Weekly Report for Week Ending May 12, 2005

The LIGO Executive Committee meeting for May 16, 2005 is cancelled due to the meting of the LIGO Staffing Committee.

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights

LSC Issues (Saulson)

No report.

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Petrac)

(LSC MOU updates for Feb. 15, 2005  through Aug. 15, 2005)

All Attachment updates for all active LSC groups are in the final sign-off stage/PIsLSC MOUs and Research Plans and Progress Reports

SITE TELECONFERENCE (Lindquist)

A site teleconference was held on Thursday, May 12, 2005. The following items were among those discussed:

  • Exploratorium -- Installation of exhibits is covered in the contract for Livingston, but it is not included for Hanford.
  • The list of assigned actions updated through May 5, 2005 will be found Here.

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT (Chargois)

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

  • Nothing significant to report.  Caltech's campus inventory is ongoing

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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

  1. Continued participating in the DCC Steering Committee effort.  Completed action items from last meeting of providing access links and references for both Synergy and Agile.  Set up several conference calls for the week of May 23rd with clients from both systems for reference and questioning by the committee members.
  2. Met with Cindy and began planning the SURF orientation for mid-June.

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

  • packages: in - 13, out - 8
  • faxes: in - 35, out - 18
  • No special projects to report.

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

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

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

  • Working on the maintenance renewal with Pacific Coast Office Products for the fax machine.
  •  Followed up on pending deliveries for the campus and the sites. The Mitsubishi battery backup for LLO is shipping today.
  • Completed change order #7 to George Stokes and sent out the change to the vendor.
  •  Completed change order #14 to Venturi Staffing and submitted the change to the vendor. Received the acknowledgement.  Awaiting for a copy of the current insurance policy.
  • Completed change order #10 to Southern Enterprises which removed funds of $127.90 from LIGO.EPI 1. The change has been sent and acknowledged by the vendor.
  • Made arrangements for a credit to be issued by Office Depot for an incorrect item ordered.
  • Made arrangements for the return of the laser to LaserMill. The credit is expected to be issued upon receipt of the laser.
  •  Completed the internal modification to accommodate payment of the 25% prepayment for the clean room module.

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

  • Nothing significant to report.

>From: Florence Kaufman <fkaufman>

  • Requested that several new accounts be set up - Tasks 2.14, 3.14 , 2.2.6, 2.8.27 and 3.8.27.
  • Requested closure of several fabrication accounts.
  • Requested expenditure type correction for misclassified equipment purchase.
  • Revised Budgets to reflect approved change request to reduce budgets for unfilled labor positions.
  • Updating account number list to reflect various additions and account closures.
  • Working with Gina and Dot to move or close certain encumbrances so that fabrication accounts can be closed per Managers' requests.
  • Financial reports can be found at: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport. (For passwords contact Florence)

SUBCONTRACTS MANAGEMENT (Petrac, Jasnow)

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

  • Nothing significant to report (See above).

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

  • LHO has determined to install the exhibits from the Exploratorium with their own staff.  Under the terms of the contract, LHO would have to pay extra for the Exploratorium to provide these services.  The LLO exhibits include installation and technical support in their pricing.
  • The schedule for the LLO Science Education Center has been revised.  The current schedule calls for completion of a draft 100% drawing package by June 2, a final review completed by June 10, release of the RFQ on June 13, a job walk on June 29, and bids received by July 12.

SUPPORT (Baldon, Hiroto, Lloyd)

>Irene Baldon

  • No report.

>Julie Hiroto <jhiroto@ligo.caltech.edu>

  • Continued to process travel and reconciliations for the Director, and preparations for the Program Advisory Committee meeting (PAC-18) next week at LLO

>Dorothy Lloyd

  • No report.
  • Jim continued with data entry in the LIGO database and helping out in the DCC.

PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist)

As mentioned during the Executive Committee meeting on Monday, April 11, 2005 and last week in the status report, LIGO must submit an Annual Report for Operations by August 1, 2005, and this annual report must be accompanied by a request for a two year extension (FY 2007 and FY 2008) as well as a justification for why Caltech/MIT should be continued in the role of management of LIGO.  I have proposed and distributed a general outline and assignments.

DCC Steering Committee (Lindquist)

The document management system steering committee met on May 12, 2005 to review the status of actions assigned.  We are in progress on on-line tests of several systems and are also scheduling teleconferences to check references.  Next week L. Turner will be attending AIIM conference.

CHANGE CONTROL/CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT (Lindquist)

  • On May 9, 2005 the Executive Committee recommended approval of change request CR-050004 adjusting the FY 2005 budgets to reflect (primarily) actual costs through the first half of the fiscal year.  The change request will be forwarded to the Deputy Director for approval.
  • Daniel Sigg has submitted a change request (CR-050005) for DMT Hardware Expansion.  I will format and distribute copies to the Executive Committee prior to the next meeting.

