Weekly Report for Week Ending March 17, 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 March 21, 2005 is cancelled due to the LIGO Scientific Collaboration Committee (LSC) meeting.

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights

Duty cycles for the week at Hanford were high, H1 (83.3%) and H2 (87.0).  The cumulative duty factor thus far at Livingston is 71% with an Inspiral Range of between 6 and 7 Mpc.

LSC Issues (Saulson)

No report.

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Petrac)

LSC MOUs and Research Plans and Progress Reports

  • Nothing significant to report.

For a web page summary showing the status of LSC MOUs and associated Attachment updates 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, March 17, 2005. The following items were among those discussed:

  • Budgetary Issues--How are the sites doing relative to budgets?  As of end of February Hanford was at 86 percent relative to straight line budget.  Livingston is at 75 percent, lower partially because they are not fully staffed.  Also there will be some charges hitting towards the end of the fiscal year in support of the Outreach Center (site preparation, etc.)
  • Conference Call Carrier--a few questions have been raised about sound quality, but overall seems to be working well.  Still need input from D. Coyne.
  • The list of assigned actions updated through March 10, 2005 will be found Here.

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT (Chargois)

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

  • Nothing significant to report.  Assisting with Campus Inventory.

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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

  • No report.

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

  • packages: in - 251, out - 5
  • faxes: in - 25, out - 13
  • Processed a set of HAM drawings from Promec.
  • Processed a set of Adv. LIGO SEI Structure Development drawings.

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

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

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

  • Working on change order #159 to Triad for one renewal.
  • Followed up on a pending credit from Bell Pipe and Supply which the vendor will applying to my credit card for reconciliation on April's report. They have provided me with a copy of the corresponding credit memo.
  • Completed the two no-cost extensions to Hereaus Optics and Taylor Porter.

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

  • Nothing significant to report.

>From: Florence Kaufman <fkaufman>

  • Worked on updating monthly financial reports.
  • Prepared four Cost Transfers last week to correct minor misclassifications of expenditures.
  • Prepared an analysis of expenditures to date and projected expenditures for labor and related costs for the LFNS/5.11 and VINT/5.11 accounts, at the request of Riccardo De Salvo.
  • Responded to a request from Project Accounting to do a funding realignment, which is required whenever expenditures in a project exceed the budget in Oracle for that project.
  • 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.

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

  • The last workshop with the LLO SEC architect, EDR produced a reduction in scope that preserved much of the original functionality while getting the cost estimate back within the budgeted amount.  The next workshop is scheduled for April 20.
  • The NSF has executed the lease amendment for the LLO SEC, and is now in the hands of the LSU attorney, who will have it signed there.  We are now in compliance with the requirements of the LSU/NSF lease for the LLO land.

SUPPORT (Baldon,  Lloyd)

>Irene Baldon

  • Processed the paper work for eight (8) new/revised trips.  There are three (3) trips that need 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 twenty-three (23) Expense Reports and there are thirteen (13) 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 two (2) 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 March 7.
  • 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)

The NSF has indicated that we should have our funding for the second half of the fiscal year very soon.

DCC Steering Committee (Lindquist)

The DCC Steering Committee met March 16, 2005.  Linda Turner has contacted or is in process of contacting several possible vendors and summarized information gleaned to date.  Potential vendors include OpenEDMS, by Altima a Canadian firm, Tower Software, OnBase (four vendors contacted partner with OnBase),. DocStar, Liberty Net, Liberty Information Management Systems, CDG, a customized program from an extension of The Boeing Corp, and CERN EDMS.

CHANGE CONTROL/CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT (Lindquist)

  • No open change requests.

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)

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

  • A staffing meeting was held March 14, 2005.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

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

No report.

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

Summary of Commissioning Activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory (Landry)

  • Despite losing most of Wednesday due to wind gusts (at times in excess of 60mph), duty cycles for the week were high, H1 (83.3%) and H2 (87.0).  Nearby road construction on highway 240 yielded impulse events in both interferometers.
  • Another type of airplane veto: a fighter jet intercepted a prop plane that strayed too near NP2 reactor's airspace.
  • While fully expected, it is good to see gamma ray bursts occurring while in triple coincidence.
  • Under very windy conditions such as those of Wednesday 16th, enhanced dust levels are seen on IFO dark ports.  From these plots it is not clear if this dust is shaken off the table housing or is brought in from outside despite building overpressure.

4K IFO

  • TCS servo mods continued to be suggested.
  • EX seismic noise that has been in the past casually attributed to the vitrification plant on the Hanford site, may be self-induced.  As Hanford VIT plant people know of no seismic drivers in the middle of the night, attention has turned to the LN2 system.
  • The TCS laser power on the y-arm (only) shows large variability.
  • TCS intensity noise was assessed, and a 4k noise budget produced.

