Weekly Report for Week Ending October 21, 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:

As most of you already know, our Advanced LIGO proposal went to the National Science Board for its approval at its last meeting.

After last week’s report was posted, I received word that Advanced LIGO has received approval from the Board, and will now go into the NSF budget plans. The future is still not completely certain, since NSF funding is always determined by Congress on a year-by-year basis, but this represents a major milestone for Advanced LIGO.


Weekly Report Highlights
 

The Livingston interferometer locks during the day and through the train!  Another indication that HEPI is working as planned.


LSC Issues (Saulson)


Minutes of LSC Executive Committee meeting
Friday 15 October, 1130 Eastern 0830 Pacific

Attendance: Bruce Allen, Barry Barish, Patrick Brady, Sam Finn, Joe Giaime, Albert Lazzarini, Dave Reitze, Keith Riles, Peter Saulson (minutes), David Shoemaker, Daniel Sigg, Ken Strain, Rai Weiss, Stan Whitcomb, Benno Willke, and guest Laura Cadonati.

Announcements

* Alicia Sintes has proposed hosting a future LSC meeting at UIB, Mallorca. (She specifically proposed November 2006.) Members asked a few questions about airfares and flight availability. Those questions have been forwarded to Sintes. After they are answered, the LSC Exec Comm will decide whether to accept her offer.

* Patrick Brady asked for suggestions for speakers at the focus session that he will chair at the April APS meeting. There will be 3 talks, 1/2 hour each, on the subjects of commissioning, data analysis, and Advanced LIGO.

* Sam Finn announced the dates for the GravStat conference to be held at the Center for Gravitational Wave Physics at Penn State: Thur - Sat 19 - 21 May, 2005.

* Barry Barish reported that the case for Advanced LIGO was presented to the National Science Board on 13 Oct. If it is approved, then LSC members should stay tuned to help in a coordinated education effort about Advanced LIGO.

(N.B.: Since the meeting, Stan Whitcomb shared the good news from Michael Turner that Advanced LIGO was indeed approved by the NSB. Let me add my congratulations to everyone who helped make this milestone possible, and my encouragement to everyone whose future hard work will make Advanced LIGO a reality.)


Proposed revisions to Publication Policy

Dave Reitze introduced proposed new language for the authorship section of the Publication Policy. One new provision describes when a paper's author list has grown large enough that the entire LSC author list should be substituted. This section got general assent from members. Another provision described under what circumstances a data analysis methods paper should use the full LSC author list. The proposed distinction was whether or not the paper used new science data, as yet not the basis of any published analysis paper. Discussion focused on the definition of science data (Science Mode, from a Science Run, ...) Dave took note of the issues, and promised to come back with a new version of the proposal. The new language will be proposed to the Council at the March 2005.


DASWG Software Requirements Document

Patrick Brady presented the Software Requirements Document developed by the Data Analysis Software Working Group. Some sections of the document had been approved by the LSC Exec Comm in a previous meeting, but the document has now been filled out with a detailed discussion of Quality Assurance practices for analysis software. The LSC Exec Comm voted to approve the document.


AURIGA/LSC Joint Working Group White Paper

Laura Cadonati introduced the White Paper produced by the AURIGA/LSC Joint Working Group. It proposes a strategy for joint data analysis of LIGO and AURIGA data taken during S3. (When the GEO/LIGO MOU revisions are signed, then GEO data would be included as well.) Members asked about the level of effort that would be put into the joint work. On the AURIGA side, the major effort will be carried by two graduate students, guided by G. Prodi and L. Baggio, among others. From the LSC side, the team includes Laura, Patrick Sutton, Siong Heng, Michele Zanolin, and Warren Johnson; a commitment of 40% of Laura's time forms the foundation of the effort. David Shoemaker asked if the scientific benefits would be worth the effort. Laura replied that beyond the outcome of the search itself, development of network analysis techniques was quite worthwhile. Sam Finn urged us to think beyond bilateral agreements and instead build an infrastructure for true network analysis. Barry pointed out that before a publication, we'd expect software from both sides to be thoroughly reviewed. David asked if the AURIGA side understood the LSC review process and publication procedures; Laura said they did.

After this discussion, the LSC Exec Comm voted 10-0 (with to abstentions) in favor of accepting the White Paper, thus giving the OK to joint analysis of S3 data.

Discussion of Tania Regimbau's relation to LSC

We discussed various options for Tania Regimbau's relationship with the LSC once she takes her new position at Nice. The LSC Executive Committee felt that it would be impractical to have Tania Regimbau continue with her LSC membership. However, we hope that this does not mark the end of our work together with her on the search for gravitational waves. We hope that we will shortly hear from the Virgo leadership that they are interested in exploring the possibility of collaborative data analysis with the LSC in the area of searches for a stochastic background. We would welcome an in-depth technical exploration of this topic, with the outcome being a proposal to add this subject to the range of topics included in joint data analysis between Virgo, LIGO, and GEO. One particular possibility, given the distance scales involved, might be a search based on correlations between Virgo and GEO600, but all possibilities ought to be explored.

