Weekly Report for Week Ending March 2, 2006

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday, March 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

  • No open change requests

Special Items:

  • New advisory bodies--LIGO Lab Board and LIGO Academic Advisory Council (J. Marx)
  • Preparations for Advanced LIGO Review (May 31 – June 2)

Special Announcements:

 

Weekly Report Highlights

LSC Issues (Saulson)

No report.

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Lloyd)

  • No report.

SITE TELECONFERENCE (Lindquist)

  • A site teleconference was held Thursday, March 2, 2006.  The following issues were discussed:
  • Financial Tracking Report—the end-of-March reports for Operations and Outreach have been posted.  The current spending rate for FY 2006 is projected (very approximate at this point) at $32 million for LIGO Operations.
  • Livingston Science Education Center Construction—Received a large load of materials today for the exterior of the building.  Proposals for the kinetic façade are expected tomorrow.
  • Relocation of LDAS Equipment—A change order was issued this morning for construction of the structure to house the equipment.
  • Hanford Inventory—R. Luna will be in Hanford next Monday and Tuesday to conduct an inventory.
  • GSA Van for Livingston—Still waiting on the GSA.  FEMA took most of the vehicles.
  • The list of assigned actions updated through December 01, 2005 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 a coated mirror to Stanford (R. Route),  Account Number LIGO.OPT - 5.4 - NSFLIGO.FY02ON.
  • Prepared letter for the disposition of 80 computers (2U rack-mounted nodes + 4 racks) by the LDAS group (A. Lazzarini).
  • Tagged 2 Computers and 2 Monitors.

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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

  • No report.

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

  • Continued to process 2005 Travel Expense Report files.
  • An additional 19 HAM drawings were submitted by Promec and have been processed.
  • Scanning Project--Continuing scanning of contract closeout files.
  • Activity:

Week Ending

03/02/2006

In

Out

Packages

29

5

Faxes

25

24

 

FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Cronin, Brambila, Kaufman)

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

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

  • Completed invoice-attached orders.  One order had sales tax included in the invoice total which the adjustment has been requested to remove the tax. Requested the vendor to update the tax code so that future orders do not incur sales tax.
  • Completed change order #170 to Triad to allocate funds for three individuals for FY2006.  The change order was routed for approvals.
  • Finishing up change order #7 to the University of Michigan.
  • Completed change order #34 to GSI to add funds to cover a pending invoice.
  • Responded to the initial request and subsequent request from the auditors on A-133 filings.
  • Working on change order the University of Florida.
  • Working on obtaining the A-133's for 2005 for the subcontracts.

>From: Florence Kaufman <fkaufman>

  • Completed and sent out reports for Ops&R&D, Outreach and Visitor Awards as of the end of February.
  • Prepared a Cost Transfer to correct travel expenditure for a visitor that had been charged in error to the Ops Award instead of the Visitor Award.
  • 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>

  • A field change order was issued to Cangelosi-Ward, the construction contractor for the LLO SEC, to construct a small building inside the storage area of the staging building.  This will house the re-located LDAS equipment, which could not be located on the second level due to floor loading restrictions.  This building must be constructed quickly since the LDAS equipment is currently occupying space reserved for exhibits to be delivered by the Exploratorium next month.  Since Cangelosi-Ward was already on the site, they would have no mobilization effort.  The cost of this change is approximately $49,000.
  • A request for a revised proposal was sent to Galli & Morelli on the HAM SAS as a result of Wednesday's CCB action.  The revision was requested to reflect a series of additions and subtractions that had evolved since the original proposal was submitted in November.

SUPPORT (Baldon, Hiroto, Lloyd)

>Irene Baldon

  • The usual new trips, expense reports, reconciling, calendar reservations, and itinerary entries.

>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.

PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist)

We have prepared a FastLane request for a Supplement to the LIGO Visitors Program (NSF Award PHY-0245117).  We are requesting an additional $30K for stipends and travel expenses for four Participant students to spend the summer working in Italy on the VIRGO Program.  We are ready to submit  it to NSF.

For the status of efforts to prepare for the Advanced LIGO Review see Advanced LIGO below.

CHANGE CONTROL/CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT (Lindquist)

  • Change Request CR-050010, Prototype Seismic Attenuation System for the HAM Chamber (HAM-SAS) was submitted by Dennis Coyne.  The request provides authorization and funding for the fabrication and test of a predominantly passive, seismic isolation system prototype for the HAM chamber, for the Advanced LIGO R&D program.  A LIGO Change Control Board was held Wednesday, March 1, 2006.  The change request was approved.  Minutes have been posted (LIGO-M060034-00-P).  The signed original is in the Document Control Center.

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)

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

  • A Staffing Committee meeting was held on Monday, February 27, 2006. The minutes and action items from the Staffing Committee meeting are in progress and when completed will be posted on the SC web page.  The next Staffing Committee meeting is scheduled for Monday, March 27, 2006.

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)

When running, both H1 and H2 exhibit excellent science mode locks of ~14Mpc and ~7Mpc respectively, with lower Burstmon pixel fractions (~0.2) than recorded prior to the commissioning stint.  However this week has seen long outages on both IFOs, particularly H1.  Both machines unlocked early Wed a.m. (possibly due to a quake in the Philippines), and H1 remained down for 43h.  Double and triple coincidence was restored early Friday morning.  The outage on H1 was complicated by very strong microseism ~1um/s and technical problems such as the failure of h1dcuepics (below).

