Weekly Report for Week Ending September 23, 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 is cancelled because of the Staffing Committee meeting.


Special Announcements:

 


Weekly Report Highlights
 


LSC Issues (Saulson)


no report


LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)


 

STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Petrac)

(LSC Research Plans through February 2005 and Progress Reports through August 2004)

ACIGA

CaRT

 Caltech-CEGG

Florida

GEO

IAP

Loyola

LSU

SLU

Syracuse

Columbia

Orsay Group

VIRGO



SITE TELECONFERENCE (Lindquist)

No site teleconference was scheduled for Thursday, September 23, 2004. 

The list of assigned actions updated through September 16, 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>


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.


CHANGE CONTROL/CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT (Lindquist)


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)


Summary of Commissioning Activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory (Landry)

(Raab)
John Worden and Fred Raab attended a scoping meeting for the enivronmental impact study (EIS) on de-activation of the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF). Fred officially commented on the need to consider vibration impacts of entombment and demolition options on LIGO operations in the EIS. The FFTF complex is 2.7 miles from the conrer station and 3.1 miles from the Y midstation.

A large and predictable seismic disruption comes from groundmoving work to creat a new disposal pit (IDF) in the Hanford 200 Area. Typical ground vibration levels rise from 5X to 2X in different bands every workday, beginning between 6-7 AM PDT, stopping for lunch and resuming until 4-5 PM PDT. This work, which causes a our NS/NS inspiral figure of merit to drop to ~4 Mpc, is expected to continue through Dec 5.

(Lubinski)
This week we have started to archive data for potential future analyses {expect triggered searches such as supernovae, GRBs, pulsar glitches}. So far we have archived via LDAS 29.75 hours {start date for archiving was ~Sunday 19th}.  We have been able to use Peter Shawhan's revised Conlog tool to find "Clean lock stretches" and then save via Ben Johnson's "LDAS Segment Archiver tool"  Please see elog entries for details.

An upbeat assessement of acoustic coupling was entered in the elog on the weekend; see Sat. 18th for an entry by Robert Schofield.



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


LLO (Zucker et al)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
WIth completion of the EMC retrofit there is a big commissioning push to bring the interferometer back online. We were encouraged by brief periods of full interferometer lock Sunday night, but there remains a daunting punchlist of details.

In addition, the Atlantic storm season is giving us a very high microseism; without the assistance of PEPI (cut out to make room for HEPI), and with HEPI not yet fully operational, full-interferometer locking is not easy. The HEPI crew is under immense pressure to bring the Y arm up as quickly as possible.

We're especially thankful for the expert help of our many visitors, including (for now) Rana Adhikari, Rob Ward, Matt Evans, Rich Mittleman, Flavio Nocera, Stefan Ballmer, and Peter Fritschel.

Livingston Outreach (Zucker, Thacker)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
John attended the Association of Science and Technology Centers annual meeting in San Jose, CA this week along with Dale Ingram from LHO. LIGO has applied for membership in this association, which offers terrific resources for science outreach.   John also stopped by the Exploratorium in San Francisco to meet with our partners and play with their toys.

After intensive competition, we have decided to name our new Livingston outreach center...

        "The LIGO Science Education Center"

We've selected the architectural firm of Eskew+Dumez+Ripple to design it for us. E+D+R is a premier national firm based in New Orleans with many acclaimed science outreach, museum, and education projects to their credit. We are very excited to work with them.

Safety & security (Zucker for Riesen)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Rich is away on travel. Tom Evans is monitoring safety systems in his absence and reports no safety incidents this period.


General computing (Roddy)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Since Bell South worked on the fiber between LLO and the Livingston CO, we have had no downtime on the internet connection.  We have been up for ~11 days now.

Spent Mon-Wed working with Dave Barker at LHO configuring and testing the new Foundry network equipment.  The equipment is really some nice stuff.  The benchmarks showed exactly what should be expected, however it is pretty hard to saturate these switches with network traffic without hooking up two dozen computers for testing.  It looks like the equipment should provide quite a lot of capacity for some time.  The LLO equipment should be shipped today or tomorrow from Hanford and be at LLO by the end of next week.  The one thing I did not get to test at LHO was the use of Jumbo Frames.  I am hoping to test this at LLO since we have the equipment to support the tests.  More to report later, I just got off the plane from Seattle about an hour ago.


