Weekly Report for Week Ending January 27, 2005


 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  January 31, 2005 will be:

 (Meeting time: 10:30 am Pacific Time)  

  1. Announcements
  2. Comments on Weekly Report
  3. LSC Issues (Saulson)
  4. LIGO Lab Operations
      • Administration (Lindquist)
      • Sites (Raab, Zucker, Shoemaker)
      • Commissioning (Fritschel), Detector (Coyne)
      • Campus Research Facilities
        1. 40 Meter (Weinstein)
        2. TN, ( Libbrecht)
        3. LASTI  (Shoemaker)
      • Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)
  5. R&D and Advanced LIGO (Shoemaker)
  6. CHANGE CONTROL BOARD/TECHNICAL REVIEW BOARD SESSION AS NEEDED


Special Items:


Special Announcements:

 


Weekly Report Highlights
 


LSC Issues (Saulson)


Minutes of LSC Executive Committee telecon

21 Jan 2005, 1130 Eastern 0830 Pacific

 

Attendance: Bruce Allen, Patrick Brady, Sam Finn, Joe Giaime, Albert Lazzarini, Dave Reitze, Keith Riles, Peter Saulson (minutes), Bernard Schutz, David Shoemaker, Ken Strain, Rai Weiss, Stan Whitcomb, Benno Willke, Alan Wiseman

 


Brief items:

 

* Einstein@Home is making excellent progress toward public release. Soon, it will be opened to the backlog of users (about 16,000) who have signed up at the APS web site. Bruce Allen expects that the system is in shape to handle of order 100,000 users. (About 4,000 have been participating in the present testing phase, which functions as the equivalent of a 1,000 node cluster.) Checks of scientific results have been successful.

 

* There has been progress on a new draft of the LSC Charter. David Shoemaker, Norna Robertson, and Sam Finn have written a draft that will soon be ready for wider readership. The plan is to discuss the new draft at the February 18 LSC Exec Comm telecon, and if the reaction is favorable then to discuss the proposed new Charter at the March LSC meeting.

 

* Sam Finn asked about the status of the election for Spokesperson, due by the March LSC meeting. Stan Whitcomb reported that a nominating committee had been assembled, but was waiting for the Spokesperson to appoint a chair before starting work. (After the meeting, Norna Robertson agreed to serve as chair. The other committee members are Stan, Fred Raab, and Gabriela Gonzalez.)

 

* The first meeting of the LSC's MOU Review Panel will take place at MIT on 4-5 March, chaired by Alan Wiseman and Albert Lazzarini. It will review the 15 Feb updates of MOUs, with the intention of having all "signable" MOUs signed before the March LSC meeting. The Panel will also take a first look at the health of the overall research program, with a view toward being able to write an Annual Report and Work Plan for integration into LIGO's reporting to NSF.

 

LSC thesis prize:

 

   Stan reported that Fermilab offers an annual prize to the graduate student who writes the best thesis related to a Fermilab experiment, and proposed that the LSC do something similar. There was substantial enthusiasm for this idea. It would be a way both to recognize individual talented students and to raise the visibility of grad student work in the collaboration. Depending on throughput, it might make sense to offer the prize only every other year. Sam asked us to be clear that thesis work on all LIGO-related topics would be eligible.

   Rai Weiss, Stan Whitcomb, and Albert Lazzarini offered to work out the details, and to bring forward a specific proposal that could be adopted by the LSC.

 

Global collaborative data analysis:

 

   Peter Saulson reported on the start of a GWIC-mandated initiative to clarify the present regime of bilateral collaborative analysis agreements and to explore the possibility of a multi-lateral global collaboration on gravity wave data analysis. The GWIC committee looking into this consists of Masa-Katsu Fujimoto, Benoit Mours, Giovanni Prodi, and Bernard Schutz, with Saulson as chair.

   Five possible actions are on the table as possible ways forward. They are:

1. Publish all current bilateral data analysis MOUs on the GWIC website.

2. Set up an online system that would report the run status of all of the world's detectors.

3. Carry out a joint technical study of the scientific benefits of different modes of operation

of a network.

4. Set up procedures for checking a detection claim made by a single project or a subset of

the global network.

5. Explore how to structure a fully global collaboration.

   Item 1 seemed a simple thing to do, and no one could think of any reasons not to do it. The LSC will coordinate with the GWIC secretary (Sam Finn) to ensure that LIGO's MOUs are posted.

   Item 2 is also not controversial. Again, the GWIC web site seems the natural place for this to reside. Sam reported that the only problem he foresaw was having GWIC members fulfill their responsibility for updating the system. Rai said that at least a "last updated" date could be posted with each entry. Another possibility might be to set up a link between the GWIC site and internal sites of inidividual projects that they would maintain anyway for their own purposes. Here again, the GWIC secretary and the LSC will work together to set up LIGO's contribution to this new system.

   The technical study was the subject of substantial comment. A key goal of the study should be to determine when network analysis makes sense. Once we understand this, then we will have guidance in facing the question of which detectors should be in the network for which kinds of searches. Bernard Schutz pointed out that the act of carrying out the study jointly could also build confidence among the participants, and help ease the way for future joint analyses of data.

   Patrick Brady and Sam Finn raised questions about the composition of the study team. How much should be based on pencil-and-paper, on simulated data, and on real data? It seemed sensible to focus first on studies that don't need real data, to lay out the basic issues; at this level of study, all projects can contribute equally. Questions that can only be answered with real data are those to be addressed as the time for a true joint search approaches.

   Albert Lazzarini informed us that TAMA is indeed interested in extending their MOU with LIGO to cover S4 and perhaps beyond. Peter Saulson reported on discussions with Eugenio Coccia in which he expressed strong interest in collaborating with LIGO on data analysis; Coccia also mentioned ongoing discussions with Virgo. So it looks like all of the active detectors are as interested in collaborating as one could hope.