S5 highlights are bulleted below:

  • the standard set of S5 range and duty cycle plots was updated
  • the Tuesday maintenance period was summarized, as was the associated recovery

4K IFO

  • a new post-commissioning-epoch calibration was loaded on the 4k.  The range (as expected from new filters) had been low by about a half Mpc; this was restored to Sensemon upon restart with the new calibration
  • the TCS power sequencer/ioc failed during a lock stretch; as the ITMX was not getting any mods to annulus heating, the range of this lock decayed until lockloss and a reboot of the controlling IOC
  • after the Philippine quake, there were many steps taken prior to re-establishing science mode running, some being summarized here, here, and here.
  • a study of input beam jitter was posted, suggesting the input beam landing on the RM is too mobile

2K IFO

  • POB/POY glitching on 2k impacted locking on the weekend.  In order to return to stable locking, restoring the alignment based on SUS INMON values appears to be the right way to go, suggesting drifts in electronics dominate over real physical alignment drifts due to the stacks.  More on POB/POY switching
  • in the post commissioning epoch, the (formerly more stable) 2k is now less stable than 4k, in the sense it unlocks more readily
  • the TCS servo was then disabled owing to high ASI_CORR
  • 2k AS triggering to save lock losses has been more difficult to implement than 4k counterpart

CDS

  • a failed h1dcuepics power supply was swapped out

Outreach (D. Ingram)

Richard McCarthy represented LHO's interest in Read Across America Day (3/2) by reading aloud to three classes at Sacajawea Elementary in Richland.  Fred Raab produced a new talk, "LIGO for Chemists" and presented it to ~90 Hanford High chem students as part of their LHO field trips on 3/1 and 3/2.  Greg Mendell will deliver a June talk as part of the annual Mid-Columbia Literary Festival (scroll down) produced by Columbia Basin College and the Mid-Columbia Library Foundation.

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

L1 Interferometer in S5 (O'Reilly)

For the past week L1 had a duty factor of ~50% with the main culprits being our old friends microseism and construction.  We again had trouble with the RM satellite box, the old one was repaired and reinstalled on Monday and the problem now appears to have stabilized.

There were some interesting studies in the elog: Luca Matone investigated glitches using (among other things) the new QScan tool, Dan Busby found some interesting and puzzling correlations between PEM channels when the interferometer acquires/loses lock, noise coupling measurements by Valera Frolov and a comment on the acoustic/seismic sensitivity of the WFS signals by Rana Adhikari.

Due to the observance of the local Mardi Gras holiday there was no maintenance at Livingston this week.  Unfortunately, due to the aforementioned microseism, the interferometer decided to take a Mardi Gras holiday as well.

Safety and Security (Riesen)

The main gate now has IR Photo Obstruction Sensors installed to keep the gate from closing if the IR beam is not being reflected back to the sensor head.  More units are on order for the side gate.  I have re-certified the HPLF concerning all laser safety requirements.  The new 100 watt laser is installed and ready for action.  Ken Franzen has the helm and is the sole sponsor for two U of Florida people who will assist him in his tasks. Both visitors have met all LLO safety requirements.  Working with Bill Tyler on the upcoming LLO safety audit.  Found no laser nor site safety concerns this reporting period.

Outreach (Thacker)

  • 2/24 Outeach Program to Holden High physics;
  • 2/25 Outreach Program to Riverside Baptist Church father/son group;
  • 2/25 attended evening program at St. Georges Observatory, Schriever, LA and gave 5 min. talk about LIGO and its outreach program; prepared for LSU student recruitment visit this Saturday.

L1 CDS (Bogue)

  • Worked on getting framegrabber fully functional after its OS upgrade.  I'm still trying to resolve a labview version/licensing problem on it.
  • Made a trip to the optometrist to discuss problems with my laser safety glasses.

CDS Software (Khan)

  • Fixing Weather Station problems with Doug Lormand's help.
  • Developing a CDS map for diagnostic purpose.

General Computing (Giardina)

  • completed script for NIS group changes.  It is usable, but would like to tweak it before passing it out.
  • kantec related errors with new gate.  errors possibly stem from kantec upgrade back in September.  never tested this scenario until today.  going to research kantec site, or contact Chuck Brannon if needed.
  • used Christian's unattended XP install DVD to reinstall FRAMEGRABBER PC.  Not all software was installed / registered due to license issues before I left for vacation.  Lisa has reclaimed this PC.  Other than some post install Adobe Acrobat issues, it was smooth sailing.
  • other usual user requests and support

LDAS Support (Giardina)

