Weekly Report for Week Ending September 1, 2005

The LIGO Executive Committee meeting for September 5, 2005 is cancelled due to the Labor Day holiday.

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights

LSC Issues (Saulson)

No report.

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Lloyd)

LSC MOUs and Research Plans and Progress Reports

  • No report this week (vacation).

Non-LSC MOUs (Lloyd)

  • No report this week (vacation).

SITE TELECONFERENCE (Lindquist)

A site teleconference was scheduled for Thursday, September 1, 2005.  The following issues were among those discussed:

  • Budgets--Through August we project that we will book $24.5 million in expenses.  Last year for the remainder of the year we had $4.6 million in additional expenses.  Based on that we project on the order of $30 million for FY 2005.  Reasons for the decrease relative to last year include $1.9 million less on EPI and $800 K less on Seismic Isolation.  In addition we spent less on Detector Fabrication.  However, we have just approved proceeding with the seismic isolation prototype for LASTI, and there will be additional hardware expenses that have not been reflected in this simple forecast..
  • Relocation of LDAS Equipment—Because of hurricane Katrina we have delayed the due date for of proposals to Thursday September 8.  Livingston expressed concern about the handling of the computers once they get to Louisiana.  The trucking company will unload them.  However, instructions have been issued to hold the equipment in Houston until things get sorted out.
  • Property--NSF Annual Report for property is just about done.  Not due until the end of the month.
  • Louisiana (Katrina)—Reports indicate that there is absolutely no indication that the government has figured out what to do with one million refugees.  LSU is providing shelter for ill and special needs people.  Large encampments may have to be constructed somewhere.  Travel, lodging, water, etc. are all a problem.  Stan has issued the following email:

Until further notice, no one should plan to go to the LIGO Livingston Observatory until the situation there has stabilized.  There are no accommodations available, and the staff there has their hands full dealing with the situation.  I repeat, all travel to LLO should be put on hold until further notice.

The site network is still down, probably due to an interrupted fiber connection.  No email is available to Livingston.  LIGO personnel are advised to use telephones to communicate.  Be patient, multiple tries might be necessary.  They do have the fax machine going and FedEx.  Do not use UPS.  FedEx has been reliable throughout.  We also discussed setting up a temporary phone connection for email service.  P-Card reconciliations will be done by Caltech for Louisiana this month.

  • The list of assigned actions will be found Here. This list has not been visited for several months.  Action 124 concerning a procedure manual is closed.  The decision tree for taxes has been provided and Hanford accepted the document.  Action 126 to work out P-Card reconciliation timing issues with Caltech Administration is closed.  This is an issue that we apparently cannot win.  Action 130 to check with the International Scholar’s Office concerning the rules for VISAs for students and scientists already at Caltech is closed.  Attempts to contact the office elicited no response.  Action 131 was previously closed.

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT (Chargois)

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

  • Provided assistance to LDAS Group (S. Anderson) with arranging the relocation of 140 Computers and 4 Electronic Cabinets, from CIT to LLO.  This equipment was scheduled to arrive on 9/6, but due to the conditions caused by the hurricane, delivery is postponed until further notice.  Account Number LIGO.DAT 1.5.1 NSFLIGO.FY02ON.
  • Provided assistance to the PSL (P. King) with the purchase of new labels for PSL LIGO II. Account Number LIGO.BUS 1.2 NSFLIGO.FY02ON.

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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

  • No report.

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

  • No report (personal day).

COST SCHEDULE CONTROL SYSTEMS (Cunningham, Brambila, Kaufman)

>From: "Cronin, Holly" <Holly.Cronin@caltech.edu>

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

  • Completed the change order to Hereaus Optics for the Suprasil 311 and 312.  Awaiting for the vendor acknowledgement and estimated delivery date.
  • Closed out open purchase orders, completed the purchase order monthly close out report for August 2005, and submitted it to management. The blanket purchase orders are current and unexpired.
  • Released the hold on the laser order with Point Source and proceeded with the order according to the original specifications which the vendor is willing to accommodate us in meeting our requirements.  Provided the researcher with the details of the previous laser orders to assist the end user in determining whether the damaged lasers would be covered under warranty.
  • Followed up on the credit for the sales tax that was charged by the vendor and is pending being credited by the vendor. There are several invoices pending payment until the appropriate credits are received.
  • Reconciled the billed p-card transactions charged on my credit card. There is only one order pending reconciliation which is the order to Newegg. It will be reconciled after the confirmation of goods is received and the approval for payment is provided.

>From: Florence Kaufman <fkaufman>

SUBCONTRACTS MANAGEMENT (Jasnow, Salone)

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

  • Nothing significant to report.

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

  • The date for the receipt of the quotations for relocation of the LDAS equipment at LLO has been moved back from September 1 to September 8 due to Hurricane Katrina.
  • Due to Hurricane Katrina, the low bidder for the LLO Science Education Center, Cangelosi - Ward, had not received any revised prices from his subcontractors.  They have indicated that they will continue to press their subs for these prices.
  • The offices of the architect for the LLO SEC, Eskew- Dumez - Ripple, were severely damaged by the hurricane. They will be looking into setting up a temporary office in Baton Rouge.
  • Sandy Pool introduced his replacement as LIGO counsel, David Flores, to Stan Whitcomb, Phil Lindquist, and Ed Jasnow on Thursday.  David has been with Caltech OGC for many years and is very experienced in contracts.  Sandy has become Caltech's Director of Gifts and Estates.

