Weekly Report for Week Ending October 20, 2005

The LIGO Executive Committee meeting for October 24, 2005 is cancelled for the Staffing Committee meeting scheduled for that day and time.

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

  • Saulson has been reviewing the MOU's that I submitted to him in September for approval, and has just about completed the group that I submitted. Of those submitted, minor changes were made to ACIGA, Balearic, CaRT, CEGG, Columbia, Stanford, Syracuse, and TexasB, and they have all been posted.
  • I'm still working on changes for GEO, IUCAA, Michigan, Moscow, NAOJ, Oregon, Penn State, Sannio, and SLU.

Non-LSC MOUs (Lloyd)

  • No report.

SITE TELECONFERENCE (Lindquist)

A site teleconference was held Thursday, October 20, 2005.  The following issues were among those discussed:

  • The list of assigned actions updated through September 1, 2005 (the last time that the actions were statused) will be found Here.  There are no open action assignments
  • FY 2006 budgets were discussed during the Executive Committee meeting on October 17.  To first order the budgets presented were deemed adequate for proceeding.  Minor iteration will continue
  • Property—the computers are up and working in the temporary space at Livingston.  Remodeling of the computer room is in progress.  Bids are needed for the HVAC upgrade.
  • Note If materials are procured for different sites on a single purchase order and one of those sites is Caltech, then sales tax will be charged at the California rate for the total PO.  To avoid being charged excess sales tax, such POs should be separated.  Ed Jasnow accepted an action to send a statement to LIGO-all pertaining to this issue.

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT (Chargois)

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

  • Provided assistance to the Detector Group (J. Romie) by preparing a request to CIT's Carpentry Shop to construct a crate 9.5"x16.5"x25.5" to ship a LOS structure to MIT (G. Harry), all phases of this process are complete.  Account Number LIGO.SUS 5.10 NSFLIGO.FY02ON.
  • Provided assistance on two (2) occasions to the Detector Group (H Armandula) packing and shipping nine (9ea.) 2"dia. Windows coated for "S" polarization and 2"dia. coated substrate (E040514-L1, 4ea) Lenses and E040512-B1 (9ea.) B/S-50/50 "P" to LHO (D Cook).  Account Numbers P204324/P204422.
  • Provided assistance on two (2) occasions to the Detector Group (H Armandula) packing and shipping four (4ea.) 2"dia. Windows coated for "S" polarization and 2"dia. coated substrates (E040514-L1 (2ea.) lenses and E040512-B1 (9ea.)B/S-50/50 "P" to LLO (V Frolov) Account Numbers P204324/P204422.
  • Prepared a Report of Excess Personal Property (SF 120) for the National Science Foundation (Michelle Gerald) to remove the Carrier Air Handling Unit from the LHO.

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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

  • Worked on the cost justification for selection of File Hold over other bidders for the issuance of a contract with File Hold for a document management system.
  • Continued to review areas of current database needing to be cleaned up or prepped for upcoming migration to new system.
  • Continued monitoring ongoing scanning tasks with Annie, Jim and Cleveland.

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

Week Ending

October 20, 2005

In

Out

Packages

31

9

Faxes

23

22
  • Processed the large number of presentations from the 2005 Gingin Workshop on Gravitational Wave Detection.
  • Assisted in sending out an RFQ for "Fabrication for Advanced LIGO Seismic Isolation System Blades and Flex Rods."
  • **Scanning Project Update** - Progress continues on Larry Jones' boxes of files.  A lot of prep work is being done prior to scanning.  With that being said, we are looking to reduce prep time as much as possible.  To date, we have 3 of 16 boxes scanned.

COST SCHEDULE CONTROL SYSTEMS (Cunningham, Brambila, Kaufman)

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

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

  • Completed change order #2 to the CSIRO subcontract for the no-cost extension through 10/1/06. Submitted the change to the vendor.
  • Completed change order #1 to Excel's time and material.  Received the signed Supplemental Agreement back from Excel.
  • Working with LIGO Livingston Observatory on a return and replacement of two computer monitors.  The replacement has been sent out and the returns will be shipped out.
  • Working on the three new subcontracts: Cangelosi Ward, Arland, and Limerick.
  • Working on the change order to MIT.
  • Completed change order #4 to Ezus Lyon 1 and submitted the change to the vendor.
  • Reconciled the October report for Pcard which consisted of 22 transactions totaling $18,351.49 and submitted the completed report to management for approval. The remaining open pcard orders are current and only go back to late September '05.

>From: Florence Kaufman <fkaufman>

  • Prepared a summary of discussion during Executive Committee meeting on Monday, October 17th pertaining to FY05 budget approval.
  • Submitted a Fabrication Equipment Request for the Computer Cluster at Caltech.
  • 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>

  • We have received the signed contract from Cangelosi-Ward for the construction of the LLO Science Education Center.  The contract is now being processed for signature by Caltech.  The contractor is also submitting his performance and payment bonds for the job, which will allow for the issuance of a Notice to Proceed.  The planned Notice to Proceed date is Monday, October 24, with a kick-off meeting tentatively set for Wednesday, October 26, at LLO.
  • Eskew-Dumez-Ripple, architects for the LLO SEC, are preparing a proposal for additional construction management on site.

SUPPORT (Baldon, Hiroto, Lloyd)

>Irene Baldon

  • Processed the paper work for two (2) new/revised trips.  At this time there are eight (8) trips completed or in the works but are awaiting the necessary paper work to enter the P-Card system.
  • Completed twenty (20) Expense Reports and there zero (0) 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 is only one (1) report 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

  • No report.

>Dorothy Lloyd

  • Processed the usual invoices for payment and followed up on problems.
  • Processed the usual requisitions for purchases over $10K and standard POs, as SOS buyer, for those under.
  • Jim continued with data entry in the LIGO database and helping out in the DCC.

NSF Review (Lindquist)

The NSF Review is scheduled for November 9-11, 2005.  I am collecting materials to be sent to the reviewers in advance.  Contributions should be provided no later than Monday, October 24.

CHANGE CONTROL/CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT (Lindquist)

  • No open change requests.

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)

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

  • A staffing Committee meeting is scheduled for Monday, October 24.  The DRAFT agenda has been posted.  All files are posted and up-to-date on the web page..