2K IFO

  • After floundering a bit last week in range (straying below 3Mpc), a piecewise alignment was done, including restoring FMY back to biases similar to early in S4.  The result was a restored range of 3.3-3.5Mpc.
  • a PRM 24V power supply current-limited, preventing acuire++ operation.
  • 16.5Hz noise made a reappearance in MX.

Outreach (D. Ingram)

  • Vern Sandberg hosted a showing of the film "Death Star" to an audience of roughly 150 visitors on 3/5.  Next on LHO's World Year agenda is National Astronomy Day.

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

S4 Report (Brian O'Reilly)

We had a somewhat rocky week with high winds early on, and high micro-seism towards the end. As evidence of how high our standards have become our duty factor for the last 7 days beginning on March 10th was 76%, 83%, 85%, 88%, 81%, 88% and 47.5%. The last (and lowest) number came from a period of very high microseism and increased activity near the Y-end. One problem noticed during the period of high winds was a saturation of the Streckheisen seismometer DAQ for the transverse directions at the end stations. Turning off sensor correction in these directions seems to have helped our stability.

We briefly interrupted science mode on 3/16 during a period of locking difficulty at LHO (high winds up there). At this time a new PEM channel was added L0:PEM-RADIO_ROOF, which should monitor the external RF bursts that we have seen in the L0:PEM-RADIO_LVEA channel. The antenna is tunedto 24.483 MHz.

For the remainder of the run we plan to take some time to perform PEM injections, and some miscellaneous hardware injections. The plan is to have a post-S4 freeze of the configuration to last until Monday the 28th.

Our cumulative duty factor thus far is 71% with an Inspiral Range of between 6 and 7 Mpc.

Education and Outreach (Thacker)

  • completed NSF grant Annual Report
  • continued Local Educator's Network definition/refinement

Safety and Security (Riesen)

Nothing of substance to report this week.

L1 and AdL Mechanical Engineering (Spjeld)

AdL Quad SUS Installation Fixtures

  • Design review of fixtures in weekly SUS teleconference 3/15
  • Table height requirement and removal of top cross-braces looked into
  • Quote request for IDC linear drives in progress
  • Additional FEA on lift assembly in progress

 

AdL SEI Engineering Effort

  • Reviewed additional released assembly drawings
  • Uploading release drawings and models to PDWorks vault in progress
  • Create drawings from existing tooling in progress

LLO Outreach Facility - Pendulum Exhibit Wall

  • Met with exhibit designers on 3/16; design details clarified
  • Redesign of preliminary wall assembly in progress
  • Looking into possible ball bearing fatigue issues

General Engineering

  • Still awaiting new GS13 sensor platforms from shop
  • Purchased 3D file conversion software in order to provide correct format for NSF animation film producers

LLO General Computing and LIGO Computing Security (Roddy)

no report

CDS Software Support (Khan)

no report

HPLF, Optics Modeling, Data Analysis and L1 Commissioning (Franzen)

  • IPG Photonics reported that they have almost completed the assembly of the broken laser and that they have tested it at +100 W. They will go ahead with a 7 days burn test starting tomorrow Friday March 17.
  • Completed a first draft of a technical note reporting our Melody AdvLIGO mode cleaner simulation results.
  • Have been asked by Sergey Klimenko (UF) to run burstMon off-line on S4 and S3 data using the CIT cluster. Preparing this.

LDAS/Condor Sysadmin and Burst Analysis (Yakushin)

Data archiving/Condor/LDAS admin:

  • Tape drive 2 had a stuck tape in it. It turned out to be the same tape that got stuck in tape drive 5 a few days earlier. StorageTek engineer got it out, tested that the drive is OK and there were no more problems with the tape robot after that. The bad tape LLO346 has been removed from the robot.
  • RDS creating and data archiving are running fine.
  • It was decided to let the grid school users submit their jobs from the same ldas-grid box as other users rather than to configure a separate Condor head node on ldas-pcdev1.

Data analysis:

  • Waveburst online analysis is running fine without a single crash doing trigger production, triple coincidence, web page generation, matching loud events with hardware injections automatically.
  • I have added online software injections of optimal orientation SG235Q8.9 waveform to the online infrastructure. The corresponding web page generation is not quite automated yet. A plot of the efficiency for the high threshold waveburst analysis is posted.
  • Added r-statistics values to the loud trigger table.
  • Added start time column to the loud trigger table.
  • Working on calculating the rate vs geometric significance threshold and the rate vs time shift plots.
  • Working on generating ROC (hrss50 vs rate) plot.
  • My first choice summer SURF student has accepted an offer from another institution so I am considering now other students.