SUPPORT (Baldon, Hiroto, Lloyd)

>Irene Baldon

  • Processed the paper work for five (5) new/revised trips.  At this time there are three (3) trips completed or in the works but are awaiting the necessary paper work to enter the P-Card system.  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.
  • Monitored situation at Baton Rouge and New Orleans Airports and hotels in the Baton Rouge area due to damage from Hurricane Katrina.  I have had to rebook three (2) trips at this time and expect to have more in the near future.  At this time United Airlines is estimating that the New Orleans Airport will be closed for at least one (1) month, Baton Rouge Airport is open to limited air traffic and the hotels/motels in Baton Rouge cannot guarantee any reservations due to the Louisiana Attorney General's directive that no hotel/motel can turn anyone out of their room even if they have exceeded their original reservation dates.
  • Completed twenty-eight (28) Expense Reports and there are five (5) reports yet to be done.  I continue to contact travelers who have outstanding Expense Reports (more than one (1) month old) to ask for their cooperation in sending me their receipts so that these can be closed in a timely manner.  Presently there are two (2) reports more than thirty (30) days old.   I have two (2) reports awaiting signature at this time.  Worked on copying and recording all the expense reports completed last week to be sent to Travel Audit for final auditing and payment.

>Julie Hiroto

  • The NSF Review of LIGO is scheduled for November 9-11, 2005.
  • Stan is working on a proposed agenda; Tom Lucatorto is preparing the charge for the review panel members; these should be ready in early September, and then we will begin creating and publishing the NSF Review 2005 Webpages.
  • Irene has set aside a block of rooms for the review panel at the Courtyard Marriott.  Rooms may be reserved by contacting the Old Pasadena Courtyard directly (626-403-7600), requesting "In-House Reservations" and indicating the reservation is for LIGO-NSF Review-Caltech Group.
  • Dinner is still being decided.

>Dorothy Lloyd

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

PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist)

The Proposal for an Extension to FY 2007 and FY 2008 and Supplemental Funding for LIGO Operations was previously reported as submitted to the NSF.  The NSF has requested additional material.  Contributors to the Annual Report have been providing additional material.  We are assembling the information provided.

DCC Steering Committee (Lindquist)

Change Request CR-050008 for funding to upgrade the LIGO Document Management System was approved.  We are preparing a statement of work and purchase order.

CHANGE CONTROL/CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT (Lindquist)

  • The following change requests have been approved:

CR-050007, LDAS Operations, Increase Power and Air Conditionaing at the Sites

CR-050008, Replace LIGO Document Management System

The minutes for the LIGO Change Control Board meetings held on July 25 and August 8, 2005 can be found at: M050269-00-P.pdf

The original signed copies of the minutes and the change requests have been sent to the DCC.

  • We conducted a meeting of the LIGO Change Control Board Wednesday, August 31, 2005 to discuss Change Request CR-050009.  The Seismic Isolation Critical Review Committee issued a report (LIGO-M050035-01-M) recommending that we proceed with the fabrication and testing of the ASI version of the BSC seismic isolation prototype at LASTI.  Approval of this change request releases the remaining funds allocated to begin fabrication.  The change request was approved.  Minutes are being prepared.

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)

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

  • A Staffing Committee meeting was held on Monday, August 29, 2005.  The minutes and action items from the 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.
  • Prepared numerous appointment and reappointment memos for various Visitors, Post Docs, and Staff.

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)

During evening hours, H1 ranges were above 10Mpc.  Daytime running however saw low frequency noise upconverted into the gravity wave band, reducing binary inspiral ranges by about a Mpc.   Lowest noise for the week corresponded to about 11.6Mpc.  The last few days of H1 running are depicted here in this range plot.

Some highlights from the elog are linked below:

  • REFL acoustic enclosures are being installed.  First the 2k enclosure was installed this week and now awaits light pipes; next week the 4k REFL table receives its enclosure
  • we still await the shipment of the refurbished H2 laser
  • a new fibre optic-based timing system was tested.  Some analysis of the test has been performed and the results look good, although some small glitches (some hundreds of ns, some only tens of ns) are being investigated.

4K IFO

  • coherence observed between AS_Q and the POB signals suggested some MICH and PRC damping filter tuning was in order.
  • ASQ4 has a mobile dark noise level
  • Astrowatch continues: it is comforting to note that GRBs occur while we're at 11Mpc
  • as it was likely being underestimated in the noise model, the 4k shot noise reassessed

2K IFO

  • the crystal oscillator was fixed with a power supply being swapped out

DAQ

  • new Framebuilder code and a new RFM (reflective memory) configuration were implmented, in part to account for the new naming convention for DMT channels. Of course the new channel names caused some confusion through the week.

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

No report (skeletal operations due to hurricane Katrina).

