Weekly Report for Week Ending February 10, 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 meeting for February 14, 2005 is cancelled because of the Staffing Committee meeting.


Special Announcements:

The President’s Budget request for FY06 was announced this week.  This includes a document on the NSF website which describes the program for Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction http://www.nsf.gov/about/budget/fy2006/pdf/6-MREFC/26-FY2006.pdf
not only for FY06, but for several years into the future.

As you will see, the document has a section near the end on Advanced LIGO. AdvLIGO is treated very seriously in the document, and so has made a lot of progress out the door of the NSF and into the Administration's planning for science in the coming years.  There is some disappointment; AdvLIGO is requested to be a 2008 start (first money nominally in Oct 07), a year later than we had been planning.

I emphasize that the release of the President's budget request is only the first step in a long process.  There is still a small chance that some earlier funding could be found.  The fact that AdLIGO is included in the plans and budgets is a very big step and means we are now an established part of the administration’s science program in spite of very tight science budgets.  So, it is a very big step for us to be part of their budget planning, even if the start date is later than we would have optimistically preferred.


Weekly Report Highlights
 


LSC Issues (Saulson)


no report


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

  • No report.

SITE TELECONFERENCE (Lindquist)

A site teleconference was held on Thursday, February 10, 2005. The following items were among those discussed:

  • Assigned Action Items: The action to establish a PMA account to be used for Web Site reservations for the LSC Meeting has been accomplished and everything seems to be working well although it has not been opened up for general access yet.
  • Conference Calling: A new company is being evaluated as a source for conference calling.  We will be using this new company for the site teleconference next week.  New numbers will be distributed.
  • P-Card Training:  P-card training for Livingston personnel is now scheduled for March 9th.  Ed Jasnow will notify the "victims."
  • Musical offices has begun in Bridge at Caltech because construction (replacement of the air conditioning system) and hazardous material remediation activities.  Everyone is asked to be patient if communications are occasionally disrupted.  The SCR will be used next week for the site teleconference instead of the ECR.
  • The list of assigned actions updated through February 10, 2005 will be found Here.

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT (Chargois)

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

  • Provided assistance to the Detector Group (T. Calum) with the packing and shipping of Suspension hardware to be sent to Stanford University (M. Hennessy/N. Robertson) via UPS Freight, tracking # 1ZA4V9540342029063. Item was delivered on 2-8-05.  Account Number LIGO.SUS. 5.10 NSFLIGO.FY02ON.
  • Provided  assistance to the Director's Office by providing four (4) Computers and three (3) LCD Projectors to support the up coming LSC Conference at LIGO Livingston Observatory. Account Number LIGO. DIR 1.1.1 NSFLIGO.FY02ON.
  • Provided assistance to the Detector Group (T. Calum) with the packing and shipping of (10) Clamps to Stanford University (N. Robertson), Account Number P204317.
  • Prepared an ATA Carnet Replacement Application for equipment located at the University of Western Australia..

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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

  • No report.

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

  • No special projects to report.
  • Packages: in - 18, out - 8
  • Faxes: in - 31, out - 20

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

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

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

  • Placed credit card orders as requested. Called vendor for adjustments to credit cards. Made arrangements for RMA numbers to be issued, packaged the items and submitted them to Receiving for pick up, and the corresponding credit to be issued. Coordinated RMA's on the repair for Varian.
  • Completed change order #30 to Excel and submitted it to the vendor.
  • Completed change order #14 to Gennaro, Gianni (fka Promec) to add funds of $18k to cover the pending invoice. Submitted the change order to acknowledge acceptance of the change order.
  • Working on closing out subcontracts that have had no activity for over one year. Received instructions from Ed Jasnow and am coordinating this with the vendor, DCC, and Dorothy.

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

  • Working with CSIRO to clear up two invoices.
  • Monitoring changes that are pending on the Excel RFI contract.
  • Generating change orders for Galli & Morelli.
  • Working with DCC to add additional documents to contract files.
  • Pulled the existing closed Excel HEPI contract for evaluation, pending a new proposal.

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

  • Completed and sent out the following reports for January:  AJL.INT, MIT.GRID, BOEING, DIA, VISITOR, OUTREACH & LOW NOISE.
  • All charges have now been made to the BOEING Award, and I will request that the Award be closed.
  • Correction has been requested to correct classification of P-card purchase from supplies to equipment; correction is to be made on the next P-card run.
  • 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)

  • No report.

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

  • The draft Request for Quotation for the LLO electrical maintenance contract is being reviewed.  It is scheduled to be released before the end of February, with award scheduled for the end of March.
  • The amendment to the lease between LSU and the NSF to cover construction of the Science Education Center has been sent to the NSF for signature.
  • P-Card training for members of the LLO staff has been scheduled for March 9.

SUPPORT (Baldon,  Lloyd)

>Irene Baldon

  • No report (ill).

>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 January 31.
  • Processed requisitions for standard purchases, payment requests and change orders. For more detail see Cost Schedule Control Systems report by Ruth Brambilla.
  • 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)

The DCC Steering Committee met February 8, 2005.  Discussion focused on the requirements matrix currently under development.  The next meeting of the DCC steering committee is scheduled for Wednesday, February 16, 2005.

CHANGE CONTROL/CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT (Lindquist)

  • A change request (CR-050002) to address actual costs less than amounts budgeted for the first quarter of FY 2005 was discussed during the meeting of the executive committee.  The change request was approved pending providing managers directly affected additional information.  This additional information has been sent to the affected managers and the change request will be forwarded for approval.

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

  • A staffing meeting is scheduled for February 14, 2005.  The final agenda will be posted Friday, February 11.  All files are posted and up-to-date on the web page.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

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

During the recent LIGO safety audit of the Wilson House complex, there was an action item generated regarding the operation of the smoke/fire alarm system in the buildings.  Specific questions were: does a smoke/fire alarm alert Caltech campus security, how often are the detectors operationally checked, and by whom?  The Caltech fire alarm group declared that since it was an "off-campus" location, Caltech Security should be contacted for answers regarding the smoke/fire alarm system.  In summary, the Wilson House complex is "protected" by an integrated "burglary" and fire alarm system and is checked periodically when requested by Security.  Either type of alarm will sound inside the Wilson buildings at the alarm control panel and a "notification" will be sent to the alarm (contractor) dispatcher.  The dispatcher will then contact Caltech Security for their response.  As a result of LIGO's inquiry, the contractor tested the alarm system and detectors (witnessed by Caltech Security and LIGO safety), and the system appeared to be fully functional
.

