Due to the Staffing Committee Meeting scheduled February
27, 2006, there will be no LIGO Executive Committee meeting that day.
See Commissioning Highlights and L1 Interferometer in S5 concerning sensitivity improvements.
***Just a quick reminder to make your room reservations soon for the March LSC
meeting. The block of rooms reserved at the
It may be that an ongoing gravitational wave search by the LSC shows a
potential signal of a kind where electromagnetic (or other non-gravitational)
observations might shed light on whether or not a signal is real. If so, the
relevant Search Group should present the status of the analysis to the
Detection Committee.
The Detection Committee should promptly evaluate the status of the analysis,
in order to determine whether the gravitational wave data have been examined
with sufficient completeness, care, and rigor. If so, and if it would aid the
process of determining whether or not the apparent signal is legitimate, then
the Detection Committee should recommend that the LSC seek information from
external observations.
If such a recommendation is made by the Detection Committee, then the Search
Group will be authorized to make appropriate contacts with scientists who have
access to relevant data, or who can perform observations that can produce such
data. Discussions with outside scientists should be carried out jointly by the
leadership of the Search Group and by the LSC Spokesperson.
In such contacts, the outside scientists should be told that the inquiries
are of a preliminary nature, and should be asked to keep both the request and
its details confidential. Receipt by LIGO of external observations in this way,
and/or significant assistance in the interpretation of external observations,
is a significant contribution to the analysis in question and those responsible
for the observations and their interpretation in this study will be offered
authorship in publications that materially benefit from that assistance.
The recognition that data is useful in one specific case should also prompt consideration of whether it would be valuable to set up a collaborative research relationship on an ongoing basis. If this is deemed to be valuable, then a data analysis proposal should be formulated and submitted through the ordinary LSC process. The appropriate MOU with outside parties can then be negotiated.
LSC MOUs and Research Plans and Progress Reports
A brief site teleconference was conducted Thursday, February 23, 2006. Most of the issues discussed are addressed below:
>From: Rod Luna <rluna@ligo.caltech.edu>
>From: Linda Turner - turner@ligo.caltech.edu>
>From: Cleveland Mak mak_c@ligo.caltech.edu
|
Week Ending February 23, 2006 |
In |
Out |
|
Packages |
13 |
8 |
|
Faxes |
12 |
19 |
>From: "Cronin, Holly" <Holly.Cronin@caltech.edu>
>From: "Brambila, Ruth" <Ruth.Brambila@caltech.edu>
>From: Florence Kaufman <fkaufman>
>From: Gina Salone <gsalone@ligo.caltech.edu>
>From: Ed Jasnow <jasnow@ligo.caltech.edu>
>Irene Baldon
Worked on the usual new trips, expense reports, reconciling, calendar reservations, and itinerary entries.
>Julie
Hiroto
>Dorothy Lloyd
See Advanced LIGO below.
>From: Cindy Akutagawa <cindy@ligo.caltech.edu>
>From: Bill Tyler tyler@ligo.caltech.edu
The safety audits of the LIGO campus labs were recently completed. Generally, the LIGO labs seem to have improved their safety practices and are doing much better in their "housekeeping." However, a few safety concerns were identified that require additional discussion and corrective action. All of the labs need to continue their efforts to dispose of unneeded/obsolete materials and equipment (not just a once-a-year task). The draft audit report will be available next week for comment/revision..
Summary of Commissioning Activities at LIGO
The visitors and resident staff who participated in
the LHO commissioning break deserve a lot of praise. Not only are the
sensitivity improvements strikingly good, the method was quite impressive as
well. People showed up in strength, we
had good preparation, and there was great cooperation. Although we did not get
nearly the 30 percent duty cycle for science mode operation that we had hoped
for, the interferometers were returned to science mode for at least a few hours
just about every night. This helped
ensure while people slept that the improvements in one area had not severely
broken things elsewhere.
