Weekly Report for Week Ending June 23, 2005

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday June 27, 2005 will be:

(Meeting time: 10:30 am Pacific Time)

  1. Announcements
  2. Comments on Weekly Report
  3. LSC Issues (Saulson)
  4. LIGO Lab Operations
      • Administration (Lindquist)
      • Sites (Raab, Zucker, Shoemaker)
      • Commissioning (Fritschel), Detector (Coyne)
      • Campus Research Facilities
        1. 40 Meter (Weinstein)
        2. TN, ( Libbrecht)
        3. LASTI  (Shoemaker)
      • Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)
  5. R&D and Advanced LIGO (Shoemaker)
  6. CHANGE CONTROL BOARD/TECHNICAL REVIEW BOARD SESSION AS NEEDED
    • CR-050006 Incrementing budget for cost/schedule/planning resources for Advanced LIGO (C. Wilkinson)

Special Items:

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights

LSC Issues (Saulson)

no report

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Lindquist)

  • No report.

Non-LSC MOUs (Lindquist)

  • No report.

SITE TELECONFERENCE (Lindquist)

  • There was no site teleconference on Thursday, June 23, 2005.
  • 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>

  • Provided assistance to the Detector Group (H.Armandula) with packing, shipping, and US Customs Documentation for Optic being forwarded to the University Of Glasgow, Dr.Sheila Rowan. Account Number LIGO.OPT 5.4 NSFLIGO.FY02ON.
  • Provided assistance to the Detector Group (H. Armandula) with packing and shipping of Optics being forwarded to Southern University, Dr. S. McGuire. Account Number LIGO.OPT 5.4 NSFLIGO.FY02ON.
  • Provided assistance to the Detector Group (P. Russell) with packing and shipping of an Analyzer, serial number 46506 to Stanford Research Systems for repair .Account Number P204324.
  • Provided assistance to the Directors Office with relocation of Document and Books to LLO for L. Bogue.  Account Number LIGO.LIV 3.1 NSFLIGO.FY02OF.
  • Completed the annual Inventory of Caltech's Athenaeum and Brown's Gym.

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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

  • Participated in the ongoing DCC Steering Committee.  Provided a matrix for use by the committee in comparing the final vendors contending for our selection.
  • Met with LibertyNet to discern whether they provided any features that stood out from our current vendor consideration, particularly in the area of engineering configuration and control.  Received information from them for a "packaging" module that may provide some of the benefits for engineering documentation as seen in the Agile system, but at a more affordable level.  Several committee members will meet today to review this module and determine whether we pursue LibertyNet for their document management program.
  • Had lengthy phone teleconferences with Synergy, Xythos, and Altimate.  We reviewed by line item the many system requirements to better determine the fit of their program to our requirements, and to refresh my memory as to the features offered and the differences between each.  Particular attention was paid the administrator end of their software rather than the end user.  Of the three, Synergy's application seemed to be the most fluid and logical, and appeared to be the easiest in addressing the conversion of legacy documents and the transition into a new program.
  • Worked with Larry to recover 700+ missing emails, among which there were several pertaining to MOU's and MOU attachments.  It appears we recovered a good portion of these and I have begun to assemble a status of where we're at with the latest batch of MOU's from the February 15th submittals.
  • Met with Cleveland to discuss which additional duties from my desk he was in position to absorb so as to make additional time to handle the MOU functions.

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

  • No special projects to report.
  • Activity:

WE 6/23/05

In

Out

Packages

12

9

Faxes

26

9

 

FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Cunningham, Brambila, Kaufman)

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

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

  • Completed change order #1 to the purchase order to Piezosystems to add the increased quantity and to change the ship to location to the LIGO Livingston Observatory. The change has been faxed to the vendor and they have acknowledged receipt.
  • Mailed out the new agreement to Yamilet Gardens. Waiting for the signed agreement to come back along with the certification.
  • The routing for Triad's change orders 16, 162 & 163 were approved and returned. The changes have been submitted to Triad.
  • Completed the closeout of Burns/ Securitas and also Associated Western, who has gone out of business.
  • Completed change order #26 to Support Services to remove funds. Faxed the change to the vendor.
  • Completed change order 9 to Pasadena Eye Medical to add funds for continued services. Faxed the change order to the vendor.
  • Reconciled the Pcard report for June 2005 for a total of 12 transactions for puchases of $7,988.19 less credits of $6,695.96 which amounted to net charges of $1,292.23. Submitted the report to Pcard management.

>From: Florence Kaufman <fkaufman>

SUBCONTRACTS MANAGEMENT (Salone, Jasnow)

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

  • Nothing significant to report.

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

  • We have received the 100 percent drawings submittal for the LLO Science Education Center from the architect, Eskew - Dumez - Ripple.  This includes the Project Manual, which contains the bidding documents, the construction General Provisions, and the scope of work.  These documents are being reviewed and comments will be transmitted to the architect.
  • A decision has been reached to modify the existing Advanced LIGO seismic isolation design by ASI to soften it to allow damping at lower frequencies.  A request has been made to ASI to propose on performing this re-design.
  • Training on the new TechMart purchasing system has begun for campus personnel.  Purchasing Services is scheduling training for LIGO staff at the sites using WEB-X.  The training will be done over one or two sessions.

SUPPORT (Baldon, Hiroto, Lloyd)

>Irene Baldon

  • Processed the paper work for four (4) new/revised trips.  At this time there are four (4) new trips that need to be completed and ticketed before the paper work can be completed (reservations made and prepaid by my P-Card and advance checks made out.  Assisted several LIGO people with their travel arrangements using their P-Cards and made several reservations for outside visitors coming to LIGO/Caltech or one of the LIGO sites.
  • Completed twenty-three (23) Expense Reports and there are seven (7) 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 three (3) reports more than 30 days old.  I have three (3) reports awaiting signature at this time.  Reconciled three (3) P-Card charges for the week requiring telephoning hotels and car rental agencies to verify which traveler used my card and for what amount; and eighty-eight (88) for the month ending June 15th.

>Julie Hiroto jhiroto@ligo.caltech.edu

  • Continued to process and assist with new arrivals of LIGO SURF students.