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)

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

  • A LIGO Staffing Committee meeting is scheduled for Monday, May 16, 2005.  The DRAFT agenda for the meeting has been posted.  All files are posted and up-to-date on the web page.

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)

Commissioning highlights from this week in Hanford are bulleted below, pertaining to general, 4k and 2k issues, respectively.

  • Astrowatch in theory: we're trying to include more detailed information on the state of the IFO(s) and LVEA when archiving astrowatch data to tape, both in elog and archive comments, so it will be easier to reconstruct the site status after-the-fact.
  • Astrowatch in practice: GRB 050509b, a Z=.22 burst on Sunday night (gpstime 799646432), found H1 midway through a 22h lock at 4.8Mpc in range (i.e. no TCS applied).  H2 was locked but only in Acquire++ mode.
  • the LVEA leaked a small amount of rainwater
  • Optical lever photodiodes are saturating on many of the optics in the LVEA, so that we'll install ND filters in front of their lasers.  We've been close to saturation before, so that we might saturate a single quadrant under poor centering.  Curiously, now well centered optical lever beams saturate multiple photodiodes - possibly related to the temperature in the LVEA?

4K IFO

  • Photodiode work has been motivated in part by the discovery of burn spots on ASPDs.  Recall that during S4, one fast shutter was not closing properly and caused burn spots on ASPD2 and 3.  This may be the cause of enhanced sensitivity to acoustic noise during S4: the IFO becomes sensitive to the beam position on photodiodes.  ASPD2 has been replaced.  ASPD3 soon will be.  Initially this week the IFO was running on three photodiodes, as ASPD4 had been turned off (see previous weekly).  Later, ASPD4 was replaced (electronics problem).  The fast shutters were found to be in backwards, and were to be flipped around.
  • Thermal Compensation System (TCS): the high-power 30W laser (a replacement for the existing 8W unit) was installed on the x-arm.  Initial concerns that the chiller had insufficient cooling power were unfounded, as the operating temperature of the head was in the acceptable range of 18-23 degrees.  The TCS annulus beam is thinner than expected, ie. (ro-ri << r).  First illumination on the ITMX showed that we could at least recover 6.7Mpc ranges, however, there is a lot more testing to do, in particular at IFO incident laser powers in excess of 4W into the mode cleaner.  Brief, hour-ish locks at 5W into the MC, and up to 4W on the TCS, were achieved and speculated upon.
  • Seismic upconversion studies: boosts made previously were tested, and did not cure the upconversion problem.

2K IFO

  • H2 was down for an upgrade to the ISS, bringing the machine closer in line with the 4k setup.  First the beam being sent into the main interferometer was aligned and centered on the periscope.  Next the ISS was installed and commissioned, running with a unity gain frequency of 96kHz (gain = 28dB), and a phase margin of 59 degrees.  The IFO returned to decent inspiral ranges beyond 3Mpc on Friday night.
  • When the mode cleaner returned to locking after the ISS work, there was evidence of a shift in yaw alignment.  Strangely, correcting this yaw offset with IOO WFS increases the power both in transmission and on reflection, something that is not supposed to happen.  Relocking the MC on the weekend proved problematic: tandem boots of IOCs and appropriate burt restores seemed critical.
  • ISS teething problems were observed.  Power levels in the IFO have been drifting some 10-15% and arm powers have been up at 3000; this was initially attributed to some quirk of the current shunt/ISS installation, however, read on.
  • The 2k laser power output was measured to be changing by 10%.  This causes problems for the MC, refcav etc.  This problem may require a swapping out of the NPRO (the only spare of which is the aging unit that is coming from LLO).  Through the week the laser continued to yield mixed performance, running well at times with stable powers and poorly at other times with varying power.  Photodiode power supply problems may account for some, or perhaps all, of the problems noted here.  A PS fuse was replaced and we're now assessing the situation.
  • MC WFS continue to be investigated - they're highly variable in gain, leading WFS2 to be later modified and replaced
  • Local damping on 2k optics was adjusted
  • acoustic coupling was observed to be worse at ISCT10 than ISCT7; worse than S3 by a factor of 2 at certain frequencies.  May be due to ugly beam - structure, clipping, poor overlap.

DAQ

  • the IFO Epics status system was moved back from h0statman to iotardis.  A newer, faster and more reliable h0statman IOC is sought.

