currently fast enough that this is not causing a critical problem. We will probably patch the 1.2.0 release with a fix once it has been fully tested.

Documentation announcing the release on the web at both the LDAS websites and the DASWG websites have been updated to reflect the 1.2.0 release. As part of this documentation process a new FAQ has been generated. Details of the changes since the 1.1.0 release can be found at the URL:

http://www.ldas-sw.ligo.caltech.edu/cgi-bin/faqprocessor.cgi? q=What%20has%20chan
ged%20from%20version%201.1.0%20to%201.2.0

Began working on support for multiple frames per file in the frameCPP and frameAPI. This will be needed for the new flexible RDS frame file methods planned for the next release of LDAS to be used in the S4 science run.

Continued to work on the generalization of the definition of the time interval object for the diskCacheAPI that will be available in the next release of LDAS.

Updated the TclGlobus website to include links to the new TclGlobus CVS repository on LDAS-SW and the new GNATS problem tracking system on the web.

We have a new software developer for the TclGlobus project that started with us this week (Mike Samidi). Mike has already closed out the first two problem reports in the TclGlobus problem tracking system.

Hardware Systems (Anderson)

Caltech
-------
(Dan Kozak)
* Continued the transfer of non-run second trends for both LHO and LLO  (about 1,000,000 files total) from HPSS to SAM-QFS (and their  subsequent  deletion from HPSS).
* Of the 458620 LLO files, we've transferred 456375 as of this writing  (99%).
* Of the 526258 LHO files--we've transferred 320035 as of this writing  (61%).
* Mike Gleicher may have fixed the SFS backup problem in HPSS (I know   he was doing stuff on the system, but never got word back from him).  In any case, it seems to be working without my moving the SFS backups  into a different filesystem by hand.
* Still working on getting a quote from STK for silo maintenance.
* Have been working with Sun on the problem where shared clients (in  this
  case alterf) ask for files, but they never get staged.
* Have got a case in to Sun about the test 3510 in Millikan's flakey  behavior.

(Hari Pulapaka)
* Updated the condor installation across the CIT cluster to version  6.6.6.
* Setup a common location /grid to install grid related components.
* Updated RLS servers at CIT and confirmed that LLO, LHO and MIT have   also upgraded.
* The C01_LX time domain calibration data transfer from UWM has been  completed.

(Al Wilson)
* Adding a new check point to BB to monitor SAM-QFS log files sizes.
* Setup Bosco desktop computer.
* Replace hard drive in IDE raid unit.

(Stuart Anderson)
* Collecting price quotes for additional LDAS computing resources:   (tape drives, disk drives, network switches, servers, nodes, ...).
* Helped distributed the LDAS-1.2.0 release and track down a performance   problem with the diskcacheAPI.

MIT
---
(Keith Bayer)
* Added a bunch of grid users to MIT cluster.
* Working on getting Matlab R14 installed on gc in preparation for  cluster use.
* Experimenting with pcraid#7.
* Rebuilt 4 of 5 failed cluster nodes (5th one won't post -  will use it for parts).

Livingston
----------
(Igor Yakushin)
* Upgraded RLS server on ldas-gridmon and LDAS machines.

Hanford
-------
(Greg Mendell)
* Besides routine tasks, this week I am testing or preparing to test
  createRDS jobs with the new version of LDAS (v1.2.0).

(Ben Johnson)
* Fully updated firmware on test 3510-10 at CIT. The 3510 crashed under
  the test load afterwards; though this is said to be typical for that 
unit.
* New 45kVA transformer is now fully active. 56 nodes are now running
  on it; i.e all LDAS computers, except for the old dataserver, are now
  running on panels with a thermal trip.
* Continuing to educate users how to use DTT to see data on the SAMFS 
systems.
* Added a user to the cluster.

General Computing (Wallace)
MIT:
(Keith)
-Working on installing Sun ONE compilers on straw
-Installed Solaris 9 on aneirin (CDS gateway machine)
-Upgraded firmware on HP4600 printer
-Investigating linux mathematics / matlab / ligotools install for gc

Livingston:
(Shannon)
After spending many hours on the phone with Bell South this week I have learned several things about our 'net connection:

1) According to Ric Simmons at LSU, at the time of a service outage, Bell South is required to give us a reasonable estimated time of repair.  For every day/partial day beyond this estimate, we are entitled to a 25% refund for service of that month.  This is according to what he was reading at the time on the bid contract.  I will try and get a copy of this from him so that we can review it also.