HEPI and L1 Commissioning (Abbott)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
1.  Continuing work on HEPI punch list.  Recent activity consisted of curing a flow reversal error on one of the HAM chamber hydraulic lines, it was noted that this pier had an opposite sign to all other piers.  A picture is emerging regarding the hydraulic accumulators used on HEPI.  It appears as though some of them leak off their pressure, perhaps quite quickly.  We are testing and taking data.
2.  A position sensor down at the X-end station was showing a large 60Hz content with 1Hz sidebands that look much like the SCR fired heater sidebands that have been seen before.  Speculating that the sensor may be damaged and picking up a magnetic signal in its coils that would normally be cancelled by the bridges common mode rejection, we replaced the sensor.  A quick check indicates that the sensor no longer shows the 60Hz pollution, but we did not know the state of the heaters at the time of observation.  More exhaustive testing is needed before we can say the problem is fixed.  The sensor that was removed is being physically examined for damage.
3.  Fixed some wiring issues that were stopping the main laser from turning on.  About 4 wires were disconnected in the cross-connects. Once restored, everything seems to be back up.  Have no idea as to how the wires came out of the cross-connects.


L1 PEM (Lormand)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
PEM Status
D. Lormand

The following PEM channels are operational,

Y-end
Guralp and STS-2 seismometers
The accelerometers
The microphone
The magnetometer

LVEA
Guralp and STS-2 seismometers
All accelerometers except the three on ISCT1 and the one on the PSL periscope (The above 4 accelerometers will come online after we receive replacement cables.)
All microphones
The magnetometer has been tested and does work, but has been taken offline until its power connection can be finalized.

X-end
Guralp and STS-2 seismometers
All accelerometers are producing signals, but the signals are faulty, so these signals need to be troubleshooted.
The microphone
The magnetometer  y-axis signal is suspect, so I will troubleshoot with the accelerometers.



Data analysis (Yakushin)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
LDAS admin:
1) Made current data in /frames/full available to LDAS on Antony Searle's request.

Data analysis:
1) Found an error in SN1_S3_P MDC frames. Generated corrected SN2_S3_P frames and tested them with waveburst.
2) Processed band limited white noise MDC frames WNB1A_S3_P and WNB2A_S3_P, the results are rather puzzling: efficiency curves for long duration and narrow bandwidth signals never make it to 100%. Investigating whether the problem is with MDC frames or waveburst.
3) Published to LDR at CIT the following MDC frames: SG4_S3_P, SG5_S3_P, GA1_S3_P, SN2_S3_P, WNB1A_S3_P and WNB2A_S3. They are documented here:
http://www.ligo-la.caltech.edu/~igor/MDC/S3playgroundMDCframes.html
Waveburst results on these frames are given here:
http://www.ligo-la.caltech.edu/~igor/MDC_S3_P
4) Working on allowing waveburst to read calibration frames.
5) Working on allowing waveburst to read GEO frames.
6) Discussing with Alexander Dietz from LSU a possibility of automatically getting GRB information for online analysis.

HPLF (Zucker for Franzen)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The IPG 100-watt laser passed its safety checkout and was authorized to begin operations. At this writing it has achieved its 100-watt output specification and appears to be functioning normally. THE HPLF IS BACK IN BUSINESS!

CDS software (Khan)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Updated the redbook to reflect the current state of the CDS controllers.

2) Investigated the ICS110b problem

3) prepared a proposal for an enhanced DAQ system
 


Detector/Technical Support (Coyne)


CDS

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

CDS Software

Rolf Bork reporting

- Finished up latest changes at 40m lab. This involved a few fixes, including getting the ETM test points operational, fixing the xycom bit settings for white/dewhite filter switching, and fixing the filter coeff reload function. Jay and I still need to go over this morning to finish putting in the proper dewhite compensation filters.

 

- Set up to do more hepi tests to follow up on the ADC channel hopping problem. I have also ordered a PMC to Front Panel Data Port (FPDP) module. The idea is to read data out of the ADC modules over the FPDP instead of the VME bus to see if this remedies the situation.

 

- Finished up changes at MIT for latest hepi system (2 chamber control).