  • tapes ejected and shipped to CIT:  LL0516, LL0517, LL0525, LL0586, LL0621, LL1360, LL1363, LL1364, LL0542, LL1367, LL1386, LL1387, LL1393, LL1396, LL1397, LL1398, LL1399
  • tapes ejected for local storage:  LL0072, LL0081, LL0101, LL0102, LL0142, LL0212, LL0231, LL0275, LL0278, LL0285, LL0297, LL0299, LL0308, LL0315, LL0318, LL0321, LL0322, LL0404, LL0420, LL0459, LL0465, LL0468, LL0477, LL0478, LL0479, LL0480, LL0481, LL0483, LL0486, LL0494, LL0495, LL0652, LL0676, LL0384, LL0182, LL0620, LL0606, LL0166, LL0226, LL0319, LL0071, LL0000, LL0280, LL0410, LL0416, LL0295, LL0287, LL0293, LL0332, LL0307, LL0305, LL0348, LL0396, LL0341, LL0311, LL0042, LL0075, LL0462, LL0446, LL0473, LL0422, LL0451, LL0638, LL1690, LL1087, LL1714, LL0587, LL0490
  • tapes imported into L700 library:  LL1366 - LL1419, LL0730-LL0749, LL0751-LL0755       ****  Tape LL0750 was passed over three times and never recognized by robot.
  • email configuration changes on FC4 machines with GC interface
  • createRDS errors were found to be caused by incorrect 'H' in a .ini file.  corrected by Lisa.
  • configured LDAS FC4 machines for a centralized syslog on ldas-gridmon.
  • stopped sendmail on ldas-grid until we create appropriate aliases to significantly reduce bounced emails

Computing and Network Security (Roddy)

  • I got pulled into a discussion about the ilog performance.  So, I have spent a fair amount of time determining where the bottlenecks are in the ilog.  It is a bigger issue at LHO, but performance is slightly lacking at LLO also.
  • had a machine that would spontaneously power off, then would not reboot.  Turned out that the overtemp setting in the bios was set to 68 degrees celsius.  The setting was a bit to conservative and would cause the machine to shut down.
  • working on pulling a bunch of archived files off of a raid controller and a couple of disks.  The files need to be restored onto media that is more accessible.
  • Still working with Sun to try and get a support contract purchased.  This has turned into a difficult process.  I now have a direct number to someone who can place the order, but we are playing phone tag.  Buying a support contract has never been this difficult before.
  • Working on some paperwork issues with the Pcard folks from last year.
  • Dell is claiming that a system purchased on a credit card was not paid for.  I will have to dig up the records to show that it is already paid.
  • Spent some time troubleshooting some network issues.  Turned out that it was LSU blocking several class A subnets, they claim because of DoS attacks.  Most of the people at LSU were not even aware of the blocking, so it took a while to figure out what was going on.
  • more of the usual... Hardware orders, digging through IDS logs, etc.

Data Analysis (Yakushin)

  • Testing the coherent version of waveburst on S4 data.
  • Participating in the telecons to review the modifications done to waveburst for S5 in preparation for the APS and LSC presentations of the burst search on the first few months of S5.
  • Fixing CorrPower and Event display matlab scripts used in waveburst online analysis that got broken as a result of the switching to the new matlab version.
  • Changed (all?) the html links for S5 online waveburst analysis that previously pointed to ldas-pcdev1.ligo.caltech.edu to point to ldas-jobs.ligo.caltech.edu instead.

E2E (Yoshida)

Continued analysis of ground and HAM table-top Yaw motion using LIGO 1 e2e HAM stack box. Using horizontal seismic position sensor DAQ signals (e.g., L1:SEI-MC1_POS_H1_INMON, etc), created time series of X, Y and Yaw motions of the base on which the HAM stack is placed. Using this time series as input to the stack box, computed the table-top X, Y, and Yaw motions. These table-top motions will be given to a small optic suspension box placed on top of the HAM table, and the resultant OSEM Yaw signal will be compared with the corresponding DAQ signal recorded at the same time as the seismic sensors.

Started preparing AdvLIGO Mode Cleaner (MC) modeling with e2e. We are currently learning how to use AdvLIGO triple suspension Mathematica codes written by Mark Barton to create a space state matrix to simulate AdvLIGO MC optics.

Initial LIGO Detector Science & Engineering (Coyne)

CDS

see also the CDS weekly meeting minutes in the commissioning archives

CDS Software

Rolf Bork

  • Continuing work on changes requested for Fast ADCU. This is scheduled for installation at LHO next Tuesday.
  • Pepi code is ready for installation at LHO next Tuesday.
  • There has been mention in various meetings of the desire to add adaptive filtering and FIR filter modules to our present list of  standard algorithms. I hope to meet with a few people at the LSC meeting to firm up requirements and an implementation approach.

40-Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

IFO Commissioning

  • Osamu and Noriyasu worked on re-acquiring full lock, but ran into many problems, associated with the new laser (different optical gains, etc), and changes made to the length control front-end code. Osamu found a bug in the code and worked around it. He was able to lock the FPMI and also move to CARM/DARM, but when trying full RSE lock the system becomes unstable as the CARM offset is brought to zero. Under study.
  • Alan, Osamu and Rob are trying to understand the magnitude and phase of the optical transfer functions taken back in October by Osamu while varying the CARM offset (and therefore, the power buildup and optical spring). The magnitude of the TFs agree beautifully with the theory expectations and with Rob's Optickle simulation; but the phase is a little bit off (consistent with something like a small negative delay). Rob thought it might be a phase difference between DARM_IN1 and PD1Q, but Osamu measured that and saw no phase difference at all. Under investigation.
  • Monica continues to commission the various pieces of the noise budget estimation code. Ben wired the AS166 DC signal into EPICS for use in computing the shot noise contribution to the noise budget. Monica modified the code to make the shot noise budget semi-automatically. She's now working on measuring the coil driver / daq noise in the test mass suspensions.

