Weekly Report for Week Ending December 1, 2005

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday, December 5, 2005 will be:

(Meeting time: 10:30 am Pacific Time)

1.      Announcements

2.      Comments on Weekly Report

3.      LSC Issues (Saulson)

4.      LIGO Lab Operations

  • Administration (Lindquist)
  • Sites (Raab, Zucker, Shoemaker)
  • Commissioning (Fritschel), Detector (Coyne)
  • Campus Research Facilities
    • 40 Meter (Weinstein)
    • TN, ( Libbrecht)
    • LASTI  (Shoemaker)
  • Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

5.      R&D and Advanced LIGO (Shoemaker)

6.      CHANGE CONTROL BOARD/TECHNICAL REVIEW BOARD SESSION AS NEEDED

  • No open change requests

Special Items:

Special Announcements:

 

Weekly Report Highlights

LSC Issues (Saulson)

No report

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Lloyd)

  • Saulson signed off on the new MOU from the Waves Group ­ University of Sannio at Benevento and University of Salerno (TWG), submitted by Innocenzo M. Pinto. He also signed off on the new MOU from outside the LSC from the Experiment "Ricerca di Onde Gravitazionali" (ROG) of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), submitted by Eugenio Coccia. Both are being prepared for submission to Barry Barish and Albert Lazzarini for their approval and signatures
  • GEO 600 revisions were completed and posted, and submitted to Saulson for review..

SITE TELECONFERENCE (Lindquist)

  • A site teleconference was held Thursday, December 1, 2005.  The following issues were among those discussed:
  • Action 132 – to prepare and distribute a note concerning commingling taxable and non-taxable items on a purchase order, E. Jasnow has completed this action and it will be closed.  There are no other open action items.  The list of assigned actions updated through December 01, 2005 will be found Here.
  • Excel Invoices – waiting for the return of R. Brambilla next Monday to process.
  • November Costs – numbers not yet final, but it looks as though the projected carry-forward is holding.  Carry-forward is due primarily to deferred expenses including data analysis equipment, the installation of a new data management system, seismic isolation hardware, and advanced R&D activities.
  • Science Education Center – rain delays were encountered earlier in the week.  However, materials are being delivered and “stuff” is happening.  The first contract meeting is scheduled for Tuesday.
  • LDAS HVAC – the LDAS HVAC job walk at Livingston was conducted this morning.  There were no questions from the interested bidders.
  • Property – E. Chargois will conduct a property visit to Hanford December 5 – 7.  He will be accompanied by R. Luna who will be the new LIGO Property Administrator.
  • Repair of Livingston Gate – a new gate has been ordered.  The actuator has been repaired and tested.

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT (Chargois)

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

  • Provided assistance to the Detector Group (H. Armandula) by providing packing and shipping of eight (8) E040514-L2 Optic Lenses, seven (7) E040516 Mirrors, and three (3) E040512-B1 [and a partridge in a pear tree –pel] to (D. Cook) at LHO.  Account Number P204324.
  • Provided assistance to the Detector Group(H. Armandula) by providing packing and shipping of four (4) E040514-L2 Optic Lenses to (V.Frolov) at LLO. Account Number P204324.
  • Provided assistance to the Low Frequency Noise Suppression Group (J. Agresti) by preparing US Customs Documentation (Commercial Invoice), providing packing and shipping of professional documents and Hardware. Account Number P204289.

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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

  • No report (sick leave).

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

  • Processed documents from LSC Meeting @ MIT.
  • Sorting through an old box of files from F. Asiri and verifying if documents are in DCC Database.
  • Scanning Project - Completed scanning L. Jones boxes of files.  CD's still need to be burned for these files.  Scanning has commenced on F. Asiri boxes of files.  There are approximately a total of 11 - 13 boxes to scan.  To date about 3 boxes have been scanned.  Progress continues on scanning of old blanket purchase order files.
  • Activity:

Week Ending

12/01/2005

In

Out

Packages

12

8

Faxes

13

7

 

FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Cronin, Brambila, Kaufman)

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

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

  • No report (family sick leave).

>From: Florence Kaufman <fkaufman@ligo.caltech.edu>

  • Worked on updating reports for November 2005.
  • Sent out e-mail outlining actions to be taken to reflect Excel PO 1055977 correctly.
  • 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>

  • Change Order No. 2 was issued on the contract with Eskew-Dumez-Ripple, the architect for the LLO SEC.  This change inserts a revised Schedule D which provides for increased construction visits.
  • A job walk for the LLO LDAS HVAC system was held on Thursday, December 1.  Representatives of all three firms that received the RFQ were present.  Bids are due on Friday, December 9.
  • The Caltech Office of Corporate Relations submitted a proposal on behalf of LHO to the M.J. Murdoch Charitable Trust for funds to sponsor the internship of a high school teacher during the summer.
  • Fermilab is now processing a proposal from LHO for the performance of outreach activities related to teaching LIGO physics.

SUPPORT (Baldon, Hiroto, Lloyd)

>Irene Baldon

  • Processed the paper work for fourteen (14) new/revised trips.  At this time there are seventeen (17) trips completed or in the works but are awaiting the necessary paper work to enter the P-Card system.
  • Completed five (5) Expense Reports and there are twenty-two (22) 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 one (1) report more than thirty (30) days old.  I have no reports awaiting signature at this time.

>Julie Hiroto jhiroto@ligo.caltech.edu

  • No report.

>Dorothy Lloyd

  • Processed the usual invoices for payment and followed up on invoice problems. Processed payment requests and requisitions as requested.
  • Jim continued with data entry in the LIGO database and helping out in the DCC.

CHANGE CONTROL/CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT (Lindquist)

  • No open change requests.

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)

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

  • A Staffing Committee meeting was held on November 28, 2005.  The minutes and action items from the Staffing Committee meeting are in progress and when completed will be posted on the SC web page.  All files for the Staffing Committee are up-to-date and posted on the SC web page.
  • I am in the process of preparing numerous appointments for several Visitors.
  • The next Staffing Committee meeting is scheduled for January 23, 2006.
  • Human Resources is replacing our traditional paper time sheets with an on-line system called Kronos.  AFTER training, each individual will need to access their electronic time card and enter exception time, i.e., Sick Time, Vacation, Jury/Witness Duty, or Bereavement Time; they will receive an email reminder the Thursday prior to the end of the pay period. The last step will be for me, as the Payroll Activity Monitor (PAM), to enter the final approval on the Monday following the pay period. Once approved, any/all changes will need to be made retroactively, and I will need to make those changes.  I will begin entering all time keeping information beginning with pay period 25, November 28. Employees will continue completing paper time sheets and submitting them to me and I will do the data entry.  PMA plans to go live for the employees on January 9, 2006 (after all employees have been trained).  In the meantime, I have not been trained and I must review the handbook and go through the on-line tutorial before my training on December 8.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

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

  • Nothing significant to report.