 


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



 Summary of Commissioning Activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory (Landry)

E12 closed out with good performance from both interferometers.  Commissioning efforts continued through the early part of the run, followed by steady science mode operation.  The H1 duty cycle during this latter stage was 73%, with a binary inspiral range of 7-9Mpc.  H2 ran more stably at 3.5Mpc, 84% of the time.

Commissioning items during and after the run are bulleted below.  Please see the elog for more details.

  • a technique for measuring the Q's of violin modes is described
  • a punchlist gives pre-S4 tasks for the coming twelve days
  • bilinear conversion was observed around 120Hz
  • WFS2 LO phase was considerably off, and was corrected by 25 degrees
  • g-parameter measurements as a function of TCS heating on the 4k IFO X-arm allow for the extraction of ITM radii of curvature
  • Faraday heating and spot size measurements were made
  • a new H1 noise budget was produced

Outreach (D. Ingram)
An enthusiastic audience of ~85 attended our February WYP event, a showing of "Runaway Universe" hosted by Fred.    Vern Sandberg will host our March film, "Death Star".

 


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


L1 Commissioning (Valera Frolov)

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

The interferometer commissioning resumed on Tuesday after the successful E12 engineering run. The commissioning activities included:

 

-          installation and testing of the fast DAQ electronics

 

-          investigation of the dark noise on anti-symmetric port photodiodes

 

-          reviving the weather station

 

Safety and Security (Riesen)

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

Nothing to report.

 

L1 and AdL Mechanical Engineering (Spjeld)

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

AdL Quad SUS Installation Fixtures

- Spoke with Piset at Ameriflex on the possibility of using bellows in lift table actuators; edge-welded bellows might be applicable.

- Had to run new FEA analysis on support beam; will send to Ken Mason for review upon completion.

- Awaiting review from Dennis Coyne on overall design and feasibility.

 

AdL SEI Engineering Effort

- AdL ISI web-page completed; link from main LIGO page suggested.

- Technical notes document from ASI meeting in progress; mid next week.

- List of existing/expected AdL ISI drawings from ASI in progress; end of next week .

- Will be posting updated AdL SEI models on PDMWorks vault at the end of February.

 

Misc. Engineering

- Still awaiting quote on drawings for the re-designed GS13 sensor platforms to machine shop.

 

HEPI Valve Calibration

- analyzed bad valve from LASTI

- calibration of new servo valves in progress; four valves remaining

 

Upcoming Tasks

- finish HAM door lifting fixture design

- look into shutter problem (decision made to wait till after S3)

 

LLO General Computing and LIGO CyberSecurity (Roddy)

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

Two weeks worth since I was unable to submit a weekly last week.

 

Replaced the Cisco 3550 with the Linux firewall and performance seems to be much better.  With the consolidated ruleset, I am getting ~25 times the performance I was getting on the Cisco 3550.

 

Working with LSU on some traffic shaping issues for LDAS.  Now that we are positive that the firewall is not the bottleneck for bandwidth, we are working LSU so that we can hopefully get enough bandwidth for LDAS to transfer data to CIT during the runs.  LSU so far has not been able to identify the bottleneck.

 

Working on a network issue for LSU.  They cannot seem to get to the weather stations and collect their data.  There are no log entries on the firewall and from what I can tell the traffic should be allowed. This is unresolved at this point.  I am continuing to look into it.

 

Setting up a workstation for Natalia.  Installing Fedora Core 3 so that she has a supported platform for the analysis software.

 

Attended a meeting at LHO last week.  More details will come later. Also working on a schedule of items that were discussed at the meeting.

 

The ilog crashed the web server over the weekend.  I spent Monday night building a new web server and installing the ilog on it.  There is now a machine named ilog.ligo-la.caltech.edu which serves the ilog.  This is a dedicated machine now strictly for the ilogStill a lot of work that needs to be done to the general web server.  It desperately needs to be upgraded.  Hopefully I can get this done in the next couple of weeks.



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

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

1) The status of the IPG laser which was returned for repair is still unknown.

 

2) Writing on the AdvLIGO mode cleaner Melody technical note.

 

3) Took an LLO SciMon shift.

 

LDAS/Condor Sysadmin and Burst Analysis (Yakushin)

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

Condor/LDAS admin:

 

1) Shipped E12 tapes to CIT

2) Helped Sukanta to get data for the analysis of stochastic injections.

3) Configured E12 databases at LLO and LHO for online backups. Stopped taking online backups of S2 and S3 databases since they are not updated anymore.

 

Data analysis:

 

1) Ran waveburst online during E12. Found some bugs in my online scripts that will be fixed before S4. Waveburst triggers were used for evaluating of the interferometers performance during E12.

 

2) Started MDC generation for the whole S3.

 

3) Learnt how to install and configure Carrot. I would like to use Carrot as a way to publish online waveburst triggers during S4. The advantage of Carrot is that one can view and plot the content of a ROOT file using just a web browser. Since waveburst produces triggers in the ROOT file format, it would be an  extremely convenient way to make the triggers immediately available and easily browsable.


 


Detector/Technical Support (Coyne)


CDS

see also the CDS weekly meeting minutes in the commissioning archives

CDS Software

no report

CDS Hardware

Jay Heefner reporting

Fiber Optic Timing Link (Sander)

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

- The first units have been tested.

- Sander is making sure he has enough equipment to outfit LLO. Right now he only has enough parts for 10 receivers which may not be enough.

- Paul is building a portable tester for the system.

LSC PD Redesign (Ben)

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

- Waiting for a prioritized list of frequencies from the observatories.

ISS (Flavio)

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

- Making mods to the board for LLO. This will make it the same as the LHO boards.

- 2 more boards in the shop will also be upgraded.

TCS Chiller (Mohana)

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

- LLO boxes received, upgraded and sent back.

