Weekly Report for Week Ending September 22, 2005

Highlights	LSC	Administration	Hanford Observatory
Livingston Observatory	Detector	40 Meter	TNI
LASTI	Data Analysis	Adv. LIGO Development	Past Weekly Reports

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday September 26, 2005 will be:

(Meeting time: 10:30 am Pacific Time)

Announcements
Comments on Weekly Report
LSC Issues (Saulson)
LIGO Lab Operations

Administration (Lindquist)
Sites (Raab, Zucker, Shoemaker)
Commissioning (Fritschel), Detector (Coyne)
Campus Research Facilities

40 Meter (Weinstein)
TN, ( Libbrecht)
LASTI (Shoemaker)

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

R&D and Advanced LIGO (Shoemaker)
CHANGE CONTROL BOARD/TECHNICAL REVIEW BOARD SESSION AS NEEDED

Special Items:

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights

LSC Issues (Saulson)

No report

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Lloyd)

Received three new MOUs to process: A. Buonanno (Maryland Theoretical Group), Innocenzo Pinto (University of Sannio at Benevento and University of Salerno), and Richard Matzner (University of Texas at Austin).
Made the changes requested by the Review Panel for MOU acceptance for UTB, Columbia, Northwestern, Southeastern, and Penn State.

Non-LSC MOUs (Lloyd)

No report.

SITE TELECONFERENCE (Lindquist)

A site teleconference was held Thursday, September 08, 2005. The following issues were discussed:

The list of assigned actions updated through September 01, 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 and shipping twenty (20) various Mirrors, Beamsplitters and Lenses to LLO, attention V.Frolov. Account Number P204324.
Provided assistance to the Detector Group (H. Armandula) with packing and shipping of forty-five (45) various Mirrors, Beamsplitter and Lenses to LHO, attention D. Cook. Account Number P204324.
Provided assistance to LLO (R. Reisen) with packing, shipping, and the preparation of a Commercial Invoice for an ASI Servo Box, to Hannover,Gremany, attention Rana Adhikari. Account Number LIGO.LIVCA 3.8.2 NSFLIGO.FY02CA.
Provided assistance to the Detector Group (L Ruet) with the preparation of shipping documentation for a Suspension System being forwarded to MIT, via Air Courier Dispatch.
Provided assistance to the Detector Group (H. Armandula) with packing and shipping of two (2) coated witness pieces to Stanford University, attention Dr. Roger Route. Account Number P204296.

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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

No report.

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

Working on "P Document Project" which includes determining which documents have abstracts, adding missing files to the database, deleting old versions of electronic files that are not needed, determining what documents that are in the database but not on file, and determining what documents that need scanning.
Assisted in sending out the contract for the construction of the Science Education Center at LLO to the NSF.
In the last report I mentioned there was about a handful (6 -8) account boxes [old documents] remaining to be scanned. As expected, these remaining boxes of files were very disorganized and needed more preparation time than the other account files. It looks like by tomorrow though, all of the organizational and prep work should be pretty much done and scanning will go into full speed mode. I anticipate that these files should be completed by the end of next week.
Activity:

Week Ending

09/22/05

Out

Packages

Faxes

FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Cronin, Brambila, Kaufman)

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

For ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY DATA Press Here.

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

The first no-cost extension to extend the blanket purchase order with MCI has been submitted through TechMart. I'll be completing that order to keep this blanket purchase order open. The other five blanket orders will be closed out mid-October.
The rush has started for getting in orders before the year end. Placed several pcard orders for Mike Smith.
There are several large dollar orders for the purchase of goods from Osaka and Piezosystems.
I received the requisition for the five yr agreement for the computer maintenance order from Dynamic Systems which I will be placing.
Several internal modifications have been requested.
There are several invoices pending taxability statuses.
In the revised year end closing memo sent out, it noted that the system will be dark on 9/29 and 9/30.

>From: Florence Kaufman <fkaufman>

Worked on reports for September.
Met with Carol Wilkinson regarding issues related to University of Florida.
Started putting FY06 budget numbers on reporting spreadsheets.
Provided requested data on budget remaining for Data Group accounts
Financial reports can be found at: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport. (For passwords contact Florence)

SUBCONTRACTS MANAGEMENT (Jasnow, Salone)

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

Nothing significant to report.

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

The proposed contract for the construction of the LIGO Livingston Science Education Center was sent to the NSF for review on Tuesday, September 20. The contract is with Cangelosi-Ward of Baton Rouge. We're hoping for a quick turnaround from the NSF so that this contract can be performed before the heavy construction effort begins in Louisiana in relation to Hurricane Katrina.

SUPPORT (Baldon, Hiroto, Lloyd)

>Irene Baldon

Processed the paper work for seven (7) new/revised trips. At this time there are ten (10) trips completed or in the works but are awaiting the necessary paper work to enter the P-Card system.
Completed seventeen (17) Expense Reports and there are eleven (11)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 five (5) reports more than thirty (30) days old. I have seven (7) 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 jhiroto@ligo.caltech.edu

No report.

>Dorothy Lloyd

Processed the usual invoices for payment and followed up on problems.
Processed requisitions for standard purchases. Worked with Ruth on closing out LIGO Blanket 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)

Additional material for request for supplemental funding for Operations for FY 2007 and FY 2008 has been prepared ready for final review and forwarding to the NSF.

