Weekly Report for Week Ending February 9, 2006

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

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday, February 13, 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 – Not ready to be presented this week.

Special Items:

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

Staffing Plan (February 17)
Project Execution Plan (Draft February 10)
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)

The S2 binary black hole paper has been accepted by Physical Review D.

Stan Whitcomb and Peter Saulson visited Virgo, and made progress in discussions with Virgo Spokesman Benoit Mours on a draft of a new MOU that will cover collaborative data analysis between the LSC and Virgo.

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Lloyd)

No report.

SITE TELECONFERENCE (Lindquist)

A site teleconference was held Thursday, February 9, 2006. The following issues were discussed:
Livingston SEC Construction—the main steel erection is nearly complete. Contractors are being scheduled so as to provide gaps in the heavy construction and improve S5 operation periods during the week. A minor change will be issued by EDR to address the issue of the graphic that was originally planned for the front of the building.
Plan B for the LDAS Equipment—Livingston has an urgent situation relating to completion of the relocation of the LDAS equipment. The previous area was designed as light office space with decking that can support only 50 pounds per square foot. A structural engineer has proposed some fixes, but with substantial cost and lost time. The area currently used for the LDAS equipment is scheduled for other use April 14. The only other area available on site is in the unfinished high bay. Use of this area would necessitate relocation of the HVAC equipment. Livingston plans to have a proposal for CCB consideration Monday, February 27. The clean high bay (needed for Advanced LIGO assembly operations) will not be affected.
Docents Volunteers--The subject has been raised regarding the use of authorized volunteers as docents for the sites. The rules are different for the two sites. The docents at Livingston would be covered under Caltech's umbrella insurance and normal handling of workmen's comp issues. Because Washington is what's known as a "monopolistic state," i.e., carries its own workmen's comp coverage, docents at Hanford would be covered by that instead of Caltech's policy.

The sites need the appropriate forms and to be advised concerning the routing of said forms.

Open questions: when docents work with children, do we need to have background checks? How does Caltech normally handle this? Who pays?

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>

Provided assistance to the Detector Group (H. Armandula) with packing and shipping of six pieces of glass and magnets to MIT (K. Mason), Account Number. LIGO.OPT - 5.4 - NSFLIGO.FY02ON.
Provided assistance to the Detector Group (R. DeSalvo) with shipping and the preparation of a Commercial Invoice for US Customs Clearance of Wire Pulling Machine 95x27x58 to GALLI & MORELLI in Italy. Account Number LIGO.PRLAS 5.16 NSFLIGO.FYO2CA.
Tagged four computers and two monitors.

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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

No report.

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

Scanning--progress continues on scanning of contract closeout files.
Activity:

Week Ending

02/09/2006

Out

Packages

Faxes

FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Cronin, Brambila, Kaufman)

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

For ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY DATA Press Here.

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

Completed change order #24 to Research Electro Optics and submitted it to the vendor.
Received the order acknowledgement for the booked order with JDS for the lasers. Minor changes were made so that the vendor could book the order.
Responded to inquiries and requests for assistance on TechMart issues.
Completed the change order for Tyler's no-cost extension and increase.
Completed the purchase order for catering for the LSC and submitted it to the vendor.
Working on the change order to Ares to add several individuals.
Completing the change order to LSU for Joe Giaime.

>From: Florence Kaufman <fkaufman>

No report (TMT related travel).
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>

No report (vacation).

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

No report.

>Dorothy Lloyd

No report.
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 was discussed during the normally scheduled meeting of the LIGO Executive Committee scheduled on February 6, 2006. Held pending additional information.

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

Nothing significant to report this week.

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

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

Since Monday 6th we've been moved to a commissioning mode on both machines, with experiments in the days and eves, buttoning up to join LLO at ~10pm and running in science (or near-science) mode on the graveyard shift. Thus, duty cycles since the start of the commissioning period are close to 1/3 (29% on H1, 28% on H2). The quality of the data during these evening stretches appears quite good, but for these two weeks of commissioning they should be flagged and reviewed to ensure they can be folded into full S5 analyses. A new calibration will be issued on both IFOs at the end of the commissioning effort.

Some science run and commissioning highlights are bulleted below:

both IFOs had trouble locking on the weekend owing to some of the highest microseism we've seen at LHO, 2um/s, and winds associated with the originating storms
two new binary black hole versions of InspiralMon were started
scimon shifts continue 24/7 at LHO despite commissioning; one effort is to determine if commissioning has done any harm or good
TCS chillers were swapped
the standard weekly range and duty cycle Mathematica script was run and results posted
a peak at 71.75Hz from the H2 MOPA PS couples into H2 AS_Q, but the effect is not seen on H1

4K IFO

A detailed study of 4k lockloss events shows a class of failures in which SPOB rapidly falls off (while arm powers don't). The reason for the SPOB plummet is not known but WFS and input pointing are being investigated... H2 exhibits the same behaviour
ASPD3 saturations were observed, and others tracked.
60Hz noise in AS_I was tracked.
DARM and REFL_I coherence appears not to be due to frequency noise...more on this investigation here.
Neither lowering the 61.2MHz modulation depth nor lowering the power into the IFO by 6dB improved the noise in the 70-100Hz band
The 4k crystal oscillator was swapped out.
Local damping was modified on info gleaned from the noise budget and LLO experience.