 


LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)


STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Petrac)

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

ACIGA

Caltech-CEGG

Florida

GEO

Goddard

IAP

Louisiana School of Math, Science, and Arts (LSMSA)

Loyola

LA Tech

LSU

NAOJ-TAMA

Rochester

Washington State

Orsay Group

VIRGO

EGO

 



SITE TELECONFERENCE (Jasnow)

A site teleconference was held on Thursday, October 21, 2004.  The following issues were among those discussed:


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)

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


>From: "Brambila, Ruth" <Ruth.Brambila@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, Salone)

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

MIT

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

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


SUPPORT (Baldon, Kammerling, Lloyd)

>Irene Baldon


>Sharon Kammerling


>Dorothy Lloyd


PROPOSALS 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>

Nothing significant to report.


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


Summary of Commissioning Activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory (Landry)

DMT shakedown mini-run M5 begins at LHO Friday Oct 22nd noon PDT, running until midnight Saturday PDT.  DMT authors are flying in to test new code while LHO staff run and review the monitors.

Commisioning highlights from the past week are detailed below.

4K IFO
-----------
Noise in the 1-3Hz band produced by the Hanford DOE Integrated Disposal Facility dig is upconverted into the GW band. Using both a mechanical shaker (sealed car battery on a spring) and AWG (digital waveforms from the control room), injections were made to simulate this noise.  It is suggested that upconversion witnessed on the 4K IFO was not due to DARM or optical lever servos, nor optical gain modulation due to angular disturbances of the optics.  The mechanism for upconversion remains a mystery.  Supsensions & seismic are still not vindicated.

Given ASPD4's peak-to-notch ratio was poor, ASPD4 and 5 were tuned and swapped, and their respective RF phases were set.  In the latter link, note that there is some evidence of renewed phase noise, this time in glitch form(!).

The old output mode cleaner (OMC) from GEO had been removed from the dark port; the newly designed replacement OMC has been assembled in the optics lab and installed (but not illuminated) on ISCT4.  The basic properties of the OMC are greatly improved.

The filter cutoff of the DARM loop was moved from 1kHz to 4kHz (permitted by recently installed DACs), resulting in 11 degrees more phase margin at 180Hz.  Thus the unity gain frequency of the loop can be moved as high as 420Hz - no improvements in the spectrum yet, but further studies are underway.

Now that balanced transformers have been installed in the end stations, 60Hz noise was remeasured in EY, with mixed results - three times better than previous, but still three times worse than old measurements in EX.

High frequency glitches observed previously were confirmed to be generated by saturations of the current shunt.

The 4k received new status screens.

2K IFO
------------
Restoring the WFS to good working condition first meant setting the LO phase and the location of Gouy phase telescope on ISCT10.  Weekend operation still had WFS difficulties until some apparent clipping at a 1" pickoff was eliminated.  Next, and AM laser was employed to characterize WFS3-5.  Later, a correction to a lens position yielded good results as all WFS loops were closed.

SM2 was observed to be poorly diagonalized and injecting oscillations at pitch, yaw and (in particular) the 1Hz pendulum frequencies.  SM2 and MC1 were thus better controlled by diagonalizing drives, reducing motion of the reflected MC beam.  Side motion of MC1 may be still be inadequately controlled.

Optical levers have been misbehaving for some hundred days.  Glitches were characterized by their average deviations over time, indicating some of the worst offenders (H1 OLs were later shown to be better behaved).  EPICs calc records were added to monitor oplev performance.  The worst case ETMX (and later, ETMY) oplev was swapped out, with others to follow.  Studies are underway (including a comparison to LLO) to determine why our newer optical levers appear to be failing at a rate faster than earlier models.
 

 


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


******************BREAKING NEEWS*********************
L1 with HEPI has now demonstrated weekday daytime locking. L1 also stayed locked through a railroad train passage for the first time.
********************************************************

The HEPI system is still not completely commissioned,  but with just 3 chambers fully isolating so far, the interferometer's immunity to previously crippling seismic conditions is already dramatic.

The HEPI actuators' enhanced range also enabled a successful test of new tidal control topology, which  should even further extend the lock times. This mechanism was installed as part of a comprehensive CDS software and hardware upgrade, which brought L1 up to date with new features developed on H1 and also gave some processing time headroom to improve reliability.

Also notably, the L1 WFS system has now locked all degrees of freedom (again).  Although this milestone was reached before, significant RF hardware problems prevented reliable WFS operation for S3. We are now fairly confident these hardware problems have been resolved, and expect the WFS to prove robust and reliable for S4.

Noise is not quite on the map yet, but with reinstallation of the main AS port diodes and auxiliary shutter hardware this week, the push is on.