INITIAL LIGO DETECTOR SCIENCE & ENGINEERING (Coyne)

CDS

see also the CDS weekly meeting minutes in the commissioning archives

CDS Software

Rolf Bork

  • Alex has built and installed two linux PCs at the 40m lab. One is setup to be the NFS server, which used to be handled by a Sun450. The second is being used as an operator console. He is now starting work on putting CDS filter modules into EPICS.
  • I have continued work on front end code generation from a GUI. I have had to add some generic routines to our code library to handle front end to EPICS communications and a few other pieces. These are useful for both this auto code generator and hand writing front end code. I am adding a few things to the GUI and script such that the code generator knows what order the front end code is to execute the described tasks. Once this is done (probably today), I should be able to reproduce the 40m ASC code, both front end and EPICS, from a GUI. Since there seems to be interest in being able to use Simulink as the GUI, I will start to look into that next week.

CDS Hardware

Jay Heefner reporting

Fiber Optic Timing Link (Sander)

  • 4 transmitters, 3 fanouts and 19 receivers are fabbed and in test.
  • LeCroy will be here Friday at 10:00 to demo the SDA6000A serial data analyzer.
  • Sander will generate installation and test plans for LLO.

LLO Midstation Vac Control (Jay)

  • 2 IOCs running. Linux and EPICS are installed on IDE flash drive..
  • Received the signal list from Rus.
  • Should be ready to install by next week.

ISS (Flavio)

  • Continued fab and documentation completion

EE Shop (Todd)

  • Building SOS coil drivers.
  • Building LSC PDs.

DMT

no report

PSL

PeterKing

Nothing significant to report.  I was looking into hot-swap controllers for suitability, especially as this might be a concern for the AdvLIGO PSL.

Optical Contamination Cavities

Lee Cardenas, Liyuan Zhang

OTF Lab. (W. Bridge)

Ready

This chamber still locked with two samples, white Ceramabond, and disks of TRA-BOND #2254 color light brown epoxy. Cavity is clean and we are waiting on the new mirrors to be tested for contamination.

Absorption Test Measurement prototype

in standby

Scatterometer system

in progress

We have leveled the optical table and do the scanning again for the mirrors.  We have finished the scattering measurements for the two fused silica 4ITM05, and 4ITM 08 after cleaning the surface. The data results are being treated.  We have installed back the 4ITM08 for reference and scanning is in progress.  We need to make a better calibration, for that we have cleaned a  1.00" mirror (50ppm mirror) and the scattering is much lower(~22uv as compare of 350uv of the big mirrors).  Definitely, the big mirrors such as 4ITM08 has to be cooked!! cleaned. Since the small mirrors prove that the scattering level is much lower after the mirror being cooked cleaned.

The acquisition of a new HEPA unit for the scatterometer enclosure has been decided as we found a new vendor and the unit price is ~$600.  This will take at least 2to 3 weeks before it can be delivered.

The Quantronix 60 watt laser

shut down

OTF Lab at Lauritsen ROOM 38 

Cavity #3

The contamination test for (20) pieces of Glenair Micro-D-connectors still in progress and so far it has been (3/2-3/16/05 about 15 days).  Cavity is locked and we are taking measurements  for absorption and ring down for contamination loss every day. So far so good.  By this time we can say by our previous experience that these elements appear to be clean and acceptable.  How clean? That can be assured with time, it usually needs to be at least 1000 hours before we can fully determined.  (for advance ligo is <= 0.1ppm/yr for absorption loss and <10ppm/yr scattering loss)

Cavity #2  in progress

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

IFO commissioning:

  • Osamu has been working on improving the quality of the DDM signal at SP. He installed an RF amp (+20db) on SP DDM PD, because the dark noise was limited by ADC noise at all frequencies. Now the noise appears to be limited by PD noise (or RF amp noise).
  • As a result of the amplifier, the SP DDM signal is much improved, and the big fluctuation of the DRMI with DDM is gone. However, this good performance does not last so long. After 30 minutes the noise creeps up by a factor 10; but it is still better than before. Could be drifting alignment, demod phases, etc.
  • Osamu has been trying to track down the source of the large drifts in the demod phases required for optimal DDM signals for the DRMI. He found leakage of the POB 199MHz local oscillator into 133MHz PD path, presumably through the RF dividers. He changed the RF divider to one with more isolation. It didn't make a big difference; still investigating demod phase changes.
  • Dan and Rana have sketched out a new layout of the AP table with shorter runs and fewer mirrors, for both the AP and SP beamlines. Dan is calculating beam diameters everywhere, and the required lenses. Steve is ordering the required new optics.
  • Virginio has completed work on the diagonalization of the MC2 output matrix, and measured the resulting couplings. The coupling from POS to pitch & yaw are now much reduced at frequencies below and above the pendulum freq, more in line with the performance of the core optics. This should help in reducing beam jitter in the MC transmitted beam. He also improved the diagonalization scripts in various ways, and will pass the improvements on to Vuk or whoever keeps them.
  • Osamu is preparing a talk on the progress towards lock acquisition of the full DRFPMI configuration for the 40m Technical Advisory Committee meeting at the LSC meeting at LHO next week.