2K IFO

Intermittent 16.6Hz noise at MX was investigated; seismic coupling from the chiller yard or fans in the building are current suspects.
The TCS was tuned to minimize AS_I, however without any significant change in optical gain.
High frequency RF noise in the H2 ASPDs may be a candidate for excess noise (and similarly on all IFOs). A follow-up entry modified some conclusions of the earlier one...more here.
The REFL2 pd was swapped due to slew limiting...more here.
ASPD3 was also changed out, possibly producing less noise in the 40-100Hz band (more data required).
Many higher harmonics of 60Hz in DARM were reduced (although 180Hz has come up).

DAQ

The mass storage room UPS failed during a windstorm.
Test point problems required CDS gymnastics.

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

L1 Interferometer in S5 (O'Reilly)

We had a good week of data taking with a duty factor of 60.1 percent between midnight 2/2/06 and 2/9/06 CST. This was in spite of ongoing construction for the Science and Education Center and commissioning activities from 2/6/06 onwards. These commissioning activities take place at times when both Hanford interferometers are down.

Activities included: A search for instabilities caused by WFS2 oscillations. These ended up absolving the WFS2 loop, but more investigation is needed, specifically of the optical lever loops. It may be that their gains need to be reset. We may also re-measure the WFS sensing matrix.

Speculations and investigations as to the source of the above budget noise in the 50-100 Hz region. Investigations involved exciting the end baffle of ETMX using shakers and looking for upconversions in the ETMX coil driver electronics.

There was some excitement when a 175 Hz excitation was observed in the L1:LSC-ETMY_EXC channel. This appears to be an artifact in the DAQ and not a real signal going to the test mass.

As always the elog at http://ilog.ligo-la.caltech.edu contains the details.

Safety and Security (Riesen)

The new main gate has arrived back at the manufactures from the paint shop. Allan and/or I will go and give it a pre-delivery inspection tomorrow morning (Fri.)

Found no site nor laser safety concerns this reporting period.

Working with Bill Tyler on the upcoming (April 18th) LLO safety audit.

According to Rod Luna (CIT/LIGO) property manager, the property audit/inventory on LLO capital equipment went fine and we will do a total site inventory in June '06

L1 CDS (Bogue)

Most of this week was spent working on the new 3511 for fb0. Last week the controller was replaced. This week, we replaced the dual port fiber card in fb0. Once that was up, I discovered another problem with the battery backup. That has now been replaced. I think I'm ready to partition and create filesystems.
Ordered monitors for the control room. We've lost a half dozen or so over the last 3 months.
My techmart order for a hot spare for llo1 was rejected. I got a quote from sun and put the order through on a p-card.
Began futzing with a barcode system for Rusyl.
Took a good look at the other pc's that are in the MSR/control room. We have 3 machines that are on the GC network: one at the operator's workstation, framegrabber and spiricon. Both framegrabber and spiricon are win2k machines that don't have patches. Spiricon doesn't have proper passwords. I recommend we decommission spiricon and get the framegrabber machine updated. Framegrabber needs a new monitor.

CDS Software (Khan)

Preparing a tutorial on how to analyze LIGO Seismic data using Matlab and Ligotools.

Computing and Network Security (Roddy)

Primarily working on the router/firewall setup for Hanford.
Working on more documentation in the LLO GC wiki.
Spending quite a bit of time organizing many of my files & data that has accumulated over the years.
Installed more software on the scanner PC.
Fixed a problem with the software downloads from CIT. The error was on my end.

General Computing (Giardina)

Configured network attached storage, turned over to users for testing.
Delivered reconfigured PC to Simon Stepuk.
Installed arkeia backup software on the kantec security server.
Working on script to change NIS group ids.
Installed XP SP2 on PC for user.
Other usual user requests and support.

LDAS Admin (Giardina)

tapes ejected and shipped to CIT: LL0507, LL0515, LL0594, LL0648, LL1699, LL1707, LL1708
tapes imported into library: LL1690-LL1695 and LL0870
5 of 6 tape drives required cleaning
received user priority script from Hanford, have not yet implemented

Data Analysis (Yakushin)

Storage/Condor/LDAS admin:

1) Added 5 new Condor users.

2) We have just been told by a structural engineer that the second floor cannot carry the weight of the current LDAS installation. The new plan is to build an LDAS room downstairs in a double open bay. We still plan to move LDAS from a temporary location at the end of March.

3) Generated couple possible very preliminary layouts of LDAS equipment in the new location (there are too many unknowns at the moment: the exact dimensions of the space allocated for LDAS, the footprint of the fire suppression and power equipment, etc):

http://www.ligo-la.caltech.edu/~igor/POWER_HVAC_LAYOUT/v6

http://www.ligo-la.caltech.edu/~igor/POWER_HVAC_LAYOUT/v7

The second layout allocates more space for the LDAS room at the expense of the corridor.

Data analysis:

1) Participated in the burst face to face meeting at CIT to discuss what needs to be done to present S4 and first few months of S5 results at the March LSC and April APS meetings. The current deadline is that most of the work should be finished and submitted to the reviewers by Feb 19.

2) Continue testing the modified version of WaveBurst.

3) Summarized the loud triggers found so far by WaveBurst S5 online analysis in the burst notebook:

http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/cgi-bin/bag-enote.pl?nb=burs5inspect&action=view&page=1 4)

Took scimon owl shifts on Feb 5, 6.