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

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

We ran a more modest and achievable maintenance shift this Tuesday. This was seemingly more successful than last week (in which the total downtime was nearly 16h), as we recovered nearly within the 4h window allotted for the work.

Some recent duty factors and lock times are shown here. H2's duty cycle is 3/4 and recent H1 performance has matched this. We're able to post 12Mpc on H1 during evenings and 10Mpc during the day, while H2 is steady at 4.3Mpc (this will be boosted 10% when the V1 calibration is added to online Sensemon).

Sundry highlights from the elog are bulleted below:

  • channel hopping problems appear to be rectified after an AWG code change
  • automated linefinding is providing quick feedback on the state of the instrument of particular interest to pulsar and stochastic groups
  • excess burst pixel fraction for N>2 (effectively the hrss@50% channel) can be used as a figure of merit to decide when to touch the machine; how to weigh this against other searches' figures of merit is an outstanding question

4K IFO

  • we've been running in the day with 2dB lower input laser power, to tolerate higher noise and upconversion at this time. Reduced power is the source of the 2Mpc drop noted above
  • we saw some drop in inspiral range (~10%) when the V1 calibration was added to Sensemon, but offline Sensemon tests showed only half of this drop could be accounted for by the calibration
  • despite the fact that the fine actuator distribution box was fixed last week, some lock losses are still due to FA range issues
  • 1Hz lines have seen with DTT but not with Stackslide algorithm. This discrepancy is being actively investigated

2K IFO

  • the H2 S5 V1 calibration was completed and checked into CVS.  This required new run/acq hardware filter measurements during Tuesday maintenance

DAQ

  • maintenance work from Tuesday is summarized here

Outreach (D. Ingram)

New visitor exhibits are proving popular with students. One more event remains in LHO's World Year of Physics series.

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

L1 Interferometer (Frolov)

After two weeks of science data taking the cumulative duty factor has climbed to 45 percent. During the weekdays it was mostly limited by seismic noise from logging and construction.  During the Thanksgiving holiday, instability of the ITMX HEPI system required a day long investigation which continued later in the week and is still ongoing. The inspiral range was between 8.5 and 9.5 Mpc most of the interferometer uptime.  The power into the interferometer remains at a reduced level of 5.6 W (7 W available) due to the non-stationary noise which is suspected to be due to the electronics saturations.

Commissioning activities this week:

  • excitation channel swapping was identified to be the source of transients in DARM that were causing the lock losses. New AWG code was loaded that should help diagnose this problem.
  • the MICH control signal was found to be driving a broad noise peak in DARM loop around the second violin mode of the suspension wire. Filtering the control signal mostly eliminated the noise bump.
  • the broad line in the DARM noise around 235 Hz was identified to be due to the ISCT4 purge air flow. The flow rate was lowered to minimum which dramatically reduced the 235 Hz peak, to the point were it can't be seen in the running spectrum with several second average.
  • the anti-symmetric photo detectors were modified to improve the efficiency of RF coupling from the AS_I suppression servo. This should reduce the upconversions and saturations in the AS_I servo electronics.
  • the loaner atomic clock was received and installed. The testing of the timing monitoring is in progress.

Outreach (Thacker/Zucker)

Conducted 2 labs at Doyle HS (local) physics class, as we begin to develop ties with this school.  Prepared for Tara HS visit (approx 70 physics students) on Friday, Dec 2nd.

SEC construction: Rain has delayed the planned drilling for piers and footings until this coming Monday, affording a few openings for daytime operation this week.

LLO Facilities (Sibley)

The damaged front gate has been shipped the Southern Fab for repair. It will be at least 4 weeks to repair it. The operator has been repaired and tested good.

The pre bid walk thru for the LDAS HVAC upgrade was held today. All three of the vendors that got the package were present. No notable questions were asked.

Bids are due 12/09.

CDS (Zucker for Bogue)

  • Fixed state vector code (a particularly subtle file permission bug)
  • Fixed atomic clock and timing comparators
  • Added channels to DAQ to handle front end overflows (for
  • post-facto monitoring of data dropout and skew problems)
  • Installed and tested new DTT and AWG code
  • Fixed GRB alarm script so it stays alive
  • Miscellaneous forays to smite entropy and foster peace and order

Computing and Network Security (Roddy)

Just received the PC to replace the one in the auditorium.  Several items have not arrived.  I need to check and see if it is a lost shipment, or if Dell has shipped partial. Working with a fiber tap for network monitoring.  It has not been flawless so far.  The syskonnect card refuses to capture traffic that is on the fiber.  This may be a driver issue.  I have contacted the tap manufacturer.  Next step will be to contact syskonnect. Usual round of pouring through the IDS logs brought to light a nessus scan yesterday originating from the LSU campus.  I blocked the source of the scan at the border, to find out later that it was presumably a legitimate scan.  I have sent an email to the person responsible for such things at LSU and suggested that we meet sometime to discuss coordination of such activities.  We'll see what comes of it.  Ironically, I had been working on a new updated nessus install here.  I was planning on beginning scans in a couple of weeks.

The last nessus scan was done here ~6 months ago.  Unfortunately for LSU, their scans likely will not yield anything since most of the traffic is blocked by default. Have been working with Dwayne on upgrading and updating the Arkeia software.  We have successfully installed a new library, ran a couple of backups, full & incremental, and Dwayne upgraded the client versions of the software that was previously installed.  Next is to work on schedules and email notifications. Discussing our new mail server with the CanIt folks lead to a plan to integrate a relay server into our mail system.  I have a server on order to handle this.  I will work with Dwayne on installing it when it comes in.  Perhaps we can get a handle on our spam problem here soon... Working on travel reservations for the security conference in VA on the 12-13th.