IFO modeling and DC detection development:

  • Rob is preparing a talk on our DC detection experiment for the LSC meeting. Rana is planning a talk about DC detection at the sites.
  • Monica is taking a break from trying to track down discrepancies between transfer functions of small signals calculated with her e2e model and with Twiddle. She's back to modifying her e2e code to add control loops around the plant, and building filter banks. She's also preparing summary slides on the status of her simulation for Osamu's report to the 40m Technical Advisory Committee at next week's LSC meeting.

Electronics, controls, and computing:

  • Dan, Rana and Ben are assembling the new RF frequency multiplier circuit (input: 33 MHz; output: 133, 166, 199 MHz). Rich A. suggested baluns on the input to isolate grounds; Ben is acquiring them.
  • Osamu found that the ITMX suspension is much noisier than the others; the pendulum frequencies are not as well damped. He was not able to improve the damping by adjusting gains or filters. We have long suspected that the side damping is not working, perhaps because of a weak magnet, and Osamu thinks that this can explain the problem. By adjusting the side damping filtering, he improved the pendulum damping significantly.
  • Ben modified the Rev.B coil driver Bias Screen to incorporate a few new features that were desired.
  • Three more SOS coil driver Rev B boards (for the remaining core optics: BS, PRM, SRM) are almost finished at Wilson House. Ben redrew the front panels for them because the original CAD files couldn't be found. They have arrived from Front Panel Express, and Ben will test them for size.
  • Ben ordered a fiber optic to replace a reflective memory cable that had broken.
  • The QPDs on the PSL table track the humidity strongly. Rana suggested that the Pds weren't being properly biased. Ben check; they are biased at +24v straight from the sorensen power supply.
  • Our digital suspension controller (DSC) at ETMX hung, requiring reboot, three times since the fiber timing system was installed and then uninstalled. The entire DSC system went down once. We suspect timing errors, causing channel hopping or other pathologies.
  • Virginio swapped the ETMY STACIS controller with a spare, and it now communicates reliably with the EPICS controls. We now do not have a working spare. Virginio and Ben will look at it to see if it can be fixed easily.
  • Alex built us a new linux-based NFS server (called linux1) for our online software (/cvs/cds/), with 276G mirrored (RAID1) filesystem on two Serial ATA hard drives. He and Jay have switched all (?) of the online computers (EPICS linux boxes, EPICS VME cpus, front end controls, operator workstations) to point to this new machine. All were rebooted and work.
  • Alex set up a web server on linux1 and the conlog web interface, and a samba server so that our windows laptops can mount /cvs/cds and run EPICS.
  • Alex and Jay set up NIS YP services on op140m. All user workstations are NIS clients now, so all CDS network hosts should resolve properly (at long last).
  • Alex and Jay set up two new linux boxes (linux2 and linux3) as operator workstations. They run medm, dataviewer and dtt. They don't yet run ezca stuff. We're checking them out, finding small problems.
  • Steve and Alex tested the new UPS backup system; it does indeed cause the computers to power down gracefully in the event of a protracted power outage.
  • When the PSL and vacuum system EPICS controls are rebooted, certain EPICS channels (toggles) are not being restored correctly. This is apparently a known problem with BURT restore that Rolf is working on.

Bake oven Lab:

  • Bob is working with the electricians to do safety upgrades to the electrical circuits in the Bake oven lab (installing new circuits and power strips). All circuits have been locked out and tagged. The bake oven lab will be down this week for this upgrade.
  • Bob is taking advantage of the down time in the Bake oven lab to connect the temperature controllers to the network, make repairs and do preventative maintenance on the pumps.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

From: Eric Black <black_e@ligo.caltech.edu>

Nothing significant to report this week.

LASTI (Ottaway)

No report.

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)

FFT Study: From Output Port to the Bench

(Biplab) Studied with 'FFTprop' tool how sideband beam properties change as it goes from Beam-Splitter to output optics bench through some optics set-up which reduces its overall width. This study shows that the difference of the width of a cold state beam from that of a hot state beam is about 7% at the beam splitter (where beam size is ~35 mm).  However, this difference increases to about 50% at a position (say of WFS1 or the phase camera) where the beam size is of the order of 1 mm.  This fact is mainly related to the increased level of higher order spatial modes in cold state, which accumulate Gouy phases different from the zeroth order mode (the main content in hot state).