   One of the most important open questions is how to actually organize the technical study. It should not be divorced from previous work on collaborative data analysis, but at the same time can't unduly burden people who are carrying major responsibility for ongoing analysis projects; that is a tricky question to resolve. Patrick pointed out that the technical issues are different enough for different classes of signals that the study probably ought to have separate subcommittees for each signal class.

   Peter Saulson will bring these suggestions to the GWIC committee, with the recommendation that we start on this technical study as soon as possible.

   Discussion on checking a detection claim was less extensive. Several members proposed that the LSC should push forward with its own study of how, internally, we would check a detection, and use that as a foundation from which to propose procedures for either checking others' detection claims or asking others to check our own claims. Here, too, the technical study probably will illuminate the different circumstances under which one expects other detectors to see a particular signal or not. The LSC Detection Committee will be reconvened soon to address this part of the issue.

   The meeting adjourned before any serious discussion could occur on item 5.

 


LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)


 

STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Petrac)

LSC MOUs and Research Plans and Progress Reports

For a web page summary showing the status of LSC MOUs and associated Attachment updates through August 15th and Progress Reports through February 12th see:

http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~irena/Revstatus/Reviewstat.doc

Non-LSC MOUs

University of Pisa

  • Addendum to Attach. No. 1 (for Agresti) / to Univ. of Pisa for sign-off / DeSalvo
  • Attach. No. 5 (for Boschi) / to Univ. of Pisa for sign-off / DeSalvo

University of Bologna

  • MOU (for student exchange) / in review by Univ. of Bologna / DeSalvo
  • Attach. NO. 1 (Fazi) / in review by Univ. of Bologna / DeSalvo

SITE TELECONFERENCE (Lindquist)

A site teleconference was held on Thursday, January 27, 2005. The following items were among those discussed:

  • Operating Budgets: No new information.  The possibility of tracking encumbrances for payroll costs on our internal reports was discussed.
  • P-Card Training:  P-Card Training is scheduled at Livingston on February 23, 2005.  Travel training has been postponed until June or July.
  • Assigned Action Items: E. Jasnow assigned himself an action (#128) to research the use of a web site for registering for the LSC meetings.  This action is complete.  Caltech charges nothing for the service.  Ed assigned himself a new action (#129) to get an account number assigned.  The next LSC meeting is scheduled for March 19, so this has a short fuse.
  • The list of assigned actions updated through January 27, 2005 will be found Here.

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT (Chargois)

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

  • Provided assistance to General Computing  (M. Perdraza) with packing and shipping of six (6) Hard Drives to Maxtor Corporation for warranty repair.  Account Number P204261.
  • Provided assistance to the Detector Group (L.Jones) with packing and shipping of several drawings to MIT (K. Mason).  Account Number P207740.
  • Provided assistance to MIT (D. Shoemaker) with the packing, shipping and Loan of a Laptop Computer for a two (2) week period. Account Number P204254.
  • Provided assistance to the LDAS group (S. Anderson) with arranging for transportation for a Foundry Switch and associated components to LLO ( I. Yakushin).  Account Number LIGO.DAT 1.5.1 NSFLIGO.FY02ON.
  • Provided assistance to General Computing (M. Pedraza) with packing and shipping of three (3) Hard Drives to Maxtor Corporation for warranty repair.  Account Number P204261.
  • All transactions concerning the relocations of R. Abbott and D. Brown have been completed. .

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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

No report.

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

  • Processing all of the presentations from the Aspen Winter Conference.
  • Packages: in - 18, out - 7
  • Faxes: in - 30, out 32

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

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

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

  • Processed change order #1 to MTK to add funds for grinding of additional plates and faxed the change to MTK.
  • Completed change order #3 to the LSU order to remove $80k. Notified vendor of fund reduction.
  • Processed one standard purchase orders for the purchase of goods, services, reimbursements, and invoices attached.
  • Attended the Customs Workshop held on 1/26/05 which provided useful information on importing and exporting goods.
  • Received the signed agreement with Ares Corporation..

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

  • Nothing to report this week.

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

  • Revised FY05 budgets based on new information provided by Phil Lindquist.
  • Revised computation on potential return to budget for positions not filled during first quarter.
  • Prepared two Cost Transfers to properly charge payments to Raytheon between the LIGO and MIT.GRID Awards.
  • Prepared Cost Transfer to reclassify charge made in error to fabrication account.
  • Identified possible error in classifying a purchase of equipment as supplies.
  • Attended NCURA Video Workshop.
  • 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)

  • Nothing significant to report (see status of LSC MOUs above)..

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

  • Efforts are underway to initiate the use of a Caltech web site for use in registrations for the LSC Conference at LLO in March.  This will be the initial test, and if successful, will be used at all future LSC conferences at the sites.
  • The Statement of Work for the electrical maintenance contract for LLO is still being developed.  An RFQ is scheduled to be released by the middle of February.
  • The initial design for the Science Education Center at LLO has been submitted for review by Eskew - Dumez - Ripple.  Initial reports have been positive.

SUPPORT (Baldon,  Lloyd)

>Irene Baldon

  • Processed the paper work for nine (9) new/revised trips.  There are three (3) trips to be completed and ticketed at this time.  Assisted several LIGO personnel with their travel arrangements using their P-Cards and made several reservations for outside visitors coming to LIGO/Caltech for meetings and/or workshops.
  • Completed fourteen (14) Expense Reports and there are twenty-six (26) reports yet to be done.  I continue to contact travelers who have outstanding Expense Reports (more than one (1) month old) to ask for their cooperation in sending me their receipts so that these can be closed in a timely manner.  Presently there are four (4) reports more than 30 days old. 

>Dorothy Lloyd

  • Processed the usual invoices for payment. Tracked and followed up on invoice problems. Reviewed and recorded payments processed by Esther the week of January17.
  • Jim continued with data entry in the LIGO database and helping out in the DCC.

PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist)

Nothing to report.

