Weekly Report for Week Ending February 2, 2006

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday, February 6, 2006 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)
    • TNI ( 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

  • Change Request CR-050010 - Prototype Seismic Attenuation System for the HAM Chamber (HAM-SAS)

Special Items:

Preparations for Advanced LIGO Review (Tentatively May 31 – June 2)

  • Staffing Plan (February 10)
  • Project Execution Plan (Draft February 17)
  • Revised Operations Cost Estimate (February 17)
  • Revised Advanced LIGO Cost Estimate
  • Advanced LIGO Operations Plan (March 3)
  • Proposal Update

Special Announcements:

 

Weekly Report Highlights

LSC Issues (Saulson)

This week, we concluded the re-examination of the SciMon system that began a few weeks ago under the leadership of Rai Weiss. The conclusions that we reached are given in the following memo, which was sent to lsc-all.

Keith Riles is already hard at work on scheduling for the next four-month period, during which we will try out the new two SciMon/day paradigm.

Decision memo on scientific monitoring of LIGO data runs by: Jay Marx, Stan Whitcomb, and Peter Saulson 30 Jan 2006

  We are grateful to the ad hoc committee that recently met to consider the scientific monitoring system for our science runs. We express our thanks to Rai Weiss for chairing the discussions of the ad hoc committee, as well as to all of the other members: Ray Frey, Peter Fritschel, Joe Giaime, Gabriela Gonzalez, David McClelland, Fred Raab, Keith Riles, Vern Sandberg, Peter Shawhan, Daniel Sigg, Alan Weinstein, and Mike Zucker.

  The ad hoc committee did an excellent job of exposing the strengths of our present system and ways it could be improved. We were pleased with the constructive spirit of the discussions. We were also heartened that the basic value of the system to LIGO was strongly underlined.

  After listening to all of the arguments, we concur with the majority of the committee that we ought to move to a system that puts two SciMons per day at each site, instead of the present three. One SciMon should be assigned a night shift that overlaps with the loneliest hours of operation (for example, 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.), while the other would be assigned a day shift. We encourage a choice of 9 or 10 hour shifts instead of the present 8 hour shifts, as a way of reducing the loss of coverage.

  We ask Keith Riles to coordinate the implementation of this new version of the SciMon system, as he has done so ably in the past. We will make this change on a trial basis for the upcoming 4 month scheduling period. If we feel that this implementation is successful, it will become our normal style of operation.

  In addition to the discussion of the number of SciMon shifts, a number of other good ideas were proposed. We wish to encourage the exploration of these suggestions:

  • Lengthening the stays of individual SciMons to the extent possible. (As has been the practice during S5, stays of shorter than one week are strongly discouraged.)
  • Expansion of the practice of suggesting specific investigations; in addition to those suggested by the DetChar group, commissioners and the various search groups should suggest investigations to be carried out.
  • The LIGO Lab should explore increasing support for remote control rooms, so that experienced SciMons from Caltech and MIT can take some shifts without traveling to the sites.
  • Small groups may wish to team up to share SciMon duties, if that will help them to meet their obligations.

  To explore these suggestions, we will schedule a forum at the March LSC meeting. We ask that all interested LSC members bring their thoughts on these topics, as well as on any other ideas they have for further improving the scientific monitoring system.

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Lloyd)

  • No report.

SITE TELECONFERENCE (Lindquist)

  • A site teleconference was held Thursday, February 2, 2006.  The following issues were discussed:
  • Operating Budgets and Costs – Preliminary numbers are available for the end of January.  We are spending virtually at the same rate as last year.  Through January three months considering delays) we have spent $8 million.  This represents a rate of approximately 88 percent of budget excluding extraordinary items.
  • Property – Conducted an Inventory at Livingston this week.  Ninety-eight percent of approximately 120 items were found.  There were, however, several items discovered without property tags, mostly computers in the data analysis area.  Also there were items without an assigned location in the records.
  • Safety – There will be a Safety Review at Livingston February 28, 2006.
  • The list of assigned actions updated through December 01, 2005 (the last time it was updated) will be found Here.

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT (Luna)

>From: Rod Luna <rluna@ligo.caltech.edu>

  • Performed Equipment Inventory at LLO.
  • Provided assistance to the Detector Group (H. Armandula) with packing, shipping, and the preparation of a Commercial Invoice for US Customs Clearance of one piece of glass to the University of Glasgow.  Account Number LIGO.OPT - 5.4 - NSFLIGO.FY02ON.
  • Provided assistance to the Detector Group (H. Armandula) with Packing, shipping, and the preparation of a Commercial Invoice for US Customs Clearance of 12 pieces of glass to CSIRO in Australia. Account Number LIGO.OPT - 5.4 - NSFLIGO.FY02ON.
  • Provided assistance to the Detector Group (R. DeSalvo) with packing, shipping, and the preparation of a Commercial Invoice for US Customs Clearance of Maraging Steel 22x21x.16 to GALLI & MORELLI in Italy.  Account Number LIGO.PRLAS 5.16 NSFLIGO.FYO2CA.
  • Provided assistance to the Detector Group (C. Torrie) with shipping of four crates to MIT.  Account Number LIGO.PRLAS, 5.16, NSFLIGO.FY02CA.
  • Provided assistance to the Detector Group (G. Billingsley) with receiving Fused Silica Blanks from University of Glasgow / Heraeus.  Account Number LIGO.OPT-5.4-NSFLIGO.FY02ON.
  • Tagged two Computers, two Monitors, and two Printers.

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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

  • Received a skeleton draft of conversion requirements from Ian and have been making notations and changes.  A list of questions has also been compiles to go over with him during a meeting scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.  There will be more to report next week.