L1 Intereferometer Commissioning (Frolov)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
IFO Locking and Sensitivity:
- After tunning the  lock acquisition and ifo loop gain settings the robust night time locking was achieved. The possibility of the day time locking was also demonstrated. The tidal feedback allows several hour long lock stretches.
- The common mode loop was engaged for the first time since the electronics was relocated from the LVEA.
- The AS port detection PD2 and 3 were reinstalled after 2-omega notches were added and PD's were tuned for the high power operation.
- The darm noise floor moved to ~1e-17m/rt Hz at 200 Hz.

Angular Control:
- WFS electronics was retested, two cables repaired.
- All angular control loops were closed. In addition to the setting of the WFS phases and gains, the lens in front of the WFS4 was moved to make the sensing matrix closer to diagonal.
- The BS centering servo hardware and software was tested but the loop has not been closed yet.

PSL work:
- The Mode Cleaner UGF was set to 50kHz with the new FSS
- The power out of the laser amplifier has gone down by a factor of 2 over last several month. Attempts to use the remaining power more efficiently by increasing the PMC transmission (now ~60%) have not yet succeeded.


HEPI Commissioning (O'Reilly)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
ETMX,ETMY and ITMX are fully isolated and work robustly. Work is continuing on ITMY and the HAM chambers. Recent changes to the code have allowed us to implement a feedback-only tidal servo (although we do have hooks for the feedforward). Last night (see ELOG) the IFO held lock during a train. With the current incomplete configuration we are also able to lock during the day.

Most of our hardware problems seem to have been resolved. We had a leak at the Y end station which caused that pump to shut down. This leak has been fixed (some clamps needed tightening). There is no evidence of any time-dependent deterioration in the valve performance and all piers now have a good working set. We changed out two geophones on ITMY and BS today. We have enough spare sensors, valves and accumulators. Broken ones have been returned to their respective manufacturers for repair.

We continue to monitor accumulator pressures, there are still significant leaks (order 10 to 15 psi per week), but we have sent some of the worst examples to the manufacturer and are waiting to hear back.


Livingston Outreach (Thacker)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
John is attending Inquiry Workshop for Science Center Educators this week Preparing for Louisiana Science Teachers Association conference next week (as an exhibitor) and LA GEARUP conference next week (presentation)

Safety & security (Zucker for Riesen, Evans)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Rich is just back from jury duty.

Tom handled two laser safety trips; one was another training session demonstration in the HPLF, the other was a hardware shutter trip in the PSL.

The latter was another instance of a problem with the anti-passback logic programmed into our system; Rich Riesen has explored this and found the logic rules are inconsistent between various access points. We've authorized changes to the software to make all the access points behave consistently and (we hope) reduce the false alarm incidence.


AdL and LIGO 1 Mechanical Engineering (Spjeld)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
- reviewed BSC LOS installation tooling with Gary Traylor and Joe Hanson
- clarified specification details to potential UHV oven manufacturers
- high res. photo rendering of LLO layout 3D-models for museum exhibition
- concept design of HEPI compatible lifting fixture for HAM chamber doors
- design review and project planning of new LOS installation tooling for AdL
- BOM for supports and assembly procedure for the photon calibrator shelf

CDS Software (Parameswariah)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Rolf's visit last week brought us lot of changes. Now we have gain ramping on all the systems - lsc, asc, sus, hepi. The medm screens for lsc and hepi have been updated to have the ramp time field and the indicator to show gain ramping. In process, medm screens for sus and asc.

Two new processors were put in the corner station suspensions for RM/BS and ITM. These are VME linux processors that boot off of a boot server in the mass storage room. Installed a linux box to act as boot server in the MSR. Redbook updated to restart the VME linux processors. Still to do instructions to restart the bootserver.

Fast processors on the suspensions were moved to hepi in the corner. Thsi helped bring down the CPU time on hepi, especially on hepi1 which was at the edge.

Investigated the crash of the two new processors and found the epics value entered exceeded the floating point max value of 1.7e38. Rolf is fixing his code to limit the max value that the fornt end sees to 1e20.

Pentek fanout died on Monday in the End station suspension processor. Replaced it with a new rev.


General Computing (Roddy)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The main thing of significance is that there has been an account compromise at LLO.  I have spent the last three days investigating a password compromise.  It will probably take another couple days to go through all of the machines that were compromised and make sure that there was not any additional damage/compromises.  One machine will have to be rebuilt or replaced.  I also installed special security software, which is what tipped me off to the compromise.



Data analysis (Yakushin)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
LDAS admin:
Received two tape drives and small FC switch.

Data analysis:
1) Together with Sergey I am looking into a bug in waveburst v5 hrss reconstruction that was discovered during the burst f2f meeting at MIT last week. We believe that we found and fixed the problem. I am testing now whether the bug is really fixed.
2) Made better pictures for hrss reconstruction in S2 paper.
3) Sent Erik some corrections  to S2 paper.