EE Shop (Todd)

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

- Phoenix is building fiber optic link components.

- Upgraded TCS chiller electronics.

DMT

no report

PSL

no report

Optics Analysis

no report

TCS Quiet Chiller

Ken Mailand

LHO, Cheryl has inspected the 2K chiller assembly and reports that there is no rust or corrosion at all to date using the recommended dex fluid mixture.
Two TCS Chillers are assembled, tested, and ready to ship to LLO.

Optical Contamination Cavities

Lee Cardenas, Liyuan Zhang

OTF Lab. (W. Bridge)   shut down for asbestos removal
This chamber has two samples, white Ceramabond, and disks of TRA-BOND #2254
color light brown epoxy.  Cavity shut down and covered.

Absorption Test Measurement prototype  shut down and covered

Scatterometer system  shut down and covered
The fused silica substrate RM06-B is in the scatterometer enclosure.
We have finished the  scanning for this substrate this past Sunday.

The Quantronix 60 watt laser  fully shut down and covered

OTF Lab at Lauritsen ROOM 38 
Cavity #3                         no change
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 progress
Beam waist measurement of the new NPRO 414 is done, preparation for
mode matching and optical set up is in progress

 

 


 

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)


  • IFO commissioning:
    • Osamu and Rob were able to lock the dual recycled Michelson (DRMI) with the Y arm last week (they did DRMI with the X arm the week before). An offset on the other side of the fringe was required; the error signals are asymmetric.
    • They then tried DRMI with both arms, without success. There are various difficulties:
      • The SRC is fluctuating due to low power at POB. We need more light on POB; we will modify the optical beamline.
      • There is a lot of fluctuation of the DRMI lengths. The filtering and gains of all 3 length degrees of freedom need to be optimized.
      • The beam from the mode cleaner is fluctuating in angle, due to significant length->angle coupling of MC2. Rana is working on improving the diagonalization, and Virginio is optimizing our new MC2 oplev to help measure the couplings more accurately.
      • It takes too long for lock acquisition of arms, due to the limited force applied by the coils to the ETMs. Rana noted that the ETM coil drivers were underpowered (especially given our higher ground noise and higher finesse arm cavities), and suggested changing the resistors from 430 ohm to 100 ohm; this will increase the force at the expense of increased noise. Dan has replaced the resistors on our new revB coil drivers, and we will swap them in soon.
      • There is significant fluctuation in the RF sideband amplitudes transmitted from the MC over many days, due presumably to real length fluctuations. This is much more serious at 40m than at the sites because of the higher RF frequencies (166 MHz). We are thinking of setting up a feedback system to lock the 33 MHz RF frequency to the MC length; this requires us to develop circuits to keep the higher frequencies (133, 166, and 199 MHz) phase- and frequency-locked to the 33 MHz.
      • We need better double-demod (DDM) RFPDs with good response at 133 and 199, and notches at 33 and 166 MHz.
      • Rana pointed out that the recycling cavity mixes the POX and POY signals so that each of them responds equally to XARM and YARM. We need to move away from using POX and POY to CARM and DARM.
    • We need automate the laborious process of fine-tuning the alignment of all the core optics. Rana and Rob are setting up an automated system based on dithering optics in pitch and yaw and getting signals from transmission DCPDs and/or QPDs.
    • Rana got working a few scripts for doing angle->length decoupling in the MC optics, based on Stefan Ballmers 'ezcademod' program. Preliminary results suggested that the MC1 and MC3 optics are as much as an inch away from where they're supposed to be; very unlikely! Under investigation.
    • Rana notes that you can't use ezcademod to servo on an "int" channel, it must be "float", or everything will crash.
    • Autoburt and saverestore keeps snapshots of a lot of junk. When a problem causes a crash, the junk gets restored; recovering from crash was problematic. Rob went through all the autoburt and saverestore request files, trimming thousands of channels that don't need to be burt-ed.
    • Rob is setting up scripts and procedures to measure the length sensing matrix via dithering. We'll try it on the DRMI+Xarm lock and then use Finesse model to extrapolate to both arms.
  • IFO modeling:
    • Monica is setting up her e2e 40m code, which has a rather complete optical plant, for servo control. She has all the PDs and demods, and is setting demod phases according to the twiddle model. She can simulate PSDs for all degrees of freedom. She can put substrates on mirrors if that is useful for the simulations.
    • Rob continues to study the LSC matrix and the error signals, with Finesse, as an aid to lock acquisition.
    • Rob continues to study the design of an output mode cleaner (OMC) for our DC detection experiment.
    • The in-vac beamline for our DC detection experiment, as drawn up by Mike Smith, has two PZT steering mirrors between a MMT and the OMC. Rob and Ran propose to move these upstream of the MMT to provide more lever arm and control.
  • PSL:
    • Steve noted that when the MC lock extends over days, the position of MC2 drifts significantly. We're not sure how big the drift is in microns, but it's big in OSEM voltage. Rana will use MCL to calibrate. Rana suggests that this is due to a drift in the PSL reference cavity temperature. Our Minco temperature controller manages to keep the temperature stable to ~0.1 degrees, but with large oscillations; it should be better than 0.01 degrees. The Minco settings were never done carefully. We will get Rich Abbott in to set the Minco up properly, to keep fluctuations below 0.01 degrees.
    • Dan installed a button on the ISS MEDM screen to turn on/off his ISS reset script.
  • Electronics and computing:
    • Ben has worked out the necessary wiring for putting rev.B coil drivers in for all core optics. We have 4 rev.B coil drivers and the order has been placed for 3 more. Dan has modified the resistors on the 4 boards we have, to provide more force to the optics to help with lock acquisition.
    • Ben has wired up all of the cross connect wiring to do with the new coil drivers in both ends and the vertex.
    • Ben has begun to change the auxiliary databases to include the new rev.B coil driver functionality. He is referencing the current Hanford MC1 database to get the same calc records in place.
    • Jay and Ben moved the vme modules that read out the osem sensors (c1sosvme) to a different crate (the second half of the c1susaux crate) to see if the glitches we have been seeing on many of our OSEM sensor channels, which we've traced to the ICS110b's, would go away. They didn't. The vme modules have been left in their new home.
    • Jay reports that the glitches are also seen at LHO. They are getting in to the digital suspension controllers and presumably affecting their performance.
    • Rolf has finished writing the ASC code for the 40m main IFO (code for the MC has been in place for some time and works well). The code is now under test. All the hardware is in place, to first order, including controls to the in-vac PZT mirrors which steer from the MC to the main IFO.
    • Rana has built Matt Evans' TDS tools on the 40m computers, to servo front end or EPICS channels. These tools will be used for auto-alignment, amongst other things.
    • We await a new gateway computer from Alex.
  • Lab Infrastructure:
    • Dan and Monica are surveying all of our in-air optical beamlines, to document the as-built system and update the comprehensive optical layout AutoCad drawing maintained by Mike Smith. So far, they've done the tables at ETMX, ETMY, and ITMX.
  • Bake oven Lab:
    • Bob has cleaned 13 , 2.75" and 4, 4.50" conflat flanges and is watting on the other two large flanges to be shipped from LHO, before cleaning and baking this load, per traveler E050050-00 from Dennis.
    • Bob is sending two roughing pumps back to Balzers to be repaired. These are from ovens D & C. All other ovens are in full working order.
    • Bob has been working with Helena and Calum, taking blade spring data each morning this week.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)