Initial LIGO Detector Science & Engineering (Coyne)

CDS

see also the CDS weekly meeting minutes in the commissioning archives

CDS Software

Rolf Bork

Waiting on software requirements for PEPI (piezo-electric pre-isolation) controls at LHO. Hopefully, we will get something from the commissioning crew in the next day or two.

CDS Hardware

Nothing significant – see the CDS weekly minutes

DMT

John Zweizig

This week I looked into the effect of glitching in the OSEM sensors, especially on H2. I found sensor glitches by looking through the second trends for single-second periods with anomalously high sigma. These were seen to correlate strongly with glitches in the AS_Q channel in the H2 ITMX and ITMY, UL and LL sensors. Other sensor channels didn't seem to have a noticeable correlation. I haven't yet determined why these channels affect the AS_Q channel whereas others don't. The sensor glitches are tabulated with a more complete description of this study at http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~jzweizig/S5_Data_Quality/#h2sensors

40-Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

Noriyasu Nakagawa from TAMA is visiting for 3 weeks to learn about our digital control system. Please make him welcome!

There was a meeting of the 40m Technical Advisory Committee this Thursday 2/9/06. These slides were shown.

A draft of the paper on the measurement of the 40m transfer function, with comparison to the theoretical prediction, is being circulated.

IFO Modeling

Monica is trying to reproduce the 40m optical transfer function in e2e. It looks close; the demod phase needs tweaking.
Osamu continues to develop his e2e model of the length control system, making Matt's model more realistic. He's working with Hiro to make modeler_freq function more like a real transfer function measurement.
Rob and Alan worked on fits of the 40m transfer function to the theory formula of Buonanno & Chen.
Rob is working on developing his numerical simulation of heterodyne readout in the full quantum two-photon formulation.

DC Detection Development

Ben has stuffed The DCPD boards. Preliminary testing exposed a few minor things that need tweaking. Other than that, they seem to function fine, but in-depth testing and noise measurements will be made shortly.
Ben got the in-vac DCPD electronics tube holder back from the machine shop and it looks great. The photodiode mount is being fabricated currently, and seems to be going well. Ben will deliver the PEEK for the remaining parts, and have them manufactured soon.

Electronics, Controls, Computers

Dan and Monica are making progress in understanding the noise budget code, and modifying it to work at the 40m.
The vacuum control monitor is somewhat broken; Jay will fix by the end of the week.
Bob installed cables from the MCR camera to the video switch. The switch now needs programming.

Lab Infrastructure

Steve has been following up on various items that came up during last week's safety inspection.
Steve is evaluating different kinds of in-vac beam-dumps for the DC readout bamline, including razor blade dumps, the new Japanese "micro-finger" dump, black glass, and Mike Smith's oxidized aluminum. Bob cleaning and baking the razor blade dumps.
Steve is planning on building a beam tube for the MCR beamline as it passes through the PSL enclosure.
Steve got a new desktop computer.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

No report.

LASTI (Ottaway)

LASTI Weekly (Ruet, Corbitt, Innerhoffer, Ottaway, Hoskens, MacInnes, Mason, Shapiro, Mittleman)

LASTI Vent

The in-vacuum installation is nearly complete. Both experiments (Ponderomotive and Suspension sensor noise) have been course aligned and fringes observed. It is anticipated that we will be under vacuum again by Tuesday of next week.

LASTI PSL

The optical fiber that ports the light to Yend HAM was succesfully installed and tested.

LIGO Laser Upgrade

The amplifier modelling code is nearing completion and the the CEO optical amplifer has arrived, testing of this will start once we get the appropriate chiller (~2 weeks)

BSC HEPI Testing

We have made some nice progress on the adaptive FIR controller. The application is the excess 10Hz noise at the top of the BSC piers. There have been some issues involving feed back to the feed forward sensors which I think we are over coming. There are a series of recent log entries on the Lasti ilog detailing our work. The most recent is on 2/8/06 (Wednesday).

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Yamamoto)

Details of Mode Cleaner Noise due to Seismic Noise [LIGOI, AdvLIGO] (Sany Yoshida)

Continued analysis on the effect of MC1 misalignment on MC transmitted beam's translational and pointing fluctuation. Derived analytical expressions of transmitted beams' translational and rotational shifts as functions of MC1 position and yaw misalignments. The resultant expressions indicate that with a realistic range of misalignments and perfectly working MC length sensing and alignment sensing controls on MC2, both MC1 position and yaw fluctuations have much greater effects on MC transmitted beam's translational (horizontal) shift than pointing (yaw) fluctuation. Optical power coupling to higher order modes based on the translational beam shifts estimated in this fashion show the same order of magnitude as previous numerical estimation of MC transmitted power fluctuation based on e2e modeling.

40m e2e modeling [Adv.LIGO] (Monica Varvella, Osamu Miyakawa)

Monica:

Feedback filters implemented in the control plant of the e2e 40m model have been tested again in MATLAB : it was found a problem with the gains, now fixed. The DARM open loop transfer function has been simulated again using the servo with the corrected gains and a comparison with raw data has been also done: the matching is good for the UGF and the optical spring peak; the RSE peak doesn't match well because of the dependence of the demodulation phase. The TF calculated using e2e was not quite the same as the 40m data, and it is reanalyzed using same definition.

Osamu:

Osamu is implementing digital controllers in the 40m model. Based on his feedback, Hiro is modifying e2e package to make the analysis easier.