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

  • Scanning of Old Documents -- Progress continues on scanning of contract closeout files.  Note that 30 boxes of files have been scanned, put on disks, and the boxes destroyed.  Another 30 boxes have been scanned and are ready to be put on disk so that the boxes can be destroyed.
  • Activity:

Week Ending

02/02/2006

In

Out

Packages

32

8

Faxes

26

17

 

FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Cronin, Brambila, Kaufman)

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

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

  • Completed change order #169 to Triad for a two-month no-cost extension.
  • Completed the no-cost extensions for the following subcontracts: Perkins Coie, George Stokes, Southbridge Sheet Metal, Alliance Spacesystems, Butler, and Frequency Devices. The modifications were submitted to the vendors.
  • Completed the monthly stats report and the purchase order close out report and submitted to management. Notified appropriate parties of expired orders and orders over six months which are still open. Once Sun Microsystems confirms order cancellation, the funds will be released.
  • Working with researchers on changes to previous credit card orders and an assembly that has slightly different dimensions than what is needed.
  • The large ASA purchase order for the additional computer units has been approved and submitted to the vendor.
  • Still working with Sun MIcrosystems on the request for the pending credit which is holding up payment of their invoice.  Sun has submitted the tax exemption for LHO to their tax department for approval.
  • Working on the catering services provided by Great Impressions to establish a pattern for subsequent requests.
  • Completed the internal expenditure type change on the diode bars ordered from JDS to make the change from “Equipment” to “Supplies.”

>From: Florence Kaufman <fkaufman>

  • Completed and posted report for FY06 Operations and R&D for activity through January 2006.
  • Completed and posted report for Outreach Award for activity through January 2006.
  • Caltech Benefits Department has agreed to 'refund' charges for health insurance, etc.  for visitors which were charged in error for period beyond the dates of the visit, however the adjustment will only be for three months of charges.
  • Fabrication accounts for LIGO.DAQ and LIGO.ISCCA have been set up.
  • Revised account number list has been posted on the LIGO Internal Bulletin Board to reflect the new fabrication accounts.
  • Financial reports can be found at: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport. (For passwords contact Florence)

SUBCONTRACTS MANAGEMENT (Jasnow, Salone)

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

  • Nothing significant to report.

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

  • Ed Jasnow participated in the weekly construction meeting on the Science Education Center on Tuesday, January 31.  The contractor is performing very well, and has recovered schedule lost during inclement weather.  The steel and masonry work is scheduled to be completed ahead of schedule.
  • A teleconference was held on Wednesday, February 1, with Carol Wilkinson, Ed Jasnow, Rod Luna, and Jesus Ayala, the Assistant Director of Caltech's Financial Asset Accounting Services, to discuss the mitigation of import duties and state taxes on material for Advanced LIGO.  After discussion of the rules and regulations regarding these issues, the material was divided into three categories, two of which avoided duties and taxes altogether, and one, raw material, which could be subject to both.  It was agreed that Advanced LIGO would develop an acquisition plan that could be used by the LIGO Business Group to assure that duties and state taxes were reduced as much as possible.

SUPPORT (Baldon, Hiroto, Lloyd)

>Irene Baldon

  • Worked on the usual new trips, expense reports, reconciling, calendar reservations, and itinerary entries, as well as pulling all 2005 trip files for permanent storage with DCC and setting up my 2006.

>Julie Hiroto jhiroto@ligo.caltech.edu

University of Wisconsin/Madison Proposal -- The budget sheets have all been signed by Albert and Lucy.  The DAF has been signed by Tombrello, and the Vice Provost, and delivered to Office of Sponsored Research.  The budget sheets and statement of work has been faxed to University of Wisconsin-Madison.  The complete proposal is on file in my office.  I will take care of requesting a DCC number for it and sending a copy to the DCC.

>Dorothy Lloyd

  • Updated contract invoice summary log (Dec 5 - Jan 20).
  • Attended SOS buyer and TechMart meeting.
  • Jim continued with data entry in the LIGO database and helping out in the DCC.

DCC Steering Committee (Lindquist)

No report.

CHANGE CONTROL/CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT (Lindquist)

  • Change Request CR-050010, Prototype Seismic Attenuation System for the HAM Chamber (HAM-SAS) was submitted by Dennis Coyne.  If approved, the change request will add the fabrication and test of a predominantly passive, seismic isolation system prototype for the HAM chamber, to the Advanced LIGO R&D program.  This request will be discussed during the normally scheduled meeting of the LIGO Executive Committee scheduled for February 6, 2006.
  • Change Request CR-060002, Augment the recent order for the CIT LDAS cluster to add another 77 nodes plus miscellaneous accessories (e.g.,racks, cabling).  The request was approved during the meeting of the Executive Committee on January 30, 2005.  Minutes of the meeting have been electronically distributed (LIGO-M060014-00-P).

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)

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

  • The next Staffing Committee meeting is scheduled for Monday, February 27, 2006
  • All files for the Staffing Committee are up-to-date and posted on the SC web page.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

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

Safety audits have now been completed for eight of the eleven LIGO campus labs to be audited.  (The remaining three labs are scheduled to be audited during the next week.)  The labs that have now been audited all show much improvement in "housekeeping" and reducing personnel safety hazards.

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

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

Duty cycles this week were H1-64%, and H2-76%, compared to last week H1-78%, H2-79%.  Extended and extremely high winds impacted the duty cycle particularly on H1.  More frequent transitions to ASPD5 from the sensing photodiodes ASPD1-4 were evident on FOM1.