HPLF, L1 Commissioning, and AdL Modeling (Franzen)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Have been working with Evgeny Kamenetskiy, Andrey Shaykin and Viktor Zelenogorsky in the HPLF on measuring depolarization of a 100 W beam passing a TGG crystal. These data will be used for design of a passive compensation system of thermal distortions in an AdLIGO Faraday Isolator. Later in the week David Reitze joined the experiments.

2) During the design of the HEPI blending and control filters of the ITMY and BS it was discovered that two of the geophone sensors are not working correctly. These two detectors have now been replaced (ITMY V2 and BS V4). We need to redo the SYS-ID for these two sensors.

3) Am still having some problems to create a new AdLIGO Mode Cleaner model using Melody. Looking for bugs together with Amber Lynn Bullington.


CDS software (Khan)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Implemented the WFS Autocentering scripts.

2) Updated the filter file for the ASC servo.

3) Adding enhancements to the beam centering servo, as per request from Andri

 


Detector/Technical Support (Coyne)


CDS

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

CDS Software

Rolf Bork reporting

- Spent past week at LLO working on HEPI software (see LLO elog entries). At the same time upgraded two corner station large optic controller processors to new 2.2GHz units and took their older processors and put them into HEPI1&2. Also, updated all front end software for the new gain ramping features.

 

- Coded and installed a new Tidal servo at LLO (see Rana's elogs). This involved code changes to LSC, ETM controllers, and HEPI.

 

- Working on new watchdog software for HEPI. I am presently testing this at Caltech for installation at LLO soon.

 

- Alex at MIT this week installing data acquisition front end and new HEPI.

CDS Hardware

Ben Abbott reporting

RFPD Redesign:

1) The PC boards arrived today from PCB express.  A prototype will be stuffed starting tomorrow, and tested.

2) All of the parts are here for the prototype so the stuffing should go smoothly.

 

ISS:

1) Six ISS PDs have been stuffed with their electronics, tested, and shipped to LHO.

2) One ISS PD that was not working well was repaired, and shipped back to LLO.

DMT

no report

PSL

PeterKing

Fabrication of the latest revision of the table-top intensity stabilization servo is complete.  The servo has been through the draft test procedure, which was based on the pre-production model.  There are a few minor differences between the pre-production model and the latest revision. However all the functionality and transfer functions are consistent with the pre-production model.

 

At present I am completing the paperwork for the test procedure results. The unit should ship out to LHO tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon.

AS Port Astigmatic Beam

Mike Smith

The technical note: T040204-00, Astigmatic Spot Size in the Power-Recycling Cavity Caused by BS Curvature is not yet complete; I am adding the calculation of the combined Michelson spot size, and adding a summary of the observations made at the sites.

TCS Quiet Chiller

Ken Mailand, Phil Willems

The laser chiller first article should be complete today, Phil Willems may test it tomorrow, with the electronics, if everything goes well we can ship to LHO.

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.
This chamber has been operating for 16 weeks already
We'll continue taking measurements everyday.  No Change

Absorption Test Measurement prototype   in standby

Scatterometer system  in Standby
We have completed the scanning of The Inner test mass 2ITM04 fused silica mirror.
Waiting on a new test mass mirror.

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.
This chamber has been operating for 14 weeks already!
We'll continue taking daily measurements.  

Cavity #2  in standby
We have gathered all the necessary components to set up a new and very clean
chamber with a new contamination cavity.
waiting on the old chamber that was taken for cleaning and bake.

 

 


 

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)



Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)


Automated locking, reacquisition, and logging are now working. The duty cycle is relatively low, in the absence of human intervention, because SAC tends to get "stuck" and not pass through resonance after it falls out of lock. If somebody is there to manually adjust the dc offset in the OSEM controller, the system will recover and automatically lock in short order.

We have started planning for testing new coatings as well. The first step in this project is to have one of our two sets of fused-silica mirrors repolished, in preparation for getting the newly-developed coating. Helena and GariLynn are looking into quotes for this.


LASTI (Ottaway)


LASTI Weekly Report (Allen,Heefner, Ivanov,MacInnes, LaLiberty,Mason, Mittleman, Ottaway,Sarin)
HEPI VME and DAQ

With invaluable help from Alex and Jay who were here this week, the upgrade of the LASTI CDS VME control system was finally completed this week. All the cables missing after the last incomplete upgrade attempt of a few weeks ago were in hand this time around, and they were installed. we checked all the sensor inputs and drive outputs and they seem to function fine. Internal details of the HEPI software remain to be checked (all filters switching etc), but since the HEPI software is identical to what's running at LLO on a daily basis, the prospects of the software checking out ok are excellent.
Data viewer and dtt tools were also upgraded

High Bay Preparation and Vacuum System

We took apart the prototype quadruple pendulumn, it now has to get packed up.

The LASTI vacuum system is now under vacuum.

I have been taking triple measurements for Luarent, did a complete set at atmoshperic pressure, will now repeat under vacuum.