IFO Modeling

  • Monica continues to develop and debug the control loops in here e2e model of the 40m. To aid in debugging, she is calculating the OLTF of the loops; so far, she has done DARM and MICH, and is working to understand the results.

DC Detection Development

  • Ben is working on the DCPD satellite box. He has talked to Rob and gotten the specs for the filters, so now the design can be finalized.
  • The beamsplitter for the DCPD detector was coated incorrectly, so Steve sent it back to CVI for recoating.
  • Steve ordered more vented screws for the OMC.
  • Sam and Jay agreed on some modifications to the driver board for the PZT steering mirrors in the in-vac DC readout beamline. Sam continued to investigate the resonances in the PZT mirrors. In the DLC mounts, there are several resonances below 1 kHz, including one as low as 150 Hz, limiting the bandwidth of the proposed ASC servo. Sam mounted mirror on bricks, and found no resonances below 650 Hz. So, we need better mounts!
  • Jay and Rolf propose to use the new PCIX-based readout architecture for the DC readout data acquisition and controls. Jay will draw up a detailed plan (building on Rob's block diagram) in his spare time. We can hope to have a system in place in a couple of months.

Electronics, Controls, Computers

Lab Infrastructure

  • Steve is building a beam tube for the MCR beam, and has sent it out for anodizing. Steve is also building beam tubes for the high power beam path on the PSL table.
  • A troop of Pasadena boy scouts visited the lab on Friday.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

No report.

LASTI (Ottaway)

No report.

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Yamamoto)

40m modeling (Monica Varvella)

DARM and MICH open loop transfer function have been simulated. A comparison with Twiddle result will be done at least for MICH as there are no real data to compare with.  Still debugging the control system for CARM, PRC an SRC.

Mechanical simulation for AdvLIGO (Sany Yoshida)

Continued analysis of ground and HAM table-top Yaw motion using LIGO 1 e2e HAM stack box. Using horizontal seismic position sensor DAQ signals (e.g., L1:SEI-MC1_POS_H1_INMON, etc), created time series of X, Y and Yaw motions of the base on which the HAM stack is placed. Using this time series as input to the stack box, computed the table-top X, Y, and Yaw motions. These table-top motions will be given to a small optic suspension box placed on top of the HAM table, and the resultant OSEM Yaw signal will be compared with the corresponding DAQ signal recorded at the same time as the seismic sensors.

Started preparing AdvLIGO Mode Cleaner (MC) modeling with e2e. We are currently learning how to use AdvLIGO triple suspension Mathematica codes written by Mark Barton to create a space state matrix to simulate AdvLIGO MC optics.

Static IFO Simulation (Hiro Yamamoto, Melody Araya)

Many lines of codes, no interesting usage yet.

Adv.LIGO simulation using twiddle (Hiro Yamamoto)

The scattering noise effect is calculated using twiddle to help Mike to design support optics to suppress the noise due to various scattering noise injected back into COC.

Dual core, quad CPU machine (Hiro Yamamoto)

We purchased a dual core quad CPU machine. We had trouble running e2e simulation at the speed same as dingle core quad CPU machine.  One issue was operating systems (OSs), which was solved by Larry who installed different OSs and latest patches.  Now the module simulating a dual recycling cavity runs 1/2 ~ 1/4 of the speed expected from single core machine.  One possibility is that two machines comparing have different versions of gcc. Now the latest gcc is installed and the comparing will be done using same binary built using this latest gcc 4.1.0.

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)

Brown:

Spent most of the week working on the LIGO EMRI problem Ran full S5 BNS analysis from Nov 4 - Feb 6 and posted results for iulgroup.  Tracked down the problem with segment database replication caused by the RAID crash on ldas-cit

Dupuis:

  • working on follow-ups in S5 TDS search

Chatterji:

  • Performed end to end study of Q Pipeline trigger results from 2005 Dec 25 (password required).  http://ldas-jobs.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/~qonline/2005DEC25/  The results indicate a large population of low frequency glitches in the H1 and L1 detectors.  A check of data from February 28th indicates that these glitches are still present after the recent LHO commissioning period (password required).  http://ldas-jobs.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/~qonline/qscans/glitches/
  • Preparing talk on burst search methods for the Pacific Coast Gravity Meeting.
  • Editing paper on coherent network consistency test.

Mendell:

Mike Landry and I completed an analysis of the first 4 hardware injected pulsars in the S4 data using the StackSlide code. These and other S4 results are posted here (usual access retrictions apply):

http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/cgi-bin/enote.pl?nb=puls4stackslide&action=view&page=17

A few minor bug fixes that do not affect any results (but do prevent a rare seg fault during Monte Carlo simulations) where also checked into the lalapps/src/pulsar/StackSlide directory since the last Weekly.  We are now rerunning on the SFTs with the S4 version 4 calibration, and finalizing the settings for a production run.  The next code review is tomorrow, March 3, 2006.

Yakushin:

  • Testing the coherent version of waveburst on S4 data.
  • Participating in the telecons to review the modifications done to waveburst for S5 in preparation for the APS and LSC presentations of the burst search on the first few months of S5.
  • Fixing CorrPower and Event display matlab scripts used in waveburst online analysis that got broken as a result of the switching to the new matlab version.
  • Changed (all?) the html links for S5 online waveburst analysis that previously pointed to ldas-pcdev1.ligo.caltech.edu to point to ldas-jobs.ligo.caltech.edu instead.