>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 June 13.
  • 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)

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.  We have submissions for most major sections and are beginning to assemble and edit the report.

DCC Steering Committee (Lindquist)

We met to review information on document management systems that we have looked at thus far and to reduce the field somewhat.  We have scheduled a meeting for a brief look at another system, LibertyNet, to determine whether or not they are worth a serious look (3pm PDT Thursday).  They may provide the engineering capabilities associated with more expensive systems.  We are beginning the process of comparing the attributes of the various systems against our requirements list and may attempt to set up an additional discourse with the vendors for a selected few

CHANGE CONTROL/CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT (Lindquist)

  • CR-050006, to provide additional budget for cost/schedule/planning for Advanced LIGO during FY 2005 and FT 2006 has been distributed for consideration during the Executive Committee meeting scheduled for Monday, June 27, 2005.

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)

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

  • A Staffing Committee meeting was held on June 13, 2005.  The minutes and action items from that Staffing Committee meeting have been posted on the SC web page.  All files for the Staffing Committee are up-to-date and posted on the SC web page.  The next Staffing Committee meeting is scheduled for July 18, 2005
  • Prepared numerous appointment and reappointment memos for various Visitors, Post Docs, and Term Staff
  • Continued to process and assist the newly arrived SURF students
  • No other special activities to report.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

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

(Phil’s note) All of the laser safety Baseline eye exams requested for LIGO SURF students have been completed.  All of these same students attended last Thursday (16 June) laser safety class conducted by Haick Issaian (Caltech Safety Office Radiation Engineer).

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

Summary of Commissioning Activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory (Landry)

Having not reached a reliable 10Mpc on H1, the decision has been made to vent Wed June 29 and swap the 4k ITMX.  The optic arrived last Friday, was cleaned early this week via drag-wiping with very pure methanol, magnets were attached and the optic balanced.  ITMX went into bake oven Thursday, and will likely stay there until about Monday.  ITMY, less absorptive than ITMX by a factor of 2.5 (but that is still too much) will be drag-wiped in situ at the time of ITMX installation.  Based on previous vents, we expect pump down to last a few weeks, although we should be ready for a peek down the arms after one day.

It is argued here  that up conversion previously observed to be associated with ETM optic table motion is in detail attributable to scattering from the table, most likely the optic cage. Suggested mitigation is to erect the arm cavity baffles. This raises the prospect for a second vent, this one for the outbuildings.  There is some debate on when to do this.  It is preferable to raise the baffles soon, say after the July 4th holiday, but we also want to ensure no harm has been done during the ITMX replacement.  The date for the second vent thus has not been finalized.  We also need to ensure that photon calibrators have access to end test masses, and the baffle design for future installation in the corner station accounts for TCS lasers.

Our full complement of SURF students has now arrived and we welcome them to LHO.

Some highlights from the past week of elogs are bulleted below.

4K IFO

  • A new TCS mask (the "sunburst-design") was tried, resulting in a 10% higher amplitude calibration line.  The mask occults about a factor of 2 more light however; we'll have to modify the TCS table layout to get power back.
  • Modulating power of TCS laser by actuating on power supply failed when implemented as a servo loop, due to limited bandwidth and a varying frequency response
  • the readout of the ITMX TCS laser was improved with the installation of a new preamp and the increase of light on the photodiode
  • the noise budget code received several updates
  • ITM beam spots were centered with the help of angle-to-length scripts and the beam centering servo

2K IFO

  • the crystal oscillator was re-installed, this time with low-noise distribution
  • the TCS servo was tested with 600mW in the Y arm, 200mW in the X arm under annulus heating. This zeroes out the error signal asi_corr but the length noise does not improve
  • new acoustic features have been observed near 70 and 90 Hz
  • mirror gains were tuned to decouple angle and length (more here on this)
  • more light was landed on WFS3 and WFS4
  • a 2k power up run was described
  • notes on running with the TCS were elogged
  • the installation of an H2 REFL beam dump did not eliminate some acoustic peaks, as hoped

Outreach (D. Ingram)

LHO hosted Tri-Cities State Senator Jerome Delvin for a visit on 6/16.  We measured the circumference of the earth on 6/18 under mostly clear skies (finally!).

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

L1 Interferometer (Frolov)

The laser power into the interferometer was increased from 4.5 W to 6.3 W.  The interferometer noise above 200 Hz did not change significantly when power was increased, indicating that we are not dominated by shot noise at high frequencies. The contribution of the laser frequency noise was measured to be comparable to the shot noise in this frequency range which would explain the lack of the noise improvement with power increase.

There was a lightning strike on Saturday which caused several glitches including a main laser power fault, a pick-off beam shutter fault, and a reflected port photodetector interface board malfunction. The Monday trip of the CDS toroidal transformer could also be related to the strike. The transformer load was marginal and redistributed after the trip.

Interferometer locking was recovered so far to common mode but not to low noise mode yet.

(MZ adds) An anomalous source of 60 Hz magnetic flux was found at the Y end station (50x the normal level measured at the ETMy chamber, apparently due to an electrical wiring error in the wall). Once the interferometer recovers we are hoping its removal will finally improve the stubborn 60 Hz line noise in the spectrum.

Education and Outreach (Thacker)

1. Continuing cooperative effort with Tangipahoa Schools Teacher Professional Development Workshop - this group will be on-site for another week;

2. Working with two RET teachers to coordinate lesson plans, demonstrations and exhibit materials;

3. Coordinated student visit from UT Brownsville, TX .  40 undergraduate and beginning graduate students (attending the gravitational wave summer school at UTB) and 16 high school students who have been taking Modern Astronomy classes at UTB.