One of the consequences of the commissioning effort
was the discovery that reducing flow rates in the HVAC system had dramatic
effects on the attainable range of the detectors. Obtaining stable temperatures in the LVEA and VEAs under this new operating condition will take some time
and require gaining experience with what works and what does not work. This may
cause some loss of duty cycle, since the varying lab temperatures require major
realignments of the machines every time they lose lock. However, a number of the commissioning changes
have improved the ability to hold lock. We have some experience that we can run
at higher powers during noisy daytimes than we could run previously during the
quietest nights. We also have evidence that lock can be maintained at high
laser power through high-wind episodes. For these reasons I am hopeful that we will
start to see improving duty cycles in the next few weeks as we get on top of
the temperature-control issues.
Recent activities have included a previously-mentioned exchange with Wapato Middle School and the LHO Open House. Readers of the weekly who wish to subscribe to LHO's monthly newsletter can email outreach@ligo-wa.caltech.edu and write "Subscribe" on the subject line.
MZ NOTE: A particularly intense week on L1.
More than our usual share of equipment glitches, but rapid (and
creative) recoveries all round and a very welcome
sensitivity improvement to boot. Well
done!
L1 ran with ~58% duty factor in the past week. Major chunks of downtime
resulted from a hardware failure of the Recycling Mirror satellite amplifier
box on Tuesday and a thermal shift in the drumhead modes of the ETMs which resulted in downtime from Sunday morning to
Monday afternoon. Range fluctuations seen on the Tuesday owl shift appear to
have been due to a bad MMT3 optical lever laser.
On Friday we increased the power to 7 W and saw an immediate improvement in
the range. We also reduced the air handler flow rates in an effort to see if
they contributed to the noise. We saw no obvious effect from the flow rate
reduction, however on Sunday morning the interferometer became unstable. This
was finally traced to a shift in the eigenfrequencies
of the drumhead modes of the ETM optics, which took them outside of their stopband filter. We believe this shift was due to wider temperature
variations resulting from the reduced air conditioning flow rate. The flow rate
was returned to normal and the stopband filter was
also widened in order to avoid this problem in the future. On Wednesday we
decided to run the air handler controllers in manual mode at a fixed current.
This appears to be a more robust mode of operation than using the servo. The
flow rate should be high enough to maintain temperature stability. We are a
little surprised that the detector is sensitive to temperature shifts on the
order of a couple of degrees C.
We replaced a faulty RM satellite amplifier box on Tuesday, the failure of
which extended our maintenance period. We added the L1:LSC-ETMY_EXC_DAQ
channel to the frames and also diagnosed the problem with the BSC5 ACCZ signal.
This turned out to be an extra gain of 10 which was applied to the adjacent
magnetometer channel in the .ini file. This problem is believed to also affect the
EX-BAYMIC signal.
During the Tuesday owl shift the
There was some investigation of the "mystery" noise. Excitations
of angular degrees of freedom at micro-seismic frequencies did not show any increase
in the 50-100 Hz region. However, excitations applied to the HEPI POS_X and
POS_Y signals resulted in a distinct enhancement of the noise in this region.
It appears that the ETM motion is amplified in this region, perhaps by the
tidal servo.
We reached a new sensitivity record during the week, 12.2 Mpc. This was chiefly due to the higher power and low
micro-seism.
no report
Friday, 2/17, attended Math/Science Partnership Regional Meeting Saturday,
2/18, conducted teacher Professional Development for Southern University PD
program Monday, 2/20, conducted LLO school visit; 81 middle school students +
12 adults Thursday, 2/23, conducted LLO school visit; Runnels School Honors
Physics class Prepared material for each school visit; made reservations for
various future school events Worked on education research w/ Lisa Szechter Prepared material for new wave exhibit
1) Worked with Doug Lormand on diagnosing problems
with LVEA Weather Station.
2) Prepared a tutorial on 'How to Analyze LIGO
Seismic Data using MATLAB and Ligotools'. The
tutorial is designed to help SURF students get familiar with LIGO data archive.
1) On Tuesday night the tape library got into an unstable state. It was necessary to power cycle the library
and reboot dataserver.
2) Downloaded LIGO-VIRGO simulation frames from MIT to LLO.