High Power AdvLIGO Arm (Hiro Yamamoto)

Modification of the QuadFP is still in progress so that the high power stability and alignment design can be done in a realistic environment.

Static IFO Simulation (Hiro Yamamoto)

Started to develop the code of Static IFO Simulation, adv.LIGO version of FFT. Designing the program frame work and adding fundamental building blocks.

alfi and other User Front End of Simulation (Bruce Sears, Melody Araya)

Bruce:

Bundle Content Dialog fixed to highlight most important information to the user. (PR 515)
Windows vs Unix line feed characters were confusing the reading of boxes between systems. This has been fixed. (PR 532)
Working to speed up box file saves after the new more reliable (but slower) modeler-connection generation code was implemented.

Melody:

ALFI bug fix "Quit fails after trying to write read-only file".
Started to develop the data loading front end of Static IFO Simulation package with Hiro.

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)

Brown:

Worked on S5 online BNS analysis analysis and maintenance issues:

Set up web pages for top ten loudest inspiral glitches in each IFO, which are automatically updated daily:

http://ldas-jobs.ligo-la.caltech.edu/~inspiralbns/glitches/l1-glitches.html

http://ldas-jobs.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/~inspiralbns/glitches/h1-glitches.html

http://ldas-jobs.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/~inspiralbns/glitches/h2-glitches.html

Analyzed S5 inspiral hardware injections performed since Jan 15:

http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/cgi-bin/enote.pl?nb=iags5sim&action=view&page=4

Reduced the latency of the online BNS search so triggers are displayed in InspiralMon with a latency of ~ 4 mins rather than 1 hour. Set up a trigger database at the observatories for easy retrieval of online inspiral triggers. Moved the search from my user account to the inspiralbns user account.

Worked with Lisa to fix problems with the ringdown software injections. Worked with Diego to track down problems in the spinning waveform injection code. Started review of S3/S4 inspiral analysis. Cleaned up some of the XML writing code in LAL to reduce output file size. Worked with Kipp Cannon to improve the XML reading and writing code in glue for trigger post-processing.

Chatterji:

Analysis of loudest events identified by the binary neutron star and various burst searches in support of current commisioning activities at Hanford.
Post-processing of S5 Q Pipeline analysis results in preparation for the March LSC and April APS meetings.

Mandic:

I have written a new draft of the companion document to the S4 all-sky stochastic paper. I have also put together a summary of the routines used in the analysis. These documents are meant to be of help to the review committee.

I have generated a plot showing the current results and projected S5 sensitivities to stochastic GW background, as a function of the spectral slope alpha.

I am working on estimating the sensitivity of AdvLIGO (in different configurations) to the stochastic signal due to the LMXB's.

Mendell:

I have checked into the lalapps/src/pulsar/StackSlide directory of the lscsoft CVS repository updates of tcl and matlab scripts that do condor DAG generation and post-processing of the xml output of the StackSlide code. The changes made improve formatting of various things, but do not change anything about how the pipeline works or the numbers that come out from it. Tomorrow's code review and the final SFT generation at UWM will allow an S4 production run to begin soon. Recent example S4 results have been posted on the pulsar group's S4 investigations page, under the StackSlide section (with the usual restrictions):

http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/pulgroup/investigations/ s4index.html#stackslide

Shawhan:

Hosted a face-to-face meeting of the Burst Analysis Group last Thursday and Friday.
Currently at Livingston doing SciMon shifts.
Released a new version of the metaio package.

Sutton:

I spent this week editing the network analysis paper, and modifying the network codes to allow choice of analysis mode (search or veto). I also reviewed a new paper by Marka et al. on parabolic encounters in globular clusters as GW sources, and sent detailed comments.

Yakushin:

2) Continue testing the modified version of WaveBurst.

3) Summarized the loud triggers found so far by WaveBurst S5 online analysis in the burst notebook:

http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/cgi-bin/bag-enote.pl? nb=burs5inspect&action=view&page=1

LIGO Data Analysis System

Software Systems (Maros)

LDAS

LDAS continues to be ported to 64bit Solaris. After e-mail exchanges with the Tcl development team, efforts shifted from using GCC to Sun Studio 11 for the 64-bit compilation. Most of the core utilities in / ldcg used by LDAS have been compiled with this compiler.

The looping scripts which are used for night and weekend testing of LDAS on ldas-dev have been converted to use either username/password or X509 certificates. When running using certificates, the job rate was observed to be almost 10% slower. This is being investigated both at the TCL and TCLGlobus layers.

System testing for LDAS was done using ldas version 1.8.79.

TCLGlobus

The Globus GASS Cache unit tests and documentation have been completed.

Added a new option when creating XIO-based Tcl channel to enable/ disable GSI authentication. This will benefit LDAS by allowing the study of the overhead incurred when using authenticating vs. non- authenticating sockets.

GRID COMPUTING

Tests of the OSG 0.4.0 port of the Inspiral pipeline have been run using OSG clusters at six sites. Three of the six sites (50%) successfully ran the 470 DAX node test to completion with zero failures. More details on site-specific tests can be found at: http:// osg-itb.ligo.caltech.edu/Inspiral/LIGO_OSG_040_production_sites.html

All nodes on the osg-itb test bed have been yum updated with kernel 2.6.15-1.1831_FC4smp.

A complete re-analysis of 89% of the S4 data using the L4 dataset with an 8153 collection of DAGs has been completed. Several restarts were required due to problems related to the RLS running out of resources related to tape drive resources and excessive user requests. The Condor restart mechanism worked properly and all 8153 DAG nodes have completed with zero failures on LIGO-CIT-ITB.