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

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

No report.

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

Summary of Commissioning Activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory (compiled by M. Landry)

Better performance on both machines was observed during the week, with H1 at times in excess of 10Mpc, and H2 beyond 4Mpc.

Commissioning highlights are bulleted below:

  • activity in the optics lab (adjacent to the 4k mode cleaner) increases 1.5 and 1.6Hz stack modes as seen in MC sensors, but did not appreciably raise the noise level (upconverted or otherwise) in DARM_ERR
  • various forms of sledgehammer were tested against burst coincidences seen in S4; forklift-induced seismic noise best resembles the coincidences seen in H1-H2 AS_Q and microphones

4K IFO

  • Friday 14th marked the return of some of the best locking we've had in a while.  ASI_CORR was improved over past weeks, after a careful recentering the beams on the antisymmetric port photodiodes.  Some of the problems we've encountered in the past few weeks may have been due to slight re-alignments suffered by the installation of heavy meat lockers on the technical slab.  MMT3 are PSL periscope mirrors show evidence of a dodge around installation time.
  • ASPD2 has been shown in the past to have a problem region on the middle of the diode, an thus when running, we risk drifting into to a bad regime.  Despite that spare photodiodes are the new kind that may(!) induce AS_I latching, we'll swap this one out and see what happens.  Multiple PDS on 4k have such problem spots, probably due to burning.  When this installation of ASPD2 is done, the beam will be expanded some (as was done on H2 already) to reduce the energy density on the PDs.
  • the PSL NPRO power supply was swapped out, and chiller hoses shortened
  • to better understand and match the high frequency calibration at ~37kHz, to that of the low frequency calibration (our standard 10Hz-7kHz), a high f (37.5kHz) calibration line was injected via the coil drivers
  • the REFL beam stabilization servo was commissioned
  • S5 hardware injection code was tested; it was shown that the impact of burst/inspiral injections on IFO duty cycle would be less than five minutes per day
  • Bias modules of the large optics were retrofitted with power-supply protection.  Cooling fans added a factor of 20 in low frequency noise so we'll maintain standard running configuration: fans off, racks open.  We can't typically run in science mode for long with closed racks.
  • In order not to impress extraneous noise on DARM via the MICH correction, the beamsplitter dewhitening compensation was modified from "design" to the inverse of the "as-built" dewhite.  Next: the RM and the PRC correction.

2K IFO

  • ISCT10 remains floating, and the idea is to leave it that way for the science run, unless long term drifts are shown to be problematic
  • Nice save! a new trigger feature was added such that ASPDs can transition automatically from run photodiodes to ASPD5, saving the IFO from unlocking and the associated downtime of rerunning fullup scripts.
  • Noise above 400Hz was better for reasons unkown.  Another look, here.
  • Super-polished 2" optics were swapped in on ISCT10.

DAQ/CDS

  • no long-term drift is observed in the new timing system; see the 20 day trend here
  • new code went in, one feature added was the AS port shutter with RF trigger, as described above in the 2k section

Outreach (D. Ingram)

LHO welcomed astronaut Bonnie Dunbar for a visit on 10/15/05.

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

L1 Interferometer (Zucker for a cast of thousands)

A virtual commissioning frenzy:

  • The excess 1/f2.5 noise reported last week was traced to a failed DAC driving the beamsplitter and recycling mirror with glitchy spikes.  Coincidentally, this occurred in the middle of the bias module protection retrofit, confounding the diagnosis.
  • We got the new, latest & greatest noise budget code running
  • One component is a more realistic estimate of the OSEM noise coupling, unmasking it as the dominant source of the "wall" at low frequencies.  Better OSEM POS filtering knocked down the wall somewhat.
  • The wiggly WFS problem noted for some time (trouble getting through power up, excess sensitivity to trains) was tracked to divergence between the "UNOL" filters and the optical levers they are supposed to model/invert. Not only was this fixed, but a script was built to keep them within tolerance for ever and ever.
  • The REFL2 common-mode sensing chain (using the non-resonant sidebands at 66 MHz) was commissioned and found to work spectacularly. It is clear that the lock point is optically closer to the carrier optimum; SNR is about 10 dB better, no "Q" phase overloading, etc, etc.  We are setting aside "plan B"  (which was to run a REFLQ servo to patch REFL1, like the ASI servos on the dark port)
  • Some new HEPI resonant-gain filters were installed to further reduce susceptibility at pendulum and stack resonant modes. These should further improve robustness against trains and construction activity.
  • New low-scatter, wide-aperture optics were installed on the antisymmetric port.
  • With everything working well again at 5W into the MC, it was decided to raise the laser power. To get back the 20% loss incurred two weeks ago during the laser cleaning incident, the pump current was raised (there's still some headroom). This brought the laser power up to 10.3 W out of the head which is pretty close to where it had been.
  • Unfortunately, greed set at that point and an attempt was made to get even more by realigning the MOPA from scratch. A new alignment was converged but with neglible power improvement. Even worse, the new alignment required different alignment for the FSS path and PMC, and seems to also want different modematching into the PMC. This detour cost us a couple days.
  • Plan is to push to 8W into the MC this weekend.

CDS (Bogue)

  • Installed gamma ray burst code. Configured the new channels into l1iocstat because it is our only solaris ioc and it is complicated to build a new on.
  • Helped resolve problems with the TCS servo channel outputs.
  • Updated/corrected the reflpd channels - Installed new state vector code to support injections - Built a new solaris box for injections called lloinj - Built 3 solaris boxes for use in the lvea.
  • Got with Szabi to reprogram the atomic clock. I can't get a serial connection into it, so I have a call into tech support.
  • Put my cds jumpstart server through its paces. This server allows me to quickly roll out control workstations -- about 2 hours per box but only about 15 minutes of work on my part.
  • Offered my support to Alex on last friday's code drop. I must say that Alex did such a spectacular job that there was nothing for me to do.