Since the outset of S5, Daniel Sigg has been serving as the LHO local run coordinator.  As Daniel now heads to MIT for several months, Rick Savage will next take up the duties of local run coordinator at LHO.

Next Monday we head into an S5 interim commissioning mode for two weeks.

Some S5 highlights from the elog are bulleted below:

  • Whitened DARM_CTRL is now written to frames.  The effect of the filter on the channel is plotted here, along with the zpk representation of the filter
  • Tuesday maintenance tasks were summarized
  • LHO and LLO range and duty cycle plots were updated
  • A noise study suggests that seismic noise generated by winds couples in due to motions of  buildings, as opposed to ground motion.  This is contrary to the prevailing view that winds cause the ground to move like a membrane which shakes the stacks.
  • Uncalibrated Rayleigh plots compare error signals in S4 and S5 runs.
  • The H1 AS trigger threshold (run ASPDs->ASPD5) was adjusted.
  • The H2 RF phase of ASPD3 was moved from 214.9 to 183.9 degrees, better separating I from Q.  Furthermore, 2m of cable were added to adjust the phase of AS3I_CORR.  The effect of the mods was to reduce DC junk light in AS_Q of PD3.
  • A detailed study of a 2k lockloss sees growing 75Hz ringing in AS_Q.
  • A new REFL2 photodiode will be tried out on H2.
  • Revisiting the scattered light hypothesis suggests that light scattering from the ETM cages is not a source of our excess noise in the 40-200Hz region.

Outreach (D. Ingram)

Wapato Middle School students surfed the waves during a recent LHO visit to the school.  We're getting ready for a public open house here at the site on 2/11.

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

L1 Interferometer in S5 (Franzen)

Summary of S5 run and commissioning activities at LLO

The duty cycle was around 64% with an inspiral range between 8.5-10.5 Mpc. The construction is still sometimes preventing us from keeping lock during the day even during otherwise quite times, but the situation is slowly improving.

The week offered a series of technical challenges:

  • Problems were observed with the MC WFS1 PD quadrant 2 DC readout. A spare unit is in the process of being prepared at Caltech.
  • The RM bias module failed. It was swapped.
  • The ITMX optical lever laser went noisy. It was exchanged.
  • The RBS lower mirror PZT broke down. It was replaced by our only spare.

Other maintenance highlights:

  • There was a framebuilder code drop
  • The ASQ BRMS DMT monitor was updated and is now also tracking hardware injections
  • Some good news is that we have not observed any dust type glitches after turning off the ISCT4 HEPA blower last week.

L1 CDS (Bogue)

  • Called Sun and got a field engineer out to change the controller in the new 3511.  While he was here, we diagnosed the problem with the dual fiber card in fb0.  He'll be back out next week to replace the card.
  • Installed a network based configuration and monitoring interface for the mitsubishi ups.
  • Began turning off access into cds via shared accounts.
  • Shipped the loaner atomic clock back to the manufacturer.
  • Ordered a dell to be built as the replacement beam centering servo.
  • Ordered 2 blade1500s -- one for a test string, the other to support the next round of commissioning.
  • Ordered a sun server to be an emergency backup for llo1.

CDS software (Khan)

Writing a tutorial on 'How to analyze LIGO Seismic data using Matlab and Ligotools'.

LLO Outreach (Zucker)

We held a full-day planning workshop for the Outreach partnership at LLO on 2/1. Introspective self-analysis of progress to date by all the partners indicated gratifying progress, but also underscored how we are victims of our own success; the demand for LIGO SEC outreach already exceeds planned capacity, and the Center is still under construction. This introduced a productive interaction about how to complete our Grant objectives while laying the groundwork for a sustainable, first-quality program in the future.

LIGO SEC Construction (Zucker)

Steel erection is about 75,percent complete this week and the building envelope has taken visible shape. Schedule projections are on track. We have had success negotiating quiet times with our contractor wherever it does not impact cost or completion; for example Friday 2/3 the contractor agreed to sychronize planned downtime for his steel and masonry subs, so we have a free and clear science day with no construction traffic. We hope this will become more frequent as the installed mass approaches the asymptote.

Computing and Network Security (Roddy)

  • Installed and debugged the windows backup client on a test machine.  There were several issues with the windows firewall.  Once I had everything debugged, I installed the client on a user's desktop machine who was up until now not doing backups.
  • Ordered various bits of hardware
  • Worked on some documentation and notes - adding info to the wiki, etc.
  • Cleaned a bit of spyware off of one windows PC in particular.  The same spyware continues to pop up occasionally.  Users must be getting infected by a particular website.  Not sure of the vector yet.
  • Made a few changes to the DNS files here.
  • Installing patches on a couple of the Linux servers that have not been patched in a while.  Configuring this to function automaticlally in the future.
  • Did some broadcast traffic measurements on the CDS interface.  This will be useful in later discussions of remote control rooms.  I have been tossing around some ideas/solutions to the configuration of the remote control rooms.  Need to work with Dave some on this.

General computing (Giardina)

  • (With Shannon) completed install of CanIt server.  needs to be tested and have filters created.
  • Rebuilt PC for Simon Stepuk, installed FC4.  finishing configuration today.
  • Received new network attached storage(300 GB).  started configuring it this morning.

LDAS admin (Giardina)

  • Tapes ejected and shipped to CIT:  LL0500, LL0565, LL0570, LL0571, LL1700, LL1702, LL1705.
  • LL1696, LL1697, LL1698, LL1699, LL1707, LL1708, LL1709 imported into L700 library
  • Researching problems with ganglia web front-end.  statistics aren't being displayed properly in some locations.  Problem is also happening in some locations at LHO, but not necessarily in the same locations as at LLO.  I have implemented a very nasty  and hopefully temporary "fix" for the cluster-summary section.  I have noticed many strange things in the ganglia PHP code, and will continue investigating.