General computing (Giardina)

  • restored Tom Evans files from tape
  • installed new release of Arkeia on baronne and abundance
  • with Shannon, ran two new fibers to Computer Users' room, configured new Foundry switch
  • cloning Janeen's laptop has yielded a slight problem, as DELLUTILITIES partition would not copy over.  Now machine won't boot.  working on this now.
  • assisted Bonnie with more HTML

LDAS admin (Giardina)

  • replaced disk in node5
  • ssh key authentication for kipp and bmoe to ldas
  • onasys database setup
  • shipped tapes LL0596, LL0601, LL0679, LL0364, LL0642, LL0644, LL0508, LL0534, LL0612, LL0643, LL0683, LL0691, LL0693, LL0695, LL0697 to CIT

CDS code support (Khan)

Working on a software generated phase lock loop timing signal, that would take 1 PPS GPS input and provide 2^16 and 2^12 divider clock pulse. It would generate precise timing signals for an A/D converter sample and hold circuit, so that a single chip microcntroller (running on 40 MHz Clock) could perform A/D conversion of the PEM channels close to the sensor location. Using USB 1-Wire interface with 1 Mb data transfer rate it is expected to reduce noise and cable interface problem for the data acquistion of the LIGO PEM channels.

Site Safety and Security (Riesen)

Nothing of substance to report this period.

AdL SUS/SE Mechanical Engineering (Spjeld)

Quad SUS Installation Fixtures

  • completed release DCN and drawing package for manufacturing, submitted to DCC
  • meeting with Calum and Ken Mailand on Nov. 16 to discuss design and manufacturing
  • looking into off-the-shelf parts for the linear bearings, shaft and shaft blocks for lift table

LDAS/Condor data analysis (Yakushin):

Storage/Condor/LDAS admin:

1) On Nov 23 dataserver@LLO had a kernel panic. 9 minutes later the same happened at LHO. According to SUN this is the result of a bug in SAMFS and they are working to find a solution. The time coincidence between two sites is presumably due to the identical archiving program started simultaneously at both sites. We had no more crashes so far.

2) Power srip for nodes 4-11 got burnt. This is the third power strip failure during a month. The first two ones were fixed by resetting a breaker.

3) On Nov 29 gateway:/export ran out of disk space causing all LDAS jobs to stop. Current createRDS and publishing jobs generate a lot of intermediate files. After some cleaning the situation is back to normal.

Data analysis

1) Integrating event display and CorrPower into the waveburst online pipeline;

2) Participating in the GWDAW10 talks review telecons.

Initial LIGO Detector Science & Engineering (Coyne)

CDS

see also the CDS weekly meeting minutes in the commissioning archives

CDS Software

Rolf Bork

Still testing new LSC code that we tried to load on LHO4k a couple of weeks ago.  I can't find a problem with the new code, but found possible initialization problems in EPICS code that has been there quite a while.  This initialization problem may or may not have been the cause of strange QPDX readings. As for DAQ problems attributed to the new LSC code, I think the problem was most likely introduced by the many Framebuilder restarts and loss of sync by the DAQ controller at the time.  The LSC code was just backed out when this was noticed as it was the latest change.  Anyway, I think we should try again next Tuesday.

CDS Hardware

Fast Shutter:

I have ordered a sample of solenoids from Electromechanisms.com to assess their usefulness in a newer style of fast shutter.

DMT

No report

PSL

Nothing significant

Optical Scattering Analysis

Bill Kells

I have launched into a renewed effort to resolve the mystery of LIGO I TM surface scatter.  (Of course we are still mainly pursuing the absorption question on 4ITM01.)  There is quite a lot of OTF scatter scan data by now. This has perhaps not all being sifted through for maximum information.  I have come to realize this in reviewing it.  There is some possibility that a comprehensive interpretation of all the data is consistent with what is observed at the sites.  Between Liyuan and I this is now underway.

40-Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

IFO commissioning

  • The replacement laser from LHO (originally on H2; MOPA SN#102 with 42,943 hrs) arrived last week. Steve and Osamu unpacked it Monday morning, and saw no obvious damage. They carefully noted everything that was different between our old faithful laser ("Assisi", after St. Francis of Assisi) and this one. They placed it on the PSL table with 6 spherical washers underneath.
  • Steve hooked up the water cooling to the master oscillator with needle valve fully open. There was a leak, and Steve got new parts and fixed it. New elbows were added to water in and out of mopa box.
  • The NPRO power was measured to be 0.8W with the Newport power meter. However, 60-80% of the beam was rejected from the last thin-film polarizer and so most of the light didn't make it to the amplifier, even on the first pass. Rana minimized the reflection at this polarizer by rotating the half wave plate by ~60 degrees, thereby maximizing input into the amplifier. They measured 5.4W with the calorimeter at the exit of the MOPA. Effort to get current reading on our old power supply failed. Laser was turned off and on during this process and it resulted in power to drop to 5W.
  • They then scanned the beam profile, and saw a nasty tail. After Rana tweaked the PBS, the tail is gone and the beam looks nicely gaussian and round.
  • Steve and Osamu measured the beam waist size and position coming out of the MOPA in preparation for mode matching into the phase-correcting pockels cell (which is now mounted outside of the MOPA box, as at the sites).

DC detection development

  • The DCPD PCB boards have arrived and been stuffed. Ben will begin testing shortly.
  • Ben ordered several types of resistors for the DCPD and gave a sample to Bob so that he can evaluate their vacuum compatibility.
  • Mike reports that CES is having technical difficulties with the NC mill, and the OMC body completion has been delayed for a week or two.

Electronics, controls

  • From Ben: I have finished making all of the 10 custom cables for the TTFSS installation. I'm going to draw up a schematic for the system, and assign cable names for labelling the cables prior to installation. I will then install the new system following the installation plan E040423-00.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

Since our last report, we have improved the visibility to just over 90 percent in both arm cavities, due to improved mode matching. We also found that the polarization was not optimum going into the beamsplitter, and we were able to increase the total power going into the arm cavities by about a factor of two.

Over the Thanksgiving break, we closed the vacuum chamber and pumped out. This week, we recovered the alignment that was lost when the chamber was closed and took some preliminary data. With the increase in both power and visibility, the electronic gain had to be reduced to keep the servos stable. Akira did this, as well as fine tuning the notch filters, and he took noise spectra late last (Wednesday) night.