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

L1 Interferometer (Zucker)

Several major equipment upgrades in progress, so far mostly successful:

  • The CDS network and switch hardware was upgraded to GigE
  • One new framebuilder is in place and the second is under construction.
  • The new fiberoptic CDS timing system was installed and full characterization done of the previous system and the new one. At this writing the new system's timing performance is poor and not understood. We are maintaining both setups in parallel so we can switch back and forth.
  • The main laser was pulled out and shipped back to Lightwave for emergency surgery (it was limping due to a suspected diode failure a couple weeks ago). We installed the hot Hanford spare, since our LLO spare was itself anemic (Thanks Doug and Rick!). New laser has loads of juice; we are back on track to explore the realm of high power.
  • The AWG equipment was installed at the end stations to support the photon calibrators.
  • After some more timing system diagnostics, Rolf and Alex are geared up for upgrading the LSC code to the newest rev this weekend.

Education and Outreach (Thacker)

  • Completing preparations for LEPAC meeting 5/20;
  • Completing preparations for LEN meeting 5/21;
  • Participated in AAPT organizational meeting at LLO; provided minutes
  • Completing preparations for exhibit training at LLO 5/18 & 5/19

Site Safety and Security (Riesen)

Nothing of substance to report this period.

Mechanical Engineering (Spjeld)

AdL Quad SUS Installation Fixtures

  • FEA of transport table with additional side loads complete
  • Completed advisory comments based on design review issues
  • Modifying models to reflect standard Al I- and T-beams
  • Looking into using an alternative distributor for linear drives
  • Detailing of machine drawings in progress

AdL SEI Engineering

  • Review of tolerances and off-the-shelf parts on Ad SEI drawings in progress

General Engineering

  • Redesign of HAM door removal tool in progress

LLO General Computing and LIGO Computing Security (Roddy)

Helped install the CDS networking hardware last Thursday.  There were a couple of issues with the installation, but overall it went smoothly.  This reminded me of the importance of having a dedicated laptop with all necessary cables to interface with the various networking hardware on site.  There was a long delay while we figured out which cable was needed to interface with the switch.  There were a few problems bringing up some of the CDS computers due to NFS cross mounts, etc.

Had some GC issues that coincided with the timing of the CDS network upgrade that originally was suspected to be related, but later found not to be.  It was originally thought that the Fore box that provided an interface to the LVEA GC computers was the culprit and was disconnected, but later found not to be the issue.  The problem seemed to go away when the Fore box was disconnected but appeared later that afternoon.  I then switched to a different network card on the router and rebooted after editing the appropriate files, which also seemed to fix the problem, however the problem appeared again over the weekend.  After coming in to troubleshoot, I suspected a bad port or GBIC on the core switch on GC.  When I moved the interface to different port/GBIC, the problem resolved itself and has not appeared again.

Had a discussion with Rai, Dave, Harry O., Rolf, and Rusyl about the logical network placement of several machines including the RGAs, beam centering, FMCS, etc.  It was decided that for machines that do not provide active feedback into the CDS system, they should be removed from CDS and/or GC and placed into a dedicated private network which would be NAT routed to the internet.  This provides a layer of security while still allowing them to get updates, etc.  Also, this removes a fair amount of "threat" to the CDS system and simplifies things greatly.

Various user support issues as usual.

Setup a laptop for Bonnie.  Helping her with the Macromedia software and a few of its quirks so she can continue developing the replacement web page(s) for LLO.

Need to schedule some downtime on the border router at LLO so as to install another network card and change the configuration on one card. This will change the number of net cards the OS sees and as such will require reconfiguration.  Should be approximately 30 minutes downtime.

Working with Dave on the long term configuration of the CDS VLANs and possibility of incorporating the GC LAN.

Working with Dave also on setting up an "out of band" VLAN and LAN for network devices, including the CDS switches so as to remove TCP/IP connectivity from them on the CDS network.  This will likely be coordinated with the additional private LAN for the RGA machines, etc.

Fixed some issues with the Maple installation here on the Suns.

Ordered a list of various hardware, etc.

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

1)      HPLF news: Last friday I tested the laser for the first time since it was returned to LIGO Livingston. Unfortunately, the outcome was not good. After slowly increasing the pump current to its maximum value and waiting for ten minutes, I heard the the fan sound change its characteristics and a sudden spark. While ramping down the current I started to smell that something was burning.  During the following telecon with IPG Photonics we were informed that it will probably not help to change output wavelength from 1064 nm to 1070 nm. The laser has now been shipped back to IPG for diagnostics.

2)      I have been helping out Peter King with the PSL laser swap out and continued my study of the PSL table power losses.

3)      Continued to think about how to implement a REFL port beam drift compensation system.

CDS software (Khan)

no report

LDAS/Condor Sysadmin and Burst Analysis (Yakushin)

Data storage/Condor/LDAS admin:

1)      Tracked down the problems with LSCdataFind (reported last week) to incompatibility of LSCdataFind client with the following setting (needed by gridFTP): export GLOBUS_TCP_PORT_RANGE=40000,45000 One possible solution is to wrap LSCdataFind in a script that unsets GLOBUS_TCP_PORT_RANGE.

2)      /frames and /dmt file systems are in the process of being reconfigured to better support small files.