Since our last report, we have moved the optical table, vacuum chamber, pumps, and seismic isolation system for the bond-noise experiment from the OTF lab into our new space in 38 Lauritsen. (Many thanks to Dario and Terry for doing the heavy lifting!) Andri Gretarsson was here last week, and he gave quite a bit of useful advice on this experiment.

 

We now have a new computer to replace the one CDS had loaned us. We installed linux on it and got it connected to the network, and Jay is now working on transferring the TNI control software from the CDS computer to the TNI computer.

 


LASTI (Ottaway)


HEPI Testing and MC Triple (Ruet, Mittleman and MacInnes)

 

The vacuum compatible L4C-Geophones have been installed on the BSC optics table and the chamber has been resealed. See ilog (2/10/05) for more details and pictures.

 

We are still struggling with the matlab R13 --> R14 update. Our dSpace software has to be updated to remain compatible; maybe we will be back on line by Monday.

 

The triple has been takeout of the HAM so that tests and measurements can be done on it to resolve the pitch frequency discrepancies between the model and the suspension.

 

Advanced LIGO BSC Seismic Short Term Testing Plan

 

LIGO 1 HEPI Testing will continue for another 5 weeks ie till end of March. After this we will remove the leg elements of the LIGO 1 BSC Seismic. The optics table and the down tube will be supported by scaffolding built up from underneath. This will enable us to test whether the excess noise that is observed at the top of the stack is caused by the interaction of the piers with the seismic resonances. This will probably take a month by the time that HEPI system is re-adjusted for the change in mass. The support table and the down tube will then be removed.

 


Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)


 

Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)

Mechanical Simulation

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

(Hiro) Mark Barton has started working on the mechanics part of the advanced LIGO modeling. His task is to build a state space based mechanical simulation of the SEI and SUS. Hiro and Mark worked together to define the task - phase one - and to setup for Mark to start using e2e machines and environment.

 

(Mark Barton) I encountered some issues running e2e and Alfi locally on my computer, so I set up an environment to use them running remotely on the e2e group's server. I created a very simple model in e2e that uses state space output from my Mathematica triple pendulum model and got it to run.

 

FFT Study

-----------

 Hiro is working to calculate the FFT prediction of the optimal heating of LLO4k and LHO2k. He is also working to calculate the the reflected field by a cold state IFO to understand the difference between the locking using the reflected field and the naive locked point of Michelson cavity, issue being discussed by Andri and Erika.

 

Beam shift in output optics

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

(Biplab) Studied with SimLIGO and Fit-data of phase camera images how much the Sideband beam center shifts as a function of time as it propagates from the beam splitter through a set-up of output optics.

 

Simulation of 40 meter interferometer

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

(Monica) Implementation of hardswitches and psd module for all the degrees of freedom used in the e2e 40m package. Simulations of the complete interferometer (without Mach-Zehnder) with a differential shake (white noise) on terminal mirrors in orders to obtain results to compare to Twiddle ones. Trying to make some sweep sine with e2e code to compare tem with the ones evaluated with Twiddle.

 

Code development and maintainance

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

(Hiro) Bug of the modeler was fixed related to beam peak finder. Other maintenance updates, codes and documents, were done. A new version, 3.0.0 will be released soon. The major change is the inclusion of the adoptive thread chain implemented by Matt.

 

Alfi

-----------

(Bruce) Updating Alfi documentation.

 

(Melody) Performed regression testing using the new JGo library. Notified Bruce of any problems found in the code.  We anticipate distributing a new ALFI release soon with the new JGo library.

 

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)

 

Brown:

- Gave Alan Weinstein and Lisa Goggin a tutorial on the inspiral pipeline (which is similar to the ring down pipeline which Lisa will be working on). They both successfully ran the pipeline on the LDAS-CIT cluster.

 

- Worked on running the inspiral code online during E12. This ran at all three sites after we uncovered some problems with the L1 calibration data. Triggers were produced for 30% (L1), 75% (H1), 63% (H2) of the science mode data. The major loss in data in L1 was due to bad calibration related to a corrupted calibration frame at the start of the run and DMT dropouts from SenseMon.

 

- Produced triggers for the hardware injections that Steve Fairhurst and Patrick Brady performed in the E12 L1 data. Preliminary analysis was completed in less than 40 minutes with complete analysis the next morning at the face to face meeting. Details were presented at the E12 telecon (we recovered a 1.4,1.4 M_sun optimally oriented injection at 14 Mpc!)

 

- Started the InspiralMon DMT viewer tool at the site on Sunday evening. This ran without errors, displaying the results of the online code, until I stopped it on Wednesday. I will talk to John Z about getting this into the DMT process manager before S4.

 

- Attended inspiral face meeting at LLO. The focus on Saturday morning was choosing the final the parameters for the BCV search and the S3 pipeline in the afternoon. Saturday evening Patrick and I discussed plans for online running in S4. Sunday morning was on group plans for now until the LSC meeting. I will be focusing on S4 online analysis. Also discussed review committee comments on the MACHO paper and I will send out a revised draft next week.