The Storage Resource Manager (SRM) server has been configured with an /etc/init.d/srm script to persist across reboots on osg-itb.se. Initial testing of the SRM server with srmcp will begin next week.

The Grid Information Provider (GIP) has been configured for LIGO-CIT- ITB and now shows up on the GIP web page: http://rsgrid1.its.uiowa.edu/osg-gip/. Analysis of the utility, and reliability of the GIP (based up LDAP and GLUE) have not yet begun.

Hardware Systems (Anderson)

Caltech

(Phil Ehrens)

Installed FC4 on former VPN machine and configured it as a webserver offering the public_html directories of the /archive/home search users. The search user's directories are mounted read-only and access to the webserver is password protected.
Started to convert the old Firewall VPN machine into the new ldas-gridmon and discovered that it has NO CPU in it. A quick check of the ldas-admin problem tracking system showed no entries referring to the missing CPU.
Revisited the machine systemimager.ligo.caltech.edu - this machine seems to have a dead power supply at this time.
Upgraded LDAS-TEST metaserver machine to Fedora Core 4. This machine is running fully mirrored partitions.
Added sha1 checksum capability to my linux/solaris logwatch and tripwire script.

(Erik Espinoza)

Deployed 2.5 racks of Opteron nodes.
Configured IPMI on all Opteron nodes.
Verified Mac Address list from the nodes that are up.
Sent Dwayne Mail Relay configuration for clusters.
Tested i386 kickstart for synch w/ x86_64 kickstart using node410.
Troubleshooted the following nodes:

- node125, re-greased cpu. In production.

- node410, checked cdrom drive. It's broken w/ no replacement. In production

- node323, ran memtest overnight, still monitoring

- node297, possible bad memory. running memtest

Updated kickstart as follows:

- added lscsoft repo

- groupinstall lscsoft

- sync'd 32-bit install to 64-bit install

Fixed error on FC4 Desktop kickstart.
Telecon w/ Dwayne and Shannon on mail configuration.
Did research for upgrade to edge switch (Cisco/Foundry).

(Stuart Anderson)

Commissioning the new Opteron cluster at Caltech.
Installed the full LSCSOFT software stack on the LDAS-CIT cluster.
Upgraded LDAS-CIT to condor version 6.7.16.

MIT

(Keith Bayer)

Electrical work in lab is almost complete. 3 20amp circuits are hooked up, wiring to 5ton a/c looks complete. Duct work for unit is next.

Livingston

(Igor Yakushin)

Added 5 new Condor users.
We have just been told by a structural engineer that the second floor cannot carry the weight of the current LDAS installation. The new plan is to build an LDAS room downstairs in a double open bay. We still plan to move LDAS from a temporary location at the end of March.
Generated couple possible very preliminary layouts of LDAS equipment in the new location (there are too many unknowns at the moment: the exact dimensions of the space allocated for LDAS, the footprint of the fire suppression and power equipment, etc):

http://www.ligo-la.caltech.edu/~igor/POWER_HVAC_LAYOUT/v6

http://www.ligo-la.caltech.edu/~igor/POWER_HVAC_LAYOUT/v7

The second layout allocates more space for the LDAS room at the expense of the corridor.

(Dwayne Giardina)

Tapes ejected and shipped to CIT: LL0507, LL0515, LL0594, LL0648, LL1699, LL1707, LL1708.
Tapes imported into library: LL1690-LL1695 and LL0870.
5 of 6 tape drives required cleaning.
Received user priority script from Hanford, have not yet implemented.

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

I have enhanced the createrds driver scripts to properly retry jobs after receiving a "*malformed command*" error. This error, which is rare, has occurred three times during S5. Previous to this enhancement a manual restart the RDS generation process was required. The changes have been checked into the dsorun/contrib/createrds/scripts directory of the lscsoft CVS repository and installed at LHO, LLO, CIT, and MIT. S5 RDS generation is now running with this change, and I have closed LDAS PR 2971 about this. There have been no unexplained gaps produced in the RDS data since the start of S5. The known gaps are due to times when both framebuilder have been down, or the time interval that contains the leap second change over. Thus, RDS generation has run smoothly during S5, and now will run even more smoothly.

(Ben Johnson)

Upgraded fb0 3511 firmware to 4.13c.
Installed h(t) 6 hour publication latency patch at both observatories.
S3 and S4 Level 3 RDS data now in IDE-RAID datagateway2. Published URLs for these sets. This has greatly reduced tape drive usage at the sites. Presently tweaking NFS/kernel/filesystem paramters on that server.
Modifications to CIT's Local Storage Module for publishing GEO segments installed. Waiting for more GEO files to transfer to see if the code actually works as intended.
Installed "metamonitor" webpage + supporting scripts at LLO.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT

(Keith)

Patched linux boxes
Brought backup / slave ldap server on-line using replication from master ldap server
Upgraded certificate on POP and sendmail servers
Investigating norton ghost software on new thinkpad

Livingston:

(Dwayne)

Configured network attached storage, turned over to users for testing
Delivered reconfigured PC to Simon Stepuk
Installed arkeia backup software on the kantec security server
Working on script to change NIS group ids
Installed XP SP2 on PC for user
Other usual user requests and support

(Shannon)

Primarily working on the router/firewall setup for Hanford.
Working on more documentation in the LLO GC wiki.
Spending quite a bit of time organizing many of my files & data that has accumulated over the years.
Installed more software on the scanner PC.
Fixed a problem with the software downloads from CIT. The error was on my end.