DCC Steering Committee (Lindquist)

We held a meeting of the DCC steering committee on Wednesday, January 26, 2005.  The purpose of the steering committee is to establish a direction for the DCC over the next year or so.  This week the meeting focused on establishing a process and initiating a requirements analysis.  We have scheduled a meeting next week.  By that time we hope to start collecting lists of needs.
 
CHANGE CONTROL/CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT (Lindquist)

  • A change request (CR-050002) has been prepared to address actual costs less than amounts budgeted for the first quarter of FY 2005.  A pointer to this change request has been distributed to the Executive Committee for discussion during the meeting scheduled for Monday.
  • Change Request CR-050001 has been approved and submitted to the DCC.  Change Board Meeting Minutes have also been prepared and submitted to the DCC (LIGO-M050006-00-P).

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

  • A staffing meeting was held January 24, 2005.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

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

The safety audit of the LIGO Caltech campus labs was completed this week.  In addition, a draft of the lab audit report (except the 40M lab) was distributed to the audit team members for comments and revisions.  A draft of the 40M audit report will be distributed during the next week.  Some of the main concerns identified by the audit team were the need to increase efforts to dispose of unneeded items and chemicals, and to improve "housekeeping."  There is also a problem with the extensive use of daisy-chained power cords.

 


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



 Summary of Commissioning Activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory (Landry)

All at LHO are sorry to see Stefan Ballmer go, returning to MIT to finish his thesis!  We wish him all the best and hope to see him back for visits to the 4k chair regularly.

A sampling of commissioning efforts at LHO for the week are bulleted below.  Please see the elog for more details.

  • thermal compensation system (TCS) chillers were installed
  • ISS update: during S4, the 4k will use the latest version of the ISS, while the 2k awaits an upgrade
  • the status of the photon calibrators for the 2k and 4k is described
  • an acoustic noise comparison of LVEAs between the two sites suggests LLO is quieter above 100Hz

4K IFO

  • ASPD3 was noted to be noisier than other antisymmetric port photodiodes.  The photodiode was swapped out.
  • a BS violin was responsible for satuations observed; the resonance was notched out
  • microseismic feedback on the ETMX was improved. A new transfer function was obtained for the y-arm.  Transfer functions from seismometers to osems do not explain the difference observed in x and y arms.
  • the status of longish locks in H1 is shown in this example
  • intensity noise from the TCS was finding its way into AS_Q
  • the 4k has suffered from periodic outbursts of bad 60Hz; a goal is to mitigate this for the upcoming runs
  • shot noise on the 4k fast channel was measured
  • the EX outbuilding ran away to 90 degrees after a loss of chilled water to the station, impairing 4k performance

2K IFO

  • noise parity: the 2k also had one AS PD that was noisier than others.  Trouble-making photodiode ASPD1 was replaced and configured: once, twice, three times a photodiode
  • Our lovely gains on the 2k last week (yielding ranges of 3.5Mpc) were lost to some mystery noise near 20-200Hz.  Later this was traced to improper grounding on WFS whitening/interface boards.  All 2k and 4k WFS boards got this fix.  The range has been restored and the IFO again looks remarkably stable.

DAQ

  • The expectation is that for future science runs, we will calibrate DARM_ERR (along with AS_Q for S4).  After some naming controversy, the channel was added to frames. CARM_CTRL remains, although it is not written to a frame
  • an IOC modification in the form of a new kernel could clear up the problem of lost connections to EPICs channels.  So far, so good.

 


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


L1 Commissioning (Valera Frolov)

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

Interferometer Commissioning Report (Valera Frolov)

 

The interferometer locking has been stable for the most of the week enabling the data collection and DMT testing during the M6 mini run. Although most of the weekend was spent chasing the DAQ and slow control problems the interferometer was locked in the science mode for the most of Sunday night and Monday morning. The interferometer best sensitivity improved this week from 4 to 5 Mpc (the overall scale still has uncertainty of ~20% from recent hardware changes). The EPICS problems and DAQ data corruption errors persisted this week.

 

Some highlights of the interferometer commissioning activities:

 

the atomic clock diagnostic was reinstalled and data logging restarted.

 

the interferometer  noise budget was updated.

 

the  transfer function of the oscillator phase noise to the ifo dark port was measured.

 

the low noise AS photodetectors were switched to the new RF distribution system. It was found that we are not limited by the RF distribution system at this time

 

the HEPI - optical lever correction path was implemented to reduce the coupling to optical lever from HEPI over the 0.01 - 0.3 Hz band.

 

Safety and Security (Riesen)

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

Found no site safety concerns during my weekly site tour.

 

Updated the Laser User and Authorized Machine shop users signage.

 

Found no errant beams on all IO tables during my routine LVEA walk thru.

 

Assisting Doug Lormand in getting the Photon calibration units light pipes modified and machined.

 

Working with Ken Franzen on getting the IPG 100 watt laser shipped back to the manufacturer.

 

L1 Commissioning (Peter King)

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

Modified a 2-omega I&Q demodulator board (S/N 101).  I looked at the trend data for the laser over the past month, everything seems okay.  I also looked at the lock loss transients but have not found anything noteworthy.

 

L1 and AdL Mechanical Engineering (Spjeld)

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

- Re-designed Quad Suspension Installation Tooling fixtures (for review).

- Technical notes document from ASI Transition Meeting in progress.

- Attempting to post released AdL SEI models and drawings to PDM server.

- Familiarization of AdL SEI models from ASI, preparing for tooling design.

- Received last two new valves from Parker; complete six new valves.

- Replaced LASTI servo valve.

- Calibration of new servo valves.

- Re-design of HAM door lifting fixture delayed due to ASI meeting.

 

LLO General Computing and LIGO CyberSecurity (Roddy)

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

Ran another test early this morning on our router.  The results I have so far are as follows:

3550 with all rules applied:  ~10 mbit

3550 with outside interface rules removed:  ~130 mbit

slow Linux router with no rules applied:  ~250 mbit

3550 with all rules removed:  ~360 mbit

There are currently ~1,250 lines of firewall rules, which is why the 3550 is having performance issues.  I am confident that I can reduce this and also improve performance by switching to a Linux netfilter/iptables firewall.  I am currently working on translating the Cisco IOS rules to iptables rules.  This is turning out to be a tedious task but I believe will be well worth it.  Also, after reading through the documentation, it will be worthwhile to do some testing with QoS enabled on the firewall.  This should allow prioritizing of traffic, ie. LDAS traffic prioritized over web traffic, etc.