We moved the second dSpace system onto the mid-Y HAM chamber, which should be running again shortly, I'm waiting for quiet times in the High bay to take measurements


Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)


 Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)
Analysis of H1 Phasecamera pictures
--------------------------------------------------------------
(Biplab) Started decomposing phasecamera images recently (elog Sep 29) taken by Luca and Keita at dark port of the H1 interferometer into Hermite-Gauss eigenmodes (in astigmatic basis) upto 4th order (15 modes).  Basically the picture is fitted to an expression having 19 parameters. This analysis will provide better insight into the content of individual sideband light.

FFT study of mirror phasemaps
------------------------------------------------------------
(Biplab) - Studied the cause of drop in carrier recycling gain by about 20% from the case without any phasemap to the case in which all phasemaps are included. FFT studies indicate that End mirror maps are mainly responsible for this. Probably that is why FFT results show that the presence of phasemaps do not affect sideband recycling gain. The statistics of the end mirror maps are not significantly different from those of other maps. The mechanism behind this drop in recycling gain (the arm gain remains same though) is still to be understood.

Alfi
------------------
(Bruce) Making adjustments and improvements to the user interface for selecting parameters to include in box settings.

(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.  Working on saving the setting values correctly.

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini for all of LIGO Lab.)

Laura Cadonati:
I have been preparing CorrPower for review of the r-statistic portion, to be used in the S3 analysis. I found a bug in the calibration routine, such that the alpha/beta coefficients were not correctly assigned, and re-run the S3-waveburst analysis after fixing it. The r-statistic analysis of  waveburst triggers over MDC simulated frames (sine gaussians, gaussians, B.L. white noise, supernovae inspirals, cusps, whistles) is now completed.  I am also working on addressing the reviewers comments to the S2 burst paper.

Junwei Cao:

Work carried out in this week:
- DMTOffline packaging using Autotools
Still in the process of getting familar with Autotool macros
- CondorView for LSC cluster monitoring:
Condor@MIT upgraded to 6.6.6 (together with Keith)
CondorView client installation on ldas-gridmon.mit.edu
- GridFTP test against LSC grid machines:
Inital tests against ldas-grid.ligo.caltech.edu show a maxmium data
transfer rate ~5M Bytes per second. Data transfer rates against ligo-wa
and ligo-la are at the same scale (~5MB/s).

Work planned in next week:
- Write initial scripts for DMTOffline packaging
- Solving the network configuration problem at the CondorView server
(together with Keith)
- Detailed results on GridFTP tuning

Creighton:
Prepared a talk on gravitational-wave astronomy for the Chinese-American Frontiers of Science Symposium.

Also started looking at some floating-point precision issues in tdfilters package in LAL.

Erik Katsavounidis:
Continued working on S2 burst paper. Discussed with Zanolin, Finn and Stuver
how comparative studies of the burst ETGs should proceed.

Mendell:
1) I have updated independent tests of F_+ and F_x that occur when "make check" is run during the build of LAL.  The independent code uses the formulas in Jaranowski, Krolak, and Schutz gr-qc/9804014, Eqs. (10)-(13), and the LAL code uses the Maple Work sheet formulas, available from here:
http://www.phys.utb.edu/UTBRG/activities/papers/#UTBRG-2001-01.
Everything works just as well now as I have reported at LSC meetings in the past.  The absolute maximum difference between the two methods is never more than a few times 1.e-4. Note that Dave Chin has test functions in LAL that are also extensive; the purpose of the tests I have in LAL are to have checks that are independent of any functions in LAL.  Thus, to close a few more loopholes along these line, I have made the following changes. 1) I have added a shell script to LAL that runs the independent test for LHO, LLO, and GEO for 37,000+ times between Aug 1 2002 and Dec 31 2004, and arbitrary sky positions and orientation (polarization) angles. 2) I now use a LAL independent function to convert GPS time to mean sidereal time. 3) The tests now include GEO. 4) The independent code no longer uses any LAL constants. 5) The independent code no longer uses LAL cached detectors, though the numbers used are not independent of LIGO, but come from LAL for GEO and from DCC T980044-08.pdf and T980044-10.pdf for LHO and LLO, which agree with what is in LAL and in the raw LIGO frames to floating point accuracy. Code
location in LAL: CVS/Root =
:pserver:username@gravity.phys.uwm.edu:2402/usr/local/cvs/lscsoft,
CVS/Repository = lal/packages/tools/test, files =
LALIndependentTestDetResponse.c, LALIndTestDetRes.sh,
indTestDetResGEO.cfg, indTestDetResLHO.cfg, indTestDetResLLO.cfg

2) I am writing a simple function called LSCsegFind for use by online analysis scripts that will return science mode segments obtained from a web page (produced by Peter Shawhan's conlogger script in the control room and/or by the DMT).