3)      Transferred SG6_S4, SG15_S4, SG17_S4 burst MDC frames from PSU.  Transferring the second version of GEO S4 frames to LLO.

Data analysis:

1)      Reran waveburst using the newest science segment list on DARM_ERR, h(t), AS_Q. Comparing the results.

2)      Modifying waveburst scripts to run on the new MDC frames produced by PSU.

3)      Preparing for the waveburst review meeting next week.

Initial LIGO Detector Science & Engineering (Coyne)

from Dennis Coyne

CDS

see also the CDS weekly meeting minutes in the commissioning archives

CDS Software

no report

CDS Hardware

Fiber Optic Timing Link (Sander)

  • Installation at LLO has started.

DMT

  • no report

PSL

PeterKing

  • Lee packed up 10-W laser S/N #119 for shipment to Lightwave.
  • The high power photodetector testing continues.  No problems so far.

Optical Contamination Cavities

Lee Cardenas, Liyuan Zhang

OTF Lab. (W. Bridge) 

Cavity # 1

We have a set of 70ppm REO mirrors introduced into the cavity. Cavity is locked.  The laser power is the same 134mw.  The ring down is 21microsecond.  Absorption measurement is in progress.

Absorption Test Measurement prototype in progress.  New alignment completed and both HeNe and Nd:Yag laser.  Beam meets at one point on top of the mirror surface.  Absorption test performed on the 4ITM05 mirror -- please check here for results.

Scatterometer system in standby

The Quantronix 60 watt laser    In progress

Major! water leak from the supply line from the building,  It flooded the lab.  It has been taken care of already. The laser power supply got wet and it shorted out.  We have replaced some of the burned cables and the main circuit breaker got damaged.  Have restored operation of the 30W laser as of Thursday evening.  In the interim (fearing that the laser would take time to restore, the ITM optic has been moved to the Fizeau interferometer for measurement.

OTF Lab at Lauritsen ROOM 38   No Change!

Cavity #3 

The contamination test for (20) pieces of Glenair Micro-D-connectors still in progress.  Cavity is locked and we are taking measurements  for absorption and ring down.   So far so good.  Two more weeks to go before test to be completed.

Cavity #2  no change

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

The 40 meter Technical Advisory Committee (40m TAC) met on Thursday. Osamu presented a status report: see: http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~omiyaka/20050513_40m_meeting.ppt,  http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~cit40m/Docs/20050513_40m_meeting.pdf

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

In our last report, Akira had achieved first lock in the bond-noise experiment. However, there were some oscillations in the servo. He has since made some changes to the servo and now it behaves quite well. The pendulum oscillations are reduced considerably by the feedback. There is plenty of phase margin at the unity gain frequency (25 Hz at almost the maximum gain), and he managed to take a clean transfer function by relocating the summing junction. He is now in the process of pumping down to take data on steel wires in vacuum.

LASTI (Ottaway)

Laurent Ruet reports:

I tested the vertical new control loop (estimator + modal control) on our triple pendulum here. The damping worked perfectly and exactly like we expected, the re-injection of noise has not been tested yet since we need to find a procedure to test it correctly.

While doing these tests, I notice we probably have a part rubbing on the pendulum, I can use the osems and an offset as a temporary solution, but we'll need to open the tank and check that.

I am now trying to use the control loop for the longitudinal and pitch direction....Unfortunately I have to figure out the method once again since this case is a lot more complicated than the previous one, the coupling between rotation and longitudinal motion makes the situation a lot more complex and the fact the modal matrix is very ill conditioned and is difficult to solve (in simple words I have a lot of trouble separating rotation from translation in the control).

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)

Weekly Physics Meeting

We mainly discussed the current work and future plan for the input optics simulation being done by Sany Yoshida nad his group. Specifically, we discussed results obtained for the effect of motion of mode-matching telescopes on fields in the interferometer.

SimLIGO and FFT work

(Biplab) Studying how exactly Quadrant Photo-diodes work in conjunction with the regular Wave-Front-Sensors (WFS) to control beam-direction and beam splitter motion. Another related question is: how beam shifts in transverse direction could affect the interferometer performance in various possible ways.

With Rana discussed FFT results for WFS 2, 3 and 4: After the improvement in WFS1 at LLO, do we need to tune Gouy phases in other WFSs as well to reduce possible mixing of signal contribution of the target degrees of freedom with that of other unwanted degrees of freedom? Rana thinks the mixing is not so much of a problem as long as the inversion of sensing matrix can be done.

Simulation of 40 meter interferometer

(Monica) Error signal sweeps have been reproduced with e2e simulation for DC response in order to compare them to Twiddle ones. The agreement is good in the linear region of the error signals; there are still some mismatchings due probably to the arm length used in the simulation. Up to now sweeps have been done with a shorter arm (4m); longer arm (40m) takes longer time but simulations with the real 40m setup will be perfomed as next step.

modeler

(Hiro) Continued work on improvement of modeler code.