Simulation of 40m advanced interferometer

(Monica) E2E set-up for 40m Interferometer has been modified: the control feedback on the mirror positions has been added and tests to implement a bank of filters have just started. In the meanwhile I'm continuing analytical calculations with Mathematica for a Dual-Recycled Fabry-Perot Michelson cavity.

Alfi

(Bruce)

  • Finishing geometry special case connection mechanics: Problem Report (PR) 355
  • Continuing work on recursive bundle content tracing.

(Melody) Working on fixing existing Problem Reports. Currently working  on PR 449 (a cleanup utility to delete ALFI backup files after a certain amount of time has passed) and PR 471.

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)

Charlton:

This week I've been getting myself set up to start GRID-ifying the stochastic background pipeline:

  • obtained DOE grid certificate and grid account(s)
  • installed LSC datagrid tools, matlab etc on my desktop machine
  • reading through current stochastic pipeline scripts

Mandic:

  • I estimated the S3 H1L1 upper bound on Omega_gw using the Feldman-Cousins method.
  • I worked on the code for implementing time-shifts in the stochastic analysis.
  • With Peter Shawhan, we continued performing hardware injections for the S4 run. In addition to the daily inspiral and burst injections, and the background pulsar injections, we performed triple-coincident stochastic injections, as well as the LLO-ALLEGRO coincident stochastic injections.

Mendell:

Progress on the StackSlide search will be presented at the upcoming PULG F2F and LSC meetings.

Shawhan:

  • With Erik Katsavounidis, revised the S2 LIGO-only untriggered burst search paper and sent it out to the LSC for comment.
  • With Vuk Mandic, did hardware injections.  Also tracked down the origin of the glitches which have been seen to occur when a hardware injection stream is closed.
  • Preparations for the upcoming LSC Meeting and Burst Group face-to-face meeting.

Yakushin:

  • Waveburst online analysis is running fine without a single crash doing trigger production, triple coincidence, web page generation, matching loud events with hardware injections automatically.
  • I have added online software injections of optimal orientation SG235Q8.9 waveform to the online infrastructure. The corresponding web page generation is not quite automated yet. A plot of the efficiency for the high threshold waveburst analysis is posted.
  • Added r-statistics values to the loud trigger table.
  • Added start time column to the loud trigger table.
  • Working on calculating the rate vs geometric significance threshold and the rate vs time shift plots.
  • Working on generating ROC (hrss50 vs rate) plot.
  • My first choice summer SURF student has accepted an offer from another institution so I am considering now other students.

LIGO Data Analysis System

Software Systems (Blackburn)

LDAS:

Focused on migrating LDAS and LDCG over to the new GCC 3.4.3 compiler technologies. This included a removal of the STLPort standard C++ libraries, which we had been using in place of the standard C++ library from GNU. Unfortunately, this compiler has exposed a new problem that we have spent several days trying to understand a new error condition that has entered into LDAS. When stating a file that has been copied via CURl, their is a 5% chance the stat function will report success and the inode number to be zero. The inode number should never be zero.  Plan to next revert to the old tool set and seeing if the problem continues.

Fixed an error in LDAS that caused the token_math_vector  unit test to fail.

Removed building of documentation as to allow the nightly builds of LDAS to succeed.

Fixed several issues with sinstall to get packages built properly.

Still working on PR 2336 resource update page for putting in headers and support of sorting; use BLT treeview widget for this. No progress this week since I have to spend time with ldas testing.

Fixed cleanup_ldas_output.tcl to skip if there are no archive logs for the wrapperAPI.

Testing: ran system test on ldas 1.5.7. Working on getting test scripts running from quark to use persistent sockets to retrieve reply back from tandems and other systems blocked by firewall. Got dataStandAlone scripts to run on tandem-iii without running out of disk space. Created putStandAlone cmds from standalone test results to be included in loops with dataStandAlone. Working on putStandAlone loop tests.

TCLGLOBUS:

Finished testing Globus FTP client functions to move data from tclglobus box to GSIFTP server. The functions are:

  • globus_ftp_client_put()
  • globus_ftp_client_get()
  • globus_ftp_client_register_read()
  • globus_ftp_client_register_write()
  • globus_ftp_client_mkdir()
  • globus_ftp_client_rmdir()
  • globus_ftp_client_delete()
  • globus_ftp_client_list()
  • globus_ftp_client_verbose_list()

Working on test cases to transfer very large files using different attributes used to control the security and performance of an FTP operation provided by Globus FTP client and control packages.

Still working on Perl script to publish the result of each test case on the web.