LIGO Data Analysis System

Software Systems (Blackburn)

LDAS

Currently running through unit tests of 32bit compiled LDAS using GCC 4.0.2.

Working on providing 64bit version of libraries and packages needed for 64bit compilation of LDAS. The packages that have been completed are tcl and fftw3. The packages that still need to be done are tk, globus toolkit, and openssl.

Enforcement of expired X.509 certificates on persistent connections has been added to cmonClient (PR#2994). With this change, a user is prompted for his/her passphrase if their certificate has expired before commands will be sent through the persistent connection.

A new option (-md5sumregexp) has been added to the createRDS command (PR#2953). With this option it is possible to have the md5sum file be in a directory other than the output directory of the RDS.

The sleep proc was eliminated (PR#2997). This has marginally increased the overall through put of LDAS.

The system tests were done using LDAS version 1.8.100. Also, the testing library LDASJobH has been updated  to support -email persistent_socket and the dataStandAlone/putStandAlone loops have been converted to use persistent sockets.

TCLGLOBUS

Debugging code has been added to aid in memory leak issues within TCL Globus. A warning message is emitted if there is more than a 2MB increase and a core dump is generated if the increase is greater than 200MB.

Support has been added to the TCL Channel interface allowing for the creation of GSI and non-GSI sockets.

GRID COMPUTING

Working with Kent, documented LIGO app test results and recent issues for OSG Executive Board in a report requested by Ruth Pordes.

Obtained OSG Production access to two sites at the UFL:  UFlorida-PG and UFlorida-IHEPA.

All nodes have been yum updated. Added initial support for srmcp on osg-itb-se.

Filed bug report with OSG goc and notified Rob Quick regarding failure of srmcp in OSG 0.4.0 cache to work on FC4 with SRM/DRM on FC4.

Working with Alex Sim, the LBNL SRM/DRM development lead, tested a new version of srmcp delivered by Timur Perlmutov, the FNAL srmcp development lead that addressed the bug. Confirmed that the new version of srmcp supports transfers from a local file system to the LIGO ITB SRM/DRM on FC4.

Attended an ITB telecom related to issues for ITB 0.3.6

Attended a VDS telecom with the VDS/ISI folks on OSG issues related to work flow planning.

Hardware Systems (Anderson)

Caltech

(Dan Kozak)

  • Did the weekly receiving/ingesting of tapes from the sites.
  • Mounted /archive/backup/40m (read-only) on kitalpha.
  • Worked on failure of 3510-11 (CIT's /export), finally determined that the problem was the secondary controller--once it was pulled out the unit has been working.  I've called it in to Sun.
  • Did a _lot_ of work with Sun on determining the problem with 3510-10 (our test/spares unit).  An intermittent power supply has now become a dead power supply and we may also have a bad slot in the RAID unit.
  • Helped put a Sun GigE card in ldas-cit to replace a possibly dying SysKonnect one.

(Phil Ehrens)

  • Supported Mary Lei and Mike Samidi in LDAS related tasks.
  • Set up machine "maasim" as an additional graduate student machine.
  • Modified a perforated floor tile in the synchrotron computer lab to fit over mismatched subfloor pedestals.
  • Installed pre-release version of system monitoring, reporting, and notifying software on ldas-kickstart.
  • Debugged some issues between users and LSCrenewCert script and reported findings to Junwei Cao.
  • Worked with Mary Lei to get the tandem 4 development system running required parts of LDAS.

(Erik Espinoza)

  • Node status

-         node297 crashed during weekend, replaced cpu's. Repeat crash during week, found bad memory. Currently offline.

-         node125 crashed during weekend, replaced power supply. Currently online.

-         node167 crashed during weekend, network related crash. Rebooted and put back to service. Currently online.

-         node151 crashed during week, replaced 3ware card (raid array disappeared while running). Currently online.

  • Modified kickstart nfs configuration to async for higher performance.
  • Specified monitoring system for purchasing, asked Larry to put in order
  • Recently tested kickstart on node297, kickstart brings machine to current configuration automatically.
  • Searched online for system monitoring solution, have narrowed down to three. Will evaluate on test systems:

-         Zabbix

-         Big Sister

-         Argus

(Stuart Anderson)

  • Helped with LDAS-CIT RAID system crash and Gigabit Ethernet performance problem.
  • Copied all of the S4 L1 RDS frames into the cluster for faster access by Condor jobs including tuning of NFS parameters for improved performance.
  • Attending Solaris 10 class to learn new OS features, e.g., dtrace, zones.

MIT

(Keith Bayer)

  • Received 80 1URM nodes from Caltech.
  • Receive 4 4URM pcraid units from Caltech.
  • Cluster is partially down due to moving racks around etc.

Livingston

(Dwayne Giardina)

  • Email configuration changes on FC4 machines with GC interface.
  • CreateRDS errors were found to be caused by incorrect 'H' in an .ini file,
  • corrected by Lisa.
  • Configured LDAS FC4 machines for a centralized syslog on ldas-gridmon.
  • Stopped sendmail on ldas-grid until we create appropriate aliases to significantly reduce bounced emails

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

  • At the request of the calibration team and for h(t) generation downstream, the sample rate of LSC-DARM_CTRL_EXC_DAQ for H1, H2, and L1 in the S5 Level 1 RDS frames was increased from 4096 Hz to the full raw sample rate of 16384 Hz at GPS time: 824862720 = Feb 25 2006 00:31:46 UTC = Feb 24 2006 16:31:46 PST = Feb 24 2006 18:31:46 CST. An elog about the change was made at LHO and LLO. The users of the channel were consulted and emailed about the change.