Alfi

(Bruce)- Continuing work on new implementation of bundle generated connections.

  • Adding the capability to define expected bundle content at bundle input ports on otherwise unconnected root base boxes.

(Melody) Continuing on fixing existing Problem Reports.

  • Currently working on the user interface for allowing the user to choose the display for nodes:  graphic, node name, or a multiline description.
  • Worked on allowing box file nodes to be able to display an icon (jpg or gif).

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)

Creighton:

I fixed a bug in the LAL 2d mesh tiling routines, changing a < comparison to <=.  Occasionally, when two independently-calculated numbers happened to be nearly equal, the code would get stuck in an infinite loop.

Mendell:

Joe Betzwieser and I have worked to validate the StackSlide code using fake data sets that are for the times and duration of the S3 and S4 runs. We are working on further validation using the S3 HW injected pulsars in the real data. I have put a report on our progress on the pulgroup S2 StackSlide Investigations page.

Shawhan:

  • Continued studies of "light dips" during the S4 run, comparing them against KleineWelle triggers to evaluate veto efficiency and success ratio for various dip size thresholds.
  • With Gaby Gonzalez, made final corrections to the S2 binary neutron star inspiral paper before its posting as a gr-qc preprint.

Sutton:

My limited time at work over the past week was split between LIGO-TAMA and theory work on network analyses.  For LIGO-TAMA I set up a small web page detailing the TAMA data conditioning, which was the last significant issue the review committee was concerned about.  I also updated and distributed the LIGO-TAMA bursts paper. The main change was to quantify the uncertainty in the efficiencies and their effects on the upper limits; this was done with Laura Cadonati.  Finally, with Lazzarini and Tinto I've made some progress on understanding "optimal" methods for coherent network searches for bursts.

Yakushin:

1)      Reran waveburst using the newest science segment list on DARM_ERR, h(t), AS_Q. Comparing the results.

2)      Modifying waveburst scripts to run on the new MDC frames produced by PSU.

3)      Preparing for the waveburst review meeting next week.

Lazzarini:

Held a brief meeting of the Calibration Committee to review status of S4 calibration. An interim S4 v2 release will be available very soon.

Continued working with Sutton and Tinto on the extension of the Gursel-Tinto algorithm to arbitrary network dimensions. We identified a statistic made up of the N(N-1)/2 detector cross correlation pairs that can be used to serve both as a threshold detector and a soruce localization algorithm.

LIGO Data Analysis System

Software Systems (Maros for Blackburn)

*LDAS:*

Work continues on cmonClient to improve its handling of resource variables. Included in these changes are PR2724 which deals with the modifying of resource variables, PR2617 which deals with displaying of column headers, and PR2336 which deals with sorting columns based on selecting a column. Currently these changes are on tandem-iii for evaluation.

The command used by cmonClient to retrieve information from the diskcacheAPI about existing segments of data has been fixed (PR2825). The "Cache View" tab will now display the correctly when communicating with a diskcacheAPI that has the correction.

The weekly system testing of LDAS was done on ldas-1.5.66 and the web pages were updated with the results.

*TCLGLOBUS:*

Many of FTP client test cases have been reworked to use a more informative debugging model which allows the level of debugging to be set via the environment variable TEST_VERBOSE_MODE. With this rewrite, many negative test cases where used to ensure the correct error message was being generated and reported properly.

The web  pages have also been reworked to fix navigational inconsistencies. Also, a page was added describing the alpha (0.1.0) release of TCLGLOBUS.

Hardware Systems (Anderson)

Caltech

(Dan Kozak)

  • Finished getting new S2 RDS frames to tape at CIT/LHO/LLO.
  • Continued to reinstate dual copy at CIT, still ongoing.
  • Working on getting some "missing" (at CIT) data (E10/M5/postS3) from LHO using tar/globus-url-copy.  Getting close to done with this.
  • Created a bunch of grid accounts and closed out these (and other) tickets with the Penn State problem tracking system.
  • Handed off the clean up of all gridmap-files to Phil; gave him the "addgriduser" script so he'd know where the various grid-mapfiles live.
  • Fixed weird NFS(?) problem on CIT ldas-grid where reading files in /archive would hang even after they were on disk.  umount/mount fixed it.
  • Installed SAM-QFS 4.3.11 on samtest (Solaris 10) and began testing.

(Phil Ehrens)

  • Adopted responsibility for host and datarobot certificate renewal of LHO grid capable machines.
  • Adopted responsibility for grid-mapfiles of LSC machines and began drafting specification for grid-mapfile installation and propagation of grid user infrastructure. There are still some areas of this that I don't quite understand, but I am making good progress.
  • Worked with Stuart Anderson to analyze and fix various hardware issues in the LDAS-DEV, LDAS-TEST, and LDAS-CIT systems.