Computing and Network Security (Roddy)

The LDAP & Java Enterprise services rollout has taken quite a bit longer than I had hoped for.  I had hoped to be able to shift back over to security concerns at this point.  There are a couple of subtle mistakes that are easy to make, even after reading many of the documents available from Sun (there are about two dozen manuals, each 100-1200 pages).  If one explicitly follows their deployment scenario for a test installation, one of the subtleties can be a "deal breaker" for deploying the mail server.  Unfortunately, there is no easy way to back out this configuration problem, so the only solution is either to completely uninstall the directory server installation & reconfigure, or start fresh from a cleanly installed machine.  The problem arises from the configuration of the "administrative domain" on the root of the Directory Information Tree.  If there are duplicate entries, the administrative tools for adding users, mail domains, aliases, etc. will break.  Additionally, I found that a native LDAP Solaris client will have issues with the DIT configured this way.  I discovered the bug yesterday, and worked all night on the issue.  I ran through a test installation with the suspected fix and it appeared to work.  I will be starting this evening on deploying the DIT and JES with this correction and will then hopefully have it deployed by the weekend.  Most of the user accounts and modifications are scripted now, so the majority of time required to install the system is configuration of the services, SSL, etc.

Contacted Sun about a service contract for this software.  The quote was a bit higher than I had hoped for, but might be worth it.  At least for the first year.

The PC that was found to be infected with a mIRC & DDoS  bot last week was cleaned and no further evidence of bad traffic has been seen on the network since.  I have been keeping a close eye on the IDS system since.

CDS Code Support (Khan)

No report

Education and Outreach (Thacker)

Attended Assoc of Science & Technology Ctrs (ASTC) annual conference

Site Safety and Security (Riesen)

No report.

HPLF (Franzen)

HPLF news: Tested the 100 W laser for the first time since the hurricanes. No problems so far. Started to set up a small test of LZH TFPs.

#MEZ TLA 411: "Laser Zentrum Hannover Thin Film Polarizers"

General Computing (Giardina)

  • Rode shotgun while Shannon cleared a PC of a mIRC bot.
  • Norton would not install on one laptop.  Clearing the registry of anything "Norton" or "Symantec" (no other Symantec products were installed on this machine) allowed installation to run after reboot.
  • Shannon and I installed a WAP in the visitor travel trailer.
  • Installed Kantech, repaired Office 2003 install, and migrated files on Rich Riesen's new PC.
  • Installed Adobe Acrobat Pro on a laptop.

AdL SUS/SE Mechanical Engineering (Spjeld)

Quad SUS Installation Fixtures

  • simplifying parts to reduce cost and lead time of prototype manufacturing in progress
  • meeting with Calum and Ken Mailand on 10/18 to discuss design progress and manufacturing

LDAS/Condor and data analysis (Yakushin)

Storage/Condor/LDAS Admin

  • 3510's upper controller is replaced. This time it came up fine.
  • Upgrading Linux machines to Fedora Core 4, SUN machines to Solaris 10.

LDAS/Condor sysadmin (Giardina)

  • Replacing disks in nodes with reported disk problems.  I will send a complete list upon completion.
  • Nodes 139 and 84 will not boot even after replacing disk, cable and swapping memory.  I will continue to troubleshoot these nodes after I bring up as many of the others as possible.
  • Finished labeling all the new nodes.
  • Ordered two replacements disks for T3-13 from Sun.  Case Number: 64780765
  • I will be visiting CIT next week, Oct 24-28

Initial LIGO Detector Science & Engineering (Coyne)

CDS

see also the CDS weekly meeting minutes in the commissioning archives

CDS Software

Rolf Bork

  • Loaded new LSC code with shutter controller trip output on LHO2k.  It appears to have some problems and we are still debugging.
  • Once this last change is stable, we will download new code to LLO.  We will work with Rana and Lisa remotely i.e. not travel to LLO, unless we encounter problems.
  • Debugged latest LSC code w/output to fast shutter (undersized array was causing problems). This code is now fixed and running on LHO2k and LHO4k.
  • Added another useis filter module for LHO4k ETM controllers. This code was loaded at LHO yesterday.
  • Rana noted aliasing in decimated DAQ channels on ETMs at LLO. It turns out that I forgot to set the compiler flag that enables decimation filtering on the ETMs. This was fixed on LHO4k yesterday with the new ETM code. This code will be updated on LHO2k and LLO4k during CDS maintenance next Tuesday.
  • All of the latest code changes will be loaded at LLO next week. Remaining items are LSC w/shutter output, Fast ADCU, and decimation fix for ETM controllers. As far as I know now, these are the last changes prior to S5 (possible exception a Hepi change??).

CDS Hardware

Jay Heefner

Refl Beam Stabilization

The new interface boards have been received and are being stuffed. A full chassis should be ready for shipment to LHO by Monday. The others for LLO and spares will follow over the next week.

Ben Abbott

LSC RFPD

Todd finished testing, and delivered the last of the requested RFPDs to the sites.

Fast Shutter

The machine shop has finished the mechanical portion of the shutters. I am performing some minor modification on these, and then will begin the assembly and testing of the electronics parts (assuming that the parts arrive soon).

ISS PDs

I've finished the assembly of five units that are needed at Hanford and Livingston. Tests indicate that they are functioning fine. I need to write up some paperwork on the testing done to the ISS PDs, and then they can be sent out to the sites sometime this week.

DMT

John Zweizig

Last week I set up for and participated in the M7 mini-run at LHO. After installing the most recent version of all DMT monitors, I went on to verify that the monitors were correctly configured and that everything was running smoothly. Several problems were discovered with the newly revamped trigger and segment generation and fixes for these problems were made. These fixes were checked offline, but not installed online. I am now updating the LHO installation with these and other changes in preparation for the M8 run at LLO.

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

To celebrate the full lock of our interferometer in the nominal Advanced LIGO configuration, we had a party at the 40m on Wednesday. There was quite a crowd, including many people who made major contributions to this effort, and a good time was had by all. Thanks for coming to help us celebrate!

The 40 Meter Technical Advisory Committee report from the meeting on 10/13/05 is here (pdf). Slides presented at the meeting are here (pdf).