 

- Worked with Andy Rodriguez, who was visiting from LSU on integrating signal based vetoes into the inspiral pipeline.

 

- Collated input for and mailed out the LSC newsletter.

 

Creighton:

I've mostly continued working with the Einstein@home validator.  The validator code itself seems to be bug-free, but some of the peculiar results that it chatches have pointed out ``bugs'' (actually non-robust features) in the search codes.  In particular, the search code I/O functions need to check more carefully for corrupted input, or else one spends a lot of time analyzing garbage that the validator will eventually discard.

 

Mendell:

Attended the PULG F2F meeting in Milwaukee Feb 2-5.  Current priorties are to finish the StackSlide binary search code (e.g., which will be used to search for GWs from Sco-X1, other LMXBs, and other neutron stars in binary systems) with Virginia Re, and to prepare preliminary S3 results for the March LSC meeting.

 

Mandic:

With Peter Shawhan, I worked on hardware injections during the E12 run. The mechanics of injections for all four types of injections (bursts, pulsars, inspirals, and stochastic) worked fine. We are waiting for feedback from various analysis groups, to confirm that the injections were really detected by the various analysis codes.

 

With Albert Lazzarini, I worked on understanding the nature of the cross-correlation spectrum in the stochastic analysis, and on understanding its behavior under time-shifts.

 

I also redid the S3 stochastic analysis of the H1L1 and H2L1 Hann cases (with no time-shifts) using new (V3) calibration, new data quality flags, new frequency range (50-500 Hz) and new frequency mask.

 

Shawhan:

 

* Worked on revisions to the S2 untriggered burst search paper.

*Worked with Andres Rodriguez (visiting from LSU) on his implementation of a waveform consistency veto for inspiral searches, based on the time series of matched filter output and chi-squared statistic.

* Planning for the Burst Group face-to-face meeting at Caltech this weekend.

 

Shourov:

Studied the detection efficiency of a coherent search for simulated bursts in the S2 H1-H2 data set using the new calibrated Q Pipeline with amplitude and phase consistency tests.

 

Sutton:

Over the last two weeks I've had a number of small one-off tasks.  I did some DMT-related work, helping Whelan and Klimenko to use the new EasyCalibrate DMT codes for their figure-of-merit monitors in E12. I've done some quality-assurance tests of the LIGO-AURIGA MDC frames. I've done some data conditioning on the supernovae waveforms that we will use for the S3 MDCs.  I also posted to S2 bursts elog a revised IGEC comparison proposal using tau=0.1ms Gaussian.  Finally, I've been working with Lazzarini to update the LIGO-TAMA MOU.

 

On the more interesting side, I've been studying time-frequency representations of signals, and derived a maximum-entropy representation of signals with specified mean time, duration, mean frequency, and bandwidth: Gaussian-modulated linear chirps.  These should be very useful ad-hoc signals for exploring the LIGO cheese. I've had two meetings with Tinto, Lazzarini, Chatterji, and Shawhan to discuss a research project to tackle the inverse problem for GWBs.  I also travelled to New York to visit Marka and plan a research project on extracting science from GWBs.

 

Yakushin:

1) Ran waveburst online during E12. Found some bugs in my online scripts that will be fixed before S4. Waveburst triggers were used for evaluating of the interferometers performance during E12.

2) Started MDC generation for the whole S3.

3) Learnt how to install and configure Carrot. I would like to use Carrot as a way to publish online waveburst triggers during S4. The advantage of Carrot is that one can view and plot the content of a ROOT file using just a web browser. Since waveburst produces triggers in the ROOT file format, it would be an  extremely convenient way to make the triggers immediately available and easily browsable.

 

Lazzarini: Looking into using a time-shifted analysis to discriminate insturmental noise from signal for the H1-H2 stochastic analysis. This is work being carried out with Vuk Mandic.

 

LIGO Data Analysis System

 

Software Systems (Blackburn)

LDAS:

 

A bug was discovered in the createRDS process during the E12 run. As a result a half dozen or so frames were either improperly constructed or not generated. The source of the issue was two fold. The driver script that submits jobs to LDAS had a minor bug that was rarely exercised and LDAS's frameAPI had a bug that was also rarely exercised. The E12 run was sufficiently long compared to the pre-release testing to uncover these issues. Fixes for both have been made and a new release of LDAS is planned prior to the start of the Science Run.

 

LDAS will go into a code freeze Thursday February 10 to stabilize the code base. We will only have one weekend to test the code thoroughly before it needs to be pushed to the sites for the science run. The expected release date is Friday February 18th if all goes as planned.

 

Worked out a new set of test scripts that are based on the dataStandAlone command that allow us to push more jobs through the dataConditioningAPI in an effort to accelerate the new memory leak issue in the dataConditionAPI and more quickly turnaround our test and evaluation times.

 

Upgraded several LDCG packages: wget, gsl, rrdtool, ganglia, and removed cvspasswd since openssl passwd provides the same functionality.

 

Updated the scancluster utility used to diagnose issues on the clusters and commited the changes to CVS.

 

Added a fix that resolved the issue with corrupt log files showing up on LDAS systems from time to time. This has been a rare occurence going back more than a year. The problem was traced to parallel log file updates. The process has been serialized and the corruption has not been seen on the LDAS-DEV system since. This is significant since it was showing up almost daily on that system when it was under heavy load.

 

Performed system tests of the code based on CVS tag 1.4.16. All test performed as expected indicating that the code is reasonably stable for the next release.

 

TCLGLOBUS:

 

Working on Tcl scripts to exercise asynchronous functionalities of 

Globus I/O. The functions

are:

          1. globus_io_register_close()

          2. globus_io_register_read()

          3. globus_io_register_write()

          4. globus_io_register_writev()

          5. globus_io_tcp_register_connect()

          6. globus_io_tcp_register_listen()

          7. globus_io_tcp_register_accept()

 

Fixed typemaps issues of various Globus I/O function arguments.