Data analysis (Yakushin)

Igor is on travel at Caltech

Initial LIGO Detector Science & Engineering (Coyne)

CDS

see also the CDS weekly meeting minutes in the commissioning archives

Rolf Bork

Microseimic controls are to be added to LHO ETM controller software.  The definitive design should come out early next week for us to start the new software additions.

Optics Characterization

GariLynn Billingsley

Molecular contamination results from the swipe of 4ITM07 (recently removed from Hanford)were obtained from JPL.  The results are not significantly different from any other swipes of LIGO optics.  See http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/docs/T/T060029-00.pdf.

Compare to previous results at http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/docs/T/T050027-00.pdf.

The particles were clearly included in the swipe, so we can conclude from this analysis that the particles are not soluble hydrocarbons.

40-Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

There will be a meeting of the 40m Technical Advisory Committee this Thursday 2/9/06 ay 8:30 Pacific. All interested parties are welcome to attend; contact ajw@caltech.edu for instructions.

We are preparing a couple of papers. One, on the measurement of the DARM transfer function in the full dual-recycled Fabry-Perot Michelson configuration (featuring the detuned RSE optical resonance and the optical spring resonance). Another, on the Mach Zehnder solution to the sidebands-on-sidebands problem.

IFO Modeling

  • Rob, Alan and Osamu are fitting the dual-recycled transfer function measured last November to the theoretical curve from Buonanno & Chen, and getting excellent agreement. Rob also gets excellent agreement with his Optickle model. We are now working on errors and degeneracies in the parameters.
  • Osamu and Rob are developing methods for measuring the arm cavity pole to aid in getting the model right. They are also thinking about measuring, and developing a detailed model of, all the analolg and digital filtering in the XARM and DARM loops.
  • Monica continues to work on e2e simulation of the DARM open loop transfer function with and without radiation pressure. She's running modeler and waiting for real data to complete the comparison. She's simulating the optical response for different demodulation phases and looking for the values that matches the real measurement. A demodulation phase of pi/15 (12 degrees) could match pretty well : still under investigation.
  • Osamu continues to develop an e2e simulation of the digital suspension system including local damping model with 40m parameters based on Matt's AdLIGO quad model with minimum change. It is almost done and he will move to FP cavity with this suspension model.
  • Monica and Dan continue to work on the NoiseBudget procedure. They are modifying the code obtained from the sites and working on various software problems.

DC Detection Development

  • Rob and Rana continue to develop the detailed schematic of the DC readout controls, electronics, cabling, fast and slow channels, DAQ, etc.
  • Ben reports that the DCPD electronics boards are back from PCB Express. He will stuff them and begin testing. He got some PEEK plastic stock that he will bring to the machine shop for the manufacture of some parts for the DCPD.
  • Dan and Sam continue to work out the bugs in the control of the in-vac pzt steering mirrors.
  • Go and Osamu have prepared a conceptual design schematic for installation of the MIT vacuum squeezer into the 40m IFO.

Electronics, Controls, Computers

  • linux101, the vacuum operator linux workstation in the IFO hall, had a few problems, all of which are related to networking. Rob patched the problem, but it needs the attention of someone who knows how to properly set up networking.
  • Similarly, our new operator workstation, op540m, sits dormant, since we don't know how to get it to network. Waiting for help from Alex.

Lab Infrastructure

  • We had a safety inspection last Friday. Steve and Bob escorted the inspectors around the 40m lab and South Annex Lab. A list of action items were compiled by Steve, and all are being followed up on.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

Akira has been measuring the Q's of several modes of the unconstrained mirrors by ringdown.  The results are not terribly consistent from day to day, sometimes differing by factors of two. We suspect that the servo is interfering with this measurement, which is why we had hoped to avoid this method and look at the intrinsic excitation in the first place.  Right now we are working on eliminating all servo influence on the Q measurements, and verifying that we can measure a purely mechanical Q.

LASTI (Ottaway)

No report.

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Yamamoto)

Adv.LIGO modeling schedule (Hiro)

There was meeting on Jan.27th, discussing priorities and schedules for modeling for Advanced LIGO.

The priority is

1)      QuadFP : Adv.LIGO high power one arm simulation, to study the locking (velocity, force) and alignment controls (angular stability).

2)      Static IFO Simulation : Adv.LIGO version of FFT code to study: ROC, surface roughness, stable vs unstable cavity, etc.

3)      Time domain Full adv.LIGO simulation using modal model : total design of LSC/ASC and the stability test

QuadFP, high power and modal model based, is almost ready.

The urgency of PathFinder requires Static IFO simulation modeling to be completed in a very short time - 5 months.  Hiro will spend most of his time for this Static IFO simulation development.  This severely limits Hiro's activity to upgrade e2e and to support e2e users.

40m modeling (Monica, Osamu)

Monica used her setup to study the DARM loop and the DARM -> A166 transfer function.  The DARM open loop transfer function has been simulated with and without radiation pressure: it is necessary to increase the UGF to get more stability in the optical spring frequency range.  The optical response has been simulated for different demodulation phases with and without the DARM loop: a dependence on the demodulation phase affect the optical spring and the RSE peaks.  A good matching with the real measurement of the optical response has been found for a demodulation phase of pi/15 (12 degrees).

Osamu is working to improve the Matt's SimAdvLIGO to filling in many place holders by actual codes, based on the 40m IFO.