IFO commissioning

  • As reported last week, Osamu finally brought the 40m into full RSE configuration, with the arms and PRC in full resonance, last Thursday. This was accomplished, despite considerable noise, through careful loop shaping and gain optimization as the CARM signal was transferred from transmitted light DC to the POX RF and the offset was slowly brought to zero.
  • On Monday, Rob and Matt achieved full lock via a different path, using the POX RF signal to control the analog common mode servo. Because of the high bandwidth of the analog servo, they reduced the noise enough to make lock acquisition relatively easy and robust. Longest lock seen: 128 minutes. Generally locks last until they are broken by operator, dumptruck or earthquake. Unfortunately, there have been several local quakes with mag > 4 in the last week.
  • Both Osamu and Rob and Matt took CARM and DARM transfer functions, noise spectra, etc. There is a clear RSE peak in DARM, and also in CARM with an offset. It should be at 4 kHz, but (depending on lock) it can be as low as 3.4 kHz. Rb and Matt tried to adjust offsets to move the peak, with only limited success. Under investigation.
  • For non-zero CARM offset, there is a clear loss of optical gain at frequencies below 50 Hz, which hampered lock acquisition for a long time. It appears to be consistent with an optical spring effect (as predicted quantitatively by Kentaro). We don't see a peak where we expect it (~50 Hz), but that could be due to larger-than-modeled losses.
  • Rob and Matt automated the lock acquisition procedure. One manual step (unplugging a cable on the common mode servo) was eliminated when Ben implemnented a switch on the board. Now, the detector can be brought to full lock via script, quickly and reliably. The only hard part is the pre-alignment. We need a better pre-alignment procedure.
  • The lock slowly drifts away from its correct point, presumably due to alignment drift. We need an in-lock alignment sensing system!
  • The asymmetric port spot looks awful, presumably due to misalignments, mode mismatches, offsets, etc.
  • Rob and Osamu compiled a long list of near-term to do items, including pre-alignment and autoalignment, mode matching, and also a comprehensive approach to setting correct offsets, demod phases, gains etc.
  • Dan is gearing up to work on developing the noise budget model.

IFO modeling

  • Kentaro made some plots to illustrate the CARM and transfer functions, exhibiting optical spring peak and low-frequency-falloff, with varying CARM offset. We need more predictions for varying optical loss, and also for DARM.

DC detection development

  • Mike's assembly drawing for the OMC is complete. A drawing package is being prepared for release to the DCC.
  • Steve is investigating the costs for machining Mike's output mode cleaner design in copper, which is a low-Q material that is high-vacuum-compatible.
  • We received a pair of REO mirrors from LHO, and Liyuan measured the transmission to be T=1.55%, resulting in an output mode cleaner finesse of around 200. This is good enough!
  • We also received REO HR mirrors from LHO, but they're for 43.5degrees incidence, we need them for near-0degrees. So we're ordering broadband superminrrors from Newport.

Electronics, controls

  • Dan and Ben are working on implementing the RevB coil drivers on the mode cleaner suspensions.
  • Dan continues to work on suspension diagonalization and performance evaluation. Wiring is going in, and the 4116 DAC is in place. The EPICS database and screens are in progress.
  • Ben implemented a switch on the Common Mode Servo, so that one of two input signals can be switched off when the other is ramped up. He made some modifications to the board, and installed some cross-connect wiring. He then modified the database, and screen. Rob tested it out in place, and it is working fine.
  • Rana is trying to acquire a new generation (Sigg) Common Mode servo board for us.

Lab Infrastructure

  • Steve reports that, at long last, rain gutters and downspouts have been installed on the 40m roof.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

This week we vented and opened the chamber, and began working on the transmission of the arm cavities.

LASTI (Ottaway)

No report.

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)

Weekly E2E Physics Meeting

Biplab talked about 'Diffraction Losses in Advanced LIGO' based on his LIGO note currently available at http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~bbhawal/Blair/T050234-00-E.pdf

Sany Yoshida presented results from modeling of Seismic Isolation System. There was also discussion about Modal model calculations.

AdvLIGO Seismic Isolation

(Sany Yoshida) Continued AdvLIGO seismic isolation e2e modeling. Our e2e box file now shows reasonable impulse response for ground x and ground y displacement inputs. With this box file, we computed the displacement of the seismic isolation stage, using actual, calibrated ground x and y displacement signals recorded at LLO HAM1 chamber via the corresponding DAQ channel. The time series of the resultant stage 1 and stage 2 displacements vary from -6e-9 m to +1e-8 m at about 0.15 Hz for the computation time of 10 sec. The LIGO I BSC table x and y motion that we computed for comparison using the e2e BSC stack model with the same ground x and y input signal vary from -3e-9 m to 3e-9 m at about 1.4 Hz. The frequency series of these computations indicate that the 1.4 Hz peak observed in the LIGO I BSC stack completely disappears in the AdvLIGO seismic isolation (both in stage 1 and stage 2), whereas the signal level in the entire 1 - 10 Hz range is improved by an order of magnitude (in stage 1) and another factor of two (in stage 2). Around 0.15 Hz, there is a peak of the same level as the LIGO I BSC case.

AdvLIGO Work

(Hiro) Scattering noise estimation is being estimated using twiddle and e2e. The design of FFT modeling is in progress.

Modeler

(Hiro) Validation of dual_sum, fast simulation of dual recycled Michelson is done. During this validation, a limitation of the use of macro was identified (mystery solved), and alfi will be modified to prohibit defining macros in instances as an workaround.

Version 3.0.0 is posted in the e2e download folder. This is mainly for users who are hit by the bug in 2.5.0. 3.0.0 is still alpha level quality and modeler_freq needs to be implemented even in a quick and dirty way.

(Melody) Documented Matt's modeler scripts for remote processing.

Alfi

(Bruce) Completed work on node validation, specifically, the checking of all nodes in the system for unresolved connections which are associated with bundlers (PR 495).

(Melody)Currently working on a new feature to swap different nodes without removing the connections (PR 280).

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)

Shawhan:

  • Attended a workshop on LISA data analysis methods.
  • Reviewed changes made to papers: S3 untriggered burst search, S2 LIGO-TAMA burst search, S2 Hough transform pulsar search.
  • Studied accelerometer channels for use as vetoes in S4 analysis.
  • Added a program to lalapps to apply vetoes as part of inspiral analysis pipelines.
  • Generated list of veto time intervals for S4 H1 inspiral analysis based on recommendations by Gaby Gonzalez.
  • Continued to work with Vuk Mandic on preparations for hardware signal injections during S5.