The individual arm cavities are now exhibiting the best noise curves we have seen, bottoming out at about 3e-19 m/rtHz, but the difference data has an unexpected, flat noise source that limits its sensitivity to about 1e-18 m/rtHz. We suspect this is something in the measurement electronics, since it does not show up in the individual arm cavities, and we are working on identifying and removing this noise source.

LASTI (Ottaway)

No report.

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)

Weekly e2e Physics meeting

Sany Yoshida presented his results on (i) study of the beam pointing of transmitted light from mode-cleaner and (ii) simulation of Advanced LIGO HAM seismic isolation.

Advanced LIGO simulation

(Hiro) In order to assist Mike Smith to calculate the scattering noise, I am calculating the transfer function of injected fields at various ports to the signal output port. This is done using the same setup I used to calculate the optical spring effect for the 40m configuration. I.e., a very simple lock of each arm using POX and POY, with radiation pressure and radiation pressure noise enabled in the simulation.

Simulation of Mode Cleaner

(Sany) Uzma and I continued the e2e modeling of pointing fluctuation of the LIGO I input mode cleaner. With OSEM gain setting of 5 (in the unit of SimLIGO's FilterPos(Pitch/Yaw).OSEM.gain setting), the computed MC transmitted beam's pitch and yaw spectra show reasonable agreement with the spectra of the corresponding DAQ MC_trans_P/Y signal. Here the e2e computation takes the ground DAQ signal recorded at the same time as the DAQ MC_trans_P/Y signals. In 0 - 10 Hz, the e2e pitch spectrum produces all the main peaks observed in the DAQ pitch spectrum (optic's resonances plus HAM stack resonances).  While the e2e yaw spectrum in the same frequency range also shows all the peaks of the optic's and HAM stack's resonances, the DAQ yaw spectrum does not show the HAM stack resonance peaks except for the ones at 1.5 Hz and 1.6 Hz (U-U and V-V transfer resonance, respectively); In fact, the DAQ yaw spectrum is closer to the e2e HAM table yaw spectrum, for some reason. Further investigation is being undertaken.

Simulation of 40m Interferometer

(Monica) The control plant for the e2e 40m package has been tested using different optical configuration: a Michelson, a Fabry-Perot Michelson, a Power Recycled Fabry-Perot Michelson and a Dual recycled Fabry-Perot Michelson (40m). The control seems to work well but other tests will be performed to verify its robustness with stronger noises.

Research Paper

(Biplab) Wrote my part for a paper with Ju Li et al (Univ of W. Australia) on parametric amplification.  Working on the draft of another paper on diffraction losses with Pablo Barriga, Ju Li and David Blair.

Modeler

(Hiro) Working on e2e-3.1.0 release.  The major addition is to support modeler_freq (frequency analyzer in e2e), which does not work in 3.0.

Computers

(Hiro) I tested the performance of the new dual core quad CPU machines newly available. Unfortunately, the performance is half of homam (single core quad CPU machine) with the current system, FC4, and Larry is working on it.

(Melody) Did some performance benchmarks for saiph and homam (4 cpu dual core systems). Researched on possible compile flags to speed up the application.

Alfi

(Bruce)Fixed copy/paste of primitives bug related to the checking for full paths being used in include statements (which should not apply to primitives.

  • Redesigned the Bundler I/O objects and their associated handler methods in ALFINode. (Related to PR 511.)
  • Reimplementing Bundlers to use Bundler I/O objects which will be tracked by individual container nodes instead of data static to bundler objects through all container nodes it may be inherited into.  (More PR 511 work.)

(Melody) Working on PR 296 - easier access to settings.

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)

Chatterji:

As of this week, single detector Q Pipeline searches are now running for H1, H2, and L1.  An initial manual inspection of triggers shows a large excess low frequency high Q glitches in both H1 and L1, but not in H2.  I am now working on automating the production of daily trend information and histograms and posting these results on-line.

I am also working on merging Q Scan results with the event displays being used to follow-up interesting events.  A prototype version has been circulated within the glitch group for comments.

I prepared abstracts for a detector characterization talk and Q Pipeline poster at GWDAW10.

Mendell:

1. Presented plans to analyze the S4 data with the StackSlide code at the November pulsar F2F and LSC meetings. The code review has made signficant progress, and the final S4 calibration is done.  A few minor issues to do with SFT cleaning remain to be sorted out, but it should be possible to start producing what should become final S4 results within a month.

2. Virginia Re visited LHO, and we worked on code to StackSlide the F-statistic, as a part of a hierarchical search strategy to be used for S5 analysis.

3. I am currently closing in on solving problems with SFT generation for S5, and also issues related to 1 Hz lines in the data.

Shawhan:

  • Attended the LSC Meeting at MIT, plus the LIGO-VIRGO meeting and a face-to-face meeting of the Burst Group.
  • Reviewed pulsar F-statistic paper draft, plus Einstein@home and time-domain analyses.
  • Spent time on the reviews of burst analyses, in preparation for GWDAW.
  • Gave a seminar talk about LIGO at UCLA.

Sutton:

I drafted and distributed to the LIGO-Virgo group a short set of slides describing why we should use SNR at 50% efficiency as the sensitivity measure, rather than the efficiency at fixed SNR.  I studied cross-correlations in the DFM supernova population, and found cross-correlations mostly "small" when comparing waveforms of different types (i.e., comparing DFM types I-II, I-III, II-III).  I picked a set of 3 DFMs (one of each type) to use in the network analysis simulations for our GWDAW presentation.  I also drafted a short matlab script and note on optimal tuning for LIGO-AURIGA 3X vs 4X data sets, and sent this to Cadonati.

Weinstein -

  • Reviewing Inspiral group submissions to GWDAW
  • Working with Lisa on ringdown search

Yakushin:

1) Integrating event display and CorrPower into the waveburst online pipeline;

2) Participating in the GWDAW10 talks review telecons.

LIGO Data Analysis System

Software Systems (Blackburn)

LDAS

Much work has gone into making LDAS fully support large files (PR#2135). At this point, all of the unit tests now pass under Solaris 10 and Fedora Core 4. It will next be tested on a tandem system and then thread safety will be tested on ldas-dev. [NOTE: this is one step in the direction of full 64 bit support.]

Work was also done to verify a fix for not all frame files being renamed from .gwf.tmp to .gwf (PR#2900). This code will be committed to CVS today and be part of the weekend testing.