 

Completed 2 Tcl scripts (blocking file copy and blocking client/server) 

 to exercise blocking

functionalities of Globus I/O.

Five out of 96 SWIG-wrapped Globus I/O functions are still buggy. The 

functions are:

           1. globus_io_read()

           2. globus_io_register_read()

           3. globus_io_tcp_register_connect()

           4. globus_io_register_select

           5. globus_io_secure_authorization_data_get_callback()

 

GRID3/OSG TESTBED:

 

Began putting together the LIGO Application Testbed based on the Inspiral job. Learned how to install LAL, LALApps, and the LSC's GLUE packages and will be meeting with Duncan to learn how to submit the jobs on the LSC Data Grid. The next step will be to migrate over to the Grid3 grid in preparations for running the application as a challenge test for the Open Science Grid testbed once it is avaliable next month.

 

Hardware Systems (Anderson)

 

LDAS System Administration

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

 

Caltech

-------

(Dan Kozak)

* Set up/debugged login problems with some grid accounts.

* During E12 run, continued work on tuning LDR, but ultimately determined

  that the current version probably couldn't do what we wanted in terms

  of prioritizing L3/L1 data but transferring L0 in any remaining bandwidth.

* Worked on keeping LDR running and transferring data during E12.

* Looked into M6 LLO L1 data corruption (L1 frames were corrupted during

  transfer from LLO to CIT as best we can tell).  Replaced these files in

  CIT /archive with good versions from LLO /samrds so that Murali (who'd

  first noticed the problem) could get them.

* Helped Vuk Mandic with LSCdataFind.

* Did E12 md5sum checkout for LHO L0, all L1 and L3 frames.  Some files

  still need to be transferred and some LLO L1's were corrupt and need to

  be retransferred.

* LLO E12 LO tapes shipped, imported and are being md5sum'd at this writing.

* Kept archiving working at LHO during E12 despite lack of tapes by

  repurposing second tape copies no longer needed (because the data also

  exists at CIT).

* Some tapes at LHO ejected from the L700 and put on the shelf.

* Provided support to Scott Koranda's LDR upgrade.

 

(Phil Ehrens)

* Researched and built kernels based on Fedora Core 3

   2.6.10-1.760 kernel to investigate NFS related kernel

   panics on the CIT Beowulf cluster.

* Ongoing debugging of patch.tcl which has a nagging

   problem with the stdio handling of the 'patch'

   executable, but not with other programs.

 

(Al Wilson)

* Finished installing and setup for BB for the nodes and the systems at Caltech.

* Ordered memory to repair the 6 systems that are not working.

* Testing Fedora on the ide raid units.

 

(Stuart Anderson)

* Debugging FC3 cluster node crashing problem. Currently running with

  a kernel patch provided by Neil Brown.

* Investigating Condor priority problem.

* Investigating Ganglia 3.0.0.

 

MIT

---

(Keith Bayer)

* Installing FC3 on new pcraid unit.

* Investigating failed drives on pcraid#3.

* Reviewing system imager details.

 

Livingston

----------

(Igor Yakushin)

* /frames is doubled in size and can now hold a week of raw frames (Dan).

* /cluster was created and QFS mounted on fb1 and Condor nodes to

  communicate the output from astrophysical searches running on the

  cluster to the control room (Dan).

* /fb0_frames was QFS mounted by both fb0 and LDAS servers (Dan, Alex).

* E12 data archiving, RDS generation and publishing is running OK so

  far. There was an interruption yesterday caused by the fact that

  "segment. server", london, was not available for a few seconds. Since

  publishing scripts use LSCsegFind, they all died and had to be restarted.

* Received GigE switch from CIT.

* Two hours after the start of E12, there was a request from Brian to

  add several new channels to L1 RDS. The new channels appear in RDS

  starting from 791327328. Since at least some of those channels were not

  present in raw frames before that, we cannot regenerate the earlier RDS

  frames with the new channel list.

* Shipped E12 tapes to CIT

* Helped Sukanta to get data for the analysis of stochastic injections.

* Configured E12 databases at LLO and LHO for online backups. Stopped

  taking online backups of S2 and S3 databases since they are not updated

  anymore.

 

Hanford

-------

(Greg Mendell)

* All E12 data was successfully archived at LHO.  E12 RDS data was

  generated, and there were 4 job failures during the run, due to minor

  bugs in the createrds script and LDAS.  These bugs have been fixed, and

  testing is taking place to prepare for S4 RDS generation.

 

(Ben Johnson)

* E12 has started. Most work going into getting the publishing code up

  and running. For the most part it works, though it depends on external

  (to ldas) machines due to segment discovery.

* The LHO cluster now has statically mounted the nodes' NFS shares.

  This seems to have alleviated the problem. Will do CIT directly.

* No disk failures so far, or robot troubles, for now... The only

  troubles have been due to the automount bug with FC3.

* All Linux machines now at FC3, except for ldas-gridmon and the

  IDE-RAID servers. ldas-pcdev2 has FC3 installed, but still needs to be

  configured.

* With Dan's help exported 8 tapes from the library. I was then able to

  add 28 new tapes into the library.

* Working on generating daily/weekly/monthly duty cycle stats for the

  non-sciencerun data.

* Updating LDR publishing scripts/subroutines to work with the new LDR.

  Also fixing troubles that occurred during E12 with online /frames

  publishing.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT:

(Keith)

-Investigated and ordered follow-up matlab toolboxes

        Discovered that some of the utilities have moved to

        different toolboxes.

-Ordered DSpace upgrades

-Windows laptop and desktop troubleshooting

-Upgraded gc apps fileshare and Sun machine

-Patched several windows computers

 

Livingston:

(Shannon)

Two weeks worth since I was unable to submit a weekly last week.

-Replaced the Cisco 3550 with the Linux firewall and performance seems to be much better.  With the consolidated ruleset, I am getting ~25 times the performance I was getting on the Cisco 3550.

-Working with LSU on some traffic shaping issues for LDAS.  Now that we are positive that the firewall is not the bottleneck for bandwidth, we are working LSU so that we can hopefully get enough bandwidth for LDAS to transfer data to CIT during the runs.  LSU so far has not been able to identify the bottleneck.