 

- Alex has begun work on new Framebuilder change request ie write data status for each 1/16 second instead of just once per frame. Since we "denoted" our Framebuilder machine to the 40m lab, we will test new software there.

CDS Hardware

Jay Heefner reporting

 

Fiber Optic Timing Link (Sander)

==============================

- Sander is completing and documenting the tests performed on the prototype installed on the 40M.

- He has completed the schematics for the GPS to Fiber Transmitter and Fiber Receiver boards and will send them to the group for review.

- The fiber fanout schematic is in progress.

 

Timing System Redesign (Flavio)

=============================

- No action

 

Anti-Image Filter Modules (Todd, Jay)

==============================

- 10 Boards are in test.

 

40 Meter

=================================

- Mohana is working on a web based documentation system. It should be ready for review next week.

- The suspension, DAQ and LSC upgrade is in progress.

- There appears to be glitching on some sus channels. It appears to be hardware related.

 

LASTI HEPI (Jay, Ben)

==================================

- Jay Installed components in lab last week. The system could not be completed. Cable shipments from LLO were delayed due to Ivan.

- Jay Installed optical lever readouts on MC triple and put connections in for future quad.

- Ben collected and mailed off a box full of connectors, cables, and modules that Jay needed to install HEPI in LASTI.

 

LSC PD Redesign (Ben)

================================

1) Ben redid the PCB, in order to move connectors and the PD footprint.  Sent it out to the design committee and will have a review early next week.

2) Continue to test and characterize the prototype board.

 

ISS (Flavio)

================================

- Flavio is at LLO for test and installation of system.

 

EMI Upgrade (Mohana)

================================

- Adding EO and mechanical shutters to LLO LSC drawings.

 

AdL SEI and SUS

==================================

- No action

 

TNI (Jay, Ben)

==================================

- Installed EPICS based controls for arm cavity and MC servos.

 

Elect Shop (Todd)

==================================

- Continued spares production for LHO.

- Fabbing 100 4-pin EMO cables for LHO.

- Fabbing 10KHz LPF boards for LLO ETM PDs.

 

PSL

PeterKing

I have been checking out the state code that controls the 10-W laser AC current adjust actuator, as the behaviour is not quite what I expected.  Alternatively there could be a logic problem in the state code that I have overlooked.

OMC

Ken Mailand

The mode cleaner is complete, and I informed Keita Kawabe that the complete package will arrive @ LHO Friday.

TCS

Ken Mailand, Lee Cardenas

I have completed several flow rate, and chiller temp tests, and given the data to Phil Willems, who is working on a control circuit

The chilled water heat exchanger flow rate will regulate the reservoir water temperature.

A signal from a thermal couple at the laser water input will open and close a 30VDC proportional valve to regulate the chilled water flow thru the heat exchanger; the valve flow will be tested tomorrow morning.

The closed loop circuit test should be complete this week. I sent a PDF of the complete assembly to Cheryl Vorvick @ LHO and spoke to her re. the house side plumbing connections to the Laser and Chilled water.

AS Port Astigmatic Beam

Mike Smith

I have begun looking through the LHO e-log to gather pertinent observations about the ellipticity of the output beam.

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
Data will be treated for ring down and absorption.

Absorption Test Measurement prototype   in standby

Scatterometer system  in progress!!
We have installed the Inner test mass 2ITM04 fused silica mirror in the scatterometer enclosure.
We have finished alignment and mode matching.  The scatterometer head is installed.
We are scanning the 2ITM04 mirror for scattered light and it is in progress now!

The Quantronix 60 watt laser  No change
*We have installed the new laser enclosure.

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.  
data will be treated for ring down and absorption.
Cavity #2
The new chamber is IN but we still waiting on the viewport windows 2B baked.
The base holder for the cavity is also in for cleaning and baking.

PSL Laser lab   Laser  in standby



 

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)



Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)


This week we had a minor setback when the turbopump on our large vacuum chamber failed. Fortunately, we have two. Akira removed the old pump and sent it to Varian, then installed the spare. The vacuum chamber is now back to normal operation. Varian has offered to replace the old pump with a refurbished one for the same price as a repair, so we don't anticipate "driving on the spare" for too long.

Also, the noise is back down to its original level, and the unity-gain oscillations have been suppressed. The new, computer-controlled servo filters now appear to be working to spec, and the next step is to install the photodetectors and modify the state code so that the computer can sense when the interferometer comes into lock.