PR2119 (request to have a -force option for the createRDS command) and PR1604 (reduction of duplicate history information for SFT frames) have been closed as Greg Mendell wrote in e-mail that the functionality was no longer needed.

Greg had reported the frameAPI being locked up. Upon investigation of a gcore, it appears as if the Solaris 10 thread library may have some issues as all threads were waiting for the release of a mutex.  More investigation is needed to resolve this issue.

cmonClient - more progress with PR 2951 tclglobus channels after adding a flush for the socket following a puts: fileevent proc was triggered. Working on data parsing. Closed PR2949 - default cursor to entry widget instead of button; Closed PR2906 - handle error when flushing file handle.

cntlmonAPI - working on PR 2969 - all user cmd test failed to detect aborted jobs; PR2964 - all user cmds test should delete lock file for exceptions.

frameAPI - closed PR2956 - delete frame resource variable from resource, ::DEBUG_DEFUNCT_JOB_REAPER; PR 2879 -always log removal of defunct jobs; added code to log 30 jobIds each time for defunct jobs.

TCLGLOBUS

Worked on Globus FTP control control and data channel through GSI socket. Previously, the data channel wasn't able to retrieve the data eventhough the server had already replied the client's request.  Need to set client data channel characteristics to match with the server's. Still have an issue with closing the control and data channel properly.

Fixed several issues with XIO-based Tcl channel based on Mary's feedback:

  • Previously, the application wasn't able to get the full data because the data didn't get flushed from the channel.
  • Modifying and testing server code with multiple client connections. When multiple remote client closes the connections, the server doesn't close corresponding channels properly.

Upgraded the TclProxy server box to Fedora Core 4. Installed Globus Toolkit 4.0.1 the box.  Setting up the following  grid services:

  • GridFTP 2.0 service is running.
  • MyProxy 3.2 service is running.

GRIPHYN/IVDGL/OSG

Inspiral work flows on OSG-PROD: Testing Inspiral pipeline with 603 DAG Nodes at SDSC and CIT production sites and reached a new peak of 60 jobs running simultaneously the week of SC2005.

On-going monitoring and systems administration: Upgraded osg-itb to OSG-0.3.1 and Condor 6.7.13 Added support for new VOs: DES, DOSAR, GLOW, SAM, SAMGRID. Installed fc4 on osg-itb-se in anticipation of future work with SRM. Completed upgrade of osg-itb to OSG-0.3.0 and Condor 6.7.12 with fc4. Successfully tested Inspiral pipeline with 603 DAG Nodes on OSG-0.3.0/Condor 6.7.12/fc4. Tested  VRVS as a future collaboration technology for OSG use. Backed up gsiftp and /etc/grid- security information on tclproxy.ligo.caltech.edu for upgrade to fc4.  Restored this information after upgrade.

OSG Activities: Participated via telecom at a two day workshop on test and integration of OSG 0.3.1. Attended ITB Ops Telecom and discussed collaboration on more accurate VO web report generation with Doug Olson, Rob Quick and others. Began discussions with Arie Shoshana/Alex Sim PI and implementor of SRM at LBL about resource requirements to support a port of SRM to fc4.

Recieved request from OSG Council to participate with ANL and ISI on a section of the OSG proposal to address advanced workflows and VDS.

Hardware Systems (Anderson)

Caltech

(Dan Kozak)

  • Worked with the site admins on nearly simultaneous crashes of  dataservers at both observatories.  Figured out that the problem probably isn't the same bug we had at CIT with corrupt ACLs.  The admins at the observatories are working with Sun on this.
  • Handled the ejection of L0 data tapes at the sites and their ingestion after they've been shipped to CIT.  Still fine tuning this process, but it's way more automated than it used to be.
  • Freed up tape slots at LHO (140+ tapes).
  • Got some A4 L0 data that Murali had requested staged in and made available via LDR.

(Phil Ehrens)

  • Did general cleanup (including about 30% of subfloor) of Lauritsen computer room.
  • Various LDG certificate related tasks... added users, issued service certs.
  • Edited various GRID related documents describing the use of user, host, and service certificates in the context of LDG resources.
  • Released ldas sysadmin wiki for general use.

(Erik Espinoza)

  • Added PXE docs to the wiki.
  • Writing PXE config automation script.
  • Preparing for trip to ASA Computers.
  • Testing IPMI for network issues.
  • Prepping documentation to be added to wiki (sendmail, IPMI, etc).

(Stuart Anderson)

  • The order for the next 1000 "CPU" computer cluster at Caltech was placed with the vendor today (Dec 1).
  • The computer room facility upgrade at Caltech should be completed tomorrow (Dec 2) with an active test of the fire surpression system.

MIT

(Keith Bayer)

  • Moved data to make room for more S5 data.
  • Monitoring dataserver after memory replaced on two banks..
  • pcraid9 hung itself after NFS traffic overloaded it this also affected ldas-grid which needed to be rebooted as well.
  • Installed xorg-x11-Xvfb on cluster and headnode.
  • Attempting to get host certificates for ldas-pcdev1 and ldas-sundev1.

Livingston

(Igor Yakushin)

  • On Nov 23 dataserver@LLO had a kernel panic. 9 minutes later the same happened at LHO. According to SUN this is the result of a bug in SAMFS and they are working to find a solution. The time coincidence between two sites is presumably due to the identical archiving program started simultaneously at both sites. We had no more crashes so far.
  • Power strip for nodes 4-11 got burnt. This is the third power strip failure during a month. The first two ones were fixed by resetting a breaker.
  • On Nov 29 gateway:/export ran out of disk space causing all LDAS jobs to stop. Current createRDS and publishing jobs generate a lot of intermediate files. After some cleaning the situation is back to normal.

(Dwayne Giardina)

  • Replaced disk in node5.
  • ssh key authentication for kipp and bmoe to ldas.
  • Onasys database setup.
  • Shipped 15 S5 L0 tapes to CIT .

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

  • S5 RDS generation is running smoothly at LHO and LLO most of the time.  A few times the software or servers have hung for several reasons.  LDAS is working to follow-up on each of these, and to implement fixes as these are determined. However, in each case we were able to restart things and quickly catch up with no loss of data.