 

Preparing for the meeting next week at LHO.

 

High Power Laser Facility, Optics Modeling and L1 Commissioning (Franzen)

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

1) The IPG laser finally died after running the high power endurance test of the RTP crystal. We are shipping it back to the manufacturer for a prompt repair. More bad news is that we can from the side see a black bullet shaped discoloration bullet at the upstream end. We will try to study it this more in detail as soon as time permits with a microscope and take some close-up picture. If it is true it might indicate that RTP is not a suitable material for an AdvLIGO EOM.

 

2) Preparing some Melody based material for short presentation at next weeks optics simulation workshop at Caltech.

 

LDAS/Condor Sysadmin and Burst Analysis (Yakushin)

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

Condor/LDAS admin:

 

1) All linux machines (except for IDE RAIDs and ldas-gridmon which we shall upgrade later) were upgraded to Fedora Core 3. New Condor and LDAS versions are running now.

2) M6 raw and RDS data has been archived and published for LDR retrieval.

3) Replaced /dev/hda in node35 and 3 failed T3 disks.

4) /frames are mounted on each node.

5)  Rebooting dataserver yesterday seems to cause fb1 problems although it should not. Investigating.
 


Detector/Technical Support (Coyne)


from Dennis Coyne

CDS

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

CDS Software

no report

CDS Hardware

Rich Abbott reporting

1.  Set up travel plans for LLO site visit during the week of 7 Feb. 2005.  Trip will be for general site support of electronics.
2.  Met with DCC planning group convened by Phil Linquist.  I am preparing some information outlining perceived issues with electronics documentation that I obtained from staff members during my recent trip to LHO
3.  Preparing list of all instances of AD-620 op amps being used as pseudo-differential drivers such that a complete check can be done for proper grounding at sites.

Jay Heefner reporting

Fiber Optic Timing Link (Sander)

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

- 1 set of boards built. Chassis should be assembled by Thursday, then testing will start.

- Test plan is being written.

LSC PD Redesign (Ben)

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

- New test procedure in progress.

- Making spares for sites.

ISS (Flavio)

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

- LHO set for S4. They have new ISS installed on H1 and may install a monitoring PD after the mode cleaner for S4.

- Working on the test procedure.

- Need a board to send to LLO.

- Ben found a cable and strain relief appropriate for the 30ft. run from the PD after the mode cleaner.

TCS Chiller (Mohana)

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

- 2 boxes sent to LLO.

Elect Shop ( Todd)

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

- Will request priorities at todays CDS meeting.

DMT

John Zweizig

This week I participated in the the M6 run at LLO. Before the run we moved the DMT machines and network switch to the end rack in the mass storage room at LLO. This was completed without any problems thanks to an enormous effort by Rusyl, Mike, Tom and Szabi.  Because there was very little science mode running, most software efforts were focused on checking and improving the DMT infrastructure. The watchdog script now is able to run on all nodes and generates alarms for data dropouts (i.e. when one or more frames are lost between the frame builder and the DMT machine) and for high rates of floating point exceptions. Also the DMT status page generation scipt was moved to cvs and it and the webviewer were made a bit more efficient and bomb-proof.

PSL

Peter King

A minor modification was made to the state code controlling the laser output power at low frequencies.  An event was re-sequenced in the hope that the sequencer would behave more logically.

TCS quiet chiller

Ken Mailand

The TCS Chillers have been plumbed in and are running at LHO. John Worden will install filters in the chilled water lines and metering valves to limit the flow thru the heat exchangers. The drain on the house chiller supply is too much with a free flow thru the heat exchangers, some limiting of the flow will not hurt the chiller performance.

Optical Scatter Loss & Modeling

Bill Kells

On going work on analysis of scatter data from sites and OTF for understanding the scatter loss from [HR coated} TMs. We (G. Harry, et al) trying to compare with LLO measurement results just coming out.

Partially in anticipation of next weeks PRM/thermal workshop, I'm looking closely at various aspects of that problem. I have discovered (needs verification) fundamental reason for being able to TCS compensate cooling off (ie between locks).

Mike Smith

I am preparing  presentation material regarding the TCS optical design and the astigmatic behavior of the LHO antisymmetric beam for discussion at the CIT Optical Modeling Workshop to be held of 1/31- 2/1.

Optical Contamination Cavities

Lee Cardenas, Liyuan Zhang

We are aware of the shut down of West bridge sub-basement and we are
       making all the preparation necessary to cover all the laser system and equipment.
       We'll take care of it by Thursday Feb. 3rd.

OTF Lab. (W. Bridge)
This chamber has two samples, white Ceramabond, and disks of TRA-BOND #2254
color light brown epoxy.  Cavity still locked.

Absorption Test Measurement prototype   in standby

Scatterometer system  in progress!!
The fused silica substrate RM06-B is in the scatterometer enclosure.
We are scanning this substrate for beam scattering after a preliminary
cleaning.

The fabrication of a mount to hold END TEST MASS BLANK
(40 meter) of ~ 4.92" in dia. by 53mm in thickness  is in hold.

The Quantronix 60 watt laser 
Alignment and optical train set-up is in hold due to the
scanning for beam scattering of the RM06-B fused silica substrate.
The laser is shut down due to the chiller in need of recovery.


OTF Lab at Lauritsen ROOM 38 
Cavity #3
The contamination test for (6) new disks of VAC SEAL Epoxy samples
is in progress. Cavity is locked and we are taking measurements  for absorption
and ring down for contamination loss every day.
The measurements continue to be the same which means, samples are "clean"


Cavity #2  in standby
A new chamber is been baked and got back.