LASTI (Ottaway)


no report


Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)


 Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)
E2E Weekly Physics Meeting
------------------------------
Sany Yoshida and Raghu from Southern Lousianna University discussed a problem of mode-matching in their simulation of the LIGO input optics. Virginio introduced his matlab utility functions which can be useful tools for analyzing e2e and especially SimLIGO runs.

Mode mismatch and sideband imbalance
----------------------------------------
(Hiro) Lower order modal model is being used to study this issue. The result is summarized in G040442 and T040177. Using the FFT program, the fields status under the bright port configuration has been calculated. The imbalance does not exist, which is consistent with the analysis using modal model. i.e., the imbalance is caused by the "cavity" formed by Recycling and Input mirrors.

Phasecamera data
------------------
(Biplab) Interacted with Keita and Luca on the calibration of phase camera measurements.

Support to SLU group
----------------------------------------
(Biplab) Assisted Sany Yoshida and his student Raghu from Southern Louisianna University (SLU) for their e2e simulation set-up of the input optics and proper mode-matching.

40 meter interferometer simulation
---------------------------------------
(Monica) The static configuration of the 40m/Advanced LIGO configuration has been tested with e2e both for the configuration with EOMs in series (previous configuration of the 40m) and with the Mach-Zehnder configuration (new one). Results are in agreement with those obtained with the TWIDDLE simulation (proposal of the 40m IFO).

Mirror phase map document
-----------------------------
(Xiao, Hiro) A document, T040156-E,  summarizing the creation of the phasemap for FFT has been finihed, and has been submitted to DCC.

Length and Angle correction of FFT runs
-------------------------------------------
(Biplab) It seems calculation of Wave Front Sensor matrix keeping interferometer lengths fixed gives wrong results. A correct matrix is obtained only when the FFT is allowed to lock in its own way while the angular changes are made. As a result faced problem in doing both length and angle corrections together.

Code development and maintenance
---------------------------------------
(Hiro) Homam / 64 bit machine e2e has been built on the 4 CPU 64 bit machine, and the performance was compared with halfdome. Homam's speed is 2.2GHz (AMD), while halfdome is 3GHz (Intel). Without using thread, they run almost at the same speed. When thread is used, homam is 70% faster than halfdome. One problem found is that the simulation result is different. The cause is being investigated.

(Melody) Assisted Hiro with building e2e in a 64bit Linux environment.

(Hiro) A few bugs fixes and updates for newer version of gcc.

Alfi
----------
(Bruce)
  - Box Settings dialog and Box Setting Declarations dialog.(4.5 days)
  - Employee Appraisal Form and associated problems.        (0.5 days)

(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;
Work continues on investigations for comparison of StackSlide with Hough and Power Flux, using S2 and fake data.

Sutton:
This week I wrote and distributed a draft paper on the results the LIGO-TAMA joint S2 bursts search.  I also (almost) finished the new DMT calibration tool;  I will be distributing it after a few last tests are completed.  Finally, I compiled some data quality statistics for the LIGO detectors in S3 for use in planning the LIGO-Auriga analysis. These consisted of plots of the band-limited noise rms and the expected amplitude of detectable sine-Gaussians over the LIGO-Auriga frequency band of [850,950]Hz.

Shawhan:
* Finished my study of "dips" in the arm cavity light intensity during the S3 run:
http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~pshawhan/lsc/S3/dataqual/lightdips.html .
Alsodetermined that these dips do correlate somewhat with inspiral triggers found in the S3 playground data:
http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/cgi-bin/enote.pl?nb=s3detchar&page=9
* Completed a check of the total observation time for the S2 binary neutron star inspiral search, taking into account the effect of a bug in the LAL frame-reading software which caused a small amount of data to be skipped:
http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/cgi-bin/enote.pl?nb=s2template&page=69
* Worked on final steps of reviewing the S2 known-pulsar paper, plus reviewing the code used for the frequency-domain (F-statistic) searches.
* Added a new conlog query option to support archiving data collected overnight by H1 in the "GRB/supernova watch" activity.