DCC Steering Committee (Lindquist)

Purchase Orders for new document management software, support, and the hardware to put it on are in process.

CHANGE CONTROL/CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT (Lindquist)

No open change requests.

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)

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

No special activities to report.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

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

Nothing significant to report. Signed off a few SURF students and scheduled laser safety exit eye exams for students that needed them.

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

Summary of Commissioning Activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory (Landry)

This week has seen some highs and lows in interferometer performance, with the wrong-signed derivative. At the outset, both IFOs had reasonable performance with 9-11Mpc binary inspiral ranges on the 4k and 4Mpc on the 2k. Later in the week, performance had slipped such that Thursday locking was highly sporadic on both machines. Mods (ASPD4 on H1, and ISCT10 optics and floating status on H2, more below) are thought to be responsible for the degradation. Clipping in particular was suspected, possibly induced once the ISCT10 AS output table was landed, although an initial look at coherence between accelerometer channels and the AS port light did not suggest this (see the elog on floating, below).

An important install this week was the fast shutter protecting ASPD2 and 3 on ISCT4. While they are spec'd to 4ms to close, there is a delay before they start so that the total time is about 8ms. This might not be fast enough to prevent burn spots from forming on precious ASPDs during the long months of S5. Monday's shutter was the wrong one and the proper shutter for the table was then installed Wednesday.

Some commissioning highlights are linked below:

work on a radio tower (Hanford DOE emergency broadcast beacon) has commenced on route 10, directly across from the LHO access road entrance
new photon calibrator frequencies were selected: we think these are settled and will run them for S5
the NoiseBudget code received quite a few upgrades, including measurements of MICH and PRC loops, shot and dark noise, and frequency noise. Later, oscillator phase noise was added based on a Livingston measurement. Dark noise was revisited.
in preparation for S5, new hardware injection code for bursts and inspirals was tested. The code will sum the burst or inspiral waveform into the (continuously present) pulsar signal and send it to the ETMX actuation path
1/4Hz lines continue to resist definitive explanation, but currently it appears the spectral disturbances are propogated out of the LSC to the end stations. Our next test is to, after a code change, read a copy of DARM_CTRL straight out to a spectrum analyzer and see the lines directly

4K IFO

ASPD4 was installed and rephased, then modified
groundnoise at the 1.2Hz stack resonance causes worse upconversion on ETMY than ITMY on the 4k.
Disturbingly, SPOB can change levels quasi-discretely. Previously SPOB flickered bistably, finally causing the IFO to unlock. Now it gets comfortable at some level, for a time. We don't know why.
Code was added and sanity-checked for a new servo to mitigate scattered light in the end stations

2K IFO

The swap of the H2 126MOPA laser is nicely summarized here. Note that the NPRO is running at 720mW; Lightwave had been typically reducing power below this. The new laser continues to have variable power levels (recall last week it lost power after initial startup); it has been degraded 200mW through the week and the slope was worsening, finally levelling off Thursday.
CP6, the LN2 dewar on the NW side of MX has been shown to be about 2 orders of magnitude more prone to glitches than counterparts on site. The dewar will received insulation prior to S5, just as has been done on the dewar on the +X side of the LVEA
ISCT10 had been floating and is now landed. The performance of the table has been assessed, and it is likely that the table will rise again before S5.
super-polished optics were installed on the AS port table ISCT10
the 7/3 non-resonant sideband frequency multiplier was installed

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

LLO has been shut down (again), this time courtesy of Hurricane Rita. The instrument and vacuum system are now in protected mode and the facility is being evacuated. Until further notice, please do not enter the observatory site without specific authorization.

We will notify everyone when operations resume. This naturally depends on the progress of the storm, but it is unlikely before Monday. Feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns. Thanks in advance for your cooperation and patience.

Initial LIGO Detector Science & Engineering (Coyne)

CDS

Peter Fritschel, Rich Abbott and I have been working on draft plans for detector upgrades during and after the impending S5 run so that budgets for capital accounts can be established for FY06 and FY07.

CDS

see also the CDS weekly meeting minutes in the commissioning archives

CDS Software

Rolf Bork

Loaded new software on LHO 4K on Monday. This involved all front end processors plus supporting EPICS computers. Notable changes were for proper startup sequencing (previously installed at LLO), acquiring photon calibrator signals and addition of new filter in ETM controls for useismic. These changes will be made to LHO2K on Monday.
Still investigating 1/4Hz noise on LHO4K LSC. It appears this noise shows up on the LSC inputs at the ETMs, so this is probably a real problem ie not data corruption by DAQ.
Loaded the latest version of EPICS on the TCS computers at LHO to try and fix some instability problems. So far, this seems to have worked. If tests continue with good results, we may want to switch all of our Linux EPICS units to this latest version.

CDS Hardware

Ben Abbott

LSC RFPD

Todd has finished stuffing the boards to complete the delivery of new RFPDs to the sites. The units will be tested this week, and delivered.

Fast Shutter

The second prototype was brought to a local machine shop, and they will work to replicate it. I am currently working on the electronics to actuate it.

ISS PDs

I've finished the assembly of one of the three units that are needed at Hanford. The other two will be made as I get time.

Jay Heefner

Refl Beam Stabilization

It was found that the manual for the Piezojena Driver shows the wrong pin out for the interface connector. This seems to be the source of all the problems that have been encountered in the testing at LLO. Another interface chassis was quickly modified to the proper pin out and sent to LLO. It should be installed and tested by 9/23.
Once the modified chassis has been tested and verified, the other chassis will either be modified, or new boards made for LHO and spares.
Waiting for schematic markups from LHO to complete system drawings for H1 and H2.