Misc.. tasks, machining of small plate to relocate lens holder for the scanning of the substrate
has been completed, drilling of a new output hole on the enclosure has been performed.
Continue fixing some of the items needed to comply with safety inspection in the two labs.

 

 


 

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)


  • IFO commissioning:
    • Osamu found big beam spot fluctuations in the MC beam. He realigned the beam to the WFS photodiodes, and the problem went away. We do not servo the beam onto the WFS's; we should.
    • Osamu found lots of beam spot motion in the main IFO. He increased the damping on all suspensions (corresponding to reducing Q from 7 to 3.5). This improved things. The remaining beam spot motion seems to be coming from the mode cleaner. We need to turn up the gain on the mode cleaner WFS system, but we can't, because angle->position coupling causes excess frequency noise. We need to better diagonalize the MC suspension controllers output matrices.
    • When illuminators are turned on the test masses (for example, to show visitors what it looks like inside the chambers) the mirrors go out of alignment over the course of ~10 minutes; it looks like the illuminators are heating up the suspensions. Switch the light back off, and the mirrors come back to where they were. This is not well understood but we will not be turning on the illuminators when working on the IFO!
    • Osamu tried to re-establish lock of the dual-recycled Michelson (DRMI) but found it was very unstable. Once he got it to lock, he tweaked many things (alignment, servo gains, demod phases) it now locks quickly and robustly. The cause of the drifting of all these settings is unknown; we will need to automate a procedure for optimizing the settings.
    • Osamu was able to re-establish switching of the MICH from dither-locking to double-demod. He noticed an offset on the servo signal, which is under investigation.
  • IFO modeling:
    • We have prepared a rough, preliminary cost estimate for the equipment for a homodyne (DC) detection experiment. This includes an output mode matching telescope (OMMT) designed and built by Mike Smith, in-vac PZT steering mirrors, in-vac picomotor and fixed steering mirrors, a simple output mode cleaner (OMC), OMC locking controls, two in-vac DC photodiodes, in-air beamlines for OMCR and OMCT, and associated control and monitoring electronics.
    • Mike Smith completed a preliminary design of the output mode matching telescope (OMMT) for the output mode cleaner (OMC). The design is similar to the design of the input MMT; however, it uses off-the-shelf spherical mirrors. The calculated coupling efficiency into an OMC with a beam waist of 0.37 mm is 99.5 %. Mike updated the layout of the 40m output chamber and beam paths to provide for the OMMT, 2 PZT steering mirrors, OMC, and in-vacuum photodetector with focus lens. He prepared a cost estimate for these additions to the output beams.
    • Jay prepared a block diagram of proposed OMC locking controls, based on dither-locking with a SR510 lockin amplifier. The filtering of the dither signal is proposed to be done in the digital control system; the required Pentek channels are already available. However, we plan to start with analog filtering (with an SR560 or 3) and it may turn out that we'll need the high bandwidth in order to suppress amplitude noise sufficiently. This needs to be modeled.
    • Ben has begun thinking about a design for an in-vac DC Photodiode.
    • Jay and Alex have a PC/104-based EPICS monitoring system that we'd like to use for the DC detection monitoring and control.
    • Rob is studying optical designs for the OMC; he's starting by trying to reproduce Keita's design for the LHO OMC.
    • Monica continues to develop her e2e model of 40m/AdLIGO. She now gets sensible signals from double-demod photodiodes, and is comparing them with what one gets from Twiddle.
    • Rob has completed his Finesse wrapper, written in perl, which implements a simple control system. This will make it easier to do controlled sweeps, to help design lock acquisition algorithms.
    • Virginio is studying noise propagation through the 40m to and through the DC detection beamline.
  • PSL:
  • Electronics and computing:
    • Ben replaced the main suspensions AA board because a channel on the board had become broken by the weight of the dangling cable. The new board seems to be alright, and he will strain relief the cable in a better way tomorrow.
    • Ben did a survey of the parts that will be needed to install the new suspension coil drivers, and will begin the installation of these parts in preparation of the time when the new drivers will go in. Moving to the new drivers will cause significant disruption of the current effort to lock the main IFO, so it will wait for an opportune time.
  • Lab Infrastructure:
    • Virginio is writing up a document describing his work on the STACIS seismic isolation system and its current performance.
    • Virginio is designing an extender board to make it easier to diagnose problems with the STACIS isolators.
    • Jay fixed the Vacuum Controls EPICS screen, and he and Steve rebooted the c1vac2 cpu; the screen and database now seem to work ok. The cause of the database corruption in c1vac2 is unknown.
    • Bob shipped the failed dry scroll pump from TP2 in the 40m vacuum system, back to Varian for repair.
    • Dan continues to study the EPICS state code that controls the turbopumps, and will put in mods to have it read in more information.
  • Bake oven Lab:
    • Bob has been working on OSEMs for Janeen in spare time. He has discovered a problem with the way the OSEM diode boards have been cleaned in the past and is has worked out a way the boards can be cleaned without damaging them while cleaning.
    • Bob has been continuing to work on his Bake Lab web site and is close to finishing it.
    • Bob received some samples of mocro 25 pin D connectors from Jay and has cleaned theme in preperation for baking on Thursday.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)


no report


LASTI (Ottaway)


no report


Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)


 Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)

Weekly Physics Meeting

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

Sany Yoshida presented results of simulation for the Mode-cleaner motion and its effect on laser. Viewgraphs available at

http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~e2e/ME2ET/Minutes05/050127/

Matt gave an update about commissioning activities at LLO.

 

Commissioing Related

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

(Hiro) The effect of TCS has been studied, including the effect of BS. Also the astigmatic beam measured by Keita has been analyzed. The results will be presented in the workshop next week.