(Ben Johnson)

  • With Dan's help, exported 140 S3/M7/A4 Level 0 data tapes, and replaced them with blank ones. This should allow us to not have to worry about archive space until early January 2006.
  • Finally got a working systemimager image + install cd. There are now 378 CPUs configured properly, and available to cluster users. The rest are stragglers, and or nodes with hardware problems, TBD (To Be Diagnosed).
  • Helped get a new local user here get his cert/account set up.
  • Have two cases open with sun. The first is the old L700 import/export problem. The second is the dataserver kernel panic from the 23rd. The L700 problem is still there; dataserver@LHO has not panicked since the one-and-only time on the 23rd.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT:

(Keith)

  • Building desktop for new grad student
  • Ordered computer parts etc

Livingston:

(Shannon)

  • Just received the PC to replace the one in the auditorium.  Several items have not arrived.  I need to check and see if it is a lost shipment, or if Dell has shipped partial.
  • Working with a fiber tap for network monitoring.  It has not been flawless so far.  The syskonnect card refuses to capture traffic that is on the fiber.  This may be a driver issue.  I have contacted the tap manufacturer.  Next step will be to contact syskonnect.
  • Usual round of pouring through the IDS logs brought to light a nessus scan yesterday originating from the LSU campus.  I blocked the source of the scan at the border, to find out later that it was presumably a legitimate scan.  I have sent an email to the person responsible for such things at LSU and suggested that we meet sometime to discuss coordination of such activities.  We'll see what comes of it.  Ironically, I had been working on a new updated nessus install here.  I was planning on beginning scans in a couple of weeks.  The last nessus scan was done here ~6 months ago.  Unfortunately for LSU, their scans likely will not yield anything since most of the traffic is blocked by default.
  • Have been working with Dwayne on upgrading and updating the Arkeia software.  We have successfully installed a new library, ran a couple of backups, full & incremental, and Dwayne upgraded the client versions of the software that was previously installed.  Next is to work on schedules and email notifications.
  • Discussing our new mail server with the CanIt folks lead to a plan to integrate a relay server into our mail system.  I have a server on order to handle this.  I will work with Dwayne on installing it when it comes in.  Perhaps we can get a handle on our spam problem here soon...  Working on travel reservations for the security conference in VA on the 12-13th.

(Dwayne)

  • Restored Tom Evans files from tape
  • Installed new release of Arkeia on baronne and abundance
  • With Shannon, ran two new fibers to Computer Users' room, configured new Foundry switch
  • Cloning Janeen's laptop has yielded a slight problem, as DELLUTILITIES partition would not copy over.  Now the machine won't boot, presently trying to resolve this issue.
  • Assisted Bonnie with more HTML

Hanford:

(Christine)

  • Helped a user setup a password protected web directory.
  • Purchased two laptops for users.
  • Worked with Richard a little on the setup of the new VoIP phone system.
  • Took care of a problem with the mail server not being able to NFS mount the home directories and not being able to resolve DNS names.
  • Discovered that one of the DMT computers is flooding the local network with UDP broadcasts.  Contacted John Zweizig for help to stop the broadcasts.
  • Created two new user accounts required for the Science run.

CIT:

(Christian)

  • W. Bridge -Upgraded visitors' workstation from 2000 to Windows XP.
  • Millikan- Created a backup of Irene Baldon's workstations. Also, I replaced the black toner cartridge and image transfer kit on the HP 5500 printer.
  • Julie Hiroto - Replaced the cartridge on the scanner/copier.
  • I re-imaged three loaner laptops that were returned this week.
  • Mike and I cleaned out the server to prepare for the fire suppression test on Friday.
  • Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.

(Mike)

  • Loaded a couple of SUN workstations, one for me and the other for 40 meter.
  • Worked the Spam Filters with Larry Wallace.
  • Cleaned up the Bridge Annex server room to be ready for the testing of the fire suppression system.
  • My replacement laptop came in. I have started loading this with GC software.
  • Held down the fort while Larry was out on vacation.

(Veronica)

  • LSC:  Updates to the November meeting website; installed the webpage for the meeting's presentations.  Updates to LSC-related mailing lists.  Updates to the database of the LSC-reviewed publications.   Updates to the Observational Results website.  Posted a few belated presentations from the earlier meetings.
  • LIGO:  Updates to the CIT and MIT websites.  Updates to the PAC19 website.  Prepared a high-resolution image for the Optical Society of America monthly publication.  Per Ed Jasnow's request, prepared a high- resolution LIGO logo and posted it at the internal bulletin board for the Lab users.  Assisted Jay with email access issues.  Assisted Cindy with PDF document preparation.  Transferred files from Sydney's laptop to his user account.  Other miscellaneous user support.  Christian and I tested a live stream capturing setup per a user request; did not have time to troubleshoot it due to a short notice, will need to look into it more closely.
  • Project Science:  Worked with ITS on the migration of the Proj. Sci. website to the ITS hosting.  Provided the ITS with the updated codes and DSN.  The codes are now loaded, we will be testing it shortly before the local cutoff.

(Larry)

  • Worked a number of procurement issues.  Purchased a couple of desktop machines which should arrive next week.  Working on the purchase of a new engineering workstation.  Finalized a couple more s/w maintenance contracts.  Received and distributed various items.
  • Started the monthly backups. Working on a new box to perform the monthly backups and moved a number of related items to different locations.
  • Assisted in getting more locks switched to the new key system for the LIGO offices on campus.
  • Assisted Cindy with information gathering for the kronos system.
  • Spent/spending a great deal of time trying to get some license keys from Microsoft. Both Mike and I have been getting the run around in getting the keys.  Hopefully, we will receive them in the next day or two.
  • Received some new racks and started their installation. One is installed in room 19 in order to help out one of the PMA groups get their equipment up and running while they are waiting for their rack. Otherwise they would have had to take up the rest of space in the room.
  • Preparing for the testing of the fire suppression system.
  • Working on getting the monarch quad cpu unit sent back to the company for repairs. One of the internal boards fried and may have damaged other components of the system. The pictures I sent them of the boards convinced them that something was seriously wrong with the system.
  • Spent a great deal of time working on the dual core FC4 machines.  There are a number of items that need to be tweaked in order for things to run efficiently.  Still have a lot of work to do in that area.  Erik has been a big help and we really appreciate the assistance he has given the group.
  • Setup a few new user accounts and cleared out a couple of mail aliases.  Assisted in setting up a couple of computers in different offices.
  • Continual work with the mail servers.