DMT

John Zweizig

This week I tagged compiled and installed at the observatories the latest version of the DMT software (gds-2.10.6). This includes a new monitor to detect airplanes over LHO (PlaneMon), an upgraded version of PulsarMon and updated configurations for several other existing monitors. There are also the usual numerous bug fixes and minor upgrades.

PSL

Dennis Coyne

Next Tuesday, Stan Whitcomb, Peter Fritschel and I will meet with JDSU senior management to discuss the possibility and nature of future support to LIGO.

PeterKing

A PSpice model for the C30642G and GAP2000 photodiodes was written and found to be faulty because it did not match the photodiode capacitance when the photodiode was biased. In going through the reference materials it is not obvious to me how to implement the correct model.

TCS Quiet Chiller

Dennis Coyne

Cheryl received a quiet chiller flow meter mounting bracket at LHO she wants another design to allow straight fittings. I made the drawing and gave it to CES today.

Optics

Helena Armandula

Received and shipped to the sites several of the low loss, 2" optics manufactured and coated by REO, for use on the ISC tables.

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

IFO Commissioning

Osamu has been routinely locking the dual-recycled Michelson (DRMI) with one arm, bringing that arm to full resonance. After more optimization of servos, the RMS noise is 15 times less than it was 2 weeks ago. Then he got to full lock of DRMI+XARM. Then he moved on to DRMI+YARM. At first, the YARM was much noisier, but he traced it to a bogged-down suspension controller; rebooting fixed it. Now, both systems lock easily and have very comparable noise.
There's still lots of noise in the 100-200 Hz region, some of which is also seen on the MC servo. We figure that most of it is acoustic noise from the PSL table, or vibrating components between the mode cleaner and the main IFO. It might be vibractions or acoustic noise on the MCR sensing beamline; to be investigated.
Now Osamu is working on DRMI+DARM+CARM. As usual, he locks CARM offset from resonance, with the DC transmitted light. We have not succeeded in switching the CARM signal to the RF signal at SP 166; the signal is small and noisy. Osamu is looking for a better, stronger signal.
Monica can now successfully interpret FP flashes containing doppler wiggles, in terms of mirror velocities. She can extract the velocities two different ways. Both methods get ~3e-7 m/s, in both arms. E2e simulations reproduce this well. She can also extract the cavity finesse and cavity pole, but it's not clear whether the data are being interpreted correctly. Under study.
Dan and Monica continue to learn about the noise budget model.

IFO modeling

Rana is beginning to explore different control schemes for AdLIGO.

DC detection development

Mike Smith begun ordering optics and parts for the DC readout beamline.
Mike has designed a monolithic output mode cleaner body in SolidWorks, for a 4-mirror cavity. Some views can be seen here and here. Mike advocates making this out of stainless steel to reduce the thermal expansion; but others in the group are not so worried about that, and advocate aluminum or brass because it's much easier and cheaper to machine.
Jay says that we will design custom drivers for the PiezoJena PZT steering mirrors which will steer the beam from the IFO to the output mode cleaner.

Electronics, Controls

Dan continues to work on the diagonalization of the mode cleaner mirror suspensions, using ezcalockin. He's already tested the procedure on MC1 and MC2, but MC3 is giving him trouble; under investigation.
Osamu discovered that the electronics chain from the POY RFPD was broken. Ben fixed the logic circuit in the box, and Bob replaced the cable. It is now fixed.
Ben has finished the cleanup from the RFPD DC signals that now come via the P2 connectors. The cables that were lying on the tables after they were disconnected are now removed from the tables.
Ben continues work on his fast shutter prototype.
Jay and Alex repaired the linux box that runs the c1dcuepics and c1losepics processes. They swapped out the loaner linux box and put in the repaired one. Everything appears to be operational.
Jay and Rolf are thinknig about the changes required to our framebuilder to have frames shipped to QFS storage (as well as logged to a local RAID array, as is done now), which is closer to what the sites now do.

Lab Infrastructure

Steve ordered a replacement for our dying maglev turbopump.
Steve is ordering new, lightweight and very clear laser glasses, OD 5+ for 1 micron light.
After this week's rain, Steve had a grounds crew clear off the leaves and cat doo-doo from the roof. He says that PMA promises to install rain gutters on the 40m building in October.
The "Fleming Cannon" is being moved to Steele House and will be fired, in close proximity to the 40m lab, around 7 times per year. The Student Affairs office promises to notify us by email 24 hours in advance of each firing.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

Below is a rough plot of the TNI noise with advanced coatings, along with a breakdown of various noise sources. Red data is total noise. Blue lines are coating thermal noise, the top one having a loss angle of 2.7x10^-4, and the bottom one having a loss angle of 1.3 x10^-4. The green line is shot noise. The straight red line is substrate thermal noise (estimate, based on in-situ Q's). The thin red line is laser frequency noise, and the black line is the sum, in quadrature, of the shot noise and the lower coating thermal noise line. The thick grey line is an estimate of pendulum thermal noise.

The next step is to reduce the shot noise by improving the visibility, and so uncover a larger region where the noise is dominated by coating thermal noise.

LASTI (Ottaway)

No report.