Shawhan:
* I have been testing the Einstein@home search and screen-saver software on
Linux and Mac computers, plus the web interface for the project.
* I tracked down a problem which prevented the LDAS-CIT system from accessing
data in the Caltech data archive.
* I have also been working on the S2 untriggered burst search paper.

Sutton;
My main activity this week was to get an updated draft of the LIGO-TAMA S2 bursts paper released to the bursts group and TAMA.  Otherwise, I have been working on MDC frame production for the LIGO-GEO and LIGO-AURIGA analyses.  I've run into several technical problems that Stuart Anderson and others have helped me with, and hope to have the first frames ready in the next few days.

Michele Zanolin:

-oct 16/17 partecipated ligo-virgo f2f (presentation
on how to compare ETGs)
-spent time in writing a single-IFO-matched-filter ETG
as reference to existing ETGs (under testing).
-worked on the debug of the stand alone parameter
estimation module.
-discussed with S.Finn and A.Stuwer about possible coordination
of the ETG-comparison efforts.
-discussed with Patrice Hello on the final ETG independent
parameterization for the ETG comparison in LIGO/VIRGO.
-adapted the h_rss estimation part of the p_estimation module
to be used in AURIGA and to test the non linearity
between H1 and H2 S3 estimates by WB (these two test are still
to be performed).

Yakushin:
1) Together with Sergey I am looking into a bug in waveburst v5 hrss reconstruction that was discovered during the burst f2f meeting at MIT last week. We believe that we found and fixed the problem. I am testing now whether the bug is really fixed.
2) Made better pictures for hrss reconstruction in S2 paper.
3) Sent Erik some corrections  to S2 paper.

Lazzarini: working with Frtischel, Romano to draft S2/S3 stochastic paper.

LIGO Data Analysis System

Software Systems (Maros for Blackburn)
LDAS

CreateRDS
The base code for supporting creation of RDSs with multiple frames per file and the ability to specify the number of seconds for the output frames has been committed to CVS. New test code is being developed to test this functionality. It currently does test the new cases and does an end-to-end test with the final result being PASS or FAIL. This needs to be integrated into a make system-check target to be run each week with the regular system testing.

Control And Monitor
Work within the client continues to support the viewing of mount points in as a directory tree (PR2150).

Work is also being done to display all log information. Currently there is a corner case when the logs are being rolled over that causes messages to be missed. A fix is being tested tandem-iii and ldas-dev.

diskcacheAPI
After upgrading the SAM-QFS software, it was noticed that the diskcacheAPI on ldas-dev did not properly report all information available on the SAM-QFS partition (/archive). It has been tracked down to all scanning threads being blocked as a result of the file system being unmounted. PR2722 has been opened with the details of the problem. Informational log messages are being created to increase the visibility of this issue.

managerAPI
The portMsg procedure within the genericAPI has been modified to prevent it from hanging until TCP/IP timeout due to being connected to a poorly handled socket (PR2723).

Testing
The system tests were run against version 1.2.39 and the results posted to the LDAS web pages.

Two new test scripts were created. The first validates the binary distribution of lsync (PR2718). The second test runs createRDS commands in a paced manner (vs. sequential). This test has been created to help in isolation of the memory leak in the frameAPI.

LDCG Software
The sinstall rules for several software packages were updated. This brings them in line with the versions manually installed on ldas-dev.

TCLGLOBUS -- ITR2003
The SWIG wrapping and testing of the Globus XIO vector read and write routines (globus_xio_readv() and globus_xio_writev()) is now complete. The test program used to verify the non-vector read and write routines has been expanded to test these new functions.

The test_gram.tcl script has been modified to automatically start and stop the gatekeeper needed for the test. This is part of the effort to make all testing self contained to allow for automated testing each night.

Instructions on how to acquire certificates has been added to the tclglobus web page.

Doxygen was investigated as tool for providing documentation for the functions being exposed to the TCL scripting language. The investigation shows it insufficient for this task as it really only wants to parse and output C/C++ constructs. Two other tools are now being investigated; Natural Docs and ROBODoc.

Hardware Systems (Anderson)
Caltech
-------
(Dan Kozak)
* Worked with Sun (1-800-USA-4SUN & Arlo Ruiz) on getting replacements for
  bad 3510 controllers that we got as a result of the recall of the revision
  we had (that had been working fine in the production system).  We received
  one DOA, one with "under voltage" conditions right out of the box and two
  that seem to be the cause of numerous (so far) retryable errors on the
  /archive filesystem.  Am completing testing of the replacements today and
  will be installing two of them in the production system if all goes well.
  Have learned a bunch about 3510s during this:
    * How to use multiple ports on one or two controllers.
    * That only one Ethernet port is active at a time on a
      dual controller system.
    * That only one controller in a dual controller system is
      active at a time (the other is for failover).
* Discovered the new SAM-QFS archive.cmd options "-startage" and have
  tuned it's value on ldas-archive to get us larger tar archives on tape
  (ongoing).
* Supported the LHO upgrade of SAM-QFS.
* Flagged a failing T3 controller at LLO.