Hanford:

(Christine)

Looking at options for a new raid disk system and LTO tape backup system to be used for the user directories. The 432 GB disk space we have now is about 3/4 full, and the Exabyte tape library and backup software are outdated.
Purchased a couple more laptops for users.
Looking at buying a video server for the Auditorium camera. The camera is currently connected to the CDS video server.
Added another port on the main switch to both the data and voice vlan so a phone and computer can use the same port. The new phone system using the same main switch as the GC network is working well.
Trying to get an old version of Matlab working again and adding the compiler tool box for a user who prefers to use the old version instead of the latest version.
Working on upgrading the MRTG software and adding the RRD display tool for advanced graphics.
Still trying to get a Cisco service contract. I contacted the local Cisco sales rep, who referred me to someone who handles service contracts, who hasn't returned my calls.
Other misc user support for printer problems and lost e-mail files.

CIT:

(Christian)

Created a backup of Cindy Akutagawa, Julie Hiroto, Gina Salone, Florence Kaufman, Irene Baldon and Dorothy Lloyd workstations.
Replaced toner cartridges on HP 5500 printer.
Replaced toner cartridges on Irene's local printer.
Configured new system with the engineering Ligo image for Ken and transferred all his data.
Configured new system with the engineering Ligo image for Steve and transferred all his data.
Continue working on webcamxp software setup.
Installed new OS on new machines.
Assisted in replacing old equipment.
Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.

(Mike)

Fixed some issues with our current DCC database. The public search was not working.
Continued support on e-mail services. Most of this was switching over users over to another mail-server due to the main user mailserver having issues with hardware/software. The user mailserver seems to be running pretty stable for now, and will probably be switching users back to it.
Setup an account for Terry Gunter to connect to LSC database to access the attendees list for next month's LSC conference.
Christian and I swapped out a Sun monitor for Erica D'Ambrosio.
Reloaded Barry's laptop from scratch due to bad sectors. I also successfully backup him up.
Loaded a new Dell Engineering workstation for Dennis Coyne's group. Christian finished this up for me.
Called in an IBM laptop due to hardware issues. They new parts are being shipped out to me.
Other misc. work.

(Veronica)

LSC: Most time was devoted to setting up the website for the upcoming March meeting. I installed the main website at the lsc1 server, and moved over a set of webpages for the registration to the amaldi server. Installed an Access database and the supporting backend for online registration with live positng. Modifying the database and the scripts along the way as the requirements for the information to be collected are changing. Updated the main meeting website with the new information on the F2F, lodging, etc. Worked with the campus Treasury and AuthorizeNet.com on establishing an e-commerce account for online credit card payments of the conference fee. Our initial application for the account got lost and the Treasury asked us to reapply a few days later, which resulted in a delay. I am now working on configuring the settings of this account, and I hope to be able to switch it from the test mode to business mode in the next day or two. The rest of the meeting website and the supporting backend is ready to go live.
LIGO: Updates to the website. Installed an updated webpage for the SURF projects. Working on the website for the Elba meeting.

(Larry)

Worked a number of purchases for different groups. We've received most of the Dell workstations and have started the distribution of the units. Renewed a couple of s/w licenses. Getting information together for renewal of a couple of maintenance contracts. Still working the Monarch issue in returning the server system. Ordered a group of wincamxp licenses. This is one solution for people to use when wanting to present information electronically across the network. We are still investigating other possibilities.
Restored a couple of systems that were knocked out from a power outage. The UPS units worked OK for a few minutes but with the load on them they would not have lasted much longer. The units that went down were all connected to the same UPS which only lasted a few minutes. The UPS units were originally purchased to cover brownouts and to help condition the power. However, we are taking another look at having more battery backup for some of the more critical systems. The mail server had to be rebuilt and while that was taking place many people were switched to another mail server. This also, showed the importance of backups.
Began OS installation on a couple of SUN boxes and installed a new linux box. Installed a couple of server boxes into the racks in preparation for OS installation. Reset up the new SUN unit at the 40M.
Worked a number of user account issues. Made a number of changes in the e-mail aliases. Most were requests for special aliases to accommodate situations with different groups.

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Advanced LIGO Systems, Management

From: Phil Lindquist <lindquist_p@ligo.caltech.edu>

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. Task managers have been requested to review and respond by February 17.

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.

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.

Project Execution Plan - A strawman draft Advanced LIGO PEP was distributed this week for review and update. I am requesting responses by March 3, 2006.

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 M050418-01, “Separation of chains in quad suspensions” has been signed and posted

Requirements/Design

The BSC-ISI design for the stage-0 support structure has been incorporated into the 3D SolidWorks model. The 3D layout was then used to determine the limits of the Schnupp asymmetry (< 740 mm). Details can be found here.
Mike Smith and Dennis Coyne are revising the optical layout to accomplish the following:

readouts only in HAM6 or out the +Y side of HAM1
HAM6 to be isolated from the main vacuum envelope with a set of windows on a flange at HAM6
output tube (between HAM5 and HAM6) should remain current diameter (unlike the input tube). (Note that the current AL baseline is to increase the output tube diameter.)
IFO beams sent to HAM1 (reflected port & BS PO) are relayed out to an ISC external vacuum system out +Y side
eliminate all payloads from HAM2 (and save > ~$3M from AL baseline without HAM SEI)
simple representation of the SEI system (to be uploaded into PDMW along with better BSC chamber model) shows interference with POMs in ITMy chamber – to be corrected
Mike will the revise Zemax optical layout with proper ITM heights, PRC & SRC lengths and then re-import into SW/PDMW (with chief rays kept in the SW layout)

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 moved the cleaning and packing supplies from the synchrotron back to the clean room at the 40m.
I did a cleaning job on all of the tools that I brought back to the clean room
I am continuing to work on the cleaning and check-out of the ovens.
I have prepared a small spare parts kit to take to MIT with me for the ESD wiring and OSEM wiring.