Yakushin:

  •  

Mendell:

  • I am working SFT generation for S5. In the past week I have checked into lalapps CVS these file, MakeSFTs.c, Makefile_MakeSFTs,
    scripts/MakeSFTDAG, scripts/datafind.sub, scripts/MakeSFTs.sub scripts/onasysd.MakeSFTsA4H1.sub, and scripts/onasysd.MakeSFTsA4H1.ini, under lalapps/src/pulsar/MakeSFTs. The script MakeSFTDAG is a python script that will be used with onasys to generate SFTs. However, I also will add command line arguments to allow generating DAGs for offline generation of SFTs as well. Other options, such as Hann windowing of overlapping SFTs will be added when I get time. The first working version will generate version 1 SFTs, but once that it is working it should not be hard to add the option to output version 2 SFTs for S5. These files are still currently under construction, but I hope to have this running on astrowatch data by the end of next week.

Mandic:

  • I have performed the stochastic all-sky analysis on S3 H1L1 data with 1/32 Hz resolution. I have also calculated the S3 H1L1 coherence at 1 mHz resolution. The results indicate that S3 H1L1 is not suffering from the 1 Hz harmonics. However, some structure has showed up in the H1L1 coherence which was not observed in the past. I plan to study this further to check if this structure is real.
  • I have also updated the new code to be used for hardware injections during S5. Several minor bugs were removed, and we reduced the time-overhead to less than 36 seconds per injection. Several tests were performed at both LLO and LHO.

Chatterji:

Sutton:

  • This week I modified the LIGO-TAMA bursts paper according to the PRD reviewer's comments.  The new version and a response to reviewer have been circulated in LIGO and TAMA.  I'm editing my paper on the LIGO cheese and GWB characterisation.
  • I've continued working on the coherent network burst search project with Chatterji, Tinto, Searle, focusing mainly on understanding Bayesian formulation of the problem, and demonstrating equivalence of maximum likelihood and null stream approaches.
  • I'm also working on Matlab script to compare various FIR filters for burst detection.

LIGO Data Analysis System

Software Systems (Blackburn)

LDAS

LDAS now has support for server to server X.509 certification using TclGlobus. This will all the controlMonitorAPI server and the managerAPI to connect through secure GSI sockets using the X.509 host certificates.

Several issues with using the X.509 certificate for authentication in conjunction with using the old username/password interface have been solved. In particular a user can bounce back and forth between the two in a single session if desired.

Fixed an issue wiht the managerAPI not checking if an API is to be part of a running LDAS system before attempting to extract information from the API.

Updated DB2 documentation to reflect the version of DB2 to be used in the next LDAS release (8.2.2). Enhanced documentation for installation of third party software found in LDCG.

In the process of upgrading the LDAS systems at LLO, LHO and CIT with the new database and resource files in preparation for the new LDAS release.

Ran all system tests on the nightly build for version 1.7.76. Still an issue with renaming .tmp to .gwf in the concatFrameData command. Efforts to isolate the bug associated with this test failure continue. The first fix resulted in the frameAPI freezing up about once a day.

Continuing to wait for the Solaris 10 and Fedora Core 4 upgrades at the sites to take place before releasing the next version of LDAS. Now looks like early next week is the soonest this will take place.

TCLGLOBUS

Currently developing "TCL Channel" support within TclGlobus for the Globus XIO open, close, read write and a few other key functions for use in LDAS.

Finished a test case to exercise the TCL Channel client use of the open and close operations. This has been tested against the existing "raw" Globus server developed for unit testing of XIO. The client successfully connects and disconnects from the server.

Developed a test TCL Channel server which is able to open up a listening port. Still working on detailed implementation of the server to handle new incoming client connections.

OSG/GRIPHYN/IVDGL

A demonstration of the Inspiral pipeline application on OSG has been planned for Supercomputing 2005. OSG planners have asked the application providers including the LIGO OSG team to provide an application to support load ing the 15000 (potential) compute nodes on the OSG production grid.

Working with OSG and site administrators from non-LIGO sites:  CIT_CMS_PG, Nebraska and UCSandiegoOSG_Prod verified that the LIGO VO is supported at those sites.

Edited and published a web page detailing how to install the VDS components necessary to support the LIGO Inspiral pipeline application, at sites participating in the OSG Challenge at Supercomputing 2005 by supporting the LIGO applications.

Nebraska and UCSandiegoOSG_Prod sites installed the VDS components for the LIGO applications.

Submitted the Inspiral pipeline DAG to the Condor pool at Nebraska and UCSandiegoOSG_Prod sites. The Inspiral pipeline DAG failed to transfer all data to Nebraska and failed to run to completion at UCSandiegoOSG_Prod.  Testing of gsiftpv2 as a more reliable ftp protocol is being examined in conjunction with staff of Nebraska.  A detailed analysis of a run at UCSandiegoOSAG_Prod is planned for next week.

Submission of the Inspiral pipeline DAG to a Condor pool comprised of PSU and UWMilwaukee failed with a DAG node at UWMilwaukee aborting but not returning the error to the submission system. More detailed analysis of this failure is planned for next week.

Tested voms-proxy-init with the LIGO voms server. Sent failure message to voms administrator at PSU for further analysis and debug. (Late-breaking-news: Murali has now fixed this at PSU!)

Performed a yum update and reboot of all nodes of LIGO-CIT-ITB.