Initial LIGO Detector Science & Engineering (Coyne)

CDS

see also the CDS weekly meeting minutes in the commissioning archives

CDS Software

Rolf Bork

  • Alex is working on the changes requested for the fast ADCU.
  • There is a pending request to add a filter bank to the H1 end station code to drive the fine actuators. This work will start once we have the final details from Mike Landry.

CDS Hardware

Ben Abbott

LSC RFPD

1) Todd is stuffing boards to complete the delivery of new RFPDs to the sites.

2) A PD (S/N 1133) arrived from Livingston that I need to diagnose to find where its excessive dark current is coming from.  I suspect that it is similar to the mysterious LHO problem that arises when the can is cut.

Fast Shutter

The first prototype fast shutter was tested this week, and things look promising.  I am able to see delay times on the order of 550 microseconds.  A laser was aimed at a photodiode just past the shutter, and the delay was measured between the spike of voltage seen across the coil of the shutter when the switch was pushed, and the beginning of the signal attenuation from the photodiode.  The light was totally blocked after ~1.1 ms.  I made no effort to optimize this time by focusing the beam, nor do I have a good measure of the width of the beam, but it appeared to be ~ 1 - 2mm on a laser card.  Due to a problem with the first prototype, I am going to make a second one to continue my testing.

ISS PDs

The anodizing shop has said that the parts for the ISS PDs are finished and ready for pickup.

DMT

no report

PSL

Peter King

I have been trying to get servicing documentation for the RTE-140M chiller. The "service" manual from ThermoElectron is pretty much only a guide on how to disassemble the chiller, not how to repair it. Otherwise I have not received anything new from their technical staff, especially by way of circuit schematics.

TCS

Ken Mailand

I'm designing and making brackets to mount flow meters to be added to the laser chillers at LHO, per Cheryl Vorvick's request.

ITMx (ITM07) Absorption

GariLynn Billingsley (Liyuan Zhang, Lee Cardenas)

4ITM07, removed from the Hanford 4ITM-x position in June of this year, has been scanned for absorption using a high resolution grid.  This scan incorporates a new lock in amplifier, allowing us to account for different phase change from the higher absorbers.  For this scan the max scale absorption was 40ppm.  Results can be found at http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~coreopt/Scatter/4itm07_hrabs2_11.pdf where page three shows us that some 250 points out of 32761 points had an absorption of 40ppm or more. In order to account for the absorption predicted by the interferometer measurements, the saturated points would have to have an average absorption in the range of 2000 ppm.

Another high resolution scan will be made, with the upper limit on the sensitivity set much higher.

LHO ITMx Baffle Glass Contamination

Helena Armandula

Second baffle glass test report: Received the glass baffle test report on a second spot analyzed. The report is in the DCC OUT under T050145-00-D.

The new XPS (X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy) analysis was done on a second spot on the glass baffle side that showed a faint haze. This is the baffle's surface facing the mode cleaner. A higher concentration of Na (sodium) is also observed on this side. Appears that only one side of the baffle is contaminated with sodium.

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

It's the end of the summer. We said goodbye to Ryan, Marcus, David, Ju Li, and Seiji. Thanks for visiting, for all your help and good work, and for your comraderie!

IFO commissioning:

  • After the ETMX OSEMs were adjusted during last week's vent, Dan adjusted the ETMX coil balancing and output matrix f2a filters, and also diagonalized the input matrix (Shihori's method).
  • Osamu now finds that ETMX noise is significantly reduced in pitch, and there's a small improvement in yaw. The X arm control noise used to be much worse than Y arm; after we fixed ITMX it became much better, and comparable to the Y arm. Now, after fixing ETMX, the noise hasn't gotten noticibly better; it's still comparable to the Y arm.
  • Now, MC2 is one of the noisiest suspensions, and Osamu believes it is responsible for a noticable beam jitter in MCT that may be contributing to our lock acquisition difficulties. Dan will work next on balancing and diagonalizing MC2.
  • Osamu has been locking the IFO in various configurations, including PRFPMI. He believes our lock acquisition difficulties stem from a large amount of excess noise, origin unknown, that shows up even in single-arm lock (suggesting frequency noise or electronics). He's now concentrating on noise hunting with single-arm lock, or DRMI+1 arm.
  • Osamu is working on commissioning the fast analog path for the common mode servo. He found several problems with the board; it looks like it was partially modified by someone but not finished. He fixed these problems, and tried it with one arm locked; he saw a significant reduction in noise.
  • Now he's trying to make the common mode servo work during lock acquisition, not just once lock is acquired, which was what it was designed for. He needs to find a way to normalize the analog signal from the IQdemod board to the arm transmitted power; he and Ben are working on an analog divider.
  • Rob wrote some LSC code to implement a "kick and pull back" of the CARM degree of freedom, to try to get it from the DC offset to the RF no-offset state. Will try it out soon.

IFO modeling and DC detection development:

  • Monica is implementing suspensions in her AdLIGO e2e code.
  • Monica is working on modeling signal sweeps with Malik's parameterization, and estimating mirror velocity.