Five out of 89 SWIG-wrapped Globus FTP Client functions are still buggy:

  • globus_ftp_client_operationattr_get_layout()
  • globus_ftp_client_operationattr_get_tcp_buffer()
  • globus_ftp_client_operationattr_get_dcau()
  • globus_ftp_client_operationattr_get_read_all()
  • globus_ftp_client_exists()

Attended first monthly meeting of the ITR2003 recipients (CIT, MIT, PSU, UWM) to discuss progress on the individual projects that are under the ITR2003 (TclGlobus, DMT, LDR). Also discussed planning for a meeting with our reviews sometime between now and the OSG meeting in Milwaukee in July.

OSG AND GRID COMPUTING:

Succeeded in configuring Condor on our OSG testbed this week. Our use of a non-standard Condor user on the system revealed several bugs in the integration test scripts being used by the OSG integration group to validate OSG sites that are participating in the integration testbed activities. With the Condor now properly configured, our LIGO-CIT-OSG site map on the OSG Grid map is now showing Green.

Kent and Albert have been developing the LSC Computing Plan Model for the LSC Computing Committee. Inputs for the plan have been provided by representatives of each search group. The purpose is to have information based on actual S2/S3 experience and projecting to S4/S5 in order to identify CPU resource shortfalls in the near and longer term future.  THe ultimate usefulness of this plan/model is to develop a needs justification for gaining access to or acquiring new LSC computing resources in the future. At first blush, not surprisingly, CW searches are starting to "flex their muscle". This underscores the need to properly factor in beneficial access to einstein@home cycles as part of any comprehensive LSC-wide plan.

Hardware Systems (Anderson)

Caltech

(Dan Kozak)

  • Fixed lag plot problem caused by bad data points, still no good   data on why this happens.
  • Monitored LDR status and transfer rates.
  • Continued end-to-end md5sum checks on L0 data.  At the current time, all files that have transferred and been checked have passed.
  • Got cleaning tapes in L700 at LLO imported into SAM-QFS's catalog.  While it sill doesn't clean drives automatically, it can now be done with the cleandrive command rather than requiring physical access to the silo.
  • Reorganized all trend frames at CIT into /archive/frames/trend.  Discovered a very peculiar file  (/archive/LHO/minute-trend/archive/H-M-72/H-M-723560400-3600.gwf)  that had a duplicate that didn't compare the same (cmp) but showed the same computed checksum (FrCheck).  Discovered some overlapping (but not identical) files from the ancient past...working on cleaning this up.
  • Repurposed some L0 copy 2 tapes at LHO, working on getting more tape slots available for blank tapes.
  • Received two 3510 disks and put them in the spares unit in Booth.
  • Added grid accounts.
  • Refiled or deleted hundreds of pieces of email...ongoing.

(Stuart Anderson)

  • Working on getting several of the LDAS-TEST cluster nodes back on-line, currently at 6 out of 8 with the last 2 running a final memory check.
  • Monitoring S4 data and metadata activities.
  • Signed up for a 10GigE evaluation test.
  • Inventoried the remaining available electrical power in 215 Synchrotron and 605 Millikan to find a place to put a new OSG cluster.

MIT

(Keith Bayer)

  • Rebuilt my script that adds users to our cluster.
  • Added several more users to cluster.
  • Tested and sent back 5 defective drives to Maxtor.
  • Throughout several that were beyond warranty.

Livingston

(Igor Yakushin)

  • Tape drive 2 had a stuck tape in it. It turned out to be the same   tape that got stuck in tape drive 5 a few days earlier. StorageTek engineer got it out, tested that the drive is OK and there were no more problems with the tape robot after that. The bad tape LLO346 has been removed from the robot.
  • RDS creating and data archiving are running fine.
  • It was decided to let the grid school users submit their jobs from the same ldas-grid box as other users rather than to configure a separate Condor head node on ldas-pcdev1.

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

  • S4 data archiving and RDS generation continues to run smoothly at LHO and LLO.  There are no gaps in the archived raw or RDS data at LHO.  The only gaps in the LLO data due to the power failure and times when both framebuilders have been down or rebooted.

(Ben Johnson)

  • Started publishing minute trend data for S4 and beyond (LHO and LLO).  Added URLs to caltech's RLS/LRC/RLI/etc. catalog.
  • Shipped 63 postS3 L0 second copy data tapes to Caltech.
  • Called Sun about L700/Samfs CAP problem. They recommended patch 118526. As the patch requires a reboot (so says Sun), it will not be applied, as we'll be upgrading to 4.3.x after S4 anyway.
  • Working on polishing up publishing code (making it easier for me to add code to reliably publish different data sets). Also working on a '-c' option to megamd5.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT:

(Keith)

  • Setting up collab machine
  • Trying to get rid of old hardware through MIT property office
  • Spec'd and purchased new pc for high bay DSpace/Matlab work
  • Put NW17 wireless onto backup router while I'm building the  new router with authpf
  • Still investigating Eudora SSL issues with new release 6.2