2) Bell South has not been able to properly monitor this circuit since it went live in December.  This was admitted to me on the phone by the service supervisor (tier two tech support?).  The two repeaters in the circuit (one in Denham Springs and one at the Goodwood CO in Baton Rouge) are not configured properly to send SNMP traps.  This means that when the circuit goes down, Bell South does not even know it.

3) The multimode fibers on either end of the circuit are not monitored. This is pretty standard according to Bell South.  This is considered the end users responsibility.  They monitor up to the end of the Bell equipment and not beyond.

4) They were showing a PSU fault on one of the Bell pieces of equipment but it is not suspected that this was the fault from Friday, Saturday, or Tuesday.  They are still looking into this.

5) There is some maintenance/construction work going on concerning the bundle of fiber that we run through.  However, on Tuesday the work had not begun and according to the supervisor on that job, the manhole cover had not been opened yet, so it is not suspected that this was the fault.

Bell South is still at a loss as to what is causing the service interruptions.  Ric Simmons at LSU suggested that we hold a meeting with the Bell folks, LSU & the state folks (since the contract is in the name of the State of Louisiana), and LIGO.  We have been live on this circuit since December and we have only had a 3 month stretch of solid uptime.  The rest of the time has been plagued with outages.

-Other than working with Bell since Friday, it has been the usual round of GC stuff.
-Also, I have tested some 'net based audio conferencing software with Larry and others.  This software holds hope for replacing VRVS.

Hanford:
(Christine)
- Network usage can be seen at
http://www.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/~christin/mrtg/ 198.129.208.1_198.129.78.122.html
- Finished a proposed budget for FY05 Hanford GC needs.  This includes upgrading the data storage and backup systems for the user files.  I plan to double the current disk space and go to a raided disk system. This also requires buying an additional tape drive for the existing library to handle the increased data to be backed up.
- Cleaned up some laptops loaned out during the LSC meeting.  Installed Spyware and the latest Matlab and SSH on them.  Made sure Norton and Windows updates were up to date, etc.
-  Installed Spyware on the guest PC.
-  Other misc. user support.

CIT:
(Mike)
-Patrick Sutton: Troubleshot a performance issue on his laptop. I corrected this issue and updated security settings and GC software.
-Phil Lindquist: Laptop picked up a virus. I was able to clean this for him, but this will still require a rebuild. This is due to the type of virus he had, which creates backdoors.
-Janeen Romie: I reinstalled Solid Works and updated the Algor software.
-NTSRV's: I updated Pictor, which is the FlexLM license server for one of our engineering software packages (Algor) Ghost backup server had some major issues. When making an attempt to run end of month backups the server crashed on me. It turned out, that I needed to free up some additional disk space.
-Worked up in SCR troubleshooting a network connection. I also updated VRVS software once again. This was due to another update released on the 8-30, by VRVS.
-Wilson House (back): I worked over on the community workstation located in the back house. The LIGO user account somehow ended up getting corrupted. Therefore some of the GC software was no longer working. I ended up deleting that account and creating a new LIGO account; plus I transferred all old data over to new account.
-Mohana Mageswaren: I worked on her computer due to user being swamped with many popups while on the Internet. I loaded X-Terminator and reloaded anti-virus software. While I was working on this computer Norton picked up a couple of viruses, but failed to quarantine these files. I manage to clean this computer by uninstalling and reinstalling Norton Anti-virus.
-Linda Turner: I continued to reload her officeworkstation, but came across some hardware issues, ranging from hard disk failures, to motherboard issues. I spoke to Larry Wallace about this and we decided to give her a newer computer. This will require another complete reload.
-Barbara Simoni: Her workstation down in OTF had a hardware issue. I have corrected this, and she is now back up and running. -Worked on many other user onsite/phone support this week; these were mostly printing, networking, and software issues.

(Veronica)
- LIGO website: Helped set up a presentation for last seminar. Posted updates to the seminars webpages. Updates to other LIGO webpages.
- LSC website: Posted updates to the documents and webpages. Updates to the roster database to reflect status changes of some LSC members. Discussed with Thomas the procedures of managing the roster database, as well as the ways of generating the authorlist; we both have been working on automating it and both concluded that the optimal way is the current procedure.
- CaJAGWR: User support.
- Project Science website: Updates to the website.