(Hari Pulapaka)
* Working on transferring C02_LX data.
* Getting familiar with the new Ganglia release.
* Adding new users to the CIT cluster and also made some changes to the   adduser script to handle ldas-pcdev2.
* Made changes to the LDR setup to add Birmingham LDR to the access   control list.
* Also, trying to make some modifications to the publishing script.

(Al Wilson)
* Installed additional 200GB drives in the test cluster.
* Check for disk errors on node2 in the test system. Found none, returned
  to service.

(Stuart Anderson)
* Testing the upgraded SAM-4.2.2 system at Caltech. Successfully read
  and verified ~20TByte of data.
* Tracking arrival of recently large computer equipment orders.
* Debugging problem with the diskcacheAPI when one of the filesystems
  is unmounted.
* Started discusions about expanding computer floor space at Caltech.

MIT
---
(Keith Bayer)
* Updated credentials on all ldas / condor machines.
* Updated condor to v6.6.6.
* Installing condor view service in addition to ganglia.

Livingston
----------
(Igor Yakushin)
* Received two tape drives for L700 archive robot and small FC switch.

Hanford
-------
(Greg Mendell)
* LDAS at LHO will archive the raw frame data from the upcoming M5
  mini-run Fri Oct 22 and Sat Oct 23 2004. Reduced data sets using the S3
  level 1 and level 3 channel list will be generated.

(Ben Johnson)
* Received 5 3511's, 2 T9940B's, and 35 SATA disks. The 3511's have
  been racked and all HDDs installed. 4 of the 5 3511's are building RAID
  volumes; just to exorcise any blatantly bad disks.
* Upgraded gateway, dataserver, fb1, and fb0 to SAM/QFS 4.2.2, along
  with the prerequisite patches etc.
* Replaced bad disk in t3-8.
* Attempting to get StorageTek to fix a stuck 9940B tape drive. HL0640
  is presently stuck in drive 42.
* Big Brother@LHO is now checking for the sshd procs on the nodes
  instead of just pinging them.

General Computing (Wallace)
MIT:
(Keith)
-Patched several Solaris 8 machines
-Patched several windows boxes
-Investigating new projector purchase for lab
-Helped setup for VIRGO face2face meeting
-Continued work on control room computer setup

Livingston:
(Shannon)

-The main thing of any significance is that there has been an account compromise at LLO. It will probably take another couple days to go through all of the machines that were compromised and make sure that there was not any additional damage/compromises and that a root level compromise did not happen.  One machine will have to be rebuilt or replaced.
-Installed a new monitoring software package.
-Working with Larry and others on documentation.
-Working with Christine and Larry on some router programming issues.

Hanford:
(Christine)

CIT:
(Veronica)
- LSC website: Updates to the upcoming meeting website.  Updates to the Papers Under Review website and usual upkeep.
- LIGO website: Updates to various parts.  Updates to the roster database. Prepared a high-resolution image for a printed publication.  Updates to the websites for the upcoming PAC and NSF Review meetings.  Started working on the webpages for the Aspen Winter Conference.
- CaJAGWR website: Updates and user support.
- Project Science: Updates to the last workshop website.

(Mike)
-I ghosted two new Dell workstations. This turned out to be a project trying to get ghost to work with the new integrated NIC cards that Dell is pushing out. I had to put a call to Symantec, for updated patches to load on our enterprise ghost server.
-NTSRV: I swapped out a 160 GB hard disk with new 250GB drive, to gain additional disk space on the ghost server. This server was maxed out of disk space.
-I loaded a loaner laptop with GC software and installed service pack 2 for XP. Ed Chargois is sending this laptop out to MIT for the LSC conference.
-Finished loading a pc, to setup a visitor's workstation in Bridge Annex.
-Loaded three pc workstations for Sharon Kammerling, Cleveland Mak and Irene Baldon. I have also swapped these users out with their new workstations.
-Phil Willems: I loaded a loaner laptop for him with all GC software and a few engineering packages.
-Other onsite/phone support, that included installing additional software, printing, and OS issues.

(Lisa)
- Spent most of the week continuing the work on the server room security audit.
- Continued user support

Mail Stats 10/14 - 10/20/04
Messages Accepted:      22108
Spam Rejected:          8264
Viruses Rejected:       916
False Positives:        9
Total Mail Thru:        31288