Electronics, controls:

  • Osamu encountered problems using the AWG or anything that makes use of the test point manager. Also, the frame builder couldn't see test points. Alex investigated, fixed the frame builder problem, and suggested we reboot control computers to recover the proper operation of the test point manager. This seems to have worked, but the cause of the problem, and the proper way to recover from it, remains a mystery.
  • Ben did a quick survey of the state of the DC readouts from the LSC RFPDs. Currently, there are three DC readouts set up to be drawn from the P2 connector on the back of the LSC Interface boards' Eurocard crates. Two more are needed, and these cables have been made, and await connection. Once these other two cables are connected to the P2 Interface card, all five will replace the signal that is now being taken from the DC OUT connector on the RFPD box; and these cables will be removed. This whole procedure should eliminate a possible source of ground loop 60Hz noise.
  • Ben continues to develop fast mechanical shutter prototypes for the sites and for the 40m. Delay times of order 550 µsec. See his report elsewhere in this Weekly.
  • Ben reports that new LSC RFPDs are being stuffed for the sites and for the 40m.

Lab Infrastructure:

  • Steve has determined that TP1 is overburdened during pump downs because it's backing turbo pump, TP2, is conduction-limited. He is planning on installing a spare dry scroll pump to back TP1 during pump downs.
  • Steve has turned off the cryopump following last week's pump down, and is regenerating it.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

No report.

LASTI (Ottaway)

Seismic Isolation report (Rich M)

We tested out a simple vibration isolation system for an optics table.  We used a commercially available constrained layer device between the legs and the table. The first results are on today’s LASTI ilog.

We also tried to modify the flagpole resonance of the BSC chamber by butting a beam between the chamber and the building wall; there are pictures on the LASTI ilog from Friday august 26th. It turned out not to have any effect due to the fact that the wall was moving with the chamber.  An entry will appear on the ilog in the near future.

We are continuing to work with the optical lever which was installed on the BSC to understand the twisting that the support beam undergoes.

PSL (Dave O and Thomas C)

Small suspended cavity has been locked and the shakedown of the PSL continues so that the PSL can be an independent facility.

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)

SimAdvLIGO

(Hiro) Working to fill unfinished parts of the advanced LIGO simulation package, including seismic isolation system.

Simulation of 40m Advanced Interferometer

(Monica) Suspensions have been added to the e2e package for the 40m in 2 different ways (i) using the primitive sus3Dmass module and (ii) using a simple filter (double pole and a polepair at 1 Hz,Q=5).

Diffraction loss in Advanced LIGO

(Biplab) Studying diffraction losses for Laguerre Gaussian Modes  in Advanced LIGO cavity using matlab FFT code.

modeler

(Hiro) Fast dual recycling Michelson cavity code development still going on, together with refinements of algorithms in Mathematica taking the precision of double real variable into account. E.g., Expressions like ( 1 - (1-epsilon)^N ) / epsilon, where epsilon is small number does not work with this form when N is large.  Not physics, but boring programming issues.

Alfi

(Bruce)

  • General organizing to move to new computer system.
  • Reorganization/prioritization of remaining Alfi PRs.
  • Working on Alfi node dependency tree and easy access to associated dependent nodes (PR 268).

(Melody) Continuing with fixing the Problem Reports.  Currently fixing PRs 496 and 498.

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)

Mandic:

I have run the first-pass stochastic analysis on the S4 H2L1 data, along with the coherence calculation for the H2L1 pair. After cleaning the data, the H2L1 pair reaches theoretical sigma of 4.9e-5 (for Hubble parameter h=1). The CC and sensitivity integrands seem reasonable. Combination with H1L1 pair (which had sigma of 2.2e-5) should yield about 10% improvement over H1L1 alone.

I have examined the hardware injections for S4 H2L1 and obtained similar results to the H1L1 pair: one pre-calculated injection was successfully recovered, and one "on-the-fly" seems to have 2-sec offset.

I started looking at the possible implications of the S4 result on the various cosmological and astrophysical models of stochastic GW background.

I have also started working on the hardware injection code that we would like to implement for S5.

Mendell:

The StackSlide code review continued on Fri. Aug. 26. An update on how the code defines the reference time that defines the initial signal frequency at the SSB was checked into LALapps CVS yesterday, making the StackSlide code consistent with similar updates made in LAL. Also, using the StackSlide code, I have posted evidence of one Hz lines in the S4 L1 data, in the L1:LSC-DARM_ERR, L1:LSC-DARM_CTRL, and L1:LSC-AS_Q channels.  (At Hanford, so far the StackSlide code has seen these lines in the H1 data only, and only in the H1:LSC-DARM-CTRL channel.)  A report is on the pulgroup investigations page here:

http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/cgi-bin/enote.pl?nb=puls4general&action=view&page=10

Shawhan:

  • Went over proofs for S2 LIGO-only untriggered burst search paper, and returned corrections.
  • Held a meeting of the CaJAGWR Executive Committee to plan for the coming year.
  • Wrote LAL code to parse a string to get a LIGOTimeGPS value.
  • Currently writing LAL code to work with segment lists.

Sutton:

Since returning from Canada on Tuesday I have been studying the construction of a metric for power-based searches with chirplet test waveforms; this is part of my "LIGO cheese" study.  I'm also getting up to speed on recent developments in the network analysis and network simulator projects.