Site Safety and Security (Riesen)

no report

Mechanical Engineering (Spjeld)

AdL Quad SUS Installation Fixtures

  • Awaiting feedback on redesigned drive-lift arm interface
  • Working on manufacturing drawings
  • Looking at clearance and tolerance issues

AdL SEI Engineering

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

LIGO Outreach Building - Pendulum Exhibit

  • Redesign of truss and fenders complete; pendulum-lock nearly complete
  • Redesign awaiting review and approval
  • Spoke with sales engineer for structural steel manufacturer
  • Plan on having manufacturing drawings for quote ready shortly

General Engineering

  • Received one quote on HAM door removal tool; design awaiting approval
  • Plan on building a wooden mock-up prototype of the HAM removal tool
  • Working on illustrations of BSC and HAM for new educational posters

LLO General Computing and LIGO Computing Security (Roddy)

Since 4:30 AM 6/16/05 the network connection has been stable between LLO and LSU.  There have been no outages due to the Bell circuit.

Continuing to work on organizing the computer lab.  Installed the KVM, etc.  Still a lot to go.

Installed an IDS system on a spare server.  Running ACID/MySQL and snort on the sensor.  It generated over 20,000 alerts in a short period of time.  Most are items that need to be tuned out of the configuration (public snmp for example).  I hope to get the false alarm rate down and then start monitoring it.  I will then work with Dave and/or Christine on duplicating this at Hanford.

More SURF support.  Accounts, passwords, software installs, etc.

Continuing to work with Solsoft on getting a quote to upgrade the LLO license.  Expecting a quote this evening and then will try to get it through before the end of the month.

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

1) HPLF news: I have continued to test the OptiSource half wave plates and the  CVI high power thin film plate polarizers at 100 W. We now believe that we can get a polarization extinction ratio of about 200:1 even at full power without any detectable thermal distortions. I confirmed that the thermal lensing previously observed originates in the Thorlabs 2 inch lenses and also in the Thorlabs mirrors. We are now looking for some better high power optics to purchase and test.

2) Have been discussing details of the REFL port beam stabilization system with  Luke Williams at the University of Florida, who is presently producing drawings for the mirror holders. Have also been planning how to modify some of the periscope mounting plates, since we need to displace the mirrors a little due to the size of the PZT system and the periscope adjustable parts will then run out of their range.

CDS software (Khan)

no report

LDAS/Condor SysAdmin and Burst Analysis (Yakushin)

Igor is on travel this week, presenting results at the Amaldi meeting.

Initial LIGO Detector Science & Engineering (Coyne)

from Dennis Coyne

CDS

see also the CDS weekly meeting minutes in the commissioning archives

CDS Software

Rolf Bork

  • Loaded new software at 40m lab. Primarily, it was a recompilation of existing code to incorporate the recent changes to the generic filter module library. We ran into some problems with the corner suspension controller processors running too long with the new updates (in 40m lab, each CPU runs 4 optics vs 2 at the sites). The code was further optimized and the double precision code added and then the code came back into the 61usec window. Some problems are still noted when AWG runs in that all CPU times go up whenever any excitations are selected. We are looking into that problem.
  • Working on adding tilt correction to the HEPI software for LLO. The code should be complete within the next few days and ready for testing.  Installation is scheduled for the week of July 18 at LLO.

CDS Hardware

Ben Abbott

LSC RFPD:

1)      8 PDs will begin testing tomorrow.  There was a holdup because we ran out of photodiodes.  Rusyl is sending us some, and they should be here tomorrow morning.  Once they arrive, they can be put in and tested quite rapidly.

2)      2 of 3 sets of parts for the second round of PDs have come back from the machine shop, the last set should be back shortly.

DMT

no report

PSL

PeterKing

Problems continue with aligning the optical train from NPRO S/N #332.  After the mode-matching optics the beam propagation was measured around the intended waist region.  Considering the measured beam size and the calculated beam size and location do not match, it makes things a little tedious.  After adjusting lenses to make the beam size the desired size and in approximately the desired location, the cavity visibility was drastically lower than expected given the beam measurements.  I still have not resolved this yet, to my satisfaction.

REFL Beam Stabilization

Mike Smith

I helped Peter Fritschel and the U. FL group with the design of the PZT steering mirror and mount that will be used in the REFL port.

4ITM04 Spare Optic

Lee Cardenas, Liyuan Zhang, Helena Armandula

The measurement for AR scattering for the 4ITM04 is in progress. We'll be performing the same etching procedure used on the H1 ETMx replacement optic (4ITM05) to this mirror to achieve an AR coating reflectivity of ~900ppm.

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

IFO commissioning:

  • Rob has been working on locking the IFO, and says we are now back to where we were before all of last week's earthquakes. There were a variety of cable problems, misalignments, etc.
  • Rob and Ryan are working nights to acheive full lock. The DRMI+2ARMs locking was fast & easy on Wed night (REFL_33I for PRC, REFL_33Q for MICH, PO_199 for SRC), needing only occasional re-alignment. The hand off of the DRMI DOFs to differential demod signals work well. Handing off DARM to RF (AP 166Q) still works well. With a ~150 pm offset to CARM, an RSE peak at ~5kHz is visible in the response function, in good agreement with Finesse prediction.
  • Rob is working on new LSC code to dynamically compensate for coupled cavity pole motion as CARM offset is reduced. He tried using this to transfer control of CARM to an offset RF signal and then reduce the offset, but so far, it has not worked. Work on the compensating filter is continuing.

IFO modeling and DC detection development:

  • Rob is modeling the design of filters to dynamically compensate for coupled cavity pole motion as CARM offset is reduced. He modeled the arm power and the coupled-cavity pole (or response peak) as the CARM offset is reduced. He then measured these things on the detector; they qualitatively agree well. Next step is to apply this filter on the detector as CARM offset is reduced.
  • Ryan is learning the theory and practice of calibration and noise budgets.
  • Marcus is making plots of properties of OMC designs.
  • Mike Smith is reviewing his design for the DC detect in-vac beamline, including the mode matching telescope and output mode cleaner. He will work with Rob and Marcus to implement a final design.
  • We will have a review of the DC detection experimental plan on July 19.