(Lisa)
On vacation

(Larry)
-Working on a number of purchases. Looking into augmenting the backup system and increasing the scratch disk space for the users. Assisted/assisting a number of others with their purchases to finish out the year. Working a number of maintenance contracts including SUN and the SDRC/IDEAS pkg., both are going to take some real time to make sure things are correct.
-Assisted a number of users with account modifications. Added a couple of new users. Still working on cleaning out a number of users that have left the project. Along that same line we are looking at a number of modifications to the e-mail alias configurations in-order to accommodate the diversity of groups working with LIGO.
-Spent time each down going throughthe mail filters checking for false positives. The filters may get reworked when Lisa gets back next week.
-Worked on the backups. All of the home accounts have been backed up and now working on specific system backups.
-Installed some more equipment inthe server room. The new UPS is working and presently working on the configuration of the new sandbox.
-Helped one of our visitors make it to urgent care, fortunately is was nothing serious and Lisa took care of most of the logistics.
-Installed a new set of SUN patches on a couple of machines, for 
testing.

Mail Stats 08/26 - 09/01/04
Messages Accepted:      18599   
Spam Rejected:          8239
Viruses Rejected:       932
False Positives:        4


Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)


Systems and Management

From: "Thomas Frey" <tfrey@ligo.caltech.edu>

 

Progress Period from 08.27 to 09.02

 

Out of the Office on 8.30 sick.

·         ·         See http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/index.html for a complete listing of all project related cost and schedule data.

Accomplishments:

·         ·         Sub-system PLANNING activities

§         §         Continued work on preparing web space for posting Adv. LIGO reports. ("The Whole Enchilada")

§         §         Continued the input of changes / preparing RFIs / responding to RFIs, as a result of the meetings with Carol and the Subsystem Teams.

§         §         Executed weekly telecom with Carol W. regarding ongoing efforts for revising AdL project data.

§         §         Prepared report as requested by Carol W. showing all key milestones related to LASTI.

§         §         Executed telecom regarding LASTI installation and testing.

§         §         Finished work on LASTI schedule changes as provided by Carol. 

§         §         Executed a telecom with Carol W, and Alan W. regarding 40-Meter progress.

§         §         Executed a telecom with Carol W., Garilynn B., and Helena A. regarding COC progress.

§         §         Finished preparing comprehensive FY2005 data as requested by Carol W.

·         ·         ROSTER DATABASE:

§         §         Continued to work with Irena to provide Barry with information regarding FTEs and Institutions.

§         §         Updated and posted the approved version of the LSC S2 Authorship List

§         §         http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/authorship/compare.htm

·         ·         COST BOOK DATABASE:

§         §         Nothing new to report.

§         §         http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/rd2005/Acct_Stats.htm

 

Seismic Isolation

 

From: Larry Jones <ljones@ligo.caltech.edu>
 
Advanced LIGO Seismic Structure


SEI Structure:

Based on ASI's verbal, "off the cuff" estimate for HAM unit design of $600K, the LIGO Executive Committee agreed to fund the completion of the ASI contract with conditions as described last week, pending the processing of the appropriate Change Request. A written estimate was then received from ASI, showing $807K for the HAM unit design task. ASI is now working on various issues to reduce this to the neighborhood of $600K. A letter was given ASI with authority to proceed with advance procurements needed for the fabrication of the BSC prototype unit for LASTI: springs & flexures, spring test fixture, pods, aluminum plate stock and blade clamp bolts.


The detailed drawings for the pods and the spring test fixture are completed. The detailed drawings for Stage 0 of the structure will be completed this week. Eighty per cent of the detailed drawings for Stage 1 of the structure have been reviewed in the drawing check process. Drawing bid packages will be organized and sent out for bids shortly.

Budgetary needs are being developed for FY05.

Actuators:

Kyle Ryan is nearly complete with the Thermal Vacuum test of the large actuator at LHO. Preliminary results are within the range expected.

PSI is proceeding with fabricating the 6 large and 6 small actuators for the BSC prototype structure. 148 magnets (not yet magnetized) were received at Caltech for precleaning. Bob Taylor inspected them, saw several small chips and noted that two of the magnets for large actuators were missing. These facts were passed back to PSI.