LIGO Data Analysis System

Software Systems (Blackburn)

LDAS:

Continued developing new functionality in the controlMonitorAPI's client and server using the tclglobus interface package. Able to open socket to server and read in the data downloaded but still have to resolve why  cmonClient is spinning in infinite loop.

Upgraded LDAS-DEV to the newest DB2 database (version 8.2.2); fixed tcl code to process job after dataRecvReaper has completed when data object arrives later than tcl command. This situation is seen in the insertion test with db2 8.2.2. Once fix identified, upgraded the Tandem 3, 4, and 5 systems to use 8.2.2 (Tandem 2 had already been upgraded).

System testing with the new IBM DB2 identified several failure modeds in the weekly system and integration tests. These were traced to a few bugs in the TCL source code which have now been fixed.

Successfully compiled all required packages used by LDAS for Solaris using GCC 4.0.1:

Have been successful with compiling LDAS except for the python support library for the diskcacheAPI.

Successfully compiled all required packages used by LDAS for Fedore Core 4 using GCC 4.0.1

Successfully compiled all of LDAS with this tool set. All but one unit test pass. The unit test is in the datacondAPI and is under investigation.

Actively investigating why zombies still exist at the C++ layer. The signature is different from what has been seen before. More debugging will be added to get the full picture.

TCLGLOBUS:

Worked closely with Kent and LDAS developers to develop and test a testbed client server that will function similar to the requirements on the controlMonitorAPI in LDAS and eventually the managerAPI. This revealed several issues with existing TclGlobus client/server tests which had to be updated to use host certificates and CA certificates on the server side.

Attempted to get TclGlobus to work under RedHat 9. Was not successful.

Since Redhat 9 has been dropped by the LIGO and is not supported by anyone, decided to migrate support over to Fedora Core 4. This is now the operating system to be used in development. Fedora Core 3 will continue to be supported.

OSG/GRIPHYN/IVDGL:

Successfully produced an Inspiral DAG from an Inspiral DAX using latest client tools from Duncan Brown on kitalpha. However, daily upgrades, patches and downloads have been necessary from the VDS team and Duncan for the last three days to produce this result.

Components are changing rapidly. An additional fix from the VDS engineer has been promised today (Sept 1, 2005) for the latest bug discovered by Duncan after the COB on Aug 31.  Hope to have a stable DAX to DAG client tool set by next week but this has been an on-going problem for the last three weeks.

In anticipation of a stable DAX to DAG client tool set on kitalpha, work with Stuart and Duncan proceeded to create a Globus-G client submission facility on verruca.ligo.caltech.edu to demonstrate condor_submit_dag on OSG for an Inspiral DAG;. This facility will demonstrate use of Condor-G as a potential submission facility for LIGO OSG users.  Testing of the Condor-G/Verruca submission facility with LIGO-CIT-ITB will begin next week. Condor-G supports submission of a Condor DAG to a service supporting a Globus gatekeeper with a Condor job-manager such as LIGO-CIT-ITB.

Successfully tested a GUMS server on tclproxy.ligo inter-operating with the LIGO VOMS server at PSU to generate a  grid-mapfile of the current users in the DB of the LIGO VOMS for the LIGO-CIT-ITB testbed.

Perfomed a yum update on LIGO-CIT-ITB and rebooted all nodes. New kernel-smp.i686 2.6.12-1.1376_FC3 was installed.

Hardware Systems (Anderson)

Caltech

(Dan Kozak)

  • Worked with Ray Gedert on another draft for updating our Sun support contract.  We getting close--I expect one more revision will do it.
  • Updated CIT's dodump script to use /var/sam (rather than /usr1).
  • Tested Ben's updated LSCdataFindServer.
  • Installed SAM-QFS 4.3.15 at CIT (all SAM-QFS & QFS boxes).
  • Helped with shrinking CIT cluster.
  • Copied all S3/S4 L1/L3 data to IDE RAID and added those PFNs to LDR.
  • Worked on SAM problem with scanlist getting large and archiving getting wedged.

(Stuart Anderson)

  • Upgraded the CIT/LHO/MIT clusters to LDG-3.5 and Glue-1.0.
  • Verified the fix to allow Condor to checkpoint jobs on the latest Linux kernel and upgraded the CIT cluster to that kernel.
  • Worked with Phil Ehrens and Dan Kozak to ship out 140 cluster nodes to LLO, which are now in a temporary hold in Houston for 2 weeks as a result of Katrina.
  • Worked with Phil Ehrens and Dan Kozak to upgrade 9 IDE-RAID servers to FC4 and stage the S3/S4 L1/L3 RDS data.
  • Created another 70GB filesystem for SAM logs and metadata dumps.
  • Work on extending the computer facilities at Caltech has started.  The adjacent room is now stripped.

MIT

(Keith Bayer)

  • Cluster upgraded with latest LDG/Glue/lscsoft-user-env.
  • pcraid#9 rebuilt with FC4.
  • Fixed pcraid#4 unit with degraded raids on both cards.
  • Swapped disks from node43 to a healthy cluster node as it was hanging every two hours with no log messages - I suspect mainboard troubles as the RAM passed memtest-x86 tests.