Livingston:

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
  • Attended a phone conference with Amerion, PNNL, and ESnet to discuss possible options for a backup network service in the event the new PNNL network were to go down.  Nothing much new out of the meeting except that the time for swap over to the new PNNL network keeps moving farther away.  They are still hoping for a June time swap, but are not terminating their existing network contract until Oct.
  • Followed up with NoaNet on another possible networking option.  Still waiting for a quote on this option.
  • Investigated why the mail server attaches the name of the mail server to the return address of the users when sending off-site email.  The result is that I either need to upgrade and re-build the sendmail software or it is possibly due to the way the mail host is defined in the Caltech DNS tables.
  • Created more user accounts for people serving SciMon shifts.
  • Served 3, 1/2 day shifts as an operator in the Control Room.
  • Other misc. user support.

CIT:

(Mike)

  • NTSRV: Loaded a 2003 Server that is being setup to run as a VPN server.  This is still in testing mode. This VPN service is to run the PRISM Project Management software only.
  • Did a lot of calling around to get information on Citrix MetaFrame Access server. This is our second option if the VPN server does not work to serve the PRISM software.
  • Modem Pool: Larry W. and I worked on trouble shooting the 1-800 number hunt sequence. This now looks like the problem we are having is on the phone company's end.
  • Robert Ward: Loaded a new laptop for him with General Computing software and other engineering packages.
  • Calum Torrie: Worked on a visitor's workstation; updating an expired FlexLM license server for Pro Engineering. This was a project due to the server caching the old expired license. After going into the registry, and removing all keys that pointed to the old license, I was able to get this software back up, and running.
  • I loaded a laptop for the loaner pool to turn into Ed Chargois for travel.
  • Worked the spam filters with Larry W.
  • Other misc. onsite/phone user support.

(Veronica)

  • LIGO: Updates / usual upkeep.  Working on a website for the upcoming PAC meeting.  Updates to the last NSF Review pages.  Working on online submit forms for the 40m website per a request from Robert Taylor.
  • Roster database updates.
  • LSC:  Updates to the March meeting website.  Updates to document pages of the LSC website.

(Larry)

  • Working on a number of procurements. We may purchase a new blade for the Foundry system which will allow copper GigE GBIC. This will help eliminate the need for some of the converter boxes.  Purchased a number of computer related items for different people.  Working on a couple of h/w maintenance contracts.  Discovered that the p-card reconciliation is not too bad when you have just a few items. Reconciliation only took about 20 minutes this time, normally I wind up spending 4-8 hours trying to get everything corrected and getting the correct paperwork from the different companies, this is after having put the orders in the computer system.  Finished up the CIT campus maintenance contract for the SUN systems.
  • Resolved a performance issue with the main web server. The main problem was a bad network switch. Unfortunately, there were no error messages on any of the pieces of equipment involved and I had difficulty duplicating the problem, so it took a little bit of time to track down.
  • Hopefully, the modem pool problem has been resolved. It appears the provider had mad some configuration changes which caused the auto hunting feature to work incorrectly in our environment. This problem should be resolved by the end of this week.
  • Worked a couple of printer issues.
  • Worked a number of user issues. Started getting Julie setup with ownership of different accounts, calendars and related items.  Assisted in a couple of different CAD related issues. From one item it appears we will be moving or adding a CAD/FEA workstation to a location where more people can access it. Still a few logistical issues to workout.  Modified a number of user accounts.  Cleaned up a couple of the LSC e-mail issues.
  • Assisted the DCC with a couple of items, including getting things ready for the LSC.
  • Moved the new tape backup system into the computer room and upgraded its network connection to GigE. The system still needs some monitoring, the automatic tagging of tapes for recycling is not working properly.
  • Continual work on the mail server. At least one hour/day is spent on checking for false positives and clearing out different tables.
  • Mail Statistics March 10-16, 05

Accepted Mail   33,635

Virus              420

Rejected Mail   13,096

False Positives    245

 

Total Mail      46,731

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Systems and Management

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

Progress Period from 03.04 to 03.17

Out of the office from 03.09 through 03.15 - Conference at Monterey, CA

Accomplishments:

  • Sub-system PLANNING activities
    • Finished work on the 40-Meter schedule changes.
    • Executed telecoms with Carol and Dwight.
    • Started preparing information regarding the application of indirect costs within the detailed estimate.
  • ROSTER DATABASE:
    • Assisting Irena as needed on record changes.
  • COST BOOK DATABASE:
    • Working with Carol and Dwight regarding structure of the cost book database and, pending changes

Seismic Isolation

From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

Advanced LIGO Seismic Structure

SEI Structure:

ASI delivered all missing drawings and responded to questions submitted to them after we reviewed the documentation package.