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)

Weekly E2E Physics Meeting

With Sany Yoshida we discussed various issues and problems encountered by him while using e2e or Alfi.
Hiro talked about the 3.0 version of e2e which is to be released soon and the code for fast simulation of dual-recycled Michelson cavity
Monica described how she plans to estimate mirror speed of the 40m interferometer.

FFT studies

(Biplab)

Comparison of results from 'ordinary FFT' and 'Adaptive- Grid method for FFT' reveals that, for getting accurate results for higher order modes, adaptive-grid method is necessary.
The diffraction-loss calculation (in Advanced LIGO) for a higher order mode like TEM70 looks interesting. For finite size mirrors (say 18 cm radius) the resonant mode gets a gain of only 2.5 (checked by scanning the free spectral range that it's indeed the maximum). For comparison, the same mode can be made resonant with a gain of about ~773 (theoretical value for 5000ppm transmittivity of input mirror) if a large mirror (say 30cm radius) is chosen. The mode inside this cavity with mirrors of 18cm radius looks different -- but its overlapping integral with TEM70 suggests that about 75% power is still in TEM70 mode.(Also checked that aliasing is not a reason behind the visible distortion in beam). As pointed out earlier, diffraction loss values are always higher than what one can get by simple 'Truncated Gaussian Approximation'. Higher the order of the mode, more is the difference between these two calculations. (Results for other modes at http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~bbhawal/ Blair/ )
Had a discussion meeting on all these issues with Hiro and Yi Pan (Graduate student in Kip's group) who is writing a FFT code for advanced LIGO.

Simulation of 40m Advanced Interferometer

(Monica) Characterization of the optical parameters for 40m arms (full IFO): a good agreement between results has been obtained with the two different procedures I used; Relative mirror velocity has an order of magnitude of 1e-7 m/s. Analysis of one single arm (simple cavity) will be done soon to validate these two procedures.

modeler

(Hiro) Coding of a fast simulation of a dual recycling Michelson cavity is done and the validation is in progress. The e2e module will be available next week.

Preparing the next upgrade of e2e, 3.0, which includes changes necessary to support SimAdvLIGO. It is expected that modeler freq will be broken in the initial release, because of the new scheme of e2e-3.0 to embed timing information in the data stream.

Alfi

(Bruce)

Continuing work on remote view issues. Creating a secondary method for user to access Alfi across the net on an X-server because some fixes which were found to mitigate performance issues were found to not be allowed when starting Alfi via Java Web Start (which has been the standard manner to launch Alfi.)

(Melody)

Continuing with fixing the Problem Reports(PRs). Working on PR 474: view all windows in a miniature mode. Currently working an a better algorithm to display the windows.

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)

Chatterji:

Working with Junwei Cao on a DMT version of the Q Pipeline. A version should be available for testing during M7. The code should be made available in CVS by early next week.

Identified computational needs for Q Pipeline related analysis during S5.

Produced new Q spectrogram scans of the 10 most significant S4 triple coincident time-lag events. This corrects the older scans, which did not account for the time-lag between LHO and LLO. To provide a baseline, scans were also performed for 10 randomly selected times during S4. For three of the events, a scan was also performed of some alignment sensing and control channels that are not in the level 1 reduced data set.

Worked with Surf students. Reviewed final report from Sahand Hormoz. Reviewed final presentation from Maria Principe and provided Q Pipeline triggers from simulated LIGO/Virgo studies for testing and validation of her network tuning algorithm.

Mandic:

With Peter Shawhan, I developed new (burst and inspiral) hardware injection code. This code allows a continuous injection stream, injecting zeros most of the time and injecting waveforms only at prescheduled times. The code has now been tested at LHO, and it seems to be working well.

I also wrote a routine to calculate an upper limit on Omega_GW for an arbitrary spectrum, given the result for the flat spectrum.

Mendell:

I have updated the StackSlide review page for next week's code review F2F with Mike Landry, Peter Shawhan, Teviet Creighton, and Phil Willems, on Sept. 28 and 29 at Caltech. And I have added an investigation that validates the sky grid the StackSlide code uses: The ULR are (access is the same as for the usual pulsar group pages):

http://www.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/~gmendell/PULG/StackSlideUtilities/review/StackSlideReviewPage.html

http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/cgi-bin/enote.pl?nb=puls4stackslide&action=view&page=4

Shawhan:

Worked (with Vuk Mandic) on software for S5 hardware signal injections.
Worked with SURF students Sarah Caudill and Sebastian Cassel on their final reports.
Gave feedback to Lindy Blackburn on S3 burst search paper for Amaldi proceedings.
Reviewed StackSlide pulsar analysis.
Added a feature to segwizard (requested by Stefan Ballmer).
Continued writing and testing LAL code for handling segments and segment lists.

Yakushin:

Preparing for running waveburst online during S5.
Running waveburst on LIGO-GEO data with GEO detector shifted by 17 seconds to check the original background estimate.

LIGO Data Analysis System

Software Systems (Blackburn)

LDAS

Have successfully build and tested LDAS under Solaris 10 and Fedora Core 4 using the GCC 3.3.6 compiler and STLPort Standard C++ Library. Had to abandon plans to use the GCC 4.0.1 compiler as STLPort is still needed with this complier due to thread safety bugs and the fact that the STLPort code will not compile with GCC 4.0.1.