 

(Biplab) Collected output optics data for Wave Front Sensors from Andri and Mike Smith and calculated variation in beam-width and accumulation of Gouy phases in the current set-up. These set-ups at sites are empirically fixed by finding the 'optimum' positions through experiments. The Gouy phase values of the current set-up at LLO differ significantly from those in H1 set-up. The Gouy phase values for H1 set-up matched well with theoretical 'optimum' values obtained from FFT studies [LIGO Note: T040066].

 Despite these differences, wave front sensor system at LLO is working well.

 Plots are posted in LLO elog (27th January).

 

Simulation of 40m interferometer

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

(Monica) I'm doing transfer functions simulations with e2e and Twiddle using a white noise to move the end mirrors of the simulated interferometer. Comparisons between the two codes are in progress. The same thing will be done in e2e with sweep sine. Some improvements to the 40m package in e2e framework have been done to speed up the simulation .

 

 Modeler

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

(Melody) Worked on performance testing using a stramlined static library to be used with the FUNC_X dynamic library.

 

Documenting the attempts used in speeding up the link process in the modeler.

 

 ALFI

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

(Bruce) - Completed implementation of chained Parameter Links and the various dialogs associated for the setting of.

        - Released new Alfi version.

 

(Melody) Received a beta version of the JGO 5.1.

 Currently testing it with ALFI.

 

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)

 

Brown:

<ol>

<li> Finished the MACHO paper and sent it to the inspiral review committee for approval! We will discuss any comments or questions at the inspiral face to face meeting Feb 5/6 and release a draft for LSC approval after that.

<li> Attended a meeting with the GriphynLigo group at ISI to discuss plans for using the grid to do inspiral analysis. Developed a short term plan to move the inspiral analysis from single clusters to the whole LSC data grid. Discussed long term strategies for the development of the GRID tools used by the inspiral group and making these tools accessible by other groups (the excess power burst search, the string search and the ringdown search are currently using these tools).

<li> Finished the review of an LSC paper for Peter Saulson.

<li> Helped Stuart clean up a few things with the FC3 upgrade at CIT and LLO.

</ol>

 

Chatterji:

Working on incorporating calibration into the Q Pipeline and improving computational efficiency.

 

Creighton:

Ihave continued working on the validation code for Einstein@home.  The new validator is working fine, and runs much faster than the older one.  In a typical 24-hour sample, 2 of 2500 or so results have been rejected due to file corruption, and another 2 contain correctly-formatted but highly peculiar data -- investigations continue.

 

Mandic:

I worked on understanding the results of the time-shifted stochastic analysis. In particular, I was interested in quantifying the difference between the time-shifted and unshifted cross-correlation spectra. This is still work in progress.

 

I also worked on preparing the hardware injections code for the E12/S4 runs. First tests of the inspiral injection code at LLO were successful.

 

Mendell:

I have updated the comparison of StackSlide, PowerFlux, and Hough methods, showing the Detection Efficiency for a Fixed False Alarm Rate on the password protected PULG S2 investigations page:

http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/cgi-bin/enote.pl? nb=puls2stackslide&action=view&page=22

 

I have posted example estimated S3 H1 upper limits from the StackSlide code on the password protected PULG S3 investigations page:

http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/cgi-bin/enote.pl? nb=puls3stackslide&action=view&page=2

 

I will be attended in the PULG F2F meeting in Milwaukee Feb 2-5.

 

Shawhan:

* Investigated and debugged some lalapps build problems.

* Reviewed pulsar analyses.

* Did maintenance on conlog code and configuration files in preparation for M6 and E12 engineering runs.

* Prepared for hardware signal injections during E12 and S4 runs.

 

Weinstein:

- Did a careful read of Duncan's MACHO paper and passed comments on to the inspiral group.

- Last week, did a careful read of the LIGO-TAMA burst paper and passed comments on to Patrick and the Burst group.

 

Lazzarini:

Working on transcribing the toy maximum entropy model to matlab. A number of people who do not have access to Mathemtica would be able to use it under matlab. Effort much more time consuming than I thought.... Working with Vuk on developing and better understanding the time shift and differencing signal recombination analysis for the H1+H2 stochastic background measurement.

 

LIGO Data Analysis System

 

Software Systems (Blackburn)

LDAS:

 

Continued to support the upgrades at the sites to the new version of LDAS as each site is upgraded to Fedora Core 3.

 

Suspended work on porting LDAS to work with Tcl 8.4.9. One minor issue was resolved but the next issue will require a significant effort. Began working on the more urgent issue of the new memory leak in the diskCacheAPI associated with the migration to Fedora Core 3. Only this API show the increased memory leak of all the LDAS APIs running on Fedora Core 3. It is suspected that the issue is in the use of dynamically loaded libraries which are used differently in this API from others to assure thread safety.

 

Completed fixes for Problem Report 2778 (test for 290 node clusters), and for PR 2775 (cmonClient crashes on large datasets). Still working on PR 2773 to analyze correlations of different jobs to memory leak in the dataConditionAPI (mentioned above).

 

Ran locked segment walk-through test on LDAS-Test and updated the results on the website.

 

Installed DB2 8.1.5 on CIT and LLO metaserver boxes and other LDAS tandem systems. Restored databases from backup and updated resource files for these sites.

 

Began working on merging changes left by Mark Turner for the LDAS diskCacheAPI into the next release of LDAS. Further testing will be needed, as well as porting to Fedora Core 3.

 

Tcl/Globus:

Had a group meeting to go over progress and discuss the next steps in the project. Want to set up enough infrastructure so that the overall size of the project is assessed and progress can be measured. Also want to have a clearer division of the packages in Globus so that the work can be divided up cleanly without interference between the developers.

 

Created a new webpage on the TclGlobus webserver to track progress of the wrapping of Globus into Tcl calls, along with test scripts and the associated documentation. The page is linked off the may home page.

 

Finished coding XIO attributes and control functions to support pointer data types and added tests to the Tcl test scripts.