Scatter/Absorption Test Measurement System

Lee Cardenas, Liyuan Zhang, Bill Kells

We are waiting for the RIGHT parts from Laser Quantronix. Wrong Housing, part number and wrong Catalog originally sent along with the laser. Housing machined improperly for the right part number. We should get the right housing 2/9.

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. We got a HP pulse generator Model 8116A borrowed from Riccardo De Salvo. Which will be installed ASAP and returned the borrowed one to HEP.
Cavity #2 (OTF Lab, Lauritsen)	NA	NA	NA	We are reviving this Cavity after being inactive for long time. We have ordered the proper and needed optical parts such as the 1/4 wave plate, and a polarized cube. Optical train path as well as the optics are defined. Looking for some new mounts and misc.. parts. New chamber in place and corresponding parts needed are gathered for the assembly. 700 mw Laser is in place and making a complete arrangement for the final fixed position.
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 HAM-SAS planning, MOUs with partners, but especially cost/schedule/risk planning.

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. Delivery scheduled for 2/15/2006. Schedule slip to 3/1/2006 due to delay in receiving nitronic 60 inserts. Purchase order placed with Limerick Machine for the end milled plates and remaining Top Assy, Stage 0,1, and 2 Componants. Status can be found at: http://emvogil-3.mit.edu/~kmason/SEI%20machining/2-8-06%20project%20status.pdf The parts list is being prioritized to assure we have all stage 1 and pod parts before 3/1/2006. <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]-->
Stage 0-1 Spring Assembly 20007878-A Stage 1-2 Spring Assembly 20007890	Purchase order placed with Lavallee Machine for springs and rods. Lavallee has recieved the maraging steel for all rods and springs. New delivery of finished parts is scheduled for 3/15/2006. Purchase order placed with Limerick Machine for remaining spring assembly parts. New delivery scheduled for 3/15/2006.
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. New delivery cscheduled for 2/20/2006. Purchase orders placed with Limerick Machine and Lavallee machine for pod machined parts. Delivery scheduled for 2/20/2006. Design of harnesses completed. Drawings given to Jay for procurement.
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. Delivery scheduled for 3/1/2006.
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. Delivery scheduled for 3/1/2006.
Stage 0-2 and stage 1-2 Alignment Pins Blade Pre-Load Tooling Blade Calibration Fixture Modifications LASTI Test Stand and Spreader Bar	The design of stage 0-2 and stage 1-2 alignment pins is complete. Purchase orfer placed with Lavallee Machine. The blade pre-load tooling design is complete. Purchase order placed with Lavallee Machine. The blade calibration fixture has been assembled for the stage 1-2 blade configuration. A blade of 4140 steel has been made for testing the fixture. Design of stage 0-1 modifications is complete. Installation and leveling of the test stand and solid stack at MIT is complete.

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.

Suspension

From: Janeen Romie romie_j@ligo.caltech.edu

The quad has been received at MIT.

Planning travel to MIT Feb 15-22. Working on coordinating the SUS Workshop after the LSC meeting in March. Working on the ear placement fixture. Working on the mode cleaner spacer that is 1cm shorter.

From: Calum Torrie ctorrie@ligo.caltech.edu

The quad has now arrived at MIT. 4 crates.

I have been working on FEA of the structure in order to try and better understand the discrepancy between FEA and experiment?

With Ken Mailand I have been working on the installation tooling for LASTI.

I have now started to arrange of the quad drawings in the vault and started to release (DCC and vault) the remaining drawings associated with the quad.

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, the first assembly should be complete 2-22.

Also for Calum, I'm working on a layout option, to use the lift table inside the LASTI BSC chamber.

From: Jay Heefner jay@ligo.caltech.edu

AdL Quad Controls Prototype

All equipment, cables and connectors have been shipped to LASTI in preparation for next week's DSpace controls installation.
Jay, Rana and Peter will meet next week to discuss Quad electronics requirements.

AdL SEI ISI Controls

In vac preamp boards for L4C have been received. The first prototype and cable are being assembled.
First article in-vac cable for STS2 being assembled.
First article in-vac cable for GS13 being assembled.
The power board for the capacitive position sensor board has been assembled and is being tested.
A chassis to house the capacitive position sensors electronics, power board and interface board has been ordered and is due 2/20.

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

Started putting together documentation for the digital controls to be installed at Lasti. Thus far, I have an overview document (T060031-00-C) and a suspension control document (T060032-00-C) in preliminary form. The first document provides an overview of the planned Lasti CDS controls move toward PCI based controls, as opposed to the Ligo VME based systems. The second gives the planned implementation of quad suspension, and the later addition of triple and single suspension, controls based on PCI systems. I have posted both at the bottom of my web page under Lasti CDS. Again, these are preliminary and have not yet been formally reviewed.
I am also working on design docs for the HEPI upgrade, LSC/ASC (global controls) and the Ponderomotive experiment. I still need to get more info to put together the ISI controls design document.