AdvLIGO Mechanics (Sany Yoshida)

We made a simplified e2e box file (called the toy HAM box) that mimics AdvLIGO HAM seismic isolation. The toy HAM box takes translational ground motion as input and outputs table-top translational motion in the same direction. When a typical ground X motion is used, this box file outputs required (spec) table-top displacement in X direction for Adv.LIGO.

We placed a LIGO 1 SOS box on top of this toy HAM bond and computed the optics position motion under various local damping conditions to compare the improvements of performance from LIGO I to Adv.LIGO.  The results are currently being analyzed.

ALFI - GUI (Bruce, Melody)

Bruce spent most of his time to update alfi to handle alfi-bundle more robustly.  A revised algorithm has been implemented with a sacrifice of speed.  He is working to recover the speed.

Melody, together with Bruce, are cleaning up the final several PR issues.  Almost ready to attach new challenges.

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)

Chatterji:

1. Continued updating QScan utility:

  • Adding timing information
  • Modifying default configuration to search auxiliary inteferometer channels at lower frequencies in order to identify glitches due to non-linear upconversion
  • Modifying build script to permit buildling on Solaris in addition to Linux
  • Installing on all LIGO Laboratory computing clusters
  • Investigating launching via globus

2. Preliminary study of burst search sensitivity to inspiral hardware injections (password required):  http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~shourov/q/qscan/protected/G060018-00-Z.pdf

3. Assisted the installation of new CIT computing cluster nodes.

Dupuis:

  • Worked on tracking down noise sources in TDS S5 analysis.

Shawhan:

  • Added GEO status to the GWIstat display at http://www.ldas-sw.ligo.caltech.edu/ligotools/runtools/gwistat/ .  Now one glance tells you the run status of eight GW detectors!
  • Prepared for Burst Group face-to-face meeting.
  • Did maintenance on software for hardware signal injections, plus LIGOtools software.

Sutton:

This week I've been pushing on the metric problem for the cheese, and I finished most of the rest of the cheese paper.  I've also edited portions of the null-stream analysis paper from GWDAW.

LIGO Data Analysis System

Software Systems (Blackburn)

LDAS

Continuing with the integration of tclglobus into LDAS, globus variables needed by multiple APIs have been moved into the LDASapi.rsc file. Also, the globus security information that is needed by LDAS has been moved into /ldas_outgoing/grid-security. This change has been tested for the cmonClient, cntlmonAPI and the managerAPI and no failures were observed.

The change from host based certificates to service based certificates for internal communications have been completed and the nightly loop tests (except putMetaData which uses SeqInsert) have been converted to optionally use X509 authentication.

The C++ code base has been modified to support the specifying of the md5sum output directory as requested in PR#2953.

System and integration testing was done on ldas version 1.8.72.

TCLGLOBUS

Within the Tcl Channel Interface, the value of the environment variable X509_CER_DIR is verified before use.

The number of documented Swig wrapped Globus FTP Control functions has been extended to 50. There remain 12 more functions to be documented.

GRID COMPUTING

Attended OSG Council Meeting after OSG Consortium Meeting. Reviewed and approved new executive board. Reviewed status of letter of intent to DOE and the proposal to the NSF. Also reached a consensus on the new OSG Council Chairperson, Bill Kramer of LBNL.

Worked closely with Ruth Pordes to wordsmith the OSG proposal to the NSF which is expected to be submitted this week.

Worked with Harvey Newman (CIT) and Richard Cavanaugh (UF) to provide inputs to the PLaNetS project proposal on ways LIGO could benefit from the network solutions being advanced by this technology.

Met with the USC-ISI team to discuss enhancements to the Pegasus work- flow system that would allow LIGO jobs to make more efficient use of OSG site storage. This falls into two categories; Adding automated data clean up to the workflow; Adding support for Storage Resource Management (SRM) to the VDS and Pegasus. The first would be the easiest to implement and is strictly a client side feature that would not require any changes to existing OSG software stacks. The second is now well understood and would probably need both client and server side software changes. At this time it is not clear how much longer ISI will be able to collaborate with LIGO on advanced workflows given their current funding situation.  As a result LIGO is discussing some bolt-on technologies that could be used to acheive similar clean up, external to Pegasus.

Working with the VDS team, a work around has been found for the failure of the Pegasus planner to generate DAGs from production level DAX. By using Java 1.5 (aka Java 5) instead of Java 1.4, one can produce the DAGs. Then one needs to switch to Java 1.4 (part of the OSG VDT) to run the standard configuration used with the OSG 0.4.0.

Determined that the development version of SRM on the ITB testbed is linked with GT2 libraries.  A GT4 compatible version of the SRM is only now being tested by the LBL development team.  As the gsiftp in GT2 is considerably less reliable that the gsiftp in GT4, it's not clear the development version of SRM we currently have is reliable enough for the large data movement requirements of LIGO. More information will be needed from the SRM user community.

A complete re-analysis of the S4 data using the L4 data set is being attempted with an 8153 collection of DAGs. As of Feb 2 at 10 am, 1212 of 8153 DAG nodes have completed with zero failures on LIGO-CIT-ITB.

On the OSG Integration Testbed, all nodes have been yum updated. Three new VOs have been added to the collection of supported VOs.