(Stuart Anderson)

  • Help with Solaris 10/10GigE/SAM-4.3 testing at Caltech.
  • Started transferring GEO S4 version 2 calibrated frames.
  • Kept up with several Caltech cluster maintenance issues.

Livingston

(Igor Yakushin)

  • Tracked down the problems with LSCdataFind (reported last week) to incompatibility of LSCdataFind client with the following setting (needed by gridFTP): export GLOBUS_TCP_PORT_RANGE=40000,45000  One possible solution is to wrap LSCdataFind in a script that unsets GLOBUS_TCP_PORT_RANGE.
  • /frames and /dmt file systems are in the process of being reconfigured to better support small files.
  • Transferred SG6_S4, SG15_S4, SG17_S4 burst MDC frames from PSU. Transferring the second version of GEO S4 frames to LLO.

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

  • Targets for nodes, air conditioning, and power for the LHO LDAS cluster for S5 have been set. I will be working Richard McCarthy, John Worden, and LIGO and local consultants to finalize the plans to meet these targets this summer.

(Ben Johnson)

  • I have gotten the astrowatch archiver to e-log the segments and comments submitted by the operators. I still need to implement a timeout facility, and at least bring the auto e-log mechanism down to Livingston.
  • Working on getting the publishing script to make its segment publication choices to be made a la the createRDS scripts. This will allow it to publish non-sequentially.
  • Reading up on the new 3510/3511 firmware. I particularly like the sound of the new "check media" command. It may be much lower impact than "check parity". It's similar to the 3ware function, but the manual says that it will regenerate parity if a block on a single disk is bad.
  • Rebooted a down node (47), which had "bad DIMM" symptoms, though it rebooted properly on a powercycle.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT:

(Keith)

Nothing to report.

Livingston:

(Shannon)

  • Helped install the CDS networking hardware last Thursday.  There were a couple of issues with the installation, but overall it went smoothly.  This reminded me of the importance of having a dedicated laptop with all necessary cables to interface with the various networking hardware on site.  There was a long delay while we figured out which cable was needed to interface with the switch.  There were a few problems bringing up some of the CDS computers due to NFS cross mounts, etc.
  • Had some GC issues that coincided with the timing of the CDS network upgrade that originally was suspected to be related, but later found not to be.  It was originally thought that the Fore box that provided an interface to the LVEA GC computers was the culprit and was disconnected, but later found not to be the issue.  The problem seemed to go away when the Fore box was disconnected but appeared later that afternoon.  I then switched to a different network card on the router and rebooted after editing the appropriate files, which also seemed to fix the problem, however the problem appeared again over the weekend. After coming in to troubleshoot, I suspected a bad port or GBIC on the core switch on GC.  When I moved the interface to different port/GBIC, the problem resolved itself and has not appeared again. -Had a discussion with Rai, Dave, Harry O., Rolf, and Rusyl about the logical network placement of several machines including the RGAs, beam centering, FMCS, etc.  It was decided that for machines that do not provide active feedback into the CDS system, they should be removed from CDS and/or GC and placed into a dedicated private network which would be NAT routed to the internet.  This provides a layer of security while still allowing them to get updates, etc.  Also, this removes a fair amount of "threat" to the CDS system and simplifies things greatly.
  • Various user support issues as usual.
  • Setup a laptop for Bonnie.  Helping her with the Macromedia software and a few of its quirks so she can continue developing the replacement web page(s) for LLO.
  • Need to schedule some downtime on the border router at LLO so as to install another network card and change the configuration on one card.  This will change the number of net cards the OS sees and as such will require reconfiguration.  Should be approximately 30 minutes downtime.  Working with Dave on the long term configuration of the CDS VLANs and possibility of incorporating the GC LAN.
  • Working with Dave also on setting up an "out of band" VLAN and LAN for network devices, including the CDS switches so as to remove TCP/IP connectivity from them on the CDS network.  This will likely be coordinated with the additional private LAN for the RGA machines, etc.
  • Fixed some issues with the Maple installation here on the Suns.
  • Ordered a list of various hardware, etc.

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
  • Things are moving forward on the new network connection.  Our current contract is being extended 3 months.  I have the first bid for a backup provider and two more companies have asked for information to bid on the backup.  The time for cut over to the new GigE network is now August.
    • Investigated pricing and lead time for a 10/100 card for the main router which would be used to connect the proposed backup 10 Mb path.
  • Started preparing for the SURF student arrivals.  One student arrived this week the others show up mid June.
  • Helped a user migrate his e-mail from his old computer to his new laptop.