Electronics, controls:

  • Rolf and Alex made some major mods to the front end code, per request from Rana:
    • Added gain ramping, double precision filters, bumpless transfer to the digital filtering of all systems (DSC, ETMX, ETMY, ASC, IO).
    • Added the two "initial pointing" QPDS (IPPOS and IPANG) to the front end readout and ASC system, and changed the layout of the servos and screens.
    • Added the IOO PZTs and the in-vac IFO PZTs to the ASC system.
    • The DSC for the SRM used to fall out of synch quite often; with new DSC code, this is now gone.
  • The new front end code slows down considerably when the AWG is used. Actually, this was happening before the change to the new code. Something's wrong with the AWG. Alex is working on it.
  • Ben and Jay verified the IP-POS and IP-ANG inputs from the QPDs all the way through to the dataviewer readbacks. They also verified the 4 outputs to the PZTs at the output of the AI board. All are correct and operational. Schematics have been updated.
  • Ben moved the ETMX Oplev signals so that IP-ANG signals could share a Pentek with them. Both sets of signals now come out of their interface cards from their front panel monitors, and are sent to a Generic Pentek Interface Board, and are sent to the Pentek from there.
  • Dan took new measurements of all 10 free-swinging optics. He compiled a comprehensive table of the POS, PIT, YAW, SIDE and BOUNCE frequencies of all optics, comparing with the results obtained by Shihori ~8 months ago. There are a variety of strange anomalies: no SIDE pendulum frequency is apparent in ETMX and ETMY; the SIDE pendulum frequency is higher than the POS frequency in all optics except for SRM, which is reversed; some OSEMs don't see side motion at all; some SIDE OSEMS don't see POS motion at all...
  • Dan now has all the info he needs to implement the diagonalization procedure, including POS/PIT decoupling filters, for all 10 optics. That work will commence, next.
  • Steve is monitoring all the suspension readbacks, including the POS,PIT,YAW monitor signals that have been newly added to the frames. He is collecting data on which signals changed significantly due to last week's earthquakes.
  • The AP166 PD was burnt brown. Dan replaced the PD, and Rob reduced the power on the beamline by ~75% to reduce the chance of this happening again. Ben will get a new tuned HF RFPD to replace it.
  • The power supplies for the LSC rack continue to operate at close to their limits. Ben and Jay plan to redo the power for rack, using augmenting the linear power supplies with spare sorensens.
  • Bob is continuing to survey cables and wiring throughout the lab for labels, loose connections, strain relief, incorrect grounding.

Lab Infrastructure:

  • Ryan and Marcus has laser entrance eye exams on Friday.
  • Steve did some maintenance on the dry scroll forepumps.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

No report.

LASTI (Ottaway)

No report.

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)

Outreach

(Biplab) Helped Sany Yoshida and his students (at LLO) in simulation of Input Optics System. (i) The problem of failure in locking SimLIGO (when the Input Optics system modeled by Sany's group is included in SimLIGO set-up) is solved now.  (ii) The modeling of Mode Cleaner Wave Front System started.

Alfi

(Bruce) Worked on Misc issues in the problem report database.

(Melody)  Continuing with fixing the Problem Reports (PRs). Finished working on PR 482.  Now working on PR 448 - don't allow blank port input settings.

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)

Chatterji:

Applied the Q pipeline to 24 hours of simulated coincident data from LIGO and Virgo to evaluate the detection efficiency and false rates of various detector combinations for burst from the direction of the galactic center.  The results comprise part of the LIGO/Virgo joint talk at Amaldi 6.

I am also Investigating systematic ways of tuning the Q pipeline for networks of detectors, where the sensitivities and glitch rates vary from detector to detector.

Working with a SURF student, Sahad Hormoz of the University of Toronto, to implement an extension of the Q pipeline to target a specific position on the sky.  The work is currently in the design stages.

Updating Fr and FrContrib packages in LIGOTools to include the newest version of the Virgo FrameL library as well as high level tools for reading frame data into Matlab.

Mendell:

I am transferring S4 SFTs from UWM to LHO, and preparing for the start of the StackSlide code review on Friday, June 24, 2005.

Searle (ANU Summer visitor):

Put aside further development of Sutton code base to concentrate on properly defining the statistics of the algorithm. Worked with Tinto and Stein to satisfy ourselves that subtracting optimal strain estimate did not produce data independent of strain.  Began work on determining which of the space of null streams should be used.  Decided on orthonormal basis for null space of detectors, which should yield unit N-2 dimensional Gaussian for Gaussian detectors. Implemented in the frequency domain for white noise case and tested it.  Wrote up orthonormal null streams method, in the process refining both the description and implementation in terms of null space of matrix of antenna patterns, and generalizing to colored noise.  This may be expanded to a paper.

(Stein has checked equivalence to GT in 3, 4 detector cases.) Improved visualization of results.

Shawhan:

  • Spent a lot of time helping SURF students get going with their projects.
  • Reviewed pulsar analyses.

Lazzarini:

Worked with Romano and Anderson on the final review of the S3 stochastic paper; reviewed/amended the paper's approach to incorporating calibration errors/uncertainties into the Bayesian formalism.

LIGO Data Analysis System

Software Systems (Blackburn)

LDAS:

Disassembled the LDAS-DEV cluster for use in the OSG Integration Testbed cluster being set up here at Caltech. The LDAS-DEV system has a single node that is available as a virtual cluster of nodes for any testing of mpi based code. This is similar to the configurations used on the tandem system.

Have finished work to reconcile FrProcData::tRange and FrProcData::fRange with the underlying FrVect data segment. This is done dynamically when the calls to FrProcData::GetTRange( ) and FrProcData::GetFRange( ) are made.

Continued work on problem report 2824 dealing with adding a -no-metadata-check.

This option would actually duplicate the check done by -checkframetimes and is being merged with that option to reduce complexity. Currently I am working on the RDS routines to support use of the time range specified by the file instead of the filename. As the code currently stands, 2 of our standard createRDS commands fail so the code remains in development on a tandem system and has not been committed to CVS.

Made a few minor enhancements to the controlMonitorAPI's client to better support incorrect username/password combinations in the user test section. Also removed all lock files from the "all users test" and "node/test" codes.