Hardware Systems (Anderson)

Caltech

(Dan Kozak)

  • Removed long extension cord and rerouted power under the floor in Booth.
  • Got Sun to send replacement power supply for failed on in ldas-cit.
  • Dealt with fall out from inadvertent reboot of ldas-cit caused by the combination of the previous two items.
  • Got Sun/STK to replace a bad 9940 power supply;it's been working fine since.
  • Called in and received 3 3510 disks.
  • Worked on installing cluster nodes.
  • Set up CIT /home filesystem (2 3511s + dataserver internal disks for metadata) and began rsync'ing /archive/home to it as a burn in test.
  • Worked with Ben on h(t) publishing problem (md5sums being wrong in LDR metadata so transfers fail and queue becomes clogged).
  • Worked on LHO /archive filling up, archiving falling behind.
  • Educated user sung about overusing resources to fix CIT gridftp problems (there were no tape drives available).

(Phil Ehrens)

  • Wrote ks-manager.tcl script which partially automates the pxe/dhcp based cluster node kickstart process.
  • Various certificate management duties.
  • Various desktop support duties.
  • Assisted in installation of 200 new cluster nodes.
  • Installed Solaris 10 UG1 on ldas-dev and dataserver-dev and documented important parts of the procedure in the wiki.

(Erik Espinoza)

  • Moved fltk/fltk-devel/mcelog into rc.ligofb.
  • Updating ssh keys.
  • Updating grub for memtest86+.
  • Update fedora-extras.repo.
  • Pointed /etc/profile.d/ligo.[sh|csh] to /ldcg/etc/ligo.[sh|csh].
  • Made usb sticks for mbr killing.

(Stuart Anderson)

  • Continued testing of new opteron node configuration.
  • Helped physically install 208 new opteron computers.
  • Working with condor team on 6.7.14 issues (6.7.15 is DOA, waiting for 6.7.16).
  • Installed the last stable release of LAL on all the Lab cluster head nodes.

MIT

(Keith Bayer)

  • Electricity for a/c unit and for new nodes being worked on.
  • ldas-jobs.mit.edu webserver brought up for ldas-grid users supporting ~public_html directories.
  • Switched cluster to point to new fedora-ligo yum directory.

Livingston

  • (Dwayne Giardina)
  • tapes ejected and shipped to CIT:  LL0500, LL0565, LL0570, LL0571, LL1700, LL1702, LL1705
  • LL1696, LL1697, LL1698, LL1699, LL1707, LL1708, LL1709 imported into L700 library
  • Researching problems with ganglia web front-end.  statistics aren't being displayed properly in some locations.  problem is also happening in some locations at LHO, but not necessarily in the same locations as at LLO.  I have implemented a very nasty  and hopefully temporary "fix" for the cluster-summary section.  I have noticed many strange things in the ganglia PHP code, and will continue investigating.

Hanford

(Ben Johnson)

  • Transmission/segment publication of GEO frames help up by possible issues with the FrameL library.
  • Pointed ldas-grid, ldas-pcdev1, and node* yum.repos.d to the "fedora-ligo" repository.
  • Added inspiralbbh user at Eirini's request.
  • Added "time window" code to LHO h(t) generation to only publish data within the window, [now(t) - 1 week, now(t) - 1 day]. The "now(t) - 1 week" entry is useful for restarting the script. I will add the windowing code to all publication scripts. This will especially help the trend publication scripts, and as S5 grows, the S5 publication scripts in general.
  • Continuing to move older data sets to on-site IDE-RAIDs; starting S4 L3 RDS presently.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT:

(Keith)

  • Installed new Matlab license server on network verified that it works on gc, ldas, standalone linux boxes, and windows.
  • Built Solaris 10 box using PADL (3rd party) LDAP libraries works the same way the Linux boxes 'natively' do now next task is LDAP mail integration

Livingston:

(Dwayne)

  • (with Shannon) completed install of CanIt server.  needs to be tested and have filters created.
  • rebuilt PC for Simon Stepuk, installed FC4.  finishing configuration today.
  • received new network attached storage(300 GB).  started configuring it this morning.

(Shannon)

  • Installed and debugged the windows backup client on a test machine.  There were several issues with the windows firewall.  Once I had everything debugged, I installed the client on a user's desktop machine who was up until now not doing backups.
  • Ordered various bits of hardware.
  • Worked on some documentation and notes - adding info to the wiki, etc.
  • Cleaned a bit of spyware off of one windows PC in particular.  The same spyware continues to pop up occasionally.  Users must be getting infected by a particular website.  Not sure of the vector yet.
  • Made a few changes to the DNS files here.
  • Installing patches on a couple of the linux servers that have not been patched in a while.  Configuring this to function automatically in the future.
  • Did some broadcast traffic measurements on the CDS interface.  This will be useful in later discussions of remote control rooms.  I have been tossing around some ideas/solutions to the configuration of the remote control rooms.  Need to work with Dave some on this.

Hanford:

(Christine)

  • Out most of last week and all of this week.
  • Once Amerion reprogrammed their VLAN, the backup network started working.  The latency problems seen when the network first started working seem to have fixed themselves.  Testing of the backup network by taking down the primary network is scheduled for 2/14/06.

CIT:

(Veronica)

  • LSC:  Working on the website for the March meeting.  Implementing an application for an online registration that will be handled and stored locally without the use of an ITS-provided utility.  This is a Windows-based database and frontend, which is being tied to a set of LSC meetings webpages at ligo.org.  I am looking into the ways of making the data available to the meeting organizers for bookkeeping and tracking of payments.  Working with Terry Gunter and Caltech Treasury on the setup of the online credit card payment application.  Updates of other LSC- related webpages.  Updates of the roster database and the LSC-related mailing lists.
  • LIGO:  Website updates.  Working on a website for the Elba meeting.