Yakushin:
1) Found an error in SN1_S3_P MDC frames. Generated corrected SN2_S3_P  frames and tested them with waveburst.
2) Processed band limited white noise MDC frames WNB1A_S3_P and  WNB2A_S3_P, the results are rather puzzling: efficiency curves for long  duration and narrow bandwidth signals never make it to 100%.  Investigating whether the problem is with MDC frames or waveburst.
3) Published to LDR at CIT the following MDC frames: SG4_S3_P, SG5_S3_P, GA1_S3_P, SN2_S3_P, WNB1A_S3_P and WNB2A_S3. They are  documented here:
http://www.ligo-la.caltech.edu/~igor/MDC/S3playgroundMDCframes.html
Waveburst results on these frames are given here:
http://www.ligo-la.caltech.edu/~igor/MDC_S3_P
4) Working on allowing waveburst to read calibration frames.
5) Working on allowing waveburst to read GEO frames.
6) Discussing with Alexander Dietz from LSU a possibility of  automatically getting GRB information for online analysis.

LIGO Data Analysis System

Software Systems (Blackburn)

The LDAS Account Application webpage now allows applicants to apply for an active account for up to one year in concert with the LSC decision to have a yearly MOU process. The extension option now support 6 month extensions, doubling the previous extension period.

The Problem Report PR 2698 which identified the case sensitivity to email addresses in the Perl CGI script has now been fixed and closed.

The cacheDump utility now support generation of an explicit file list as requested in the Problem Report PR2694. Code is now in CVS and the PR should be closed out today.

Work continues on the new time interval structure for the diskCacheAPI associated with PR 2392.

Tcl/Globus: While writing swig wrappers for a Tcl Demo to exercise a simple Globus XIO read, encountered a major problem wrapping the globus_xio_read() routine. This is still under investigation, but a work around has been theorized and will be tested shortly.

A prototype version of the frameAPI running on one of our tandem systems now supports writing out multiple frames per file in the createRDS command. The ability to read these back into the createRDS process is still missing and will be added in the next week. This new code default to the previous mode of generating RDS frame (i.e., one frame per file) if the new options specifying the number of frames per file is missing, allowing for backwards compatibility with existing scripts.

Began work on supporting time series concatenation within the createRDS command.

Standard controlMonitorAPI client tests to allow testing of all users and nodes associated with the mpiAPI will be added to CVS today (PR 1780).

A new genericAPI "thread-wake-up" function has been tested successfully and added to CVS. This address the lightWeightAPI's PR 2355.

Updated the system and integration test documentation webpages with new links to the actual test scripts and descriptive test documents. This is a work in progress.

Completed the LDAS system/integration tests on LDAS version 1.2.10 and updated the webpages to reflect results. No issues found in testing.

Updated createRDS test scripts to use the SAM/QFS mounted scratch space on the LDAS Dev and Tandem systems. This improved LDAS performance by a few percent over standard NFS.

Worked with the LAM-MPI developers to identify a bug in the 7.1 version of LAM that we are using associated with the mishandling of the lam-killfiles file persisting across LAM restarts. A fix will be available in LAM version 7.1.1 and a patch has been provided for current vesion. A problem report on this is filed (PR 2709).

Worked on PR 2705, LDAS user commands that attempt to retrieve hundreds of remote files via http or ftp cause manager to behave erratically. Worked on determining a sensible protocol for this involving the use of tar and untar. Tested several techniques for guaranteeing known location of untarred user files.

KB subscriped to the policy and security mailing lists of the Open Science Grid Project. The secure group has already posted a breakin that sucessfully substituted ssh with a version that captures passwords.

KB also reviewed all the presentations posted on the web from the Sept 9-10 OSG workshop held at Harvard.

Hardware Systems (Wilson for Anderson)
LHO
Greg
1) I have added to the lscsoft/lalwrapper/dsorun cvs repository new scripts to run createrds.tcl as a cron job. The purpose here is to allow LDAS to see all the raw data, but run RDS jobs only on segments of the data. The following scripts can be used to schedule createrds.tcl from a cron job, and in particular to run on 1000 s of data every 100,000 s: createrds_scheduler.tcl, createrds_scheduler.rsc, one_percent_times.tcl, and one_percent.rec. The resource file createrds_scheduler.rsc sets variables used by createrds_scheduler.tcl. The createrds_scheduler.tcl scripts stops any createrds scripts running from a directory called createrdsDir, calls getNextTimesScript to get the next set of times to run on, and updates createrds.rsc with the new times and starts createrds.tcl. The one_percent_times.tcl is an example of a getNextTimesScript script that returns a 1000 s segments of times to run createrds.tcl for every 100,000 s. It uses one_percent.rec initialize these times. See README.createrdsScheduler in cvs for more details.