Performed the weekly integration and system testing. Have confirmed that the dataConditionAPI is leaking objects in the C++ layer. It is not clear at this time if the objects being leaked are managed by C++ or the TCL layer. Have been testing for the same object leaking in the 1.6.0 released version of LDAS on the LDAS-TEST system to isolate the time these leaks were introduced into the code. More testing needed to determine if the same leaks were in the last release's code base. Also worked on fixing the frame-to-ilwd test suite which has not been functioning since the frameAPI was overhauled for performance improvements more than a year ago.

TCLGLOBUS:

Upgraded the tclglobus development box to FC3. Have reinstalled the web pages and made significant improvements in the online documentation.

Setup a GridFTP server on the tclproxy box for use in testing the tclglobus code after a request to not use other LSC gridFTP boxes was made by the system administration group. Encountered difficulties with authentication and it turned out that the server was using GSI callout instead of grid-mapfile. Removed two files (gsi-authz.conf and gsi-gaa.conf) from /etc/xinetd.d directory.

Modified the callback code to support multiple threads under the Globus thread model when the TCL thread extension package was being used.

Fixed the last know memory leak in the code base.

Began testing the code base against Globus 3.2, Globus 4 and threaded Globus 4 under FC3. Currently configuring bosco to do the same testing under RH9. Have found a bug in the code while testing under Globus 4 on FC3 without the debugging option turned on. Reviewing code changes to isolate the source of the bug.

OSG & GRID COMPUTING:

Using the LDAS-DEV cluster components, have set up an OSG testbed cluster for use int the OSG integration activity. We are currently configuring the cluster. The gatekeeper (gateway) box is now recognized by MonaLISA. Will be working on getting Condor, MIS-CI, GridCat, Prima and GUMS configured. Several of these will need inputs from the registration of a LIGO VO VOMS server which is being handled by PSU.

Obtained a shell script from Phil Ehrens to automate the software deployment onto the worker nodes.

Hardware Systems (Anderson)

Caltech

(Dan Kozak)

(Phil Ehrens)

  • Installed Solaris 10 on dataserver-test.
  • Built Apache-2.0.54/Subversion-1.2.0 on dziban as user:group apache:apache.
  • Added 11 new grid users to the CIT GRID system.  First attempt to automate this procedure proved to be too complex to be worth the effort. New data collected during semi-manual addition should make automation easier on the next try.
  • Returned 4 rma'd memory dimms to ASA computers.
  • Continued integration of automated grid environment installation/setup into desktop configure scripts.  Some gray areas still exist, such as the actual install location under ldcg(?) of files that can be symlinks.  The editing of files on ldas-gridmon is nearly impossible due to system load.

(Stuart Anderson)

  • Added a dedicated GigE connection for the cluster nodes at CIT to directly access the frame archive.
  • Moved the home directory of several test cluster users to the new frame archive.
  • Helped LHO to integrate SAM-QFS support on the Linux cluster.
  • Investigating discrepencies in the output of du and sdu on SAM-QFS.
  • Discussed future hardware/software plans with Sun Engineers.
  • Continued testing of Fedora Core 4.
  • Created a CVS repository for the calibration team.
  • Reported 2 problems with Condor-6.7.8 and the new support for local file I/O.

MIT

(Keith Bayer)

  • Upgraded Condor to version 6.7.8.
  • Installed cronjob for condor log rotation.
  • Upgraded firmware on 3ware 7500 cards.
  • Still need to upgrade firmware on 8500 cards that tw_cli cannot recognize (drives are actively being used).

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

  • My main system administration work for the last week has been continuing with plans to upgrade the power and air conditioning in the LDAS room at LHO, in anticipation of increasing the cluster from 280 to 420 CPUs before S5

(Ben Johnson)

  • Continuing work on the AstroWatch GUI according to input from the operators at LHO.
  • Move LLO's publishing scripts (L0,L1,L3 only) to use the segment algorithm.
  • Exported/imported 46 more tapes into the L700 here this past Saturday. This gave us about 9TB more space according to samfs. 5 days later we're down to 6.6TB left.
  • Added several new users to the cluster and provided user support.
  • Sun came in and replaced all 19x2 expired batteries in the T3s. The tech did this by replacing the entire power supply.
  • /archive and /frames @ LHO now has small file support.
  • Tracked down a corrupted file that crept in during the recovery from the 351x/SAMFS upgrade last week. A good copy of the file was found on fb1's filesystem.
  • Moved Greg and myself to the new /archive/home and did some stress testing. The testing showed that a read-intensive operation on /archive could slow down dataserver enough to impact the createRDS process significantly.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT:

(Keith)

  • LDAP  FC4 using LDAP STARTTLS seg faults at random times.  The autofs  package also does not contain support for TLS yet.  RHEL4 seems to  be even further behind implementing TLS.  So, I'm holding off putting  Linux on GC machines until they support LDAP securely.  Hopefully, I  can come back to it in about 2 months - Linux development is as rapid  as it is unstable...
  • Working on spamd test setup
  • Built DocDB GNU document test suite on vanilla FC3 box and am investigating it
  • Built vanilla FC4 box for urop

Livingston:

(Shannon)

  • Since 4:30 AM 6/16/05 the network connection has been stable between LLO and LSU.  There have been no outages due to the Bell circuit.  Continuing to work on organizing the computer lab.  Installed the KVM, etc.  Still a lot to go.
  • Installed an IDS system on a spare server.  Running ACID/MySQL and snort on the sensor.  It generated over 20,000 alerts in a short period of time.  Most are items that need to be tuned out of the configuration (public snmp for example).  I hope to get the false alarm rate down and then start monitoring it.  I will then work with Dave and/or Christine on duplicating this at Hanford.
  • More SURF support.  Accounts, passwords, software installs, etc.
  • Continuing to work with Solsoft on getting a quote to upgrade the LLO license.  Expecting a quote this evening and then will try to get it through before the end of the month.