(Ben Johnson)

  • Brought 4 nodes back on-line.
  • Helping Xavi restart h(t) publications.
  • Attending Solaris 10 training class.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT

(Keith)

  • Copying data off of lancelot for older accounts
  • Investigating imap on Solaris 10
  • Investigating PAM/LDAP/imap+pop+sendmail on Solaris 10

Livingston

(Dwayne)

  • Completed script for NIS group changes.  It is usable, but would like to tweak it before passing it out.
  • Kantec related errors with new gate.  Errors possibly stem from kantec upgrade back in September.  Never tested this scenario until today.  Going to research kantec site, or contact Chuck Brannon if needed.
  • Used Christian's unattended XP install DVD to reinstall FRAMEGRABBER PC.  Not all software was installed / registered due to license issues before I left for vacation.  Lisa has reclaimed this PC.  Other than some post install Adobe Acrobat issues, it was smooth sailing.
  • Other usual user requests and support

(Shannon)

  • I got pulled into a discussion about the ilog performance.  So, I have spent a fair amount of time determining where the bottlenecks are in the ilog.  It is a bigger issue at LHO, but performance is slightly lacking at LLO also.
  • Had a machine that would spontaneously power off, then would not reboot.  Turned out that the overtemp setting in the bios was set to 68 degrees celsius.  The setting was a bit to conservative and would cause the machine to shut down.
  • Working on pulling a bunch of archived files off of a raid controller and a couple of disks.  The files need to be restored onto media that is more accessible.
  • Still working with Sun to try and get a support contract purchased.  This has turned into a difficult process.  I now have a direct number to someone who can place the order, but we are playing phone tag.  Buying a support contract has never been this difficult before.
  • Working on some paperwork issues with the Pcard folks from last year.
  • Dell is claiming that a system purchased on a credit card was not paid for.  I will have to dig up the records to show that it is already paid.
  • Spent some time troubleshooting some network issues.  Turned out that it was LSU blocking several class A subnets, they claim because of DoS attacks.  Most of the people at LSU were not even aware of the blocking, so it took a while to figure out what was going on.
  • More of the usual... Hardware orders, digging through IDS logs, etc.

Hanford

To be reported next week

CIT

(Christian)

  • Installed Microsoft Visio 2003 for Julie H.
  • Configured loaner laptop with the Ligo image.  Out most of the week on a family emergency.

(Mike)

  • Problems with the DCC SQL Server. There seems to be two bad hard disks, this server does not have LED lights that would let us know which drives have failed. This server is being worked on a daily basis, which does not give me the time to shut this server down to run diagnostic tools on each individual hard disk (16) to find out which drives are bad. I tried doing this while the server was running being that it is hot-swappable, and ended up corrupting the OS. I had to restore this server from a ghost image. This took a lot of work to get the two servers talking again. This is an older server and Larry has decided to replace this server.
  • Loaded a new Dell PC for Mike Smith to test out his engineering packages before we make an attempt to transfer over his data from his old workstation to this box. This required me to load many engineering packages.
  • Ran end of month ghost backups on all critical NT Servers. My ghost server ran out of disk space. I ended having to install an additional hard disk to move data over to make room for the rest on my backups.  I have started burning some of these images to DVD.
  • Continued work on the Spam Filters searching for false positives.
  • Other misc. user/phone support.

(Veronica)

  • LSC:  Ongoing support of the March meeting website and applications.  Addressed several issues related to the online credit card payments.  Website updates.  Addressed the issues of bouncing e-mail addresses from the lsc-all, some were due to an outdated address and others were being relayed to a blacklisted address.
  • LIGO:  Website updates.  Worked on a few video editing projects.  Working on the website for the Elba meeting.  Prepared the information from the LSC roster database for the DCC.  Taped a video of a seminar and made DVDs for the TAPIR group.
  • CaJAGWR:  Taping /video processing of the last seminar, website updates.

(Bruce)

  • (BS) iLog Software and Policy Development: (2/13 5.0 days)

-         Ongoing discussion with sites about requirements for new version of  iLog.

-         Addition of the Quick Post capability.

-         Implementation and testing of new iLogPost routine for robot posting to the new version of iLog.  Discussion of same with sites.

-         Debugging of the gnats setup for an iLog PR system.

  • (BS) iLog Software and Policy Development: (2/20 4.0 days)

-         Finished iLogPost and completed testing on it.  Distributed

  • iLogPost to sites.

-         Input of all old emails regarding new features and bugs in iLog into new iLog gnats PR system.

-         Ongoing discussion with sites regarding what to prioritize.

-         Checked and closed out some of the PRs which had already been fixed in the new version.

  • (BS) iLog Software and Policy Development: (2/27 5.0 days)

-         Much testing of iLog performance problems at LHO.  Discussion with Hanford of possible source and solution of this problem.  It has been decided to install iLog in a faster dedicated server at this point.

-         Work on the auto thumbnailing of uploaded images by iLog (PR 16).