Hardware Systems (Anderson)

Caltech

(Phil Ehrens)

  • Worked with Ed Maros to debug intermittent frame file write failure. Discovered a thread safety issue related to Tcl's 'trace' facility. Removing the trace call from frame::writeFile put an end to the intermittent failures.
  • Cleaned up "High Bay" in synchrotron with Stuart Anderson and Erik Espinoza.
  • Debugged issues with Apache/Subversion that were causing errors to be logged and preventing transparent challenge-less read/write interaction with repository.
  • Upgraded versions of Apache/OpenSSL/Subversion on Dziban to patch subversion bugs and to test recently stabilized OpenSSL support for proxy certificates.
  • Discussed nature of proxy certificates and globus certificate management with Scott Koranda during his visit at CIT on 10/17.
  • Worked on unified Big Brother/Logwatch extension/replacement code that will be used by sysadmins to monitor all platforms and systems. This package will consist of a client/server model log analysis and reporting suite that creates web page reports and optional email reports. Access to the web pages will be restricted by password. Dynamic filtered reports based on regex will be available via URL. Maintenance and configuration of this system will be required only on gateway machines, with internal machines updated automatically based on rules defined at the gateway. Primary design concerns are minimal resource utilization and minimal perceived "nagging."
  • Worked with Ed Maros to clean up some remaining ssh configuration issues on the ldas-tandemN systems.
  • Worked with Ben Johnson at LHO to help clone cluster disks. Wrote a script that removed any requirement for handwork on the individual systems other than to run a single script with a single argument.
  • Worked with Ed Maros to resolve new issues related to failure of frame files written by the frame API to be complete. The resolution has been postponed until the LDAS 1.9 release, since the actual scope of changes required is not known.
  • Updated ldas-sw-backup to Solaris 10. Mostly complete except for mirroring of internal drives.

(Erik Espinoza)

  • Wrote scripts to configure cluster nodes to send mail for LHO.
  • Still debugging kernel options with v40z.
  • Contacted Sun about Fedora Core kernel issues.
  • Writing bugzilla report for fc4 and possibly vanilla kernel.
  • Reading over documentation on System Imager to become more familiar with our current deployment infrastructure.

(Stuart Anderson)

  • Working with Vendors to obtain price quotes for the next CIT cluster.
  • Helping with the Linux/Solaris/LDAS/SAM-QFS upgrade at LHO/LLO this week in preparation for S5.
  • Updated several security patches on Solaris.

MIT

(Keith Bayer)

  • Building Sol 10 machine.
  • Received 3 blade boards for foundry switch from Caltech.

Livingston

(Dwayne Giardina)

  • Replacing disks in nodes with reported disk problems. I will send a complete list upon completion.
  • Nodes 139 and 84 will not boot even after replacing disk, cable and swapping memory. I will continue to troubleshoot these nodes after I bring up as many of the others as possible.
  • Finished labeling all the new nodes.
  • Ordered two replacements disks for T3-13 from Sun.
  • I will be visiting CIT next week, Oct 24-28.

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

  • The new HVAC system at LHO is running, but causing a fair bit of noise in the offices in the new building here. I am working with staff here and the contractor on ideas of how to mitigate this. Robert Schofield and I did a very quick check on whether this is also having an effect on the siesmic noise, and tentatively found that it produces the 3rd highest peak in the seismic spectrum near 30 Hz. Robert doesn't think this is problem for the IFOs, but we plan to do more testing. The unit is on spring isolators.
  • I am also preparing to generate Level 1, 3, and 4 RDS data for M8 at LLO.

(Ben Johnson)

  • Upgrading cluster to FC4. All 210 nodes will be upgraded.
  • Installing Solaris 10 on gateway and dataserver.
  • Continuing to work with Duncan Brown on getting ldbdbd + publishing working.
  • There was a data gap in fb1 for several minutes early Wednesday morning. The cause is presently unknown, will investigate further once the upgrade(s) in ldas-land are complete.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT

(Keith)

  • Added WEP back to wireless hubs in NW17
  • Troubleshot NFS problems on gall
  • Looked into VPN trouble with visitor
  • Investigated specific promail setup for scientist
  • Troubleshooting late model thinkpad

LLO

(Dwayne)

  • Rode shotgun while Shannon cleared a PC of a mIRC bot.
  • Norton would not install on one laptop. Clearing the registry of anything "Norton" or "Symantec" (no other Symantec products were installed on this machine) allowed installation to run after reboot.
  • Shannon and I installed a WAP in the visitor travel trailer.
  • Installed Kantech, repaired Office 2003 install, and migrated files on Rich Riesen's new PC.
  • Installed Adobe Acrobat Pro on a laptop

(Shannon)

  • The LDAP & Java Enterprise services rollout has taken quite a bit longer than I had hoped for. I had hoped to be able to shift back over to security concerns at this point. There are a couple of subtle mistakes that are easy to make, even after reading many of the documents available from Sun (there are about two dozen manuals, each 100-1200 pages). If one explicitly follows their deployment scenario for a test installation, one of the subtleties can be a "deal breaker" for deploying the mail server. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to back out this configuration problem, so the only solution is either to completely uninstall the directory server installation & reconfigure, or start fresh from a cleanly installed machine. The problem arises from the configuration of the "administrative domain" on the root of the Directory Information Tree. If there are duplicate entries, the administrative tools for adding users, mail domains, aliases, etc. will break. Additionally, I found that a native LDAP Solaris client will have issues with the DIT configured this way. I discovered the bug yesterday, and worked all night on the issue. I ran through a test installation with the suspected fix and it appeared to work. I will be starting this evening on deploying the DIT and JES with this correction and will then hopefully have it deployed by the weekend. Most of the user accounts and modifications are scripted now, so the majority of time required to install the system is configuration of the services, SSL, etc. Contacted Sun about a service contract for this software. The quote was a bit higher than I had hoped for, but might be worth it. At least for the first year.
  • The PC that was found to be infected with a mIRC & DDoS bot last week was cleaned and no further evidence of bad traffic has been seen on the network since. I have been keeping a close eye on the IDS system since.

LHO

(Christine)

  • Submitted an "Agreement for use of a privately owned computer as a LIGO work computer" to Stan for review. He had a couple of changes, that I am working on.
  • Received an invoice from PNNL for the GigE network services. Gina is putting together a subcontract based on the information in the invoice.
  • Nothing new with the 10 Mb/s backup network. Still unable to get a link between LHO and PNNL. PNNL has requested LMSI inspect the fibers. I doubt there is anything wrong with the fibers as these were used two months ago for our OC3 network. Everything else checks out ok, so we have to inspect everything.
  • Updated the patches on a Sun computer that was missing libraries required to run Thunderbird.
  • Will be upgrading the application license server from Solaris 8 to 9 on Saturday. This impacts all the CDS computers which mount the server.  Saturday was selected because the frame builders will be down for disk installs.
  • Installed Symantec AV 10.0 on a couple more computers.