 

Worked on implemention of several blocking Globus I/O functions (6 out of the 96 in the package):

   a) globus_io_file_open()

   b) globus_io_read()

   c) globus_io_write()

   d) globus_io_try_read()

   e) globus_io_try_write()

   f) globus_io_writev()

 

Grid Computing:

 

Attended a two day workshop at USC-ISI to learn about and use Pegasus abstract workflow management tools. Conducted hands on instruction using a demonstration example. Discussed changes that would facilitate using Pegasus in the Inspiral and Stochastic data analyses.

 

Hardware Systems (Anderson)

Caltech

-------

(Phil Ehrens)

* Various small tasks associated with LDAS 1.4.0 release.

* Engaged in some minor run-around with the Maxtor VIP blanket RMA program.

* Continued work on patch.tcl remote system administration utility.

 

(Stuart Anderson)

* Helped upgrade CIT and LLO LDAS clusters to FC3 and LDAS-1.4.0, work on LHO has just started.

* Determined that improved FC3 NFS performance will allow us to start testing direct cluster access to SAM-QFS filesystems.

* Worked with Dan to retrieve and archive all the M6 frames.

 

(added by Lazzarini)

* We are providing spare cycles to CaRT for numerical relativity calculations on a non-interference basis.

MIT

---

(Keith Bayer)

* Created several lsc accounts on cluster.

 

Livingston

----------

(Igor Yakushin)

* All linux machines (except for IDE RAIDs and ldas-gridmon which we shall upgrade later) were upgraded to Fedora Core 3. New Condor and LDAS versions are running now.

* M6 raw and RDS data has been archived and published for LDR retrieval.

* Replaced /dev/hda in node35 and 3 failed T3 disks.

* /frames are mounted on each node.

* Rebooting dataserver yesterday seems to cause fb1 problems although it should not. Investigating.

 

Hanford

-------

(Greg Mendell)

* Science-mode discovery for E12 online analysis is ready to go using the command line tool LSCsegFind (in the lscsoft/glue CVS repository) and web pages set up by Peter Shawhan and John Zweizig.

* RDS generation for E12 is ready to go at LHO, with only the channel list to be finalized before the run starts.  RDS generation has been tested at CIT using LDAS v1.4.0, and update createrds scripts have been tested at LHO and CIT. The E12 RDS generation process will be monitored from the usual URL:

  http://ldas-jobs.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/dsorun/cgi-bin/index.cgi.  (Note

  that LDAS is down on Jan 27-28, if you visit this page.)

* More information about science-mode discovery, rds generation, and all online analysis tasks is available on the DASWG online analysis project home page:

  http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/daswg/projects/online.html

 

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT:

(Keith)

-Compiled and ordered matlab concurrent license toolboxes

-Ordered standalone matlab licenses for several laptop users

-Created accounts (gc and dmt) for several UROPS:

 Silvia Poggi

 Lydia Gu

 Katherine Romer

 Benjamin Bloom

-Worked with several UROPs to get started on system

-Looking into X window servers

-Installed new software on library PC

-Looking into problems with dtt dataviewer on GC network

-Restarted aneirin (cds net) after power outage

-Ordered new laptop for postdoc

-Ordered Femlab software

 

Livingston:

(Shannon)

-Ran another test early this morning on our router.  The results I have so far are as follows:

3550 with all rules applied:  ~10 mbit

3550 with outside interface rules removed:  ~130 mbit

slow Linux router with no rules applied:  ~250 mbit

3550 with all rules removed:  ~360 mbit

-There are currently ~1,250 lines of firewall rules, which is why the 3550 is having performance issues.  I am confident that I can reduce this and also improve performance by switching to a Linux netfilter/iptables firewall.  I am currently working on translating the Cisco IOS rules to iptables rules.  This is turning out to be a tedious task but I believe will be well worth it.  Also, after reading through the documentation, it will be worthwhile to do some testing with QoS enabled on the firewall.  This should allow prioritizing of traffic, ie. LDAS traffic prioritized over web traffic, etc.

-Preparing for the meeting next week at LHO.

 

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

- Two site computers connecting to the network via DHCP were constantly requesting IP addresses that had not been assigned to them.  This was causing IP address conflicts for other computers trying to use DHCP. Those two computers have been given static IP addresses while I investigate why they were behaving badly.

- Set up a meeting with Albert, myself and the two main players at PNNL to discuss the upcoming network connection changes.  I am also continuing to talk with NoaNet about a possible alternate network connection.  Richard left messages for his contact at the phone company, but he hasn't received a reply.

- Fixed a laptop that had been dropped or something.  The cdrom drive was loose and jammed at an angle in the case.  The floppy drive was also loose.  Took the opportunity to upgrade all the software on the laptop.

- Putting together some drawings of the current LAN configuration and security measures for next weeks cybersecurity meeting.

- Created a couple new user accounts and other misc. user support.

 

CIT:

(Veronica)

- LIGO:  Win2k security audits and VRVS tests.  Updates to the LIGO website.  Updates to the Aspen presentations and images editing. Processing high-resolution images for several publishers.  Updates to the roster database.

- LSC:  Set up a website for the upcoming March meeting.  Updates to the webpage for papers under review.  Assisting Irena Petrac with setting up a webpage for MOU reviews.

- CaJAGWR:  Website updates.  Videotaped and compressed the last talk for streaming.

- Project Science:  Prepared the information on the attendees of the last workshop for the NSF.

 

(Larry)

-Purchased a couple of misc. network items. Ordered and received a new computer for Janeen. Received two new rack mount computers to replace a couple of the PC servers. Still working some issues out with the Foundry maint. contract. There are some errors in the paperwork that Foundry is now working out.

-Spent time going over logistical issues in relation to the abatement of the Subbasement and basement of Bridge. The time schedule has been bumped up a week so a few more adjustments have been made. All of the people affected will have temporary office locations.

-Spent a great deal of time restoring files for people.

-Worked on a couple of backup items. The increased amount of data being backed up has made it to where we only keep about 1 weeks worth of daily backup tapes. We've started working on a new scheme to get us back to two weeks worth.

-Added a number of new user accounts. Along with that a number of modifications for existing accounts has taken place. Setup a new calendar account and modifications to others.