-         Work on "Today" button issues (PRs 14, 18, 22).

(Larry)

  • The continual process of purchasing continues. Ordered a number of items for different groups as well as items that are supported by the GC group.  Still working on the CISCO contract. Trying to get a local dependable vendor to do the contract renewal. Presently, getting suggestions from others on Campus on the vendors they are using.  Placed an order for two new servers to replace the DCC and the PDMworks systems.
  • Received the dual core quad cpu system back from Monarch. The system now reboots itself every 2-4 hours. The OS has been updated but did not improve anything. I will be installing another OS to see if that resolves the issue. So far the Monarch support people have not been able to offer any assistance. They did at least reply to my e-mail request this time.
  • Restored a user file system from 1999. This restoration reminded me how slow things can be. It took about 12 hours for the system to go through the three tapes and restore the files. Hopefully, the project of getting the old tapes updated can get started this year.
  • Most of the backups on the user accounts are finished. Then on to the system files.  Had to modify the scripts again, in order to handle the increase in the size of the data on the home accounts.
  • Working with Hiro on the performance issue with the dual core quad CPU systems.  I've updated the FC4 OS and applied the latest patches. With that Hiro was able to narrow down where the problem may be.  Evidently, the problem is with a specific module in the E2E program that he is running.  We are checking to see if there may be a cache or buffer issue along with the possibility of a compiler version problem, on that specific machine.
  • Working on debugging a wireless problem Riccardo has been having in his office.  It now looks like it may be just the location of his desk is where the signal gets blocked.
  • Resolved a number of small h/w problems for different people, bad monitor, corrupted disks, bad memory...
  • Assisted in the webcamXP setup with Carol W. This time it appears to have worked without any problems. We've found that if there are going to be a large number of people connecting (20+) that the server unit should have a wire connection and plenty of memory.
  • Continual work with the spam filters. Mike and I went through a list of items to make sure we are on the same page when checking the filters.  The number of spam messages getting through the filters has increased quite a bit the past few weeks.

Mail statistics for Feb 23- Mar 01, 06

Mail Statistics

March 2, 2006

Rejected Messages

26,981

Virus Messages

588

Accepted Messages

28,541

Total Messages

55,522

 

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

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 were requested to review and respond by February 17.  A limited number of responses have been received.

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 second draft of the Advanced LIGO PEP was distributed this week for review and update.  I have requested responses by March 3, 2006.  An update of the Organization and Staffing sections was distributed this week.

From: Dennis Coyne coyne@ligo.caltech.edu

Advanced LIGO Systems

From: Dennis Coyne coyne@ligo.caltech.edu

See also:

AL Systems web page

AL Systems email archives

Records of Decision or Agreement (RODA)

See also the RODA status web page

 A RODA (M060032-00) to eliminate the photon actuator from the baseline, and rely upon the electrostatic drive, has been issued for review and signatures.

Requirements/Design

Working on conceptual design of the vibration isolation of the in-vacuum ISC reflected and pick-off port table (primarily for the purpose of costing the system).

Interface Issues

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

Helping Carol Wilkinson to review costing, schedule and planning in preparation for the NSF AL review.

Vacuum Compatibility

Residual Gas Assay (RGA)

See also the Vacuum Bake Lab

Last week, I worked with The Suspension group at MIT.  I cleaned and began two bake jobs of Quad parts for Helena and Calum.  Today & Friday, I will start scanning those bake jobs and do some more oven cleaning.

Scatter/Absorption Test Measurement System

Lee Cardenas, Liyuan Zhang, Bill Kells

We have encountered with another situation!! and a bad one, because the laser aperture cooling body started leaking and we had to stop the laser.  We had this situation before and we fixed it after we had weld the edges of the body.  Now, we decided to get a new one since this part it is a SS body and to weld it, it is hard.  We found out from the manufacture that the new body also leaks!!  Good thing I have requested to be tested and pressurized before send it.  We'll get this unit tomorrow and be able to replace it and re-align the laser again!!  and hopefully recover the previous signal output from the test mirror.

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 noticed that the laser power is going down. We may have to do a small re-alignment to recover the previous power output.

Cavity #2

(OTF Lab, Lauritsen)

NA

NA

NA

We continue working on setting up the system

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)

 

Seismic Isolation

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

BSC Seismic Isolation Procurement

The stage 0-1 and stage 1-2 springs have returned from heat treating. The machine shop made them .004" oversize in thicknes and are now grinding them to their finished size within .0002".

A cart has been designed and is being built to bring in all the large parts vertically from our dock to the assembly area in the high bay. The three stage 1 plates will be delivered next monday with this rolling cart.

The instrument housings have been delivered to Joe Giaime in Livingston. They will be assembled, tested, and filled with trace gas in Livingston.

All fasteners and other off the shelf hardware has been ordered this week.

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

  • We need more info from Corwin to get Brian the input he needs; Brian will contact Corwin with a list.  It remains to make WAGS between 10 and 100 mHz.
  • Also, we need to give Brian a definitive set of noise floor data for the HEPI platform.