Currently upgrading the LDAS-Dev development system with Solaris 10 and Fedora Core 4. This will allow more extensive testing of LDAS in a multi-cpu environment that can bring out any potential thread issues with the new operating systems and compilers. Will be rebuilding all of LDCG tools and LDAS and LAL for this environment today with plans to do an extensive test this weekend.

Have now successfully integrated TclGlobus into the controlMonitorAPI's client and server. All tests which don't require interactions with the managerAPI are now working with X.509 certificates. Now plan to make the necessary changes to the managerAPI to use TclGlobus and complete the circle, so to speak. This will allow job submission based on X.509 for the first time in LDAS.

TCLGLOBUS

Work closely with the effort to integrate TclGlobus into LDAS. Have begun finalizing and testing a 0.3.0 release of TclGlobus for release as the baseline version of TclGlobus for the upcoming LDAS release.

Discovered that the libcrypto.so should not be loaded into a Tcl/Tk script prior to the loading in of the TclGlobus package or various failures are possible, including the ability to authenticate.

Have been updating the website to reflect the 0.3.0 release. New to this release is support for Fedora Core 3 and 4, Solaris 9 and 10 and support for Globus Toolkit 4.0.1. Will also have tested APIs for the GASS Copy and GASS Transfer.

OSG/GriPhyN/iVDGL

Used a patched version of the OSG 2.1 release of the VDS with components from the vds-binary worker package to successfully run the binary inspiral search code on the OSG-ITB. Continued testing on the LIGO-CIT-ITB cluster revealed a repeatable bug characterized by a spurious error message stating that a cycle exists in the DAG after 500 DAG nodes have been processed. This bug and engineering information related to the DAG work flow failure, was provided to the Condor support team. Condor support confirmed that they can reproduce the bug. The Condor support team is working on a fix and hope to have the fix in one week.

The VDS development team has a release candidate known internally as 1.4 RC2 which may form the basis of testing inspiral work flows at the three LIGO OSG test sites. A suitable cache of vds test components is being assembled in the next week.

The OSG Deployment Group has been notified that LDAS requires VDS 1.4 RC2 or higher as the version of VDS to appear in the next OSG software cache release. Since VDS is distributed by VDT, Alain Roy has also been notified and confirmed that he will include this version in the next VDT release.

Contacted PSU about an engineering note detailing a voms support issue with a port needed for voms clients, waiting for a reply. No effort on GUMS and PRIMA this week.

Carried out weekly update of RPMs on all OSG-ITB cluster nodes using yum utility. This required rebooting all the nodes.

Worked with UWM, PSU and MIT to develop a proposal to the NSF to continue and expand on our Grid Computing activities within the LSC.

Hardware Systems (Anderson)

Caltech

(Dan Kozak)

Mostly worked on getting the RLS instance at CIT to have all file:// URLs point to localhost all URLs to have valid pathnames. In the home stretch on this one.
Gave feedback to Scott Koranda resulting in RenamePFN, a Python tool that can rename RLS PFNs based on input from a file (much faster than repeated globus-rls-cli commands).
Igor found a bad spot on a tape, so I copied 2 files back to LLO and rearchived them.
Helped get ldas-dev/dataserver-dev working (particularly QFS configuration) after upgrade to Solaris 10.

(Phil Ehrens)

Reconfigured ldasdatatest1 to use 2 raid 0 arrays to make use of as much of the 400Gb drive capacity as possible. System is now configured with /dev/md0 size 4.2Tb.
Created patch for /ldcg/ldg/globus/bin/grid-default-ca which fixes bug causing program to exit if default certs were not found EVEN IF the -ca option was used to specify other certs. (update: testing exposed other issues, investigation pending)
Attempted to use the UWM GNATS PR system to report above bug and patch, but incorrect configuration of the server prevented the PR from being registered. Filed bug report against the server with the UWM listserve. (update: server has been fixed)
Upgraded ldas-dev system hosts ldas-dev (gateway) and dataserver-dev to Solaris 10.
Upgraded ldas-dev system hosts datacon, metaserver, and beowulf to Fedora Core 4 with all current updates.

(Stuart Anderson)

Working on Solaris 10 security configuration issues.
Researching next generation node options.
Helping with LDAS-DEV cluster upgrade to FC4 and Sol10.

MIT

(Keith Bayer)

Worked up numbers for heat/power in discussions for mit ligo lab move to different offices.
Discovered 1 cluster node still operating with old local configuration file (not in /ldcg) - fixed.
Still working with Stefan to find work arounds for his cluster jobs swamping our NFS servers.

Livingston

(Igor Yakushin)

Ordered the power supply to replace the one that failed in node13.
Wrote a script that emails the state of T3s and 3510 disks each morning to Dwayne and me.
Wrote a script to create a user account with a single command including all the necessary housekeeping on ldas-grid, ldas-pcdev1, dataserver, ldas-gridmon, ldas and nodes.
Due to hurricane Rita, the move of LDAS to the temporary location is postponed for one day since tomorrow the site is closed. StorageTek engineer is rescheduled to come on Tuesday morning. Nodes also arrive on Tuesday morning.
Together with Dwayne, prepared storage cabinets and table to be moved.
The most recent LDAS layout in the temporary location is available here:

http://www.ligo-la.caltech.edu/~igor/POWER_HVAC_LAYOUT/TEMP2

Dwayne Giardina)

T3-25 disk 4 failed, replaced with disk from hot spare T3-13. Replacement disk ordered.
T3-13 reported all disk failure. Per Sun Storage technician's instructions: shut down T3-13, unplugged all connections, unplugged controller, let sit for a few minutes. Replaced controller and all connections, restarted T3-13. Created new volume, and initialized. Situation resolved.
Power supply failed in node13, replaced with power supply from unused node1.
Continued preparation for LDAS move.