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

  • Orders have been placed for tapes to archive the first year of S5 data.
  • The LDAS HVAC upgrade at LHO has started with some electrical work and measurements for the refrigerent pipes.
  • (Ben Johnson)
  • Added two users to the cluster.
  • Helped modify the ligo.[c]sh user profiles so that they work at all LIGO lab sites (via a switch based on /etc/ldasname).
  • Printed reams of Solaris 10 documentation. I've set up a lesson plan for myself, which I will go through the next several days/weekend.
  • Fixed a bug in the LSCdataFind server at Caltech. Working with Brian Moe on making an overall better "Post Processing" algorithm for the server.
  • Ran media check on *all* (including global spare) 351x disks here. No problems occurred.
  • Received support quote from Foundry networks for our switch. Both silver and gold levels.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT

(Keith)

  • Fixed several small problems with spamd firewall box
  • Preparing to bring spamd box on-line today
  • Added new postdoc Edith Innerhofer to gc
  • Moved Protel CAD pc over to highbay and ordered replacement graphics card for it - will strip the o/s after card comes in
  • Working on rebuilding desktop pc
  • Reinstalled XP on late model thinkpad

Livingston:

(Larry for Shannon)

  • Dealing with recovery from the storm.  See Livingston report.

Hanford:

(Christine)

  • The transition to the new WAN connection is going well.  PNNL has tested their connection from Richland to ESnet in Seattle without any problems.  They are using BGP with ESnet in order to keep both the old ATM circuit and the new GigE circuit running simultaneously.  This allows testing of the new circuit without any network disruption on the old circuit.  I will be testing my GigE circuit today from Noon to 2 p.m. PDT.  There should not be any network down time during the testing.
  • The backups from last night have not finished due to a disk error.  I'm trying to track down the source of the error and may need to replace the disk.
  • Other misc. user support

CIT:

(Christian)

  • Barry Barish needed to have his workstation upgraded from Office 2000 to 2003 to match his laptop.
  • Bill Tyler's machine was infected with a virus which caused his Eudora email not to function correctly. I was able to restore all of his emails and deleting the infected files.
  • Millikan: replaced 2 toner cartridges on HP 5000n printer.
  • Called Dell to have the motherboard and keyboard replaced on Linda's laptop. I also reinstalled Windows XP and restored data back to laptop.
  • Installed Office 2004 on Riccardo's laptop.  Other misc.: continued onsite software/phone support.

(Mike)

  • B/A Server Room: Swapped out KVM switch.  I monitored the server room while the chilled water system was shutdown for maintenance.
  • NTSRV: Still working on loading a server for Primavera/Prism software to run. A lot of work involved here.
  • Ghost Server: Freed up some disk space to run the NTSRV end of month ghost backups.
  • Started working on loading a new NTSRV to replace our old Ghost Server.
  • Patrick Sutton: Laptop would not boot. The system files ended up getting corrupted. I was able to correct this issue, but found that the hard disk has bad sectors which will have to be replaced. I have called this into Dell, and should be receiving a new hard disk sometime this week.
  • Barry Barish: Worked on backing up his laptop, plus testing some additional peripherals to run a disk to disk back up. This has been taking around 3 + hours to backup using ghost. Going disk to disk I was able to have a complete backup in 54 minutes.
  • Spam Filters: Continued work, going through spam filters searching for false positives.
  • Additional user support working with printer, networking and email issues.
  • Added additional users to wireless access point list.

(Veronica)

  • LSC:  Updates to the papers under review database, minor tweaks of the code.  Addressed issues related to the last meeting's online payment system.
  • LIGO:  Roster database update.  Advanced LIGO schedule updates.  MIT website updates.  LIGO website updates.
  • Project Science:  Workshop website updates.  Updates to prevent frequently updated pages from being cached.  User support.

(Larry)

  • Worked a number of procurements. Mostly, new equipment for the server room.  A number of servers needed to be upgraded and we are adding a new sandbox for the E2E group.  Purchased, a few more racks. One for the additional equipment and one to replace a larger rack to give us more space in the server room.  Purchased a number of misc. items for other groups.  Delivered a number of received items and having Christian work on some of the new travel laptops.
  • Assisted Mike on a number of PC issues. One interesting note is that some of the tools for backing up and restoring files, will not work correctly unless the disk is defragmented.
  • Worked a couple of security issues. Virus problems account for two of them and one was a false alarm.
  • Started the monthly backups. Still a number of user directories and servers to be backed up.
  • Assisted a couple of users with some minor application issues.
  • Continue checking out the SURF students and assisting them in getting their data together so they can have some sort of access to it in the future.
  • As a note Keith Bayer has done some testing with a dual core unit.  The dual core did improve the CPU performance for the user. However, the disk access has proved to be a bottle neck and Keith is now resolving that issue.
  • Working on the logistical issues concerning the upcoming work at the Synchrotron. We will have a two month loss of network connectivity during the construction period.
  • Continue work with the spam filters.

E-mail statistics for August 25-31, 2005

Mail Statistics

September 1, 2005

Rejected Messages

20,116

Virus Messages

652

False Positives

199

Accepted Messages

11,820

Total Messages

31,936

 

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

GariLynn Billingsley submitted RODA M050397-00, "Core Optics Sizes (including TMs, BS, FM, RM). Pending review & approval.