Displacement Sensors:

ADE is proceeding with fabricating and testing the 14 displacement sensors for the BSC prototype structure.

Accu-Glass is proceeding with fabricating and testing the 3 feedthrough flanges for the BSC chamber at LASTI, with 16 feedthrough fittings each.

Seismometers:

Nothing new

Galling/Dusting Test:

Nothing new.

 

Suspension

From: Janeen Romie <romie_j@ligo.caltech.edu>
 

 
Continuing to work with Caroline Cantley, Sheila Rowan, Helena Armandula and Thomas Frey about the ribbon process design and the optic ribbon attachment design. We will have another scope meeting on Friday.

Participated in the LASTI Planning meeting today.

Working on an alternative eddy current damper design.


From: ctorrie <ctorrie@ligo.caltech.edu>
 

I was on vacation and then was in the UK for 2 weeks organising a new VISA, visiting RAL and working at the University of Glasgow, full report to follow.

1. QUAD Update

Several bench tests have been carried out recently of aspects of the suspension, pictures to follow.
When MPL was visiting from Glasgow he and I re-assembled the double pendulum, lower half of the chain, with several improvements.
The drawings for the lower masses that we will use in the controls prototype, that is to say the test mass and penultimate mass in both the main and reaction chain are nearing completion.
Russell Jones and are laying out an alternative method of splitting the suspension. It is hoped that this will ease some of the concerns relating to assembly and installation. More details to follow.

2. SolidWorks 2004

All of the groups involved in the suspension team have now upgraded to SolidWorks 2004 in line with seismic groups. There are no plans to change to 2005 and I would resist such a move. RAL continue to use PRO E. The STEP Translator is used to exchange files.

3. Blades

CES are making the blades for the controls prototype. Another local company Valley Precision are also manufacturing some blades for us. The reason for also choosing VP was to investigate if it was possible to relax some of the requirements and in turn save on both time and money.

4. Design Meeting

http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~ctorrie/QUAD_ETM/quad_etm%2520setup%20page2.html

5. Visits

During my visit to the UK we organized for both RAL and Glasgow folks to visit Cal Tech over the next few months.
Tim Hayler October 3rd to October 23rd 2004 *
Mike Perreur-Lloyd October 18th to November 18th 2004
Ian Wilmut Nov 8th to Nov 25th
Russell Jones Nov 29th - Dec 4th TBC
Caroline Cantley & Norna Robertson  (TBC)

* Tim Hayler is a new recruit to the suspension team. He is based at RAL and will start work on noise prototype work from October 1st 2004

Core Optics

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

 In conjunction with the LSC, I got involved with several (hotly debated !) issues on the optics design. The downselect had several important issues I considered: the coating loss/uniformity, and how point scattering (as observed in LIGO I) might affect that. Also worked on thermal compensation analysis with respect to properties we are studying now at high power at LHO 4k. Taking this all back home, I have been working with Hiro on analysis of what this all means.

With Liyuan Zhang back (from CERN) we have begun our experiment to identify the HR surface point scatter source (is it just "dust" ?). I spent some effort to glean some more on this while at LHO, but the necessary instrumentation was at LLO (where ?). One thing resolved (LHO e-logged) is the "twinkling" of point scatters on the BS and FMs: its clear now that this is just those mirrors swinging through the RC standing wave nodes.


 

From: Helena Armandula <ahelena@ligo.caltech.edu>
 


Advanced LIGO Coating Development

J.M.Mackowski will be at Caltech a week from Friday on September 10th.
The possibility of coating sapphire substrates with Al2O3 and doped Ta2O5 will be addressed during his visit.

A sapphire and a fused silica substrate are being coated at LMA (in the large coater). Optical absorption homogeneity will be mapped on those pieces.
The coating formula used will be Formula 5, with a dopant percentage between Formula 2 and 3.

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

The sapphire optics made for measuring Q and thermal noise in the style of Kenji Numata are complete.  The Q substrates have already shipped to Japan.  The thermal noise substrates  will ship directly from CSIRO to Japan.

Auxiliary Optics

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


AOS
I have begun to update the development schedule and cost for the AOS subsystem.

Other Laboratory R&D

From: Riccardo DeSalvo <desalvo@ligo.caltech.edu>


Please see

 

http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~desalvo/weekly2sept04.doc

 


 

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