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
  • Met with PocketiNet again to discuss hardware required to receive their microwave signal from 11.5 miles away.  This solves the problem of no fiber available from PNNL to NoaNet in Richland and it satisfies PNNL's request that LIGO find a path separate from their's for our backup network.  However, the hardware required to set up a receiver at our site and the monthly expense for a DS3 connection (the minimum bandwidth capable for microwave over an 11.5 mile distance) is going to be too expensive.  PocketiNet will send me a written quote next week.  Richard is talking to LMSI, the keepers of the fiber for the Hanford site, to find out what other options they can offer us.
  • Received and installed the latest version of Mathematica.  This fixed a problem with the old version not being able to read the license file.
  • Edited the printopt.m file so matlab would print in color from the Sun computers.  Installed the latest version of Matlab on the license server.
  • Sorted, labeled and removed hard drives and network cards from 8 computers destined to be disposed of by Ed Chargois next week.  Also have about 20 monitors that Ed will get rid of.
  • Spent more time setting up computers and printers in the staging building for the visiting teachers.
  • Other misc. user support including; purchasing and replacing toner in the plotter, created a new user account for an LSC member, other printer problems and answering questions and getting supplies for the SURF students.

CIT:

(Mike)

  • Kent Blackburn: Reloaded his laptop due to issues with his (win 2000 install) I reloaded his laptop with XP, installed General Computing software, and transferred users data over.
  • Put together another computer for surf students. (This is to run LINUX) This computer had many hardware issues, and is out of warranty. Swapped out parts from other nonoperative computers to put this one together.
  • Calum Torrie: Put together and loaded a workstation for Synchrotron. I had to install a couple of data acquisition cards, which are giving me a hard time trying to fine the correct drivers for XP.  These are old cards came with drivers for win95 to NT4.0. This is still an on going project.
  • Spam Filters: Continued maintenance working with Larry Wallace, searching for false positives.
  • Surf Students: Setup multiple accounts for students, and a few off site visitors that needed CIT accounts; these users are from the Observatories.
  • Rigel: There was a disk failure (home9) Many users did not have access to their home accounts and websites. After running fsck on the disk, and changing a few other configuration files (home9) came back to life. As of now we are keeping a close eye on this drive, so far it seems to be ok.
  • Other misc. user support that included networking, printing and software issues.

(Veronica)

  • LIGO:  Working on the MIT mirror website.  Security patches on the Windows servers.  Roster database updates.  Recaptured and compressed a video for Helena.  Assisted Julie with images for Barry's website.
  • LSC:  Working on the online credit card registration form for the August meeting.  Got an ecommerce account from the Finance services and configured it to run in the test mode, will complete the setup and switch to the working mode as soon as I have the payment options information.  Updates to the authorlist, papers under review webpages.
  • Project Science:  Working with ITS on migrating the website from a LIGO server to an ITS machine.
  • CaJAGWR:  User support in the election of the new Executive Committee.

(Bruce)

  • Ilog Development:                                 (4.0 days)
    • Implementing more powerful entry creation which will allow for multiple images and better formatting capabilities.

(Larry)

  • Worked a couple of purchase items. Misc. equipment for the network and server room, also a new notebook pc.  Started the paperwork for the SUN trade-in units.
  • Spent a good deal of time setting up surf student accounts and getting them situated. Things in that department should calm down next week once we get the machine situation worked out.
  • Worked a number of air-conditioning issues. Things are definitely looking better in that department. We are starting up a number of idle units in the computer room, so far the additional air is handling the extra load.  There are a number of other units that still need to be put on-line but we will not do that until next week after the testing of the air-conditioning system.
  • The regular user support and some troubleshooting on a few systems took place.
  • Spam filtering was interesting this past week. We were hit with a couple of spam storms; fortunately the systems were able to handle them.  Added a number of filter rules for different people.

 

Mail Statistics

June 09-22, 2005

Rejected Messages

34,764

Virus Messages

2,356

False Positives

576

Accepted Messages

33,416

Total Messages

68,180

 

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

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

  • nothing new

Requirements

  • nothing new

Interface Issues

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

  • Working on completing the draft set of Interface Control Documents (ICDs) for the SUS/UK scope
    Completed SUS/UK to SEI, SUS/US, COC and AOS
    Pending and soon to be released: SUS/UK to ISC, INS, SYS
    All are available here

Vacuum Compatibility

Residual Gas Assay (RGA)

See also the Vacuum Bake Lab

Bob Taylor

  • doing oven maintenance this week in preparation for the large number of quad suspension parts that is expected to arrive.
  • ordered cleaning and misc. supplies for the suspension parts.
  • will do baseline scans and calibrations on all five ovens this week and part of next week.
  • The large Air Bake oven is expected to arrive by the first part of next week and I have had meetings with the shops and transportation to prepare for it's arrival.
  • will meet with Janeen today for scheduling the quad suspension parts for vacuum baking.
  • conducting an experiment to confirm the ability to carry out the New large Air Bake Oven Qualification Tests.

 

High-Irradiance, Contamination-Exposure Cavities

Lee Cardenas, Liyuan Zhang

Glenair Micro-D connector test report is pending; passed vacuum compatibility testing. Absorption and loss measurement results are available here

 

Cavity

(Location)

Material/Item

Start

End

Comments

Cavity #1

(OTF Lab, Bridge)

Will place Nd-B-Fe magnets into the cavity next (stepper motor removed & back into the queue)

~6/8

TBD

No Change

Last Week: replaced 70ppm REO mirrors. Power is at 155 mW.

Cavity #2

(OTF Lab, Lauritsen)

NA

NA

NA

No Change

cavity is close to being ready for samples

Cavity #3

(OTF Lab, Lauritsen)

OSEM emitter & photodiode 40 of each, (Dennis Coyne, SUS )

~6/10

~9/10

No Change So far the ring down & absorption measurements indicate that there is no change.

Queue

Priority 1

OSEM Flexi-circuit cable, qty ~ 45

(Helena Armandula, SUS)

To be supplied by Univ. Birmingham (Stuart Aston); Helena is finding out date

TBD

TBD

DuPont Flexible Circuits. The whole part to be constructed of 'flexi' i.e. no 'rigid' sections. (Stuart Aston,Univ. of Birmingham, SUS/UK subsystem)
- Start Laminate: Kapton (LF8515)

(document link: http://www.dupont.com/fcm/products/H-73244.pdf

Coverlay (x2): Kapton (LF0110)

(document link: http://www.dupont.com/fcm/products/H-73245.pdf

DuPont Pyralux Series - Kapton / Acrylic Adhesive system.