-Working on a network issue for LSU.  They cannot seem to get to the weather stations and collect their data.  There are no log entries on the firewall and from what I can tell the traffic should be allowed. This is unresolved at this point.  I am continuing to look into it.

-Setting up a workstation for NataliaInstalling Fedora Core 3 so that she has a supported platform for the analysis software.

-Attended a meeting at LHO last week.  More details will come later. Also working on a schedule of items that were discussed at the meeting.

-The ilog crashed the web server over the weekend.  I spent Monday night building a new web server and installing the ilog on it.  There is now a machine named ilog.ligo-la.caltech.edu which serves the ilog.  This is a dedicated machine now strictly for the ilogStill a lot of work that needs to be done to the general web server.  It desperately needs to be upgraded.  Hopefully I can get this done in the next couple of weeks.

 

Hanford:

(Christine)

- Started trying to fix a problem with old versions of SSH not working with the newer versions of openssh.  I am just going to upgrade all Sun computers to use the new version of openssh with openssl.  It took a whole day to get one computer upgraded.  The rest should go quicker now.

-The disk containing the email and web page files locked up during the early morning tape backup.  This appears to be a warning that the disk is about to go.  The disk is being mirrored on to another disk and will be replaced ASAP.

- Other misc. user support.

 

CIT:

(Mike)

-Janeen Romie: Finished loading a new pc for her. This required loading multiple engineering packages, transferring over user's data over. I have swapped her out with the new equipment. I am in the process of reloading her old PC, to use as a visitor workstation.

-Calum Torrie: I worked with him on getting the Ansys software upgraded to 9.0. I still have to load this software on a few more workstations.

-Started loading a new laptop for a user up in Millikan.

-Running some tests on patches that Microsoft has pushed out for win2000, xp, and server editions. So far everything seems to be running ok.

-NTSRV's: I updated PDMWorks & LLPDMWorks with the latest security patches.

-Other misc. support that included networking, printers, software issues.

 

(Veronica)

-LIGO:  Website updates.  Security patches /audits of the Windows servers.  User support.  Helped Bob Taylor with scripting and setup for the 40m website.  Helped Sydney Meshkov with file transfer for the Aspen conference website.  Prepared a high-resolution image for a publisher.

- LSC:  Website updates.  Worked with Irena on website setup for the MOU reviews.  Updates of the March meeting website.  Working with LLO and an outside ecommerce vendor on setting up an online payment /registration webpage.  Worked with Linda on updates of the current MOU webpages. Helped Linda with html and installed the new pages at ligo.org.

 

(Larry)

-This has been an interesting week in preparation for the temporary office relocation's. Hopefully, everyone now has a location that can work in for a couple of weeks without too many issues. Did spend some time cleaning out some of the offices. Past occupants left a significant amount of material in the offices. Did a walk through with PMA and they had the ceiling tiles replaced in a couple of locations. Did not find any damage from the smoke coming in through the air vents, and it did not look like any of the smoke made it to the computer room. Reviewed how things are going to move and on where everyone is going to, with different people. We will try and get some people moved this week so Mike doesn't have to do everyone at once and by himself.

-Continual monitoring of the backup system. We have definitely outgrown the old system and fortunately Lisa is here and is updating the system.

-Assisted Mike trouble shooting a couple of minor problems with new installs.

-Worked with the DCC on a couple of issues and participated in the committee meeting.

-Worked a number of licensing and procurement issues. Still have a few items to work out with Foundry. The ansys s/w and licensing has arrived. Still working with Caltech on the IDEAS licensing and the SUN OS upgrade licensing.

-The e-mail issues have been many this week. There were a couple of locations that were storming us with spam. We now have most of them blocked. The lsc-all alias list had a problem with another mailserver. When e-mail was sent to lsc-all, one of the aliases would trigger another mailserver to go into a infinite loop and resend the message to lsc-all again. The owner(s) of the alias and the mailserver have been notified of the problem. On the local end the lsc-all list is maintained by another database and whenever that database is updated it would put the offending e-mail alias back into the lsc-all alias file. The owner and programmer of the routine have been notified of the issue.

 

Mail Statistics Feb 03, 2005 - Feb 09, 2005

 

Rejected        10,377

Virus            1,073

False Positive     102

Allowed         13,478

 

Total e-mail    23,855

 

-There was plenty of regular user assistance: account modifications, file restoration, h/w replacement, new accounts...

 


Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)


Systems and Management

Adv. LIGO Systems
from Dennis Coyne

See also:

AL Systems web page

AL Systems email archives

Records Of Decision or Agreement (RODA)

See also the RODA status web page

·        no new RODAs

Requirements

·        Work to define the BS dimensions continues. Mike Smith and Bill Kells are considering scattered light budget and diffraction respectively. Hope to resolve by April SUS update Requirements Review.

Interface Issues

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

·        Coupled SEI/Quad dynamics analysis in modal basis seems to indicate that the perturbation to the SEI control plant may be acceptable. See recent Systems meeting notes. A report is being prepared.

Reviews and special meetings

·        PSL DRR, 3/24 at LLO (day after the LSC)

·        SUS working meetings: Mon 3/21 morning for SUS-Systems/Mechanical issues and 3/24 morning for SUS Electronics interfaces/requirements (Jay, Stuart, et. al.).

·        SUS update DRR (& MC PDR?), April '05
Need to revisit/review the quad SUS design requirements (at least) as the UK starts to ramp up the invested labor effort in the quad SUS noise prototype. Also likely to have LASTI testing on the MC triple completed, so we might have a MC triple SUS preliminary design review (PDR) if there is adequate time to prepare for the PDR while completing the quad controls fabrication and assembly in the same period of time.
Also would like to have an "incremental" quad PDR late this year, after quad controls SUS assembly & installation at LASTI and before testing at LASTI completes so that preliminary lessons learned can be folded into the concurrent noise prototype design effort.

·     COC PDR, ~May, '05

·     SUS OSEM & Electronics Review, June '05

Seismic Isolation

 

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

*SEI Structure:

*ASI has completed 83 out of 130 fabrication and assembly drawings. All 83 of these drawings have been uploaded to their web site for us to review. 34 additional drawings are complete and in various stages of checking with the remaining 13 still in design.