CIT:

(Veronica)

  • LSC:  Updates to the June meeting website.  Working on the registration page script.  Working with MIT on the redo of the website.
  • LIGO:  Roster database troubleshooting and updates.  Website updates.
  • CaJAGWR:  Website updates and user support.

(Mike)

  • Visitor Workstations: I loaded, and setup 5 workstations this week for surf students. This includes loading OS and all General Computing Software.
  • Continued to work the Spam filters with Larry Wallace.
  • I swapped out the printer from the 2nd floor W/B.  This got replaced with DCC's old 8550 printer. Ed Chargois gave me a hand with this. This also included, me having to reload print drivers for all users on the 2nd floor.
  • Continued to burn ghost images to DVD. These images are from the NTSRV'S.
  • Started loading additional computers for surf students.
  • Move equipment around in cubicles to make room for surf students. We ended up turning in some of this equipment to CIT.
  • Calum Torrie: I installed Solid Works 2005 for him. This is for testing purposes before I upgrade all our Solid Works users to 05.
  • Much other user support that mostly included software, and some OS issues.

(Larry)

  • Placed a number of procurements to replace computers in the Computer room in Bridge Annex. Both Unix and Windows based machines.
  • Performed a couple of network tests using a cell phone as a modem. Thanks to Barry and Dennis for letting me use their phones. The network service provided with their cell phones worked out better than planned. The access rate was better than our regular dial-in service. Installation of the s/w though is a long and tedious process.
  • With the modem pool going down on a regular basis, we are now checking it daily to make sure it is up and running. Unfortunately, the problem only shows up when trying to dial in, so checking via the network doesn't really let us know when there is a problem with the system.
  • Assisted a couple of users recover their systems after they had crashed out of them.
  • Worked a couple of logistical issues concerning the power outage for this weekend. Also, involved in working out air-conditioning issues for the computer room. The PMA group is working on getting additional air put in.
  • Moved a number of systems around to different offices. Started moving E2E machines to a office with air-conditioning. We will move the application server this weekend.
  • Moved old equipment that is to be turned-in to CIT to a central point for pickup.
  • Took care of a couple of printer problems. Hardware reset on the printer and in a couple of cases modification of the print driver and setup for the enduser was needed.
  • A number of meetings with the DCC group. Mostly, looking at possible applications to be used for the new DCC system.
  • Worked with Mike on the spam filters. This last week was a lot better in that we spent a lot less time going through them than the week before.

Mail Statistics May 05 - May 11, 05

Reject Messages                                   16,134

Virus Messages                                       1,290

False Positives                                            261

Accepted Messages                              18,429

Total Messages                                     34,563

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

Planning

Carol Wilkinson and Dwight Carter continue to work on scrubbing/revising the construction project cost estimate.

Records Of Decision or Agreement (RODA)

See also the RODA status web page

  • no new RODAs

Requirements

  • nothing new.

Interface Issues

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

  • Continuing coupled SEI/Quad dynamics analysis in modal basis -- a report is being prepared.
  • A small group (GariLynn Billingsley, Dennis Coyne, Peter Fritschel, Bill Kells, Mike Smith, Phil Willems) have been working on establishing the size of the beamsplitter and are close to a recommendation. A report will be issued in a couple of weeks.

Reviews/Meetings

  • Held a monthly systems meeting; meeting notes to be posted soon
  • Held an quadruple suspension installation fixtures review. Review notes will be issued soon by the chairman, Doug Cook. Good review with a go-ahead to build prototypes after some minor issues & suggestions are addressed.
  • Peter Fritschel is arranging a 3-day Systems meeting at Caltech in the week of July 11th. Topics will include: Stable recycling cavities, CDS infrastructure, Lock acquisition & modulation scheme, Modeling of power induced instabilities, and Reassessment of HAM seismic isolation requirements..

Seismic Isolation

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

We have several efforts going to measure and model the BSC structure to better understand the ground noise amplification in the piers. Rich Mittlemon is making measurements between the ground, pier, and chamber. He has posted his results on the LASTI Ilog. We have also created a finite element model of the BSC structure which will allow us to see the effect of structural changes. The finite element model was originally created in Algor. We converted the model to Nastran after finding out that Algor's dampers did not work and we could not create transfer functions.

Suspension

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

Checking drawings for Calum. Finished a tablecloth dummy assembly and detail drawings for the ETF quad. Calum has reviewed them.

Participated in the follow-on installation fixtures review last thursday.

On Friday, I met with Carol, Peter F., Mike Smith and others about the costing for the production input and output mode matching telescopes and input and output mode cleaners. I've submitted redlines to the cost book per the decisions of the group and forwarded them to Jay for redlining the production electronics. The decision was made to change the cost book to reflect a monolithic output mode cleaner design and to add one more suspended photodiode and one more SOS-based input mode matching telescope. I'm working with Carol on cost book details.