(document link: http://www.dupont.com/fcm/products/H-73246.pdf

 

Queue

Priority 2

MMG nickel plated Nd-B-Fe magnets (Helena Armandula, SUS )

TBD

TBD

Vacuum bake & RGA completed

Comprised of sintered 24% Neodimium, 75% Iron, 1% Boron by weight and may contain traces of fully alloyed Cobalt and Dysprosium. The coating is electroless nickel, 10-15 um thick on top of a thin copper layer.

Queue

Priority 3

Stepper Motor (Riccardo DeSalvo, possible SUS or ISC use)

TBD

TBD

Stepper Motor sample had been placed into Cavity #1: Power dropped from 175 mW to ~25 mW after introducing the stepper motor sample, and continues to decrease. It is very hard to keep cavity locked. The stepper motor may have contaminated the mirrors. Will re-test when a cvity becomes available again.

 

Large Item Cleaning Plan/Facility

Ken Mailand

  • The bake oven finished testing and has shipped via ABF trucking, expect arrival early next week.

Meetings & Reviews

  • Future near term planned meetings & reviews are indicated in the table below.
  • Changes since last week:  scheduled 40m DC Readout Review

 

Date

Subsys

Review

Topic(s)

Enabling event(s)

Schedule motivation

 

June, 05

SEI

BSC Critical Design Review 3

review basic requirements, interfaces & dynamic coupling

available analysis/reports

timely decision on proceeding with SEI/BSC prototype for LASTI for integration with the SUS quad prototype

 

Jun 29,30?

ISC/40m

40m DC Readout Review

DC readout experiment

 

 

 

Jul 11-13

SYS

SYS Mtg

CDS Infrastructure & HAM Isolation Requirements

 

 

scheduled

12-Jul
8-11 PT

SUS

PDR, Review 2

Electronics req & design; Focus is on the front end electronics (UK) -- limited Digital controls/electronics (US) review

 

 

scheduled

Jul 19
8-10 PT

ISC/40m

40m DC Readout Review

DC readout experiment

 

 

scheduled

~Aug, 05

SEI

HAM Critical Design Review

Recommendations w.r.t. HAM prototype development based on ETF results

Completion of SEI/BSC critical design reviews; LSC review of ASI HAM configuration design

timely decision on proceeding with SEI/HAM prototype

 

~Sep

SUS

PDR, Review 3

Quad design

Completion of the quad controls prototype assembly;

timely transfer, to RAL & UB efforts, of lessons learned from the controls prototype

 

~Nov

SUS

PDR, Review 4

Quad Installation

Completion of installation at LASTI

Inform the UK final design & noise prototype design effort ASAP

 

~Dec

SUS

PDR, Review 5

Triple design

Available SUS/US staff

Enable SUS/US final design phase

 

~Feb

SUS

PDR, Review 6

quad controls prototype test results
ribbon process/design

completion of LASTI testing

timely incorporation into final design effort on the noise prototype

 

TBD

SUS

PDR, Review 7

BS, FM/ITM SUS design
RM design
non-cavity SUS

design work completion (has yet to start on FM/ITM, not mature for RM)

 

 

Sep

AOS

Stray Light Control, DRR/CD

 

SYS PDR?

primavera late finish 6/15/05

 

TBD

AOS

Thermal Comp., DRR/CD

 

SYS PDR?

 

 

~Oct

SYS

PDR, Review 1

Engineering & Implementation ('generic') Requirements;
Interfaces
Revised Optical Layout
Optomechanical Layout

completion of generic requirements definition; completion of first draft of ICD; revision to optical layout; establish integrated opto-mechanical equipment layout

timely system level definition enables/helps define subsystem reqmnts & design

 

~Dec

SYS

PDR, Review 2

CDS Infrastructure
Stable Recycling Cavities
Lock Acquisition
Modulation Scheme
Power Induced Instability

Sufficient CDS requirements & concept work (also 7/11-13 mtg)
E2E Modeling for AL
40m Progress on Acq. & Mod.

CDS Infrastructure is key to subsystem electronics req.
Stable cavity is key to IO MMT design

 

~Sep

IO

PDR Review 1

Faraday Isolator

SYS PDR?

 

 

~Jan

IO

PDR Review 2

Electro-Optic Modulator

 

 

 

~Mar

IO

PDR Review 3

Mode Matching Telescope

Determination of whether a stable recycling cavity will become part of the AL baseline

 

 

TBD

COC

PDR

 

SYS PDR?

 

 

 

 

From: Jay Heefner <jay@ligo.caltech.edu>

AdL SEI

  • Preliminary schematics for the internal vacuum cabling are in progress. When they are complete, they will be posted on the SEI elog for review and comment.
  • Right now it looks as if most of the electronics needed for ISI can be adapted from those used for HEPI.

AdL CDS

  • Discussions of potential architectures for AdL controls continue.

Seismic Isolation

From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

 

 

From: "Joseph A. Giaime" jgiaime@ligo.phys.lsu.edu

 

 

From: Jay Heefner jay@ligo.caltech.edu

AdL SEI

  • Preliminary schematics for the internal vacuum cabling are in progress. When they are complete, they will be posted on the SEI elog for review and comment.
  • Right now it looks as if most of the electronics needed for ISI can be adapted from those used for HEPI.

Suspension

From: Janeen Romie romie_j@ligo.caltech.edu

Advanced LIGO Suspensions

Working on task, schedule and labor estimates for Carol.  Working with Helena and Caroline on Ribbon, Fiber and Ear task responsibilities . Meeting with Justin this morning about noise prototype schedule issues.

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

QUAD ETM

I have been working on the post welding drawing for the Upper Structure. Tests are continuing on the clamp wire clamp for the upper intermediate stage and I am confident a modification will allow this to work for the controls prototype. The lower structure parts are progressing well and we expect delivery form 4 different workshops by this time next week.

The "clean" drum ended wire, one for the top stage, that we asked the manufacturers in Italy to make for us has arrived and has been annealed in house. I hope to inspect it later this week.