CIT

(Veronica)

  • LSC: Updates of the publications database. Updates to the November meeting website.
  • LIGO: Compressed the NASA newsconference footage for streaming and burned some extra copies of the DVD. LIGO website /roster database updates. Brought up to date various lists of email aliases. Updates to the NSF review website.
  • Project Science: User support.

(Mike)

  • This week I worked mostly on going through old computers in my office, fixing hardware problems to see what I could salvage, and surplus the rest. I ended up putting together three computers, and turned over four to Ed Chargois to surplus.
  • Spam Filters: Continued work with Larry Wallace, going through the Spam Filters searching for false positives.
  • Inventory on printing supplies. I placed an order with Gina Salone, ordering toner cartridges for all buildings.
  • GC Server Room: Installed a new KVM switch, and started switching over servers to this new switch. Plus additional misc. work that went on which consisted of moving equipment around to make room for additional equipment, and moving equipment downstairs for Ed C. to surplus. I also worked with Larry installing additional equipment in room 19 across the hall from our Server Room.
  • Onsite user support that consisted of software installs, trouble shooting software, printing, and some hardware issues.

(Christian)

  • Linda turner- Linda is using Thunderbird as her default e-mail program andneeded all of her old emails from Eudora imported.
  • 3flr W/B - Configured visitors' workstation with the engineering Ligo image.
  • Wilson House - Replaced old blurry monitor with new CRT.
  • Millikan - Replaced toner cartridges on HP 5500 printer. Updated 4 loaner laptops to the Standard Ligo image and Microsoft's latest patches.
  • Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.

(Larry)

  • Resolved a number of contract issues. Still need to go over the CISCO contract. Working on the CIT s/w contract renewal for the SUN equipment. Received and started installing equipment that was ordered some time ago. Most of the equipment is going into the new computer room. Spent a great deal of time trying to get paperwork and numbers to match on the P-card reconciliation. Still not receiving invoices in a timely manner from many companies. Placed a couple of new orders for the LDAS group.
  • Installation of equipment into the new room has been more of a challenge than planned. It looks like things will go a little better with some of the changes that have been made.
  • Updated and helped Mike install some equipment in the computer room. We are trying to get the room setup to where it is a little more convenient to work in the room. Worked with Ed and the others on removing a number of old pieces of equipment.
  • Spent time on a number of different file and printer issues. One problem we've been able to narrow down to a font problem with the Mac. Another problem we ran into this past week was another Microsoft Office file that would go from a PC to a Mac cleanly. This is something we will probably have to look into in more detail in the future.
  • Cleaned up a number of accounts. Modified a few accounts for different users.
  • Worked on a couple more backups and restorations for different users.
  • Continual work on different e-mail issues. Updated the anti-virus engine.

Mail Statistics for Oct 13 - Oct. 19, 2005

Mail Statistics

October 13 - 19, 2005

Rejected Messages

20,234

Virus Messages

2396

False Positives

0

Accepted Messages

15,043

Total Messages

35,277

 

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Advanced LIGO Project Management

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

AdL SUS, SEI , CDS

  • The design and layout of the anti-image and anti-alias chassis needed for LASTI has been completed and sent to the board house. The boards are due back next week.
  • Initial tests of the PCI-X ADC and DAC cards is very promising. The input referred noise for the ADCs is ~9uV/rtHz on a 40Vp-p input and a sample rate of 16384Hz. This is more than a factor of 5 better than the penteks. If the sample rate is increased to 128KSPS and then the data decimated to 16384SPS, the input referred noise drops to ~2.5uV/rtHz on the same 40Vp-p input. This compares very favorably with the ICS110B. The board itself is a 32 channel differential input, simultaneous ADC board and the cost is ~$3900. A quick check of the DAC output referred noise shows that it is in the 1uV/rtHz range on a 20Vp-p output. The sample rate is 16384Hz. This board is a 16 channel differential output board with a cost of ~$3500.
  • More detailed measurements of the boards will be conducted in the coming weeks.
  • One off-shoot of the tests is the discovery (by Rolf) that the CPUs purchased for the LASTI controls are capable of supporting servo controls and sample rates much higher than 16384Hz. This possibility will also be investigated in the coming weeks.
  • We have a telecon with Alberto Gennai of VIRGO scheduled for 10/20. The subject will be an introduction to VIRGOs plans to develop low noise ADCs and DACs. We are hoping that there are some common ideas and concepts that we can share between the two projects.

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

More testing of the PCI-X ADC module using the quad suspension code.  This ADC has 32 channels and +/-20V range. Running at 16KHz, the input referred noise came in at slightly over 9uV/rHz. I then turned the sampling clock on the ADC up to 128KHz, ran the samples through a 7KHz low pass IIR filter and passed every 8th sample to the front end code.  With this setup, the input referred noise was decreased to 2.5uV/rHz.  With the added load of reading samples at 128KHz and doing the decimation filtering, the time to process one cycle in the quad control software increased from 16usec to 24usec. Besides demonstrating that the front end CPU has enough horsepower to do this type of filtering and still run at 16KHz, it is also an indication that we should not have a problem running the ponderamotive controls at the desired 32KHz rate.

Seismic Isolation

From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

Assembly

Status

Top Assembly Components
20007970-A

Stage 0 Assembly
2000795-A

Stage 1 Assembly
20007825-A

Stage 2 Assembly
20007825-A 

Purchase order placed with Arland Tool for all large parts. Material has been ordered and will be in by 11/1


Purchase order placed with Limerick Machine for the end milled plates and remaining Top Assy, Stage 0,1, and 2 Componants.

Stage 0-1 Spring Assembly
20007878-A

Stage 1-2 Spring Assembly
20007890

Fabrication drawings are complete. Drawings must now be checked.

RFQ for blades and rod flexures complete, awaiting quote.

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, seismometers and lockers are in house.

RFQ complete for vacuum housings, awaiting bids. Quotes due 10/21

RFQ complete for machined components. Quotes due 10/21

RFQ required for internal pod harnesses.

Stage 0-1 Kinematic Lock
20007941-1-A

Stage 1-2 Kinematic Lock
20007941-2-A


Tooling design complete.