ASI is submitting their final invoice, probably this week, and Ed Jasnow will be conducting an audit of the contract beginning Tuesday of next week.  The contract will then be amended to add a fixed price for consulting of 25K if needed during assembly and test.

We have purchased a version of Nastran to allow us to check finite element models created by ASI and make changes if necessary.

Actuators:

We have not recieved any actuators from PSI.

Suspension

From: Janeen Romie romie_j@ligo.caltech.edu

Advanced LIGO Suspensions

Tim Hayler and Ian Wilmut from RAL arrived here on Monday to support quad work. Ian is staying for one week. Tim is here for 3 weeks and will join Calum, Mark, Helena and I at the LSC next week. We thank them both for coming and appreciate their participation.

Solidworks, PDMWorks, Symantec and Algor all seem to work on my desktop now. Thanks Mike Pedraza.

Worked some more on the modeling wanted by the LIGO movie folks.

Primarily working on preparing for the LSC next week.

Submitted a first draft of the ear positioning and alignment document to Helena for comments

From: Ken mailand kmailand@ligo.caltech.edu

I'm currently learning solidworks, and working on the lower suspension installation arm to move the lower suspension into the BSC chamber. I’m doing a more detailed design of the arms, and pivot pin bearing housing. The first algor stress analysis indicates no problem stresses or deflection issues on the preliminary design. I’m selecting a tapered roller bearing common for all the pivot shafts.

One of the module shelf brackets for the BSC chamber has been completed. Further work on the attachment of the chassis box will be done when the chassis box component part has been selected by Todd.

The preliminary cost estimate for this bake oven/cleaning station is ~$45,000 +shipping.

Two other quotes are expected from other vendors.

Core Optics

No report this week.

Pre-Stabilized Laser

From: Peter King pking@ligo.caltech.edu

  • Testing of the high power photodetector continues.  So far so good.
  • I have been working on sorting out some preliminary laser safety related issues for the Conceptual Design Review.  Benno circulated some concerns that the pre-review committee had about the conceptual design.

Auxiliary Optics

From: Michael Smith smith@ligo.caltech.edu

ZEMAX COURSE

I attended an optical design course for the use of ZEMAX to do non-sequential ray tracing. This will be useful in modeling the full ADVLIGO IFO, and for making scattered light calculations.

ADV LIGO

OPTICAL LEVER

I am in the process of modeling and analyzing an optical lever receiver lens with effective focal length variable between 3 to 22 meters. The receiver will be used to make an optical lever system that is sensitive only to angular deviations of the COC mirrors.

I have established a SURF project to develop and characterize an optical lever receiver for ADVLIGO. 

BRDF MEASUREMENT

I have established a SURF project to develop a BRDF measuring apparatus and to characterize suitable materials for use as beam dumps and baffles for ADVLIGO.

Other Laboratory R&D

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

Maddalena

  • Paper on low frequency GAS filters accepted for publication on NIM after modifications.

Juri

  • I upgraded my simulation program in order to include 2D mirror maps, and I made a first run with the Mexican Hat mirror shape obtained in the LMA laboratory. The results qualitatively agree with those obtained by Erika with the standard FFT program. A quantitative comparative analysis and the study of the tilt optimization is the next step.
  • I spent some hours learning the basics of the LIGO control room for my shifts for S4 in Hanford next week.

Alban (LMA)

  • Solved problem with corrective coating alignment, finalizing the production of MH mirrors. The first mirror should be ready within 10 days.

Marco (16 Mar)

  • PZTs driver debugging: finally identified a problem into the -120V power supply. Adjusting its two current/voltage rating potentiometers the voltage fall disappeared only with one board as load. With both the boards as power supply load the fall comes back, even if now the oscillation is weaker and just for little bias inputs. Buying a new PS!
  • The OTF lab should be be ready on Monday 28th of this month. At this moment roof and floor re-building is performed for the first half of the lab. The next Monday I will move all the stuff in the rehabilitated side to complete the works.
  • Maraging measurements: hardness measurements showed that Mesa Beam Cavity blades material was good chemically good but in a poor re-solubilization state and did not precipitate properly. Re-solubilizing in air the bent blades, and then undergoing a precipitation process, their hardness was restored to the value of 51 C-Rockwell scale, close to the typical hardness value for the martensitic arrangement of the maraging lattice (about 52).
  • Creep experiment: we switched blades temperature from 40 to 200oC for the last heating run.

Justin

  • Measuring other resonances.

Riccardo

  • Designed glassy metal GAS blades test setup for Anamaria/David.
  • Studying alternative coating strategies with Pinto’s group in Salerno.

For additional information about this report, contact S. Whitcomb or P. Lindquist