Working on validating the new S4 simulation results (obtained on Burst MDC frames generated with V4 calibration) for LSC, APS presentations and paper.
No report.
Installation of the ring dampers is
proceeding according to plan.
No report.
Continued comparison of AdvLIGO
HAM and LIGO 1 HAM seismic isolation performance putting LIGO 1 MC on the HAM
tables. There are questions about the ground motion used for this
simulation, and have not obtained conclusive result yet. Started
to consider ground yaw motion using LIGO 1 HAM stack box.
The full power in the cavities (power recycling, arms) has been maintained
for more than 6 seconds with a servo loop on for all the degrees of freedom and
the radiation pressure on for arms mirrors.
Problems occur when a seismic motion is added: still under
investigation. The open loop transfer functions of the all degrees of freedom
are in progress.
Still building infrastructure. Based on the
discussion at the last COC modeling, the first version of SIS will calculate
fields with completely static mirrors. This will show the optical resonance,
but not the optical spring resonance.
Hiro gave a tutorial about the FUNC_X coding. (/home/e2e/public_html/ME2ET/060223/T040005-Addendum.pdf)
Brown:
Started full coincidence analysis of S5 BNS search for first epoch of S5
(Nov 4 to Feb 6). Added
data quality flags and Q-scans to S5 online BNS glitch pages. Repaired and restarted online BNS searches
after disk crash at LHO. Continued to review S3/4 inspiral
analysis. Wrote
LIGOLwMon DMT monitor to allow output from generic
XML data (e.g. GRB alerts) to be displayed in the control room. Made changes to LSCdqInsert
requested by Keith to allow easier administration of DQ flags. Installed new server
certificates in segment database replication engine.
Chatterji:
http://ldas-jobs.ligo.caltech.edu/~shourov/qscans/grb060218.html
Lazzarini: Wrote a technical note describing the
effect of finite angular resolution antenna pattern on the pixel statistics of
a spatially resolved stochastic background map.
see http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/docs/T/T060027-02.pdf
Mendell:
I am still working with Mike Landry to analyze the pulsar hardware
injections in the S4 data, and waiting for the final set of S4 SFTs to be generated to begin a production run of the StackSlide code. I
hope to have some results to report within a week.
Shawhan:
Sutton:
I wrote a test version of a ring finder function for the coherent analysis
pipeline. This function examines sky
maps from our "xpipeline" and looks for the
rings that are characteristic of linearly polarized GWBs. When it finds the rings it can get good
pointing accuracy (<1 degree), but it often misses the rings, so this
remains an open problem. I've also been
systematically editing and debugging the NetworkSimulator
codes, as Maria Principe and I prepare a paper on this software package.
Yakushin:
Working on validating the new S4 simulation results
(obtained on Burst MDC frames generated with V4 calibration) for LSC, APS
presentations and paper.
LDAS
A new option allowing the setting of the md5sum output directory based on
the output directory (PR#2953) for createRDS commands
has been finished. This does include documentation and regression tests.
To support 64-bit compilation, the 8.4.12 version of TCL has been tested on
tandem-ii. Although some jobs could complete, there are several problems that
need to be addressed before this version can be used by LDAS. The getFrameCache command causes a memory leak in the diskcacheAPI which eventually causes the restart of the
API. Several of the APIs running under
Linux core dump when a job is submitted twice in a row.
To support large files, the 4.0.2 version GCC has also been tested on
tandem-ii. LDAS appears to run well with this version of the compiler. The
current limitation is that it is unable to compile Globus
Toolkit 4.0.1 under Linux.
System tests were done on ldas version 1.8.86.
TCLGlobus
Efforts continue to resolve the memory leaks within the XIO-based Tcl channel interface.
It has also been noted that the default timeout for the XIO-based Tcl channel interface is too short. The code is being
modified to have it be a tunable parameter via the fconfigure
command.
GRID COMPUTING
Site TACC (
UIOWA supports the LIGO VO and 921 DAGs of a 943
DAG work flow were completed before the Globus
resources on UIOWA went down.