-Resolved a couple of printing and PC issues at Wilson house. We definitely need to rework the network wiring there.

-Assisted the DCC with a number of issues. Downloading of files from different locations and getting files moved for them internally.

-Mail serviceshave been pretty normal with the exception of mail using Japanese fonts. There have been some problems getting the filters to re-send e-mail with this font. Something to work on in our spare time. Going through the filters has been averaging about 45 minutes a day when there are no problems.

 

Mail Statistics Jan 20, 2005 - Jan 26, 2005

Rejected         9,901

Virus            1,414

False Positive     109

Allowed         12,385

 

Total e-mail    22,286

 


Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)


Systems and Management

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

 

Progress Period from 01.21 to 01.27

 

Out of the office on 01.24, 25, and 26

·        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 work on the 40-Meter schedule changes.

§        Executed telcom with Carol.

§        Continued work on AOS schedule changes.

 

·        ROSTER DATABASE:

§        Assisting Irena as needed on record changes.

§        Continue to assist Irena with setting up her web site to accommodate review of attachment As.

·        COST BOOK DATABASE:

§        Continued work on changes to estimates for AOS and IO.

 

From: Carol Wilkinson <wilkinson@apex.ligo-wa.caltech.edu>
 
Advanced LIGO Project Management

Dwight Carter from ARES Corporation in Richland, Washington will be working for the next six months with Carol Wilkinson and Thomas Frey on Advanced LIGO Project planning. He has expertise in all aspects of project planning from scheduling to cost estimating. He will be concentrating on updating cost and resource estimates and on developing a cost tracking system for the MREF funded portion of the project.

 

Adv. LIGO Systems
from Dennis Coyne

See also the AL Systems web page

Records Of Decision or Agreement (RODA)

See also the RODA status web page

No new RODAs this week

Requirements

·        nothing new

Interface Issues

See the "Interfaces" section of the AL Systems web page

·        worked on some interface issues with the SUS group as part of the Monolithic Suspensions Summit Meeting:

1.      The SUS quad violates the allocated planform envelope. For the ITMy chamber this impinges upon the space allocation for the BS pick-off mirror structure. SUS will look into trying to minimize their envelope. SYS will look into a modification for the layout which may mitigate the interference.

2.      SUS has asked if the current SEI 2" x 2" hole grid in the optics table can be changed to a 1" x 1" optics table hole grid in order to reduce the size of clamps used to mount structures to the table. SEI has estimated that the additional cost is $9.7K per chamber. This is still under active consideration.

Reviews

·        AL SEI/BSC System Critical Review: Carol Wilkinson circulated a draft report to the SEI team and review committee; Report should be finalized this week.

 

 

Seismic Isolation

 

From: Ken Mason <kmason@ligo.mit.edu>
 

Advanced LIGO Seismic Structure


SEI Structure:

ASI has posted a matlab tool for analysis of the springs and rods onto the ASI web site this week. There have been no additional fabrication drawings submitted.

Larry Jones has submitted 50 ASI contract files to the DCC.

Ed Jasnow has worked out an agreement with the supplier of the maraging steel to hold the material set aside for ASI. This is important as there is a 25-28 week delivery on this material if we lose this order.


Actuators:

The actuators are scheduled to be delivered by 1/31, but it appears PSI will miss this date.

Displacement Sensors:

Nothing new.


Seismometers:

Nothing new.


Suspension

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

AdLIGO Suspensions
Working on tablecloth design details and interface with Calum, Tim and Mike PL.

Met with Riccardo about maraging steel. We have some sheet material that he may use. He showed us his rolling machine.

Reviewed Justin's UK Scope document and provided comments.

Reviewed some drawings for Ian and Calum.
 
 

Auxiliary Optics

 

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


40 METER

I completed a preliminary design of the output mode matching telescope (OMMT) for the output mode cleaner (OMC). The design is similar to the design of the input MMT; however, it uses off-the-shelf spherical mirrors. The calculated coupling efficiency into an OMC with a beam waist of 0.37 mm is 99.5 %.
I updated the layout of the 40m output chamber and beam paths to provide for the OMMT, 2 PZT steering mirrors, OMC, and in-vacuum photodetector with focus lens.
I prepared a cost estimate for these additions to the output beams.


VIRGO VISITORS

I was host to Paolo La Penna and Olivier Francois from VIRGO. Discussions were held regarding the different results obtained by VIRGO and by LIGO  on the output mode cleaner. The apparent differences are: 1) the LIGO IFO is 100 times more sensitive than VIRGO and therefore is more sensitive to noise generated by the OMC, and 2) the VIRGO OMC is on a suspended optical bench and may be less noisy than the LIGO OMC. I built an off-axis parabolic telescope breadboard and assisted the VIRGO visitors in investigating several alignment procedures using a combination of autocollimators and expanded collimated laser beam. The best procedure, similar to the procedure we had used for the LIGO PO telescopes, was to use a projection autocollimator and a receiver autocollimator for the initial, single pass setting of the focus and on-axis alignment of the parabolic mirrors; this was followed by retroreflecting from an external mirror and double passing through the telescope back into the projection autocollimator for the final focus and mirror alignment. Trying to achieve the preliminary alignment with a single autocollimator and a retroreflecting mirror was extremely difficult because of the extreme alignment sensitivity when double-passing through the telescope. Substituting a collimated laser beam for the projection autocollimator was helpful for establishing the preliminary alignment, but was not as easy as using a projection autocollimator.

CIT OPTICAL MODELING WORKSHOP

I am preparing  presentation material regarding the TCS optical design and the astigmatic behavior of the LHO antisymmetric beam for discussion at the CIT Optical Modeling Workshop to be held of 1/31- 2/1.

Pre-Stabilized Laser

 

From: Peter King <pking@ligo.caltech.edu>
 
AdvLIGO PSL
===========
    The draft conceptual design document was assembled.  A working group discussion about the document is to be scheduled soon.


 

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