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

Seventy LDAS cluster nodes shipped from Caltech to LHO have arrived, bringing our total number of nodes to 210, for a total of 420 CPUs. The electrical circuits for these nodes are in place, and the HVAC for them should be installed early next week. It is hoped that the cluster upgrade for S5 will thus be completed here by the end of next week.

(Ben Johnson)

The 70 nodes from Caltech arrived, along with power strips and network cables., apparently intact. None of them have been powered up yet.
One file, H-R-810782816-32.gwf, was published with a bad md5sum. I re-published the file (it passes FrCheck etc.), and it transferred to CIT successfully.
Continuing to research Globus WSRF (web services) for the eventual publication service.
Replaced a bad T3 disk, successfully.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT

(Keith)

Made 1 last attempt to get jbod scsi raid working on CAD computer - still having lockups and timeouts I'm assuming the chassis (used) is bad at this point
Troubleshooting MIT network problem
Worked on decommissioning a number of old computer equipment items w/ MIT & Caltech

Livingston

(Dwayne)

Replaced failed disk in SunBlade 2000.
Installed Solaris 10 on SunBlade 2000 for a sandbox server.
With Tom Evans guidance, created new user account for Evan Goetz.
DNS entries with Lisa B. for new systems in CDS, modified some incorrect/conflicting entries.
Installed Protel on workstations for Mike Fyffe and Rusyl Wooley. Shannon ordered new workstation for Ken Watts as his was below minimum requirements.
Assisted Bonnie Wooley with updating some html documents.

Hanford

(Christine)

Network usage can be seen at http://www.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/~christin/mrtg/198.129.208.1_198.129.77.10.html
The new GigE network seems to be working well. Stuart reports an increase of > 50 percent in data transfer speeds. I'm looking into a problem with the mrtg page above. It doesn't report the full amount of bandwidth being used.
The 10 Mb/s backup network is still delayed waiting for two media converters. First, it is next to impossible to find 10/100 single mode to ethernet with SC connectors for a distance of less than 15 km. This is what is required to make the connections in the Westin building in Seattle. Second, when I did finally find a company that had the right converters there was a 2 to 4 week lead time before they could ship. I finally found a company that has the converters in stock, but only for Fast Ethernet. ESnet and Amerion agreed those would work, so I ordered them. They should be here on 9/26 and hopefully by 9/27 or 9/28 we can finish the circuit.
Setup and loaded a computer for a user whose hard drive died. I'll buy a new hard drive for his computer and re-build it. I'm trying to see if there is any chance to access the dead hard drive and maybe retrieve some of his lost files.
Helped users with an e-mail problem where a particular e-mail prevented any of the mail software from opening the user's inbox on the server. The solution was that the user had to get into their inbox through pine or dtmail to delete the offending mail message. Once that was done Eudora, Netscape and Thunderbird were able to read the inbox on the server.
Replaced the hard drive in one of the color printers.
Other misc. user support.

CIT

(Veronica)

LIGO: Set up and troubleshoot a webcast of the last two seminars. LIGO website updates. Working on Advanced LIGO progress website updates. User support with cross-application use of interactive pdf forms.
LSC: Installed the webpages for the upcoming November meeting. Wrote a frontend for the online credit card registration. The ecommerce provider requires user authentication by a personal certificate so we had to find a way to deal with this issue. The application is in a test mode and will be ready to go live shortly.
CaJAGWR: Updates of the website.
Project Science: User support.

(Bruce Sears)

Ilog Development: (1.0 days) Much discussion and some redesign of the latest iLog new-entry interface.

(Mike)

Worked on the new Ghost Server trouble shooting a SATA drive issue. I had many problems with this installation. I turned out to be a driver issued for the controller card. I now have this server up and running.
Loaded a laptop for Ed Jasnow for travel. This was a lot of work transferring over Ed's data to use on travel.
Synchrotron: Re-routed a network cable that is used to provide connectivity to the lower level of Synchrotron, from the server room to Syd's office. This also included moving over an edge switch and reconnecting the fibers to keep the lab area's below connected to the LIGO LAN/Wireless network. Christian Cepeda gave me a hand with this.
New Ghost Server: Configuring DVD -/+ RW. I had many problems trying to get the software that came with this unit to work with Server 2000. Larry gave me an external usb2 DVD-+RW that works just fine. I am also able to use this software with the internal DVD -/+ RW as well.
Burning many ghost images to DVD to make room for end up month backups. This is requiring a lot of time. Something that needed to be done; I fell behind on this task due to my old ghost server having many problems.
Carol Wilkinson/Dwight Carter: Transferring updated data over to the new server (shaula), which is now hosting the PRISM/PRIMAVERA software. I also had to re-configure their laptops to connect to the new server (shaula).
Other miscellaneous onsite/phone user support.