All nodes in the OSG-ITB test bed have been yum updated.
Working with Alex Sim, the LBNL SRM/DRM
development lead, we determined that the version of srmcp
in the VDT has a bug preventing interoperability with SRM/DRM on the LIGO testbed and has filed a bug report. Alex delivered an older
version of the srmcp client package and configuration
of that package has begun on the SRM testbed.
Caltech
(Dan Kozak)
(Phil Ehrens)
(Erik Espinoza)
-
Added virtual interface eth0:1 on 10.9.0.0/255.255.0.0
subnet.
-
Created /usr1/frames.
-
Changed fstab to use dataserver-cluster for /archive/frames & / home.
-
node151 - fs corruption,
recovered journal and put back in service.
-
node323 - replaced motherboard, back in service.
-
node297 - motherboard replaced, running memtest.
-
node106 - rebooted machine after memory related crash,
back in service.
(Stuart Anderson)
MIT
(Keith Bayer)
(Igor Yakushin)
(Greg Mendell)
(Ben Johnson)
(Keith)
(
(Christine)
(Mike)
(Veronica)
CaJAGWR:
Taped and compressed the video of the last talk.
(Christian)
(Larry)
Mail Statistics for Feb 16-22, 06
|
Mail Statistics |
February 23, 2006 |
|
Rejected Messages |
29,335 |
|
Virus Messages |
597 |
|
Accepted Messages |
23,253 |
|
Total Messages |
52,588 |
From:
David Shoemaker dhs@ligo.mit.edu
The NSF will perform a Baseline Review of Advanced LIGO at MIT, May 31-June 2. This milestone will allow the NSF to supply the National Science Board with the information they need to judge Advanced LIGO’s readiness for funding in Fiscal Year 2008.
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
were 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 last week for review and update. I am requesting
responses by March 3, 2006.
From: Dennis Coyne coyne@ligo.caltech.edu
No report this week.
From: Ken Mason <kmason@ligo.mit.edu>
The two large Stage 0
plates have arrived from Arland Tool. After the quad
controls prototype is installed, we will set up a rack in the LASTI high bay to
store the large parts. We anticipate all
parts for stage 0 to be here by 3/1 to start assembly.
We met with Arland Tool to discuss delivery of remaining parts. The
Stage 1 plates scheduled to arrive on 3/1 will fit through the elevator if held
crated vertically. The stage 2 plates
which are aproximately 1500#s each will need to come
in through the overhead door. Arland has offered to
take their fork truck with them when they make the delivery to help us.
From: "Joseph A.
Giaime" jgiaime@ligo.phys.lsu.edu
Agenda
for the weekly SEI telecom
Friday,
Feb. 24, 2:30 pm Eastern, 1:30 pm Central, 11:30 am Pacific time Announcements Single Stage HAM - Joe -
model by Corwin
BSC SEI status, Ken/
Dennis
BSC work, adaptive
modeling and FIR (Rich M)
ETF platform work,
tickle testing, thermal testing – Matt Frame damping - Tarm
|
From: Calum Torrie ctorrie@ligo.caltech.edu
Bob Taylor, Mark Barton
and I are completing the assembly, suspension and alignment of the quad c-ptype at MIT. We are working with Ken, Myron and Brett at
MIT. Janeen was also here earlier in the week.
As you can see it is fully assembled and suspended. We have just completed
aligning all of the stages. The next step is to install all of the osems and magnets.
You can follow progress at
http://thread.mit.edu/view/index.shtml
Calum Torrie
(and Bob Taylor)
From: Ken Mailand kmailand@ligo.caltech.edu
I've completed a load test
on the plate style fixture, in the CES in the shop, I
will disassemble and start the part cleaning process. I will get the steel
plates plated asap after
they are de-burred and prepared.
Also
for Calum, I'm working on a smaller table option, to
use the fixture inside the LASTI BSC chamber, minus the bridge and circular
track assembly.