Met with the design team on Friday concerning the interface ring design between the upper and lower structures. The meeting was useful and all problems seem to be ironed out, with no changes to the upper structure drawings, which are with the machine shop now.

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

Weekly Report (2 weeks)

Upper Structure

Preparing drawings / parts now that we are going to dip braze the structure.

Remaining parts for the c-ptype

With Russell Jones moving onto CO2 laser work in Glasgow I have been working to finish off the parts associated with the lower structure assembly. this should be completed by Friday. I am also working with Tim Hayler and the rest of the suspension team on the remaining drawings and parts for the suspension parts, deadline of Friday.

Lower Structure face plates

These are currently being made by a local machine shop.

Visits

Ian Wilmut and Norna are visiting next week

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

The installation arm fixture document T050073-00 with added recommendations from the Wednesday 5-4 meeting included, was sent to the DCC out ref. T050073-01.

I’m working on a report for the large item cleaning / baking station. The pros and cons of doing the work in-house at LLO, or contracting the work to LA local vendors, including costs, and other issues.

Core Optics

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

Generated a procedure to be used to qualify the new large oven. At this time is being reviewed by Ken Mailand.

From: Bill Kells <kells@ligo.caltech.edu>

All ongoing issues I am participating in looking at:

  • focusing PRC
  • full modeling [validation] in FFT by Dominquez hill group.
  • ongoing understanding of the net HR loss: the scattering mystery.
  • Now we have a gold mine of data from the testing of H1 ITM replacements.
  • this is being continually siftted with an eye toward Adl requirements: loss cleaning, scatter.
  • Identifying coatings that satisfy both the Adl Q and optical loss requirements.
  • Looking once again at HR uniformity an figure specs. vis a vis Rick S. recent g factor variation measurements. What does this mean for us?

etc. etc.

From: Gregg Harry <gharry@ligo.mit.edu>

We have finished measuring modal Q's on the CSIRO silica/tantala coating that was made using xenon ion bombardment rather than the usual argon.

MODE                   FREQ. (Hz)           Xenon Q          Argon Q (for comparison)

Butterfly                 2697.6                   3.17 10^5        4.4 10^5

Drumhead              4075.7                   2.68 10^5        3.3 10^5

2nd Butterfly           6143.0                   3.35 10^5        4.0 10^5

12                          9434.6                   2.68 10^5        4.1 10^5

13                          9438.3                   2.65 10^5        5.5 10^5

It was hoped that the heavier xenon ion bombardment would result in a denser coating with reduced mechanical loss, but clearly the opposite happened (for the mechanical loss).  The microstructural reasons for this are not clear.

We will continue to look for a few days more for any higher modes, just for fun (to better bridge the frequency gap to the lowest mode of the thick sample at 20 kHz), while waiting for the zero stress coating from CSIRO.  We also will continue measurements on the commercially polished CSIRO silica/tantala coating.

Pre-Stabilized Laser

From: Peter King pking@ligo.caltech.edu

I went over the PSL costing sorting out which items fell into the Lab's scope according to category.  In addition the currency exchange factor was updated.  A stab was made at the spare components necessary for the 200-W laser.

Auxiliary Optics

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

BS DIFFRACTION LOSS

The geometric and diffraction losses caused by bonding flats on the BS appear to be negligible, with reasonable flat dimensions. With BS dimensions D = 370 mm and t = 60 mm, a vertical flat with a 7.5 mm radial cut, results in approximately 20 microwatt power loss in the transmitted arm with the signal recycling mirror input, and approximately 5 microwatt power loss with the power recycling input for a 1 W input to the IFO.

Adding a lens element at the reaction mass (RAM) in front of the ITM to reduce the spot size at the BS is not a good idea. The RAM lens (plano-convex, with R = 9m) steers the beam at the ETM significantly: 0.1 mm displacement of the input beam at the RAM results in 20 mm displacement at the ETM.

SURF

I am making preparations for the two SURF projects this summer: optical lever receiver, and BRDF measurement. I have not been able to locate a lock-in amplifier to borrow.

Other Laboratory R&D

From: "Erika D'Ambrosio" <ambrosio@ligo.caltech.edu>

Marco (11May)

Working on the servo loop implementation. I added an integrator stage in the previous servo amplifier already used to side-lock the cavity. Then it was locked on some high order modes; the transmitted signal was very noisy or very weak. We didn't yet find a good compromise. Pushing the mirrors by piezo actuators the cavity alignment was definitively lost: it seems to me that the applied stress modifies  the mechanical behavior of the mirror alignment system (in other words, pushing the mirrors we are loosing the elasticity of the mirror support).

Juri

I'm working on the calculation of coating thermoelastic noise for finite size test masses when a flat top beam is used to read the mirror surface position; this analysis is part of the planned investigation in the study of the thermal noise suppression using flat top beam, which was presented in the Aspen 2005 GWADW conference.

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