ASI has also uploaded a solidworks model of the HAM SEI structure and a finite element analysis file of the BSC SEI structure. We have downloaded and checked both of these large files.

They are on schedule to deliver the complete design package on 2/28/2005 as scheduled. ASI will deliver a DVD to Ed Jasnow containing all the deliverable documentation. Ed will make copies and send them to Dennis Coyne, Joe Giaime, Brian Lantz and myself to review. A buyoff is then scheduled at ASI for 3/8/2005.

All hardware purchased by ASI will be inventoried and given to Ed Chargois at Caltech. Ed will separate and send to the appropriate people at LIGO.


*Actuators:

*Nothing new.

Suspension

From: "Mark Barton" <maaku@attglobal.net>
 
    AdvLIGO; Laurent Ruet had discovered a bug in the Matlab ASUS pendulum model - the B matrix for the transverse-roll state space was incorrect and was giving the wrong transfer functions. I supplied him with corrected matrix elements and helped him install them.


 

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


AdLIGO Suspensions
Working with the sus team on the upper structure and its process specification. 

Collecting hardware lists from sus team to purchase nuts, bolts and associated hardware.

Had a couple of conversations with Peter King about his photodiode design and how best to suspend it.

 
From: Ken mailand <kmailand@ligo.caltech.edu>


Adv. LIGO
I'm currently learning solidworks, and working on the lower suspension installation arm to move the lower suspension into the BSC chamber. Also Im designing a platform for the modules for the BSC chamber, to fit either the large or small port tube, and to allow positioning possibilities to clear obstructions that may be near the chamber.
 
I spoke to Riccardo re. his previous experience with the air bake ovens, for possible configurations and space requirements. This preliminary hardware design showing an oven with a integral wash cleaning platform was sent for quote. The preliminary cost estimate for this bake oven/cleaning station should be at CIT in about a week.

I have requested a ball park baking estimate from NTS based on our visit, not a quote, just an ROM for our budgeting use. We can use this with Astro-Pacs cleaning estimate and other shipping and handling costs estimates to compare with our in house estimate, for this task.

Core Optics

 

From: Helena Armandula <ahelena@ligo.caltech.edu>
 
Advanced LIGO Coatings
Up-dated information on the inventory web page for "Q" coated substrates.

Advanced LIGO SUS
Gathering blade data with Calum and B. Taylor.

Writing silicate bonding procedure.



Pre-Stabilized Laser

From: Peter King pking@ligo.caltech.edu

 


AdvLIGO PSL
===========
    The exposure test of the high power photodetector came to a halt when a voltage regulator passed out, for reasons unknown.  No damage was evident to the photodiode.  Everything else checked out okay.  The experiment lasted 5 days.

The boards for the second prototype were found to be faulty.  This is believed to be due to an incompatibility between Protel 98 and Protel 2004 in importing the older files into the newer software version.  A large number of ground connections were not fabricated as a result.

    The conceptual design review for the PSL has been scheduled to be March 24th.  The review will be held at LLO.

Auxiliary Optics

 

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


Other Laboratory R&D

From: Riccardo DeSalvo <desalvo@ligo.caltech.edu>
 
Hareem
The maraging paper is now available on NIM
Author Gateway article tracking service from Elsevier
Article title: Study of quality factor and hysteresis associated with the state-of-the-art passive seismic isolation system for gravitational wave interferometrc detectors
Reference: NIMA42883
Journal title: Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A
Corresponding author: Dr. H. Tariq
First author: Dr. R. DeSalvo
Received at Elsevier: 14-SEP-2004
We would like to inform you that your article is now published online via ScienceDirect:
http://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0168900204020637

Alban Remillieux
news about the Mexican Hat production are available in
http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~desalvo/temp/ Mexican-Hat-LMA.ppt

juri
Studying material properties in thin films and coatings and their effects on thermal and thermoelastic noise.
Using the measured profiles of the Mexican Hat mirror which was prepared by the LMA group in Lyon, I provided some simulations for the fundamental mode estimation: this was just a qualitative analysis because for lack of time I just took the measured profile in one direction and assumed cylindrical symmetry. Moreover I used a combination of the ideal mirror profile and the measured mirror profile to underline the importance of the central part deposition with respect to the external part. first impressions http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~desalvo/temp/ Juri-discussion.doc
Now I am building a simplified FFT routine (just for one FP cavity) in order to use the full mirror map for the calculations of the expected mode shape in our cavity. This will be useful also for the analysis of the maps of the three mirrors and prototypes and for misalignment effects.

Marco (03 Feb)
We are preparing the OTF laboratory for the asbestos removal works which will begin the next week.
I took the last data by BeamScanner which will be substitute by the BeamView Analyzer.
I tested the correct behavior of the two PZTs driver boards and now Im assembling its box.
Im continuing to take data at 170oC at the creep experiment.
Marco (08 Feb)
We finished preparing the OTF laboratory and now the works started, the lab is shut for at least two weeks.
I set the frame grabber and the software to evaluate and get confidence with the new profiler. I finished the work on the box layout and I will begin the PZTs driver cabling.
Yesterday Riccardo and I controlled the new suspension blades after their hardening process which we performed two weeks ago. The comparison with the previous data seems showing that the problem is the blades composition, not the precipitation treatment.
As an additional test, we are re-cooking the blades a third time, this time at 480oC for 4 hours, which is the commercial precipitation process, to be sure that the problem is not the oven, but we find it unlikely that the Lucca oven and our oven went bad the same way at the same time. If this time it does not precipitate correctly, it is either material or the surface grinding. We are waiting for ground samples from a different manufacturer for future tests and comparisons
Creep experiment: after a brief rising of the equilibrium point, it has stabilized around 3.35mm. Then I switched the controller temperature from 170oC to 40oC.

Riccardo
writing a conference contribution for the Long Beach ASME meeeting, draft available in http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~desalvo/paper_asme-2005.doc

Justin
Started in earnest the work on the silicon flex joints.
Calibration of the experimental pendulum apparatus with the double pendulum and maraging joints. Initial resonance frequency found around 6 Hz for maraging flex joints through excitation of the intermediate mass.


 

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