(Mike)

  • I worked on Spam Filters with Larry.
  • Finished up documentation on the Synergy installation.
  • Barry Barish: Tried to ghost his laptop to a new hard disk, but the image failed. I well have to reload his laptop from scratch on a new hard disk. This is due to bad sectors on his current hard disk.
  • Ran monthly ghost backups on all NTSRV's.
  • Mike Smith: Having many problems with Solid Works crashing on him. I ended having to reload the software.
  • Added an additional network connection for Peter King over in Lauritsen; this is to connect his new workstation to the network.
  • Worked on Graffias setting up an additional raid controller card to make this the backup system for the DCC database server.
  • Rerouted some network cables in the B/A server plus labeled these cables, plus some other additional cleanup work.
  • Setup a DCC workstation for Synergy engineer to login to DCC to see our current database structure. This is to get ready for the migration to the new SQL/Synergy server.
  • Other misc. support that included networking, email, software issues, ordering printing supplies, and adding additional visitors to the wireless access point mac address filtering list.

(Christian)

  • Added 1GB of additional memory to Jay Marx's new laptop.
  • Stocked printer cartridges that were delivered to LIGO this week.
  • Delivered new LCD monitor to ED Maros.
  • Added 1GB of additional memory to Mike Smith's workstation.
  • Re-imaged laptop that was returned to the loaner pull this week.
  • Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.

(Larry)

  • Placed a number or computer orders. Also, received a number of new computers. A few have been distributed and Christian is working on s/w installations on the others.

Resolved a couple of p-card issues. Items on CIT side and on the vendor side.

Trying to get Monarch computers to keep the server we purchased 5 mos. ago, or at least give us some compensation for keeping the unit for such a long time.

  • Setup a new mailman list. That process definitely needs to be updated.
  • Worked on the mail server it had multiple hardware errors.
  • Mail server is down again. A power outage we had at noon may have been the culprit.  Presently, trying to reslove this issue.

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Advanced LIGO Systems, Management

From Phil Lindquist

Advanced LIGO Review Preparations (Lindquist)

The following documents have been prepared and distributed:

Positions Summary List - The first step in preparing for the Advanced LIGO Review is to review the Positions Summary List to check whether the projected positions are consistent with expectations and needs.  We also need to know what positions will be required to support continuing Operations activities through the Advanced LIGO Construction effort and what positions will be available to help with Advanced LIGO.

LIGO Operations Budget Model (FY 2006 - FY 2008) - This file is a full detailed budget projected through FY 2008.  It assumes that funding will be level at $33 million in FY 2007 and FY 2008.  Operations Task Managers will be requested to review and update as needed.

Summary Budget Report - This report summarizes the budgets by WBS and estimates the reserve.

Projection of Advanced LIGO Operations Costs - This model projects budgets through 2014 (steady state Advanced LIGO Operations) including a summary of increments that were provided by task managers for the June 2003 NSF Review.  These estimates have been escalated to FY 2014 dollars.  We will request a review and update by the Operations Task Managers.

From: Dennis Coyne coyne@ligo.caltech.edu

Systems

from Dennis Coyne

See also:

AL Systems web page

AL Systems email archives

Records of Decision or Agreement (RODA)

See also the RODA status web page

  • RODA M060017-00, “Steel Wires for the Mode Cleaner Suspensions” has been signed and posted

Requirements/Design

  • 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 working with Calum and Mark on the Quad SUS all this week in perp. for shipping to MIT

Scatter/Absorption Test Measurement System

Lee Cardenas, Liyuan Zhang, Bill Kells

Encountered a situation, the housing boring hole is much smaller by 0.007" for the laser rod diameter. Therefore, a new right housing is required, and placed in order and get credit for the other one

High-Irradiance, Contamination-Exposure Cavities

Lee Cardenas, Liyuan Zhang

Changes indicated in yellow highlight.

Cavity

(Location)

Material/Item

Start

End

Comments

Cavity #1

(OTF Lab, Bridge)

“Cable wire” (material type?)

~11/17

TBD

Taking measurements daily.

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)

~9/30

TBD

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

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)

From: Carol Wilkinson <wilkinson@ligo-wa.caltech.edu>

Working on MOUs, risk analysis, and planning the preparations for the baseline review.

Seismic Isolation

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

Agenda for the weekly SEI telecom - Friday, Feb 3, 2pm Eastern, 1pm Central, 11am Pacific time

Announcements

  • Joe, Brian and Corwin met at Stanford to start work on a single-stage HAM platform design.

BSC SEI status, Ken/ Dennis

  • Spreadsheet posted with Limerick's progress.
  • Arland's progress awaits delivery of the thread inserts, not expected for a few weeks.
  • Norcal will be shipping all three pod housings to JG at LLO this week.

BSC work, adaptive modeling and FIR (Rich M)

  • Note in today's LASTI log on experiments with correcting the BSC-chamber accelerometers for the motion induced by actuation.  This is thought to hold promise, and will be pursued.

HAM control with VME (Pradeep)

  • no report

ETF platform work, thermal testing, frame testing -  Brian

  • thermal test instrumentation installed, system sealed and pumped down.  The sensors are currently on an actuator coil, the stage-0 aluminum pier next to an actuator, and on the optics table. There is also a non-thermally-sensitive resistor bridge for diagnostics
  • Also, set up to test the resonance frequency of the 'upper' pendulum frame plus weight equal to the 'lower' portion.

Frame damping - Brian

  • aluminum box stock purchased.  Call in to vender for sample damping material.