Mail Statistics for Nov 24-30, 05

Mail Statistics

November 24 - 30, 2005

Rejected Messages

17,883

Virus Messages

1,402

False Positives

 

Accepted Messages

11,236

Total Messages

29,119

 

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Advanced LIGO Systems, Management

Systems

from Dennis Coyne

 

See also:

AL Systems web page

AL Systems email archives

 

  • Held a SYStems meeting 11/30: meeting minutes
    Mostly a review of status for near term subsystem reviews and a recap of the Stable Recycling Cavity workshop held at MIT, 11/18
  • Held a first meeting of the Optomechanical Layout Working Group, 12/1. Establishing a common set of 3D models in the SolidWorks and PDMWorks framework. Determined high priority needs and actions for providing simple 3D envelop models of key in-vacuum components.
  • Dennis C. and Albert L. have discussed the need for, and approach to, re-visiting the scattered and diffracted light analysis for the arm cavity baffles with the intent to set a new limit on the maximum beam de-centering for AL. Latest information on mirror surface BRDF (including particulates) and ground noise will be included.

Records Of Decision or Agreement (RODA)

See also the RODA status web page

  • Nothing significant to report

Requirements

  • Nothing significant to report

Interface Issues

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

  • Nothing significant to report

Vacuum Compatibility

Residual Gas Assay (RGA)

See also the Vacuum Bake Lab

Bob Taylor

  • I have been cleaning and baking parts for the Quad all week. We are just about done and I have only a few loads to finish.

 

High-Irradiance, Contamination-Exposure Cavities

Lee Cardenas, Liyuan Zhang

Changes highlighted in yellow

Cavity

(Location)

Material/Item

Start

End

Comments

Cavity #1

(OTF Lab, Bridge)

“Cable wire” (material type?)

~11/17

TBD

The cavity has been aligned & locked. Taking daily ring down and absorption measurements.

----------------------------------------------------------

The test for 40 pieces of MMG nickel plated Nd-B-Fe magnets (for Helena Armandula, SUS ) has been completed and removed from the cavity.

Cavity #2

(OTF Lab, Lauritsen)

NA

NA

NA

Cavity not ready. It needs some other optics(such as: polarizing cube, 1/4 wave plate and some curve mirrors and lens) and the electronics. We have used/borrowed some of the optics from this system to accomplish
the completion of the other two cavities. Recently the 700 mw NPRO laser was used for Garilynn’s experiment and it needs to be realigned to the cavity.

Cavity #3

(OTF Lab, Lauritsen)

OSEM Flexi-circuit cable, qty ~ 45

(Helena Armandula, SUS)

supplied by Univ. Birmingham (Stuart Aston)

~6/10

~9/10

No change:

taking daily absorption & ring down measurements

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

--------------------------------------------------------------

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

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.

To be rebaked soon using the self-heating capability of the stepper motor (not just the oven heater controls)

Systems-level Electronics

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

  • It looks like we have AWG and TP manager now fully functional on the new computers. Initial testing looks good. There is still some minor cleanup work to be done.
  • We received the PCIE to PCIX expander chassis. However, it did not work. I called the manufacturer and they admit to having a problem with their PCIE card when installed in computers that have a nVidia PCIE bridge (which, of course, is what we have). They say they have a new card coming out to fix this, but not until mid January. Since we do not have enough PCIX slots in the computer we plan to use for the Lasti quad, we have had to move everything into our SunV40 development machine. We will use this for our tests at Caltech. Hopefully, we will have the new PCIE card in time for installation at Lasti, but my guess is it will be late.
  • Of possible interest elsewhere, we were doing noise measurements on our PCIX ADC card, and kept getting a noise 'pop' at a very periodic rate of once per minute. After a day of chasing ghosts, finally switched the ADC clock from the GPS receiver to a signal generator. We no longer get this noise. We then noticed that the GPS sync lite was not on the GPS module, even though it had the right time. It is looking like the GPS receiver does some sort of correction or has some other clock anamoly at a 1 minute intervals when not fully synced up. We are trying various different antennas now to get our sync lite back, and will repeat the tests to see if this clock noise goes away.

Seismic Isolation

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

Advanced Ligo Seismic Isolation Procurement Status

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. All material has been recieved.  Amendment made to purchase order to change mounting holes on optics table from 2 x 2 to 1 x 1 hole pattern.




Purchase order placed with Limerick Machine for the end milled plates and remaining Top Assy, Stage 0,1, and 2 Componants.
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]-->

Stage 0-1 Spring Assembly
20007878-A

Stage 1-2 Spring Assembly
20007890


Quotes for blades and rod flexures due 12/3.. Maraging steel has been ordered from Dyanamic Metals and scheduled for delivery by 12/20.

Quotes for remaining spring assembly parts have been recieved.

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.

Purchase order placed with Norcal for vacuum housings.

Purchase orders placed with Limerick Machine and Lavallee machine for pod machined parts.

Design of harnesses completed. 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.

Purchase order placed with Limerick Machine for kinematic Lock Assemblies.

Stage 0-1  Actuator Assy.'s
20007966-A
20007967-A

Stage 1-2
Actuator Assy.'s
20007968-A
20007969-A


Tooling design complete.

Purchase order placed with Limerick Machine for actuator mounts and tooling.

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

Design of stage 0-2 and stage 1-2 alignment pins complete.


The blade pre-load tooling and calibration fixture tooling will require redesign following the redesign of the blade springs by ASI.





The test stand has been delivered to MIT and assembled in its low height for sei assembly.

Suspension

From: Janeen Romie romie_j@ligo.caltech.edu

Working with Nergis on her pondromotive experiment. Her optics are a bit larger than the nominal SOS optics. She'd hoped to use the initial LIGO fixtures but will not be able to use the ring fixture (to mount the magnets) without some rework. I've been looking at the changes to the drawing and have asked Mike Gerfen in CES to quote for a new fixture.

Working with Gregg Harry and Steve Penn on their thermal noise experiment. They have an initial LIGO Pathfinder optic and a prototype LOS suspension structure.  They need wire standoffs and a guide rod but not magnets. Doug Cook has agreed to install the components, as soon as the optic is sent to him. He will send it back to MIT when he is done. Mark Barton has already sent them some spare bits from Caltech, including some music wire.