Core Optics

From: Bill Kells kells@ligo.caltech.edu

From: GariLynn Billingsley Billingsley_G@ligo.caltech.edu

From: Helena Armandula ahelena@ligo.caltech.edu

Advanced LIGO Optics Cleaning

While at the SPIE meeting, I met chemistry professor Jim Hamilton from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. He was familiar with LIGO since one of his students participated on a SURF session some time ago. He developed First Contact™ , a product for cleaning and protecting precision optics and surfaces. It cleans organic residues and small particles from surfaces. First Contact™ solution applies quickly and easily, dries to a tough, flexible, elastic film, which pulls easily off the surface when the special peel tab is used. This process produces an amazing optically clean surface. For more complete information see: http://www.photoniccleaning.com/?page_id=22

I got a sample of this solution and will test it on a 3" mirror. Here is a list of the planned tests:

Residual Gas Analysis (RGA)

The mirror, cleaned as usual, will be placed on a high vacuum chamber where an RGA reading will be taken. The mirror will be cleaned with First Contact™ and the RGA test will be repeated. Results will be compared.

FTIR test

After a mirror is cleaned with First Contact™, a FTIR test will be performed and the results will be compared with FTIR results obtained from other LIGO mirrors

Optical Absorption test

A mirror cleaned by the conventional method will be tested at Stanford University for optical absorption; the results will be compared with those obtained after cleaning the same mirror with First Contact™.

If the results of these tests are acceptable for Advanced LIGO, we'll have one of our biggest challenges solved. We'll only need to perfect a method of application for our optics. A one liter bottle cost $475.00

Pre-Stabilized Laser

From: Peter King pking@ligo.caltech.edu

I have been struggling to get the USB-based communication going with the DSP board we have. The support from Xilinx has been less than spectacular in trying to resolve the issue with the device driver.

LZH

A problem was found with the in-house coated mirrors. Apparently the coating was not to specification and did not meet the requirements for the 200-W laser.

New laser crystals have arrived. There continue to be a small series of niggling problems with the laser, in part due to not enough spare parts being on hand.

A two-head amplifier seeded with a 2-W NPRO achieved 16 W. 33 W was achieved when four heads were used.

AEI

The diagnostic breadboard design is being re-worked. Improvements include placing the pre-modecleaner in vacuum and improving the dynamic range of the PZT mirrors used to steer the beam into the pre-modecleaner.

The intensity of an NPRO was stabilised using an acousto-optic modulator as the actuator. The latest result for the relative intensity noise is an impressive 7.5E-9 at 10 Hz, with less than 4.0E-9 above 100 Hz. Problems were found with ground loops.

Stanford

No new amplifiers have been built since the last laser working group telecon. They are trying to build more 30-W front ends.

Auxiliary Optics

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

VERTEX LAYOUT

A functioning two-mirror mode-matching telescope, with spherical mirrors at MMT2 and MMT3, was added to the IO optical train in ZEMAX, in order to study the errant beams generated by the PRM getting misaligned. The vertex layout was redone: the PRM wedge was reversed, so the beam heads down from the PRM to the BS, and then rises due to the wedge in the BS. This was necessary in order to set the beam height at the ITM to -100mm global. Dennis pointed out that the baseline design for the ITM is -80 mm global. I will change the wedge of the PRM again and raise the ITM beam to -80mm on the x-arm. The y-arm will be about 7mm lower. I am also redoing the vertex layout to move the APS beams and ITMXPO to HAM6. I will attempt to eliminate HAM2 and relay all the output beams to HAM1 and HAM6.

OPTLEV

Luke at FLA is in the process of adding optical lever beams to all of the IO suspended optics.

SLC

Hiro is still working on obtaining transfer functions for scattered light noise in the ADLIGO RSE configuration with the optical spring effect.

CDR

The SLC and OPTLEV CDR must be delayed because of the changes in the vertex layout, which effects the location of all the beam dumps and baffles; pending design of new optical lever beams in the IO; and pending completion of an analytical model of the scattered light noise transfer functions by Hiro.

From: Phil Willems <willems@ligo.caltech.edu>

Thermal Compensation

We have discovered a previously unreported noise injection mechanism from thermal compensation. Power fluctuations in the applied compensation heat can inject noise through thermorefractive or thermoelastic effects. So far, we have only considered fluctuations located in the vicinity of the probe beam. For example, a heat fluctuation applied to the HR surface in the probe beam causes an expansion of the material there, which the probe beam sees as a displacement. In this theory, heat fluctuations applied to the optic away from the probe beam do not contribute noise.

However, heat fluctuations also produce stress through thermal expansion, and this stress propagates through the whole optic at the speed of sound, flexing it. The center of mass of the optic does not move as it is heated. But the position of the HR face relative to the center of mass does change, due to the flexure. Thus, the probe beam sees displacement noise, even though the compensation is nowhere near the probe beam.

Preliminary calculations indicate that this may explain the discrepancy between the measured and predicted noise coupling due to annular heating in initial LIGO. This effect should probably be investigated as a possible noise mechanism in GEO600, which uses a rear-face ring heater on one end mirror.

Other Laboratory R&D

No report this week.

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