Intended RODAs, not yet written:

  • in situ, elevated temperature bake out
  • OSEM count RODA
  • SUS/UK work scope
  • sensors on lower quad stages/OSEMs
  • BSC optics table with more & larger holes (3/8" hoels on 1" centers)

Requirements

nothing new

Interface Issues

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

nothing new

Systems Design/Support

Issued questions from SUS/UK Electronics PDR committee for the SUS team to respond.  Among the questions for the SUS/UK Electronics design are some additional electronics design/practice guidance, which will be incorporated into a revision of the Generic Requirements document, E010613-01 and the SUS Subsystem Universal Requirements Document, T000053-03

Vacuum Compatibility & Preparation

Residual Gas Assay (RGA)

See also the Vacuum Bake Lab

Bob Taylor

  • I have been working with Calum, Mark and Helena on the test Quad Suspension.
  • I will complete the cabling for the Quad suspension OSEMs By Friday, I have one more cable to build.
  • I met with Lee Cardenas and He will be covering for me while I am on vacation. (Sept. 4  to Sept. 16)
  • I have one bake job in progress for Helena that will be scanned on Friday. The data will be available on the bake lab web site Friday.

High-Irradiance, Contamination-Exposure Cavities

no report

Advanced LIGO Project Management

from Carol Wilkinson

Progress Updates

Sub-system leaders are preparing progress updates for Advanced LIGO subsystem development for the period from July 1 through August 31. Updates are due September 10th. Estimate-to-complete information is also being collected to flesh out the budgets for the remaining development work.

Seismic Isolation BSC Prototype 

Fabrication of the seismic isolation BSC prototype has re-started after approval by the LIGO Executive Committee on August 31, 2005. The approval to proceed is based on the recommendations from the SEI BSC Critical review report, LIGO-M050025-01. The prototype will be assembled and tested LASTI in late summer and fall, 2006. The initial stand-alone testing in air and in vacuum is planned to be complete in time for the December, 2006 integrated testing with the suspensions test mass noise prototype being fabricated by the UK and US suspensions teams.

Meetings & Reviews

  • Future near term planned meetings & reviews are indicated in the table below.
  • Report from SUS Requirements Update Review held on June 15, 2005 is available: LIGO-M050216.00.
  • The final report from the SEI BSC Critical Review held in January and July, 2005 is available, LIGO-M050025-01.

SUS Ribbon/Fiber/Ear/Bonding PDR added ~Oct 19.

 

Date

Sub-

sys

Review

Topic(s)

Enabling event(s)

Schedule motivation

 

Jul 7
8:30-10:30 PT

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

Report complete

M-050025-01-M

Jul 11-13

SYS

SYS Mtg

CDS Infrastructure & HAM Isolation Requirements

 

 

Report in progress

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

 

 

Report in progress

Jul 19
8-10 PT

ISC/40m

40m DC Readout Review

DC readout experiment

 

 

Report in progress

~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

 

~Sep

IO

PDR Review 1

Faraday Isolator

SYS PDR?

 

 

Oct 19

SUS

SUS PDR

Review 8

Ribbon/Fiber/Ear/ Bonding PDR

Completion of the ribbon, fiber, and ear and fabrication and bonding design and processes

 

 

~Oct 19

AOS

Stray Light Control, DRR/CD

 

SYS PDR?

primavera late finish 6/15/05

 

~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

 

~Oct

COC

PDR

Review 1

 Metrology

 Review and select  vender and in-house metrology

 

 

~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

 

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)

 

 

TBD

AOS

Thermal Comp., DRR/CD

 

SYS PDR?

 

 

~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

 

~Jan

IO

PDR Review 2

Electro-Optic Modulator

 

 

 

~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

 

~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

Review 2

 

SYS PDR?

 

 

 

Seismic Isolation

From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

Advanced LIGO Seismic Structure

ASI has started updating the solid model with the blade design changes. They anticipate the design will be completed next week. The final design is then sent back to the analysis group to verify it meets our requirements.

We recieved approval to proceed with fabrication of the BSC prototype from the CCB. The drawings and specifications for the large machined parts along with a list of  machine shops capable of  machining these parts has been sent to Ed Jasnow.

The test stand is being built by Southern Enterprises

Suspension

From: Ken mailand kmailand@ligo.caltech.edu

I spoke to Brian Adam at NTS los Angeles re. cleaning and baking of Adv. LIGO large parts. Brian can clean to the CC-1246D spec., they air bake, and also have vacuum bake capability for our large parts at Santa Clarita.

I'm designing and making brackets to mount flow meters to be added to the laser chillers at LHO, per Cheryl Vorvick's request.

From: Rolf Bork <rolf@ligo.caltech.edu>

Worked on improving the PCI I/O speeds in the dual CPU processor to be used for the LASTI quad suspension. Individual PCI read/writes (64 bit words) were taking 1.5usec/300nsec, respectively. I modified the code to use DMA accesses. The DMA setup takes about 2 µsec, but then the 64bit words stream at 30nsec/word. Using this method, I could read all 64 channels of our ADC card in just under 3 µsec. Still using the LSC code as the test benchmark, it runs full up (with I/O) in 18usec.