(Larry)

Still working a number of end of the FY procurement issues. The upgrade units have started arriving and will be getting s/w installed starting next week. The racks have arrived but not all of the h/w needed for them. Also, it looks like we will need to order another rack for the server room. The shipment of the DualCore systems has been delayed. The vendors are having problems with keeping up with demand. Still some work to do with the SUN maintenance contract. Ansys contract has been renewed.
Worked out a number of logistical issues with the Campus electrical shop, to where we could keep the network up in the Synchrotron. It was all worked out with the shop people, Mike and Christian were able to move the LIGO equipment with little down time to the network.
Moved a couple of computer systems around for different people. Also, delivered a few more of the LCD monitors.
Checked out a couple more SURF students. A good portion of them has now left and returned to school.
Worked a couple ldas items in getting machines in-sync.
Assisted the DCC with a number of items. File transfers, printing of documents and other misc. items. Also, working with them on the procurement of the new DCC system.
Spent time on a number of user support items and the regular account work.
The mail filters have been modified once again. This time things were opened up to cut down on the false positives. Also, added a number of locations to be blocked that have been sending spam storms. We've also been assisting people in setting up their local spam filter.

Mail Statistics for Sept. 15-21, 05

Mail Statistics	September 15-21, 2005
Rejected Messages	14,454
Virus Messages	1,021
False Positives	60
Accepted Messages	17,984
Total Messages	32,438

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Systems and Management

Systems

from Dennis Coyne

Vacuum Compatibility & Preparation

Residual Gas Assay (RGA)

See also the Vacuum Bake Lab

Bob Taylor

Monday, I worked on the new oven, preparing it for the first of three bake outs.

Tuesday, I finished the 23C scan on the flex circuits for the Birmingham OSEMs and did a cleaning job for Calum on some Quad tooling.

Today, I have started testing the new air bake oven in preparation for qualification tests for LIGO.

I will be doing maintenance on the oven "C" vacuum system today.

High-Irradiance, Contamination-Exposure Cavities

Lee Cardenas, Liyuan Zhang

Cavity (Location)	Material/Item	Start	End	Comments
Cavity #1 (OTF Lab, Bridge)	MMG nickel plated Nd-B-Fe magnets (Helena Armandula, SUS )	~6/8	TBD	Cavity re-alignment is in progress due to power drop and oscillation. ~2 more weeks to completion
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	Test has been completed. Results to be posted by Liyuan Zhang soon.
Queue Priority 1	2 Cleaned 50ppm transmission mirrors, 1 in dia., REO coated --	TBD	TBD	witness samples for the LHO vertex volume (added in 6/29/2005 vent)
Queue Priority 2	OSEM Flexi-circuit cable, qty ~ 45 (Helena Armandula, SUS) To be supplied by Univ. Birmingham (Stuart Aston); Helena is finding out date	soon	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 Bake out and RGA assay has been completed. To be placed into an optical contamination cavity soon.
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. sTo be rebaked soon using the self-heating capability of the stepper motor (not just the oven heater controls)

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

Recieved updated LASTI layouts and schedules from Nergis and Dave Ottoway. Jay and I have started to go through them and layout a proposal for the required CDS systems. Once we have a concept, we will cost it and send out the design and estimate (sometime next week).
Since we would like to move the LASTI CDS architecture toward our concept for AdvLigo, we may want to change out the LASTI HEPI VME controls and replace it with a new system. A concept and cost will follow next week, along with the rest of the layout.
If Jay and I can get the info for the two above items ready in time, I would like to propose a quick review next Thursday or Friday. Time is somewhat of the essence here as the schedule shows triple and quad suspension controls installation beginning in November. I would probably then like to follow up with a quick visit to MIT the week of Oct. 3 (if the key players are in town) to re-familiarize myself with the LASTI lab layout and get the necessary info to begin the installation drawings.

Seismic Isolation

From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

Advanced LIGO Seismic Structure Procurement Status

Assembly	Status
Top Assembly Components 20007970-A Stage 0 Assembly 2000795-A Stage 1 Assembly 20007825-A Stage 2 Assembly 20007825-A	RFQ complete, awaiting bids. Quotes due 9/30. RFQ complete, awaiting bids. Quotes due 9/30. RFQ complete, awaiting bids. Quotes due 9/30. RFQ complete, awaiting bids. Quotes due 9/30.
Stage 0-1 Spring Assembly 20007878-A Stage 1-2 Spring Assembly 20007890	ASI has been issued a purchase order to soften the springs for better performance at 10 hz. The analysis portion is complete. Redesign of the solid model is in process and is expected to be completed by 9/23 Maher Limited holding maraging steel for blades and flexures
GS-13 Pod Assembly 20007810-A L-4C Pod Assembly 20007820-A STS-2 Pod assembly 20007941-A	Geophones and seismometers are in house. RFQ complete, awaiting bids for vacuum housings. RFQ required for machined components and cables
Stage 0-1 Kinematic Lock 20007941-1-A Stage 1-2 Kinematic Lock 20007941-2-A	Tooling design complete. RFQ complete, awaiting bids
Stage 0-1 Actuator Assy.'s 20007966-A 20007967-A Stage 1-2 Actuator Assy.'s 20007968-A 20007969-A	Tooling design complete. RFQ complete, awaiting bids
Stage 0-1 Standoff Pin Stage 0-2 Alignment Tower and Washer Stage 2 Keel Plate Alignment Tower Blade Pre-Load Tooling Blade Calibration Fixture Modifications LASTI Test Stand and Spreader Bar	Solidworks part files exist for the standoff pin and alignment towers. They will require a dimensioned drawing and checking prior to soliciting bids. The blade pre-load tooling and calibration fixture tooling will require redesign following the redesign of the blade springs by ASI. Purchase order for test stand issued to Southern Enterprises. Delivery by 10/16/2005

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

Additional prototype GS13 pre amps are being assembled. We have also designed a direct replacement board that should be easier to fabricate. Both versions should be ready for shipment to Stanford by 9/23.