2) I am assisting LDAS with planning for the future power and AC requirements for the data analysis cluster at LHO.

LLO
Igor
1) Made current data in /frames/full available to LDAS on Antony Searle's request.

CIT
Hari
1. Published S3 C01_LX frames into ldas-gridmon
2. Issued new certificates to all the sites
3. Made some changes to the publishing to remove a bug discovered by 
Igor

Dan
1. Finished the transfer of non-run second trends for LHO from HPSS to SAM-QFS (and their subsequent deletion from HPSS). All that remains to do on the HPSS transfer is to retry the files that failed to transfer correctly the first time (~300 files).
2. Set up /scratch shared QFS filesystem for DEV & TEST systems to write output to.
3. Still working on getting a quote from STK for silo maintenance.
4. Finished working with Sun on the problem where shared clients (in this case alterf) ask for files, but they never get staged. We're going to try it again when we install 4.2.
5. Received/installed replacement T3 disks for CIT.

Al
1. Testing out some new Tripwire utils I got from the security seminar I went to. Looks promising.
2. Installed Fedora core 2 on a laptop and desktop machine. Setting up "kickstart" to work with our install procedures.

General Computing (Wallace)
MIT:
Nothing to report

Livingston:
(Shannon)
-Since Bell South worked on the fiber between LLO and the Livingston CO, we have had no downtime on the internet connection.  We have been up for ~11 days now.
-Spent Mon-Wed working with Dave Barker at LHO configuring and testing the new Foundry network equipment.  The equipment is really some nice stuff.  The benchmarks showed exactly what should be expected, however it is pretty hard to saturate these switches with network traffic without hooking up two dozen computers for testing.  It looks like the equipment should provide quite a lot of capacity for some time.  The LLO equipment should be shipped today or tomorrow from Hanford and be at LLO by the end of next week.  The one thing I did not get to test at LHO was the use of Jumbo Frames.  I am hoping to test this at LLO since we have the equipment to support the tests.  More to report later, I just got off the plane from Seattle about an hour ago.

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
- Working on a new workpermit web form.  Trying to use a PDF form instead of HTML so the work permits can be attached to elog entries and because the PDF form has more input widgets.  The only problem encountered with the PDF form is how to automatically write the work permit number to the form.
- Trying out a software package to be used as a network monitor.  It uses SNMP to talk to the router, switches and servers then reports back network statistics and hardware status.
- Rebuilding another Dell, Win2k computer that is periodically dumping memory to disk and crashing.
- Helping out with the procurement of Solid Works software license for our site.

CIT:
(Mike)
-Barry Barish: Loaded a loaner laptop for Dr. Barish to take on travel.
-Rana Adhikari &Vuk Mandic: Loaded new laptops for these users, with General Computing software and some additional engineering packages.
-NTSRV: I updated all NTSRV's with OS and security patches, and checked logs for system errors and intrusion attempts. Everything looks good.
-Ghost Server: I have been burning DVD's to make room for additional backups. I am getting ready for end of month backups. This server is just about maxed out of disk space. Larry Wallace is ordering a much bigger unit to handle this type of server.
-Calum Torrie: I worked on loading PTC pro engineer on a guest workstation for some visitors that are coming next week. This turned out to be a project that required a lot of time. I finally got this software up and running.
-Much other onsite/phone user support that included networking, printers, hardware, OS updates, and software issues.

(Veronica)
- LIGO website: Working on the websites for the upcoming NSF Review and PAC meeting.  Processed a high-resolution image for an APS publication. Updates to the seminars webpage.  User support: e-mail alias, vacation mail forwarding issues.
- LSC website: Startedworking on the webpages for the next LSC meeting. Updated the author list posting.
- Project Science: Updates to the pages for the upcoming workshop.