From: Ken mailand kmailand@ligo.caltech.edu

The bake oven finished testing and has shipped via ABF trucking, expect arrival early next week. Making S/W drawings of the Adv. LIGO optical component assemblies for Mike Smith.

Core Optics

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

Adv. LIGO SUS

The clean room in the Synchrotron Lab has been finished and is in operation.

Adv. LIGO Coating Development

Next week we should receive the coated TNI mirrors from LMA.

Had doped coating 1" dia. samples (Formula 1, 3 and 4) cut in fourths and sent for dopant content analysis to S. McGuire and J. Hough, another batch is for Riccardo, we'll  keep one batch as spare.

Received from CSIRO a 3" dia. thin substrate coated with 2 microns of Ta2O5 specially annealed to reduce film stress. The annealing was done until the stress went from compressive to tensile, (270 degrees C)

They are coating a 3" dia. x 1" thick substrate and another 3"dia x 0.100" thick substrate with 4-5 microns of Ta2O5 annealed the same way to corroborate results.

These coatings will help understand? and complete the studies on the contribution of film stress on "Q".

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

  • I am well into a series of FFT runs to produce more precise modal calculations of the effective Qs of characteristic parametric instability scenerios. This is in direct anticipation of the visit here by Blair and Ju next week. We aim to get to the bottom of what is serious for AdL, and what may be irrelevant.
  • I have completed a basic modal calculation of the influence of ROC deviation from nominal on the signal recycling performance of AdL (that is, assume that the arm cavities are both exactly built to resonate at the nominal mode, then how do SRC optical element curvature imperfections degrade the performance?).  I have communicated a criterion for ROC tolerance (as "seen" by the SRC) to Garilynn based on this analysis. Its similarly stringent to that previously floated for the Arm cavities side ROC tolerance.

Pre-Stabilized Laser

From: Peter King pking@ligo.caltech.edu

Shally Saraf's (Stanford) paper on quantum noise measurements in a saturated amplifier has been published and is in last month's Optics Letters.

Some inquiries were made about acquiring an Innolight OEM-version NPRO for intensity stabilisation studies and setting up a technology demonstrator.  We would also seek to demonstrate digital control of the intensity.

Auxiliary Optics

From: Michael Smith smith@ligo.caltech.edu

BS DIFFRACTION LOSS

A revised doc, T-50066-03 BS Diffraction Loss (AdLIGO), was distributed to the DCC.

SURF

SURF students Aabeg and Shasta are designing Gaussian beam optical systems using the ABCD matrix method with Matlab ( thanks to Mark Barton, who gave them some critical  tutorials on using Matlab). The CES is making some pedestals for mounting some of the components. I am awaiting help from Ben Abbot for the QPD readout for the Oplev receiver experiment.

SLC

Ken Mailand is preparing a simplified solid works model of the quad suspension, which I will incorporate as a CAD object into my Zemax non-sequential ray model of the LIGO Vertex.

TCS

I made a conceptual drawing in ACAD of a ring heater and an elliptical baffle to be attached to the quad SUS. This will aid in the AOS_SUS interface discussions that will be held with the UK-SUS group at CIT on July 5 - 12.

Other Laboratory R&D

From: Riccardo DeSalvo desalvo@ligo.caltech.edu

John

Hi everyone. I’m from Glasgow in the south-west of Scotland. I’ve just finished my third year studying physics and mathematics at the University of Glasgow. I live in East Kilbride, a town just outside of Glasgow.  This summer I’ll be working with Marco on the MH interferometer. Over the coming weeks I hope to characterize the different modes of the cavity and determine how efficiently a Gaussian input beam transforms into a mesa beam.  Results will be compared to theoretical predictions to determine whether or not a flat-topped beam is a practicable option for next generation detectors.  This week I have been designing a mode-matching telescope to try and improve the coupling of the cavity to the fundamental MH mode. At present the cavity seems to favor the TEM10 mode. We have also been working on improving the alignment of the input and output optics.

Riccardo

At NAO, assisted tuning a couple of GAS filters in the TAMA-SAS.  The first TAMA-SAS tower  is going to be installed in TAMA in July, the other three at 8-10 week intervals.

At Amaldi, presented poster on the HAM-SAS seismic isolation system for the OMC chambers, available at: http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~desalvo/OMC-SAS-poster-G050309.ppt

Mexican hat presentation on friday, early draft available at http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~desalvo/flat-beams-amaldi-G050310.ppt still missing the new beam scans from Marco and impact evaluation from Juri.  Final version next week.

Optimized coating talk (from Innocenzo Pinto) not yet available, will post it next week.

Marco (22 June)

I worked on getting mesa beam profiles in the laboratory, trying different cavity alignment configurations just driving our piezo translators. Since Friday I also used the folding mirror to align the cavity. Meanwhile, I'm carrying on the comparison with fft simulations. I got the first 2-dimensional fit of a mesa beam profile. It's evident a coupling with some higher order transverse mode, but we have to figure out a rough model for those, different from the theoretical predictions.  I took some cavity spectra: changing the input beam position, only higher order modes were excited. We were able to lock on very circular high order mode beams, without find the fundamental one.  On Monday some needed works are started on our lab: <<run duct through the north wall of 058 C (from the adjacent mechanical room), go halfway into the room and install a register; also change out the fire alarms to the new models. [from Jo Ann Hasbach]>>.

John Miller and I covered the two optical benches and the ends of the cavity pipe. The works should finish before the end of the week.  We will re-start experimental work after their end.

Juri

I worked on Bench2 and I modified the program in order to include the thermal noise evaluations for Mesa Beam done with Mathematica and the coating thickness optimized with genetic algorithms. I started writing the paper for the SPIE conference.

Chiara

During measurements I found a problem with the electromagnetic piston used to "shake" the system; the force the piston applies is too week and the increasing of the power induces piston overheating.  A way to solve this problem could be the replacement of the piston with another stronger actuator.  Now I'm studying this new configuration in order to start with the assembling of the new components.

Still taking classes in the Machine Shop.

For additional information about this report, contact Stan Whitcomb or Phil Lindquist