BSC SEI status, Ken/ Dennis

  • Two stage 0 plates received from Arland.
  • All stage 1 plates are done, and will be shipped next week.
  • Displ sensor target material (1100 Al) can't be obtained in the thickness requested.  So, Ken will redesign both the post and the target to work with a thinner target.
  • Log entry from Ken on platform assembly scheduling.  Some issues:
  • We might need a place to park the SUS when it is not on the 'dummy' and not under the SEI.
  • We will probably want to schedule a test of the SEI, in the BSC, in vacuum, with dummy masses without the SUS connected to it.
  • We should compare Brian's old list of SEI sys-id /commissioning tasks (from the critical review) to evaluate which things go in which periods of Ken's schedule.
  • The blade test fixture from ASI requires more study in order to make the modifications for the new blade lengths.

BSC work, adaptive modeling and FIR (Rich M)

  • See Rich's entries in yesterday's LASTI log, which show the latest adaptive feedforward results on BSC HEPI, plus a new try at tilt correction on the BSC using a new (but unexplained) tilt coupling model.
  • We should start working with Rolf to implement the adaptive feedforward in LIGO hardware.  Perhaps it could be tested at LASTI in the next few months and considered for installation at LLO in half a year.

ETF platform work, tickle testing, thermal testing – Matt

Frame damping - Tarm

  • Constrained layer damping parts mostly gathered, awaiting the Soundcoat damping epoxy, which will be used to glue it all together.
  • Thermal testing report in SEI log entry.  Putting more power in the coil than is used in operation, a small temperature change is seen (only) right at the actuator mount point.  We need to calibrate the power being deposited in the actuator coil during these tests for next week's report.
  • Next: the frame damping test.
  • Tickle testing experiment: largely done and working.

Suspension

From: Janeen Romie romie_j@ligo.caltech.edu

Advanced LIGO Suspensions

Went to LASTI Feb 15-22. The quad suspension was delivered to MIT the second week of February. With the help of Rich, Ken, Myron and Brett, the US SUS folks installed the structure components onto the rigid stack on the test stand, re-suspended the masses and installed the osems and cabling. Some more LED failures, which are being investigated. Worked on tablecloth cover issue with Calum & Mark.

With Rich and Ken, worked up a schedule for the SEI and SUS work at LASTI for the next 10 months.

Attended Carol's NSF preparatory meetings but am just getting down to the details of the work. Will meet with she and Dwight tomorrow on schedule and cost.

Made plane and conference reservations for LSC. Working on the SUS Workshop schedule and location. Considering the Shilo Inn in Richland on March 23 to save commute time as some folks have early afternoon flights out of Pasco.

From: Ken Mailand kmailand@ligo.caltech.edu

I'm dissembling and starting the part cleaning process on the plate fixture I spoke with Bob on scheduling. CES is adding modifications before the steel parts are plated.  Also for Calum, I'm working on a smaller table option.

From: Jay Heefner jay@ligo.caltech.edu

AdLQuad SUS Controls

  • Design and sent out for fab the new ADC and DAC adapter cards needed for the PCIX I/O chassis to be used in LASTI. This required the redesign and refab of of the AA and AI interface boards. These have been redesigned and sent out for fab. All boards are due next week.
  • A new timing interface board is also required. This board should be designed and out for fab by Friday.

AdL SEI ISI

The new Capacitve Position Sensor chassis has been received and assembled. This is the chassis that will eventually be mounted near the vacuum flange on the BSC. The signal conditioning and interface board for the sensors has been designed and is awaitng layout. The power board is complete and has been successfully tested with the ADE sensor boards. The backplane for the chassis is 75% complete.

Core Optics

From: Helena Armandula ahelena@ligo.caltech.edu

Advanced LIGO Coatings

Started the testing of First Contact, a strippable coating material that protects and cleans mirrors. Optical absorption evaluation and FTIR testing are being conducted at this time.

There is a paper by Jean Bennett, from the Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, and Daniel Rönnow, "Test of Opticlean strip coating material for removing surface contamination".  It describes the testing of this material for residue that could produce scattering after the film was peeled off from the mirror surface. No residue that produced scattering was found.  (Applied Optics, Vol.39, No.16; June 2000 - Pages 2737-2739)

Pre-Stabilized Laser

From: Peter King pking@ligo.caltech.edu

The Xilinx DSP adventure continues with their web support personnel apparently deciding to contact their technical support staff.  Still no joy on this front, despite cc-ing the technical support manager.  Given the rate of progress thus far, it may have been faster to use an XT.

The update to FY2006 of the PSL costs is nearly complete.  All the critical labour estimates have been revised.

Auxiliary Optics

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

VERTEX LAYOUT

The BSPO and REFL beam were routed to HAM3.The new ZEMAX layout has been incorporated into the SW vertex layout and placed in the PDM Works vault.  I have begun to layout the 2K IFO in Zemax.

SLC

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

Controls, Data Systems

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

  • Working on revised cost estimates; waiting on some numbers from Szabi on Atomic Clock data for the timing system (by Friday).
  • Continuing work on the code infrastructure for Lasti. In particular, we are working on getting the entire infrastructure, including DAQ and GDS, to operate at any rate (2^^n ) up to 128KHz (latter eventually required by the Ponderomotive Experiment).
  • Updated the Ponderomotive experiment CDS document after meeting with Nergis. A draft is located at the bottom of my web page under "Lasti CDS docs". There are also links there to the Lasti CDS overview and Lasti suspension controls docs.

Other Laboratory R&D

From: Riccardo DeSalvo desalvo@ligo.caltech.edu

 

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