(Larry)
-Spent a deal of time with procurement related issues. Ordering a number of items for the computer room and other groups. Getting paperwork sent from various companies took most of the time. We also had a few mis-shipped items that needed to be taken care of. Most of the Dell equipment has arrived and Mike is taking care of the units that are to be distributed.
-Spentmore time on the server room. Installing more equipment into the racks and getting things cleaned up before the fire suppression test. The cleanup is still going to take some time.
-The new sandbox is on-line and there are a few people testing it out. So far it looks good. There is still some cleanup work to be performed and a number of applications to be installed. Hopefully, there will be some testing of the 64bit capabilities in the near future. -Working on cleaning up some of the home accounts now that the SURF students have left. A number of logistical issues will be addressed to help simplify their accounts for next year.
-Assisted a number of users with various problems. Worked a couple of printer issues and some minor network problems. Assisted a number of people with e-mail issues and helped them clean things up.

(Lisa)
- Helped a number of people whose mailspools had grown to large proportions.
- Worked on an odd situation where certain legitimate email were getting trapped by the spam filters.  I think this is fixed but it needs more testing.
- Installed new video/gigE cards on hadar.
- Put in a PO to add the second autochanger from LDAS to our existing solstice licenses.

Mail Stats 09/16 - 09/22/04
Messages Accepted:      22275
Spam Rejected:          11695
Viruses Rejected:       631
False Positives:        8
Total Mail Thru:        34601
% spam blocked:         34%


Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)


Seismic Isolation

 

From: Larry Jones <ljones@ligo.caltech.edu>
 

Advanced LIGO Seismic Structure


SEI Structure:

Jasnow and Jones met with McClendon and Scott VanderZyl, ASI's new project manager for the SEI task, on 9/22. Scott described his philosophy of management, which, for this task, involves focusing on salvaging ASI's credibility for cost and schedule. He demonstrated his seriousness in achieving this by the following:

1. Scott proposed that he develop a proposal for moving the BSC prototype structure piece part fabrication out of the existing cost reimbursable (CPFF) contract and into a fixed price contract. We indicated an interest in his preparing this proposal, as this would be one way for LIGO to contain the fabrication costs, the largest area remaining under this contract. Scott plans to update ASI's manufacturing cost to complete on 10/7, and to propose the fixed price for piece part fab on 10/8.

2. Scott plans to have each individual part bid separately, rather than bid as packages.

3. Scott has reassigned at least two of the task team members within the team to better suit his policies, and states that he will guard against "making room" for others on the team---only adding others as they are absolutely needed.

4. Scott plans to maximize loading of work on ASI employees that are charged to overhead, such as the Purchasing Manager and the VP of Engineering.

5. Scott plans to exercise discipline in pressuring for finalizing of unpleasant tasks, such as completing a global tolerance spreadsheet, the absence of which has been holding up drawing completions.

6. Scott plans to increase the number of drawings classified as MDDs, to save labor. These are minimally dimensioned drawings, where (as usual) all of the details are in the solids model electronic files (which are used to program the machining and inspection equipment) but only only critical/general dimensions are on the 2D, paper documents (MDDs). CAD programs make the production of 2D drawings from solid models quick and efficient; fully dimensioning these is very labor intensive. Our original contract was written for zero MDDs for completeness and convenience in future reference; software for accessing dimensions from the solids model is expensive and is not widely distributed within the LIGO team. The recent replan increased MDDs to a small amount (approximately 10 drawings), as a cost reduction.

7. Scott stressed the suitability of matching his manufacturing background with the phase of work remaining on this task.

8. .... you get the idea ....

A meeting will be held with ASI on 9/28 to negotiate which unplanned activities on their task were caused by LIGO's requested scope changes. These would be valid items for charging additional fee; otherwise, they can only invoice LIGO for their costs.


Actuators:

PSI has completed the machining of the bobbins and has shipped them to Caltech for precleaning.

Bob Taylor has precleaned nickel plated frame parts for the actuators, and shipped these along with the magnets and plated fasteners to the magnet supplier for magnetization and assembly.


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>
 

 
AdLIGO Suspensions
Hosted a meeting with Bob Taylor, Calum, Stuart Aston and Dave Hoyland yesterday about LIGO 1 osem lessons learned. Before the meeting, Stuart send along some design pictures of the new hybrid osem and Bob sent some photos of the LIGO 1 osem. The meeting was useful and both Bob and Stuart will stay in touch.

We are having problems with ANSYS and Algor software. Mike P. and Larry W. are helping as it may be a license problem.