RFQ complete, awaiting bids. Quotes due 10/21

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. Quotes due 10/21

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 to MIT by 11/14.

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

Agenda for the weekly SEI telecom

Friday, Oct 21, 2pm Eastern, 1pm Central, 11am Pacific time

BSC SEI status, Ken/Dennis/ Joe

  • Venders for first three jobs have started work.  Material for big pieces has been ordered.
  • Actuator mounts and locators bids are in.  There is a clear winner, within budget.
  • Pod vacuum housings bids are in.  We need to study the bid specs together with the bids to determine the winner.
  • Official package has been sent to blade/ blade material vender.
  • Vender expects that the 1" x 1" optics table hole pattern change order will cost us about $5000.
  • inside-pod parts are expected to cost only a few thousand, and ken will handle it informally.
  • Caltech has received parts for the BSC spacer for the SUS controls prototype, and Astropak has cleaned them to mil-spec 1246 "A/10" and packaged them in a poly-somethingorother bag.  RGA scan of smaller parts at Caltech doesn't look very good.  They will also do an FTIR test.  Caltech will re-clean and air-bake all parts.  So, the lesson is we should ask for A/100, and clean-foil wrapping.
  • Suspension controls quad prototype cage undergoing modal testing, clamped upside-down to a 10 ton milling base.  Lowest mode is 52 Hz rather than the FEA-modeled value of 80 Hz.  This is under study, and the results may alter the design for the noise prototype.  For example, the model may not have adequately taken bolt compliance into account.  Calum has verified that the bolts were tight, though.

BSC work (Rich M)

  • Foil-wrapped clean parts have been found to have dry powdery, sooty residue.  It easily wipes off, and we remember seeing similar stuff on the LIGO-1 seismic parts.  MIT will ship an example to Helena, who will arrange to have it analyzed.
  • Rich has been working on the Simulink model, and my abandon it and switch to straight Matlab.
  • Feedforward experiment result in today's LASTI log.  At high frequencies (ca. 15 Hz), the feedforward is probably also perturbing the chamber sensor.  Maybe at lower frequencies, too.
  • Rich M to spend next week at LHO to work on possible PEPI-like installation.

HAM control with VME (Pradeep)

  • no report.

ETF platform work - Matt DeGree

  • Matlab installation was fixed on platform computer.  No other news.

Seismometer work - Aaron

  • Matt working with Aaron on seismometer design study, on thermal compensation in particular.

Electronics - Jay

  • finished anti-alias and anti-image boards for LASTI SEI and SUS.
  • ADC input-referred noise with 40 Vp-p input is 9 microV/rtHz, or a factor of 5 better than Pentek.  Sampling at 128 kSa/s and decimating in software, it is 2.5 microV/rtHz, same range as ICS-110B.  DAC is 20 Vp-p, and is also in microV/rtHz at 16kSa/s.

Suspension

From: Janeen Romie romie_j@ligo.caltech.edu

Working with Helena, Caroline and Norna on the Ribbon/Fiber/Ear/Bonding documentation and questions.

Joe Hanson boxed up the XY translation stage and the air bearing for Calum and Mike Gerfen. They should receive them on Monday. I've sent pictutes to Calum of the components this morning.

Rich Riesen gave me a refresher safety briefing and a tour of the buildings.

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

Quad Controls Prototype

Tim Hayler from RAL visited to learn about the assembly of the quad. Mark, Tim and I started with a fully assembled quad and within 3 to 4 days we had taken it apart down to the individual mass level and fully re-assembled it, suspended it and aligned the chains. This took as long as 4 days as we also measured the centre of gravity, measured the position of the blade tips and weighed the various configuration for each suspended stage.

Tim has written a draft assembly procedure, a follow up to our original document, covering in detail all of the steps during the above processes. The three of us have reviewed it and Tim will distribute once he has updated it.

Ian and I have been meeting to discuss the issues wrt the blades and clamps.

2nd Quad Structure

Tim, Mark and I have measured the modes for the overall structure in various configurations as well as the upper structure on its own. Full results to follow.  We will need to complete some FEA to compare to these specific configurations.

Installation fixtures

Ken Mailand, Oddvar and I have been meeting bi-weekly to discuss the proposed prototype installation fixtures. We hope to have all of the drawings completed by Tuesday.

Drum ended wires

The new test set of drum ended wires have been sent to RAL for further testing. RAL will break test the wires and follow a series of steps suggested to them by the design team. I will release a technical note covering all aspects of our testing up to this point in the next week or so.

Visits

Tim returned to RAL earlier today.

Core Optics

No report.

Pre-Stabilized Laser

From: Peter King pking@ligo.caltech.edu

PSL

Nothing significant to report as I was assembling and testing shutter timing modules.

AdvLIGO PSL

Last Sunday the temperature control system for the high power stage malfunctioned.  A number of components have been changed out and at present it is not [shown as provided –pel]

Auxiliary Optics

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

Reviewed the AOS Cost book and discovered numerous cost inconsistensies. Will discuss these issues with Carol W. and Dwight C. on 10/20/05.

Other Laboratory R&D

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

Yumei Huang ,

Visiting grad student from Beijing Normal University just joined the group. In the next few weeks she will figure out where to best contribute to the activities.

Marco Tarallo

Successfully defended his thesis, graduating cum Laudem.  He will proceed writing the paper after the Graduate studies acceptance exams.  The thesis will be available soon.

Alberto Stochino,

Will defend his 3rd year thesis next week.

Juri

I started an independent analysis of elastic properties of the multilayer optical coating in order to cross check the formulas found in literature and apply some results to the Genetic optimized coating. I’ve worked on various issues on thermal noise calculations and eigenmodes solution for general optical resonator.

Chiara

I wrote the technical note about the hardening process for Maraging steel.

I started the measurements of the transfer function of the "test table" system.

Valerio

We have improved our Simulink library of SimMechanics models of the HAM-SAS. Now all the subsystems of the HAM-SAS mechanical structure are present in the library. We can now build custom structures just connecting together the subsystems with the appropriate joints. At the same time we are contacting Mathworks to better understand the origin of our simulation problems: we have designed a very simple example that gives meaningless physical result and sent it to the technical support. Unfortunately we have not received yet satisfying explanations.

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