Working with Shannon and Dwayne on loading my new laptop. Made sure we are up to date on our ANSYS and Algor subscriptions.

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

Almost all of the parts of the quad controls prototype have been cleaned and baked. We have a few loads still to complete. I am aware of at least one load that had to be re-cleaned in order to pass its FTIR test and another that was sent back through the cycle after we ran into a problem vented the customised stops. Bob did have a problem with an oven which has delayed us a little. Lee and I have now assembled the lower structure and I have completed about half of the clamp wire clamp assemblies.

Tim Hayler has been looking at bolted connection in the overall quad suspension structure. I have been offering him some support on this effort. I should note that at Caltech we now have two versions of ANSYS. Ansys University with a 128,000 node limit and Ansys Research with access to 512,000. (This was set up a while ago by Janeen and I have to confess I had forgotten.) With the Research version it is possible to run examples with a fully meshed (as built) overall suspension structure.

Mark Barton and I completed a bench test in the lab looking at angled blades with vertical wires, reference Mark's weekly and his write up.

The 2nd structure has now been delivered to Stanford for further testing.

The installation tooling work with Mike Gerfen is progressing well. Ken Mailand is working on an alternative for the air bearing and XY stage. We are currently dealing with some vendor questions ahead of placing an order for the linear drives.

Ken Mason and I have been in discussion about tooling for the quad build at LASTI in January.

From: Ken Mailand kmailand@ligo.caltech.edu

I’m working on shop drawings for the SUS installation plate style fixture for Calum, I gave him cost and time estimates last week. This is an alternate to the air bearing setup, and uses the same table frame.

From: Jay Heefner jay@ligo.caltech.edu

AdL SUS and SEI

  • Anti-alias and Anti-Image chassis for the AdL quad controls prototype are now operational and running with the ADCs and DACs. We are on schedule for a test of the system in the Synchrotron lab starting next week.
  • System drawings for the LASTI installation of the SUS and SEI components are being refined in preparation for an install starting in January.
  • Racks and power supplies for the LASTI systems have been shipped to MIT from LLO.

Core Optics

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

Since the MIT stable cavity workshop I have been working on refinements (with Phil) on the concepts discussed there.  Its further along in the details now. After today's AdL systems meeting ,and your comment that a general design needs to be tightened up for May, I realize that it is unlikely that full modeling (via the "new" FFT code) will not likely happen by then. Recall that this was much discussed at MIT as a final arbiter of a stable configuration.

Also, I have cycled through a further round of PI review on yet another draft of the Perth PI estimates for AdL. There is a lot of emphasis we disagree on, but it has been agreed that the lastest draft is "close enough" and "fair enough" to pass internal muster. This has involved a lot of work (basically I have checked all their detailed results with my own calculations, etc.), and provide much insight all around as fall out.

From: Helena Armandula ahelena@ligo.caltech.edu

CSIRO - Oxygen deficient coating

Report from Roger Route:

"As I reported on the telecon, we were forced to move our controlled-atmosphere annealing furnace to a new room.  I re-plumbed the argon delivery system and tested the purifier to less than 0.1 ppm.  I completed one run on the Ta-coated optic at 350C overnight with a 250 C/hr heating rate and a somewhat higher cooling rate.  The single issue that I have been trying to deal with is that the RF generator in the same room is often in use for heat-treating ceramics and every time it exceeds 1200C, the external temperature recorders on my furnace become noisy and go high by hundreds of degrees which they did during the annealing run.  I think this is a pickup problem and have tried to duplicate conditions to verify that the LIGO optic did not exceed 350C even though the recorder trace suggested significantly higher temperatures. I am not sure I can ever do this to my satisfaction, but a trace yesterday with the rf generator off did not have any problems.  The furnace is controlled by a Eurotherm controller which was set for 350 C and whose readout does not seem to be affected by the rf.  Eurotherms are usually much better protected from rf than are strip chart recorders, so for now, I am assuming the optic did not exceed 350 C unless some other evidence arises.

The coating looks OK under the microscope.  I don't see strong visual evidence of crystallization having occurred.

Vlad ran the attached scans of the optic at 4 points, one on-center and the others at 1 cm right, left, above and below center.  The numbers seem high, in the 12 - 14 ppm range.  No idea if this is characteristic of oxygen deficient coatings.  I was hoping we had measured the optic before annealing, but he could find no records of having done so.  I remember being reluctant to risk contaminating the surface before annealing and it is probable we did not.  If you have a witness sample in the pre-annealed state, we can measure that to get the as-deposited loss."

Pre-Stabilized Laser

From: Peter King pking@ligo.caltech.edu

The hour meter circuit was tested and works as desired.  The relative intensity noise of the Innolight NPRO was measured.  One difference between the Innolight NPRO and a Lightwave NPRO is the effect of the noise eater on the low-frequency intensity noise.  A broad peak is present in the spectrum at about 600 Hz that is not present in the Lightwave models.  Some problems were encountered in measuring the low-frequency noise because of some noise in the power lines.  Which I suspect is either due to the machine shop beneath or the machine shop next to the PSL Lab.

Auxiliary Optics

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

VERTEX LAYOUT

I can now export all of the ZEMAX features into a SW assembly. I have created optical rays in ZEMAX for the smallest wedge angle of the BS that gives zero clearance of the PO beam from the main beam (I will increase the BS wedge angle to provide minimum clearance later). I inserted those rays into a Solid Works model of the ADLIGO vertex, which includes mock-ups of SUS towers, PO mirrors, cavity beam dumps, baffles, working PO telescopes, etc. I am in the process of optimally placing the PO mirrors on the BSC tables to enable access to the PO beams. The beam dumps and baffles have been placed so they can mount to the existing cross mounting tubes in the LIGO1 BSC chambers. I am planning to use the existing arm cavity baffle support structures, with a new baffle surface to match the larger beam sizes and optical lever placement.

Luke Williams has sent me coordinates of the IO beam lines, which I will incorporate into the ZEMAX model.

Other Laboratory R&D

From: Riccardo DeSalvo desalvo@ligo.caltech.edu

Virginio, Valerio, Riccardo

Presented HAM SAS to LIGO review panel.  The documentation prepared for the review is available in http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~desalvo/HAMSAS/Review20051129

Yumei

Continuing measurements of IP attenuation table.  Continuing studying ANSYS.

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