(Larry)
-Still spending time with purchase related items. Having problems getting invoice documentation from a data storage company. Finally got a few items returned, there were problems getting them picked up. The replacement Foundry switch arrived. A number of Dell computers arrived and will be distributed out next month with a couple of exceptions which Mike has taken care of. Getting contract information together for SUN and Foundry. Also, checking on a couple of the s/w contracts that need to be renewed in the near future. Still no word back on the IDEAS contract.
-Working with campus and others on security related items. Mainly sharing information. Campus has started blocking a number of problem locations.
-Worked a couple of mail issues. In one case, we were able to track the problems down and notify the ISP of a problem on a mail relay server they were supporting. The others were mostly client configuration issues.
-Worked with a number of people on the stolen notebook computer. All of the appropriate groups were notified. Also, Ed Chargois will have a supply of computer locks for anyone needing one. Those working in offices with multiple people should have one for their notebook computer since they don't have control over keeping the room locked. However, everyone with a notebook computer is encouraged to get a lock for their unit.
-Finally, got a little time to work on some documentation for Albert.
-Worked on a couple of system cleanups. A couple of accounts have been taken care of. Added a few more accounts with a number of new ones needing to be added.
-Working with Christine and Shannon on a couple of router issues.
-The group as a whole is doing a number of things related to security and documentation.

(Bruce Sears)
-Ilog Development:                                      (2.0 days)
        - Researching and implementing a method of improving search speed for
          large logs such as the Hanford detector log.


Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)


Systems and Management

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

 

Progress Period from 10.14 to 10.21

 

On Vacation on Oct. 18 and 19

·         ·         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. (SEI, LDAS, and 40-Meter remain to be completed)

§         §         Finished work on the progress schedule update with progress through September 30, 2004.

§         §         Sent out progress data requests for progress data through October 31, 2004.

·         ·         ROSTER DATABASE:

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

§         §         Assisting Irena as needed on record changes.

§         §         Meeting with Stan and Irena to discuss how bounced emails are handled.

·         ·         COST BOOK DATABASE:

§         §         Posted revised cost data as a result of the meetings with Carol and the Subsystem Teams. (SEI, LDAS, and 40-Meter remain to be completed)

 

Seismic Isolation

 

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

Advanced LIGO Seismic Structure


SEI Structure:

ASI continues to develop the updated estimate of cost and schedule for our current contract, as well as a cost and schedule that they will be proposing for changing the task to a fixed price contract. They are scheduled to present these on Oct 22.

We are in the process of updating the current contract regarding price, scope and details. We're also updating the design requirements to reflect changes that we've made since the last revision in May 04.


Actuators:

Nothing new.


Displacement Sensors:

ADE is proceeding with fabricating and testing the 14 displacement sensors for the BSC prototype structure. They have provided a quote for two calibration blocks.

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.


Other:

Ken Mailand and Larry Jones met with Mike Mize and Brian Adam of NTS to discuss the air bake of the BSC prototype parts that are too large for LIGO personnel to process. These total 21 pieces of 12 different parts, with mass totalling over 3700 lb. Several problems exist having to do with maintaining cleanliness, size and processing/handling, which are not insurmountable. Mike is developing a ROM (rough order of magnitude) cost for our budgeting purposes for this task.

Accu-Glass has given estimates for cabling for our in-vacuum needs.

Suspension

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


AdLIGO Suspensions
Working on quad structure design and analysis with the design team.
 
Planning a trip to LLO to work with Oddvar and Ken Mason on the installation fixtures designs on OCt 28 & 29. We will have a meeting on Monday at 11am to provide Oddvar with some background material. Will meet with Ken and Mike Z. about space issues for assembly and storage of suspensions at LLO while I'm there.

Had a meeting with Bob Taylor, Helena, Dennis and Calum about the cleaning requirements and processes for the big sections of the quad structure. Working my actions from that meeting.

Participated in Dennis's Advanced LIGO Staging, Assembly and Installation telecon.

Reviewed and redlined the Drawing Rquirements document.

Working with Luke Williams about height adapters for the IO optics.

Working on actions from Carol's discussion about suspension walkdown requirements.

Initial LIGO Suspensions
Went out for quote for spare quartz wire standoffs. Betsy informed me that they were low at LHO.

Gin Gin
Working a customs issue with Ed Chargois.



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

Adv. LIGO SUS

Generated a generic silicate bonding procedure. It should guide and allow anybody to make a silicate bond. It is ment to fulfill one of the PDR requirements for silicate bonding.
Sheila Rowan will be reviewing it before it gets placed on the DCC.
 

Core Optics


From: Bill Kells <kells@ligo.caltech.edu>
 
With respect to LIGO I performance (and implications for AdL) we continue deriving a correct interpretation of the HR surface scans (done in OTF at 1064 nm) for scatter defects. We have no exact comparision (for the particular test optic: 2kITM04, which has never seen ifo beam).

In association with this a new round of "as built" 4k ifo FFT runs have been performed (Biplab B.). These seem to give a somewhat different accounting for the various interferometer effective losses (this in comparison with the first round of "as built" FFT results of ~ 1 1/2 year ago. Now mirror aberrations seem to play a substantial role (previously it appeared that the net loss was essentially dominated by the "prompt" point + micro-roughness scatter). We are puzzling over this change.

Auxiliary Optics

 

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


ADV LIGO
Thomas has input the AOS cost data, and I am in the process of reviewing the AOS cost book.

 


 

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