Began work on the actual quad suspension software. I have the basic EPICS interface code and MEDM screens up and running. I am now beginning work on the real-time front end software.

The computer that will be used at LASTI is on order. It should arrive next week. It is a dual Opteron, 2U rack mount unit with 4 PCI-X slots and one legacy PCI slot.

Core Optics

From: Helena Armandula ahelena@ligo.caltech.edu

No report this week.

Pre-Stabilized Laser

From: Peter King pking@ligo.caltech.edu

The OEM Innolight NPRO laser arrived yesterday (Tuesday).  It hasn't been taken out for a test drive so far.  The interface is a little different from the Lightwave models we're more familiar with.

A common-base amplifier front end for a photodetector circuit was breadboarded and tested.  Initial problems that suggested that the configuration would not work were tracked down to being a problem with the base not being correctly grounded.  Whilst the circuit may have provided extra bandwidth, the circuit gain appeared to be a lot lower.  The configuration was an interesting exercise at least.

Auxiliary Optics

From: Michael Smith smith@ligo.caltech.edu

No report this week.

Other Laboratory R&D

From: Juri Agresti jagresti@ligo.caltech.edu

Alberto

Last week we found many resonances of the system at high frequencies (> 10Hz) due to the intermediate structure which sustains the first two LVDTs. Because of these the accelerometers were unable to detect the effective response to oscillations. However the transfer function as obtained from the LVDTs at low frequencies was good. So we worked on the prototype to make it as it was used by Kenji Numata for the same kind of measurements. So we built a new mechanical system to inject the noise more directly at the base of the blades in order to avoid as much as possible the intermediate structure. We got off the rods and now we are trying to obtain the expected plot, the one with the saturation at 60 dB above 10 Hz. Then, if we succeed, we will add the rods to study the effect. I think that we could do that by the and of the week.

Akiteru

Today we prepared the first TAMA SAS tower for transportation to the TAMA west end building. It will be installed on Thursday, unless it rains.

Riccardo

Defining the HAM SAS assembly procedure for the Request For Proposal.  The prototype would be factory assembled, tuned and tested, then disassembled, UHV cleaned, reassembled retuned and baked, ready for installation in LASTI.  Submitted HAM seismic attenuation Amaldi-6 paper available at www.ligo.caltech.edu/~desalvo/AMALDI-6-OMC-P050024.pdf or www.ligo.caltech.edu/~desalvo/AMALDI-6-OMC-P050024.doc

John

Theoretical work is in progress to compare the mesa beam parameters to those expected from our cavity.  I have been working in the lab trying to improve the mesa beam profile of last week. I have managed to improve the transverse mode spectrum without a commensurate improvement in the field distribution. Profiles are somewhat mesa-like in one direction but gaussian in the other.  I will try switching back to dither lock this week.  I have also been performing various tasks related to Marco’s thesis, including taking various measurements in the lab and theoretical work.

Barbara

submitted Mex-Hat interferometer Amaldi-6 paper available at www.ligo.caltech.edu/~desalvo/Amaldi6_Flat-Top-P050024.pdf or www.ligo.caltech.edu/~desalvo/Amaldi6_Flat-Top-P050024.doc

Maria Paola

I managed to obtain a pk-pk voltage of about 7 volts, and about a 3.5 DC voltage after the diode bridge, only using the thinner wire I have ordered (I'm still waiting for the bigger bobbins and pot cores to be delivered), so I think that once I get all the stuff I will be able to produce a DC voltage of 6 volts or more. Next week I hope to finish the first step of my work (the feeding of the motor) and to start the second one (the control of the motor).

Francesca

I worked with Alberto.

On Monday (day and night) I took measurement of hysteresys of my system. I send a sinusoidal input on the coil producing the driving force and I read the position by the LVDT signal. I repeated more times the measure varying the amplitude, the frequency of the signal and also the weight on the load, in order to see as these changes affected the system.

Juri

I made the calculation of diffraction losses with the LIGO-I parameters using the eigenmodes integral equation for cylindrically symmetric mirrors and compare these results with the clipping approximation for the Laguerre-Gauss modes. The result is that the real diffraction losses are higher than those calculated using the clipping approximation. The same is true for Advanced-LIGO parameters.

I’m studying the possibility of solving numerically the eigenmodes integral equation for a circular mirror but using Cartesian coordinates.

Chiara

I gave some help to Alberto to assembly all the stuff for his measurement.  We also worked in machine shop to make same mechanical parts for his set up.  I’m studying the project for the Advanced LIGO Seismic Isolation System for the HAM chamber.

Valerio

I’m trying to evaluate the transfer function matrix of my SimMechanics model of the HAM suspension.  By comparing this matrix with the transfer functions measured on the prototypes, we’ll be able to determine the quality of the model.

Ilaria

I have just finished to complete the pendulum in each detail. The only thing I have not sketched yet is the counter weight. When I`ll start the simulation with Ansys I`ll add the suitable weight to get better seismic attenuations.

Marco

I’m writing my thesis and doing some analysis on the beam shape and propagation properties in order to compare our data with the expected beam characteristics.

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