Suspension

From: ctorrie ctorrie@ligo.caltech.edu

Last night Mark and I, with help from Laurent, re-assembled the single chain quad with the "fixes" suggested by the new theory on flexure points. With a couple of minor additions of mass, within the parameters of the design we suspended all four stages successfully and within a mm or two of the desired height.

Today we will look at the addition of the osems and aligning the other degrees of freedom. Next week we hope to add the reaction chain.

p.s. Laurent was a great help over the last 2 weeks!

From: Ken mailand kmailand@ligo.caltech.edu

Cheryl received a quiet chiller flow meter mounting bracket at LHO she wants another design to allow straight fittings. I made the drawing and gave it to CES today.

Core Optics

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

Pre-Stabilized Laser

From: Peter King pking@ligo.caltech.edu

I have been looking into modular in plant offices and clean room assemblies in order to obtain a cost estimate for said items. It is a little puzzling on just how much detail one needs to provide in order to get a cost estimate but the dimensions were based on the existing setup down at LLO. Thanks to Tom Evans for measuring the ceiling heights for me.

I will be talking with Benno Willke about firming up some configurations next week relating to the laser area enclosure and the clean room requirements.

Auxiliary Optics

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

OMC

Completed a preliminary design for the mechanical structure for the OMC using Solid Works. I am in the process of revising the design to incorporate suggestions by the 40M group, and am starting to make 2D drawings for the parts.

Other Laboratory R&D

From: Riccardo DeSalvo desalvo@ligo.caltech.edu

Juri

I worked with John on the characterization of the misalignment effect in our cavity; in particular I produced some FFT simulations tilting the Mexican Hat mirror in two opposite directions. The results are close to the experimental data but there are still some investigations in progress on the accuracy we can actually achieve in the measure of the mirror tilt. I wrote some Mathematica notebook for the data analysis of the hysteresis measurements in collaboration with Francesca.

Alberto

Last week I got some better measurements that I could show today for my seminar here at LIGO. I found some instabilities in the E.M. antispring circuit working. I think all that circuitry should be made new, maybe digitally implemented via LabView. Anyway, the results we have are very interesting and demonstrated the efficacy of the idea. The system is simple and economic but it performs very well.

I think I'm done. Now I'm writing my thesis and I'm going to get my degree next month.

I'm leaving tomorrow. This is my last weekly. I have to thank my mentor Riccardo DeSalvo and my professor in Italy Francesco Fidecaro who gave me this wonderful opportunity. This has been definitely one of my best summers ever.

Talk in: http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~desalvo/Stochino-Seminar-20.9.05.ppt

Ilaria

I put on the same graph the results obtained with the prototype test and those found by Ansys. Ansys results are fully validated by the measurement results, this proves the validity of the model. Ansys found 20 frequencies; the first 3 concern the motion of the table: the first is the yaw motion, the second the longitudinal motion and the third is the transversal motion. I changed the mass on the top of the table in a range between 300 Kg and 1100Kg. The longitudinal and the transversal motion are identical and the 0-frequency point is the same for all the 3 main modes. There are also 8 degenerate resonances, where each leg has 2 frequencies. In these modes the main flex joint presents C-stress, the small a S-stress but the leg is not stressed. Results show that resonance frequency Ansys found without counterweight is 122 Hz, while measurement of prototype is 103 Hz, so there’s a discrepancy of 20% between them. Adding a counter weight of 1.212 Kg the resonance doesn’t reduce significantly and it could be damped with Eddy current dampers. The other frequencies Ansys found are banana resonances. In this modes not only the 2 flex joint are stressed but also the leg. This is not a problem since the frequencies are higher and resonances move the head of the legs, so the damper will be even more effective. The fourth, fifth and sixth resonances concern spring box. The only one frequency dangerous is the pitch, but the problem can be solved with magnetic dampers; if those are not enough, may be required complementary resonant dampers.

Talk in: http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~desalvo/Taurasi-Seminar-20.9.05.ppt

John

I would firstly like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for all your help over the summer. I have enjoyed myself very much and am grateful to have worked on such an interesting project.

This week I have written both my final report and LIGO presentation. In the lab, I have taken data to try and quantify the tilt sensitivity of the mesa beam more accurately. If time allows I will investigate possible cross-talk between the PZT channels and build a voltage divider to give better resolution.

Talk in: http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~desalvo/Miller-Seminar-20.9.05.ppt

Chiara

I'm working on the HAM SAS project. I made a draft for the eddy current dampers that could be added to the system.

Maria Paola

I have connected the wireless circuit to the motor, and it works, making steps when I push the switches. The only disadvantage is that a certain time is needed for the capacitor to accumulate enough charge to feed the motor and have a step. Using a capacitor of 100 microFarad, we have to wait about 60 seconds for one step. This is due to the fact that the circuit is not optimized, and a lot of improvements could be done to make steps faster.

I am working on my final presentation; it will be posted at http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~desalvo/Clarizia-Seminar-22.9.05.ppt

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