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

Advanced LIGO SUS
2 weeks: From 9th to 23rd Sept 2004

1. QUAD Update

The drawings for the pen, test and reaction test masses are now in the workshop
The drawings for a clamp jig are also with the Physics shop
Magnet assemblies and their assembly tools, a test ECD and aluminium place-cards for the blades have also been started to be machined

2. FEA of Structure and 2 concepts for the design approach

Janeen and I have been looking at Corwin's hexapod design and looking at it wrt the SUS requirements. We are also looking at shorter version of the upper half of the structure in line with the idea of "3&1" assembly technique. One idea is to look at the the upper half of the original structure design on it own.

The following is a link to 2 design approaches we are considering for the controls prototype
http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~ctorrie/QUAD_ETM/CIT/Doc1.pdf


3. Blades

Both Valley Precision and CES have started manufacturing the controls prototype blades.
CES are having the material ground and VP are reporting no delays at this point.


4. Visit to Stanford

Discussed feasibility of sending the Cal Tech mode cleaner suspension to Stanford.
Brought up the idea that the ETF could be used to look at coupled analysis of a "mock-up" of the QUAD structure. (Jan 2005)
Listened to a talk by Corwin on a "hexapod" design for the quad structure and exchanged files.

5. Design Meeting

For a review of this week's design meeting please refer to the following link: -
http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~ctorrie/QUAD_ETM/quad_etm%2520setup%20page2.html


6. Glasgow and RAL

Mike, Ian and I have been working on the top mass and the blade clamps. All of the drawings for these should arrive early next week and will probably go to CES for machining.
As part of this CES are making a prototype clamp to address some of the techniques RAL are suggesting on the drawing.
As more drawings arrive we may have to use off campus machine shops. Mike and I also had a detailed discussion on approaches for assembling and dis-assembling the top and UI masses.
 

From: "Mark Barton" <mbarton@ligo.caltech.edu>
 
    This week I've been working full time on the revision to the AdvLIGO
SUS DRD, T010007.

Auxiliary Optics

 

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


ADV LIGO

AOS
I updated all the costing information except for the optical lever viewports, and have updated the development schedule for the AOS subsystem.

COC BIREFRINGENCE AXIS ALIGNMENT
I haven't yet analyzed passing the analyzer beam through the COC twice, after flipping the analyzer beam over with a roof reflector to remove the effect of the wedge.

Other Laboratory R&D


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

Maddalena
She left for Italy to apply for grad schools. At the last minute she improved the performance of the LF seismic attenuator, bringing its resonant frequency to 28 mHz.
The paper on seismic attenuation she wrote is practically in for internal review for submission to NIM, it is available in.
ligo.caltech.edu/~desalvo/MaddaLFseisATT.doc
The final version of Maddalenas thesis is also available in
ligo.caltech.edu/~desalvo/Maddalena-TesiP040025.pdf
ligo.caltech.edu/~desalvo/Maddalena-TesiP040025.doc

Simone, Francesco:
They finished their SURF time and left for Italy. At the last moment managed to excite the maraging flex joint and characterise its resonance. Also measured the frequency versus payload curve. Now we have to switch to the silicon joints and then start measurements under vacuum.

Francesco:
Provided copy of 3rd year thesis (last year SURF report to DCC, it can be found also in
ligo.caltech.edu/~desalvo/CostagliolaReport2003.pdf

Nicky:
Creep measurement ongoing, now at 60oC for a couple of weeks. Monitoring.

Anamaria:
Testing the Copper Beryllium blades, with my surprise it is far easier to tune CuBe blades to lower frequency, the same shape Maraging blades were practically impossible tu tune below 200 mHz, with CuBe I got easily to 100 mHz (four times lower K!).
Measurements continuing.
Continuing machine shop classes.

Juri
The results from my simulation program with the new mesh and rescaled lengths were very strange and the reason for that is still under investigation, but now I am applying the uniform angular mesh to the problem with the effective lengths and the results are very good: no more broken symmetry of the problem and the behavior of the field inside the cavity is as expected. It is clear that the choice of the mesh plays a crucial role in the numerical simulation and probably is responsible for the strange results with the rescaled problem. Moreover I am working on the problem of the spectral density of the coating thermal noise for finite mirrors and the analytical derivation of it requires long calculations.


 

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