From: Bill Kells kells@ligo.caltech.edu
I spent 4 days at LHO
observing scatter from the 4 TM HR surfaces of H1. For each TM the scatterometer was mounted at one of the VP observation
points which had previously been used for this purpose. The idea was to compare
to those previous measurements (c. mid '03 last) to determine any systematic
change in scatter (contamination).
First the relative
(amongst the 4 TMs) conclusion:
Taking ETMy
as benchmark, the observed scatter ratios for ETMy:ETMx:ITMx:ITMy were = 1: 2.6: 1.6: 0.84 (note, since
the observation points were different for different TMs these are NOT relative
scatter losses). This is to be compared to the same ratios for observed scatter
at the same VPs taken in 2003: 1: 2.0: 1.34: 0.63. The largest ratio change since '03 is ETMy: ITMy which is now observed to
be ~25% less. Note that ETMy: ITMx
(the replaced ITM) also appears to scatter less, but only by ~16%. The
"untouched" ETMs now have a ~23% different
scatter ratio.
Now the absolute
scatter level:
Previous ('03 and earlier)
measurements used a PD in the scatterometer telescope
which had been carefully absolutely calibrated. However I discovered in the midst of last weekend's measurements that this PD had
been removed and a different (less sensitive) model substituted. The nominal PD
manufacturer specs. indicate that the new PD is 2.6
times less sensitive at 1064. Taking into account that the ifo
input power (H1:IOO-MC_PWR_IN) is 6.6 times higher now (wrt
previous '03 meas.) and the arm cavity "boost" (H1:LSC-LA_PTRX/Y) is
about 25% higher now, there remains an absolute discrepancy factor ~2.6 (lower now)
in observed scatter if it is assumed that ETMy (above
benchmark) has not changed. My best
guess is that the nominal Manufacturer spec. ratio 2.6 is highly inaccurate. We
will test this.
Note that the ifo performance (that is the
overall recycling gain) is consistent with the only modest decrease in relative
scatter/loss. By this I mean that a cursory trend study of arm cavity "boost"
over the last 3 years seems (but this may be subject to much interpretation) to
indicate an optical gain increase of ~20-25%. This is inconsistent with the
nominal large (> factor 2) decrease in nominal absolute scatter/loss.
From: Peter King pking@ligo.caltech.edu
I have been updating the
PSL costing, as per the meeting last Thursday. A number of things have
changed since the original costing was done; manufacturers making products
redundant being one.
Still no joy with regard to communicating with the Xilinx DSP board. The Xilinx technical support person assigned to the case is off on holidays. In using a much older computer to talk to the DSP board, a problem with one of the examples was encountered. Although the software routine correctly identified the card and its address, it failed to successfully boot the on-board FPGA. This might be an issue with which version of Matlab is used, although I somehow suspect not.
From: Michael Smith <smith@ligo.caltech.edu>
Following a suggestion by
the IO group, the BSPO and REFL beam were routed to HAM3. This frees up all the
view ports on HAM1 for IO control signals.
The new ZEMAX layout is
being incorporated into the SW vertex layout.
Hiro is still working on obtaining
transfer functions for scattered light noise in the ADLIGO RSE configuration
with the optical spring effect.
From: Riccardo DeSalvo desalvo@ligo.caltech.edu
Valerio, Virginio
We have completed our 3D
simulation of HAM-SAS mechanical structure. One of the most important features
of this model is the introduction of saturation effects due to distributed
masses and the moment of inertia and counterweight. Saturations can, in
principle, compromise the overall attenuation performance of the passive
attenuation system. The results obtained from the simulation look quite
promising. The predicted attenuation performances are met with a large margin above
2Hz and below 200 mHz with a
good safety margin. The methods and approximations used in the model and the
results obtained are described in detail in the Technical Note T060037-00-R.
At the same time we are
evaluating a new mechanical simulation tool for evaluation of effects of asymmetries,
integrated in Maple symbolic environment, that is
called DynaFlexPro.
Yumei
Anamaria, Riccardo
Studying the behavior of glassy metal blade GAS springs.
For additional information about this report, contact S. Whitcomb or P. Lindquist