From: Dennis Coyne coyne@ligo.caltech.edu

HAM-SAS Analysis

In response to the HAM-SAS Review Committee's report (M060004-00) on the proposed HAM-SAS prototype & LASTI experiment (G050555-00, G050620-00), an analysis of the system dynamics (T060020-00) and passive performance (T060021-01) was accomplished. Responses to many of the review committee's findings are also included in T060021-01. The passive isolation performance is predicted to meet AL requirements (E990303-03) except for a region around 0.8 to 1.5 Hz where some modes, associated with GAS Filter horizontal stiffness, are expected to occur. It should be possible to reduce the magnitude of the motion at ~1 Hz and it may be that this current passive performance is acceptable as predicted. Studies are underway (by Peter Fritschel) to revisit the HAM isolation requirements.

Suspension

From: Janeen Romie romie_j@ligo.caltech.edu

Working on coordinating the SUS Workshop after the LSC meeting in March. Working on coordinating suspension support at LASTI for the quad uncrating, re-assembly and testing. Working on the ear placement fixture. Purchasing items for the quad, including impact sensors for the crates and additional magnets. Planning travel to MIT Feb 15-22.

From: Calum Torrie ctorrie@ligo.caltech.edu

Quad in a box! Well okay 2 boxes. It should leave for MIT in about 30 minutes  (at 03-Feb-06 15:23:22 eastern time….)

From: Ken Mailand kmailand@ligo.caltech.edu

I’ve completed shop drawings for the SUS installation, plate style fixture, and following up with CES in the assembly. Also for Calum, I’m working on completing, and modifying the bridge and ring track, to allow for fewer welds.

From: Jay Heefner jay@ligo.caltech.edu

AdL SUS Quad Controls Prototype

  • Electronics, cables and connecotrs for the quad have been removed from the lab and are being packed for shipment to LASTI.
  • New cables, connectors and parts needed for the LASTI install have been ordered and are being shipped to MIT.
  • Installation of the quad controls at LASTI will begin Feb 13.

AdL ISI

  • Cable and connectors for fabricationof the internal pod cables for the STS2, GS13 and L4Cs are in-house. Cable assembly will begin this week.
  • A design for the L4C preamp is complete and should be ready for review later this week.

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

  • Visited MIT last week. We held an informal review of the control system designs we plan to implement and further discussed requirements.  A few noteable items came out of this:
  • DSpace will be used in the initial testing of the quad.  Therefore, we will install the electronics to support this the week of Feb. 13. The new Ligo style controls and electronics will be installed later, probably early April.
  • The new HEPI controls installation will wait until early April or whenever the new quad controls go in.
  • A DC power distribution rack will be placed in the optics lab and conduits for distribution of DC power will be run to the various rack locations.
  • The Ponderomotive system will require control rates of 64KHz for the global loops and 500KHz for the PSL loop. The 64K loops should be relatively easy to implement, but doing the 500KHz loop in a digital implementation is more interesting. I started doing some tests with what we have here now and was able to get a small loop running at a ~1.5usec cycle time. This loop included 8 ADC channels, 8 CDS filter modules, and 8 DAC output channels. These tests are just preliminary, but at least the 500KHz loop is looking within the realm of possibility without some sort of new hardware, such as FPGAs.

Core Optics

From: GariLynn Billingsley <Billingsley_G@ligo.caltech.edu>

CSIRO visited January 30th.  We discussed the privatization of the Australian Centre for Precision Optics,"  the name by which the group will be known in the future.  The process of privatization will take between 1 and 2 years.

We also discussed the polishing requirements of Advanced LIGO as known to date.  We indicated our plans for future procurements (LASTI and Pathfinder).  The coating development program was discussed, see Helena Armandula's report for details.

From: Helena Armandula ahelena@ligo.caltech.edu

Advanced LIGO Coatings

CSIRO delivered a Lu doped Ta2O5 coating on a thin and thick 3" dia substrates.  The 3"dia. thick substrate was shipped to Glasgow from Caltech and the thin substrate will be sent to MIT from Australia.

Pre-Stabilized Laser

From: Peter King pking@ligo.caltech.edu

AdLIGO PSL

I have been running into some problems relating to installing the device drivers for the DSP board.  There might be some issue with the 64-bit operating system and the current version of the USB driver.  Apart from that I have been reading up on the various application notes on the Xilinx website.

AdLIGO IO (courtesy of Dave Reitze)

Testing of the AdLIGO Faraday isolator was finished for power levels up to 100W.

The requirements for the Faraday isolator magnetic fields was developed.

The EOM development was completed.  Preliminary design documentation for both the isolator and modulator is currently being prepared.

A CO2 laser based adaptive mode-matching telescope has been tested.

Auxiliary Optics

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

VERTEX LAYOUT

I have modeled the IO optical train in ZEMAX.

SLC

Hiro is still working on obtaining transfer functions for scattered light noise in ADLIGO.

Other Laboratory R&D

From: Riccardo DeSalvo desalvo@ligo.caltech.edu

Valerio, Virginio

We have finished to develop a 3D Maple model of the HAM-SAS springbox. Each of the four GAS springs is represented mathematically as an ideal spring attached to a mass M, that is connected to a rod, free to rotate around a point, supporting a mass m. Various asymmetries, such as uneven position, resonance frequency, level of attenuation of the springs, can be easily introduced changing the initial parameters of the model. This allow us to study many possible configurations of  the system. Since our Maple script generates a state-space representation of the system, the model can then be imported in Matlab and used in control simulations.

We are now completing an equivalent model for the HAM-SAS horizontal stage.

This model is a lighter and probably easier to handle complement to the model recently developed within Ideas by Dennis.

Yumei

made model of inertial Eddy current damper in Solidworks, and implemented it into Ansys to simulate and design its flex joints.

Justin, Sean

finishing report of silicon flex joints, waiting for internal feedback.

Riccardo

working on production and installation issues of HAM SAS in LASTI.

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