Weekly Report for Week Ending June 22, 2006

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday, June 26, 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:

  • NSF OIG Labor Allocation Audit
  • Annual Report for NSF

Special Announcements:

 

Weekly Report Highlights

LSC Issues (Saulson)

All three members of the Directorate attended the GWIC meeting at the University of Maryland, and then the beginning of the LISA meeting at Goddard Space Flight Center.  GWIC adopted Jay's suggestion that it should construct (and maintain) a report on the various post-Advanced gravitational wave detection projects that are being studied/proposed.  Jim Hough was appointed to lead this task.  During a discussion of collaborative data analysis, Stan asked about the progress on joint bar-interferometer analysis.

The ensuing discussion led to a revival of interest in this project; several of the IGEC leaders promised to work on a White Paper to lay out a plan to do this, and are thinking of ways to devote substantial labor as well.

On Fri - Sat 23 - 24 June, a face-to-face meeting of the LIGO/Virgo Joint Working Group is being held at Orsay.

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Lloyd)

  • No report.

SITE TELECONFERENCE (Lindquist)

  • A site teleconference was held Thursday, June 22, 2006.  Issues discussed are address below.
  • There are currently no open action items.  The list of assigned actions updated through December 01, 2005 (the last update) 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  two coated samples from CSIRO to Stanford (R. Route), 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 400 Magnets to GALLI & MORELLI in Italy.  Account Number LIGO.HSAS-1-NSFLIGO.FY02CA.
  • Created a new Equipment database for Rich Riesen @ LLO.

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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

  • No report.
  • [We met with the FileHold Systems Inc. folks to address the issue of work performed without the proper paperwork.  After lengthy and intense negotiations we have agreed to issue a change order that will increase the contract value from $53K to $66K and update the statement of work to reflect effort needed to assure the August rollout. –pel]

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

  • Continued to assist in the process of conversion of current data to the new database.
  • Scanning - Progress continues on contract closeout files.
  • Activity:

Week Ending

06/22/2006

In

Out

Packages

42

11

Faxes

21

19

 

FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Cronin, Brambila, Kaufman)

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

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

  • Working on completed change order #177 to Triad for approval routing.  Change order #176 is still out for approval.
  • Completed change order #5 to Great Impressions Janitorial and submitted it to the vendor.
  • The MIT subcontract was requested by PWC auditors to check on the sub recipient monitoring. I'll be submitting the folder for audit.
  • Responded to the request from the PWC auditors pertaining to FY2006 expenditures on LIGO subcontracts issued to non-profit entities.
  • Requested for the closed subcontract issued to High Precision Devices to be pulled from storage.  The file was submitted in response to an audit request.
  • Followed up with vendors on outstanding change order acknowledgements.  Received a few, however, others still need to be submitted.
  • Researched the taxability status of one-time LIGO orders that were placed in 2002.  All 26 Purchase Orders were coded and paid appropriately according to the tax status of each order.  This request was made as a result of the current California sales tax audit.

>From: Florence Kaufman <fkaufman>

  • Prepared 2 Intra Award Transfer Forms to correct the allocation of payment for Invoice # 11 to TRIAD.
  • Notified Caltech's Accounts Payable Department than an incorrect expenditure type had been used on an Electronic Funds Transfer payment to DEMCO which resulted in an unwarranted charge for Indirect Cost of $7,775.  I have been informed that a correction will be made.
  • Questioned whether expenditure type indicated on a PO for repair work at Livingston was appropriate.  Correction is to be made, resulting in an Indirect Cost savings of $2,695.
  • Caltech's Property Services Department is in the process of making corrections in expenditure type from Equipment to Supplies for various charges to LIGO fabrication accounts.  The change is required because fabrication accounts should not have any expenditure with Equipment designations.  The changes are for acquisitions made in prior years because in recent years LIGO has complied with the requirement to not have Equipment classifications in fabrication accounts, however in previous years that was not the case.
  • Prepared a report for Jay's discretionary account.
  • Prepared a report for Riccardo De Salvo of the balance remaining in his accounts, with a projection of known expenditures for the rest of the fiscal year.
  • Completed and sent out report for the Visitor Award as of the end of May.
  • 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>

  • Construction of the Livingston Science Education Center (SEC) remains on schedule for the advanced completion date at the end of August.
  • The Final Design Review for the LLO SEC kinetic facade is scheduled for Thursday, June 22.  Upon successful completion of this review, an RFQ will be prepared for the fabrication and installation of this facade.  The facade must be completed prior to the opening ceremony of the SEC now scheduled for November 13.
  • The LIGO staff at Caltech has been notified of an impending audit on payroll distribution confirmation by the NSF Office of the Inspector General.  This is an Institute-wide audit centered only on assuring that people are correctly charging for the work they perform.

PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist)

As mentioned last month, I need to assemble an Annual Report for the NSF for LIGO Operations.  I had requested inputs by Friday, June 23.  So far I have received some material but much has yet to be submitted.

A monthly report for Operations for the end of May has been provided to the NSF.

CHANGE CONTROL/CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT (Lindquist)

  • There are no open change requests.

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)

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

  • A Staffing Committee meeting was held on June 12. The minutes and action items  have been posted on the SC web page.
  • Most of the REU/SURF summer students have arrived. I am working on the paperwork for the remaining students that are coming from, or going to Italy.
  • Prepared numerous appointment and reappointment memos for various Visitors and Post Docs.
  • I am in the process of finalizing my Kronos duties and submitting for payroll.
  • The next Staffing Committee meeting is scheduled for July 17.

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 S5 Activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory (compiled by M. Landry)

Seismic noise in the 1-3Hz band was upconverting and impacting IFO ranges from 1am to sometime after 7am; this has been traced to excess spring runoff at the McNary Dam.

Some S5 highlights from the elog are bulleted below:

  • driving test mass angle d.'s o.f. produces about twice as much upconversion as the same drive level in straight POS excitations
  • no charging noise from test masses brushing on stops is observed in a study of 16 large seismic events
  • seismic transient study: PSLmon was employed to obtain 50, 95 and 99 percentile seismic levels in 1Hz bands of all stations, from 1-30Hz
  • some DMT dropouts are due to cpu loading by PlaneMon... the datapusher priority was raised to fix the problem
  • upconversion is argued to have multiple mechanisms, and an onset level independent of frequency, see the full report here... PEPI mitigation at 1.2Hz is desirable
  • PEPI hardware 0.1Hz poles (to prevent excess shaking of the ETMs) were added.  Next: code mods to handle more filters in end stations
  • RDS generation stuck when the DiskCache API went offline
  • multiple hardware injection streams were started, apparently without landing excess injections on the machine
  • the cosmic ray process is now monitored daily by scimons
  • Tuesday summaries:  maintenance, and range/duty cycle
  • in concert with L1 REFL work, we took about 2h and 45m to make photon calibrator studies on both IFOs
  • IFO maintenance for LHO and LLO is summarized in the Initial LIGO WIKI (current June LHO usage: 12h 17m of 25h for H1, 4h 13m of 25h for H2)

4K IFO

  • ISS/FSS glitching continues to be responsible for locklosses and glitchy performance on the 4k, see for example here.  The impact can be significant, e.g. 3h of ten during low seismic activity.  The PSL was studied on maintenance day, and measurements such as the PMC open loop transfer function were obtained, but so far the cause of the glitches is not yet understood
  • when making excitations for upconversion and IFO maintenance studies, we have to workaround AWG by temporarily eliminating photon cal excitations, and reapplying later
  • as the mean-time-to-lock had grown unacceptably long on H1, lock acquistion parameters were remeasured, so that now we are relocking in minutes, a welcome improvement.  The unity gain of the DARM loop was later adjusted
  • upconversion was not observed when a DC butterfly injection was applied to ETMX

DAQ

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

L1 in S5 (Yakushin)

On Saturday, June 17, there was some confusion due to the outdated instructions scattered in various readme files and two obsolete scripts, "Center WFS4" and rbsautolock, were launched by operators. That resulted in several hours of lock loss. Also there was a suspicion that REFL beam was not optimally centered after the interferometer got back online. It was decided that on Wednesday, June 21, night Ken Franzen, during his owl shift and during the time when LHO would be down for calibration measurements, would bring the L1 down to realign REFL beam. To prevent further confusion caused by various old readme files, it was decided to collect all the current information into a single wiki and get rid of the old readme files; this work is still under way. To prevent the old rbsautolock script from been accidentally launched, Rana renamed it and moved to backup directory.

#MZ We took some lumps for trying to gently and "adiabatically" migrate our documentation into the new wiki format. As a result of this incident, we are cutting the cord; from this point forth the old docs system is off limits. Any complaints will be interpreted as proposed WIKI contributions.

On Monday, June 19, evening there was a lightning that brought a few systems down: LVEA pumps, MOPA, PSL chiller, etc. It took 3 hours to get back into science mode.

On Tuesday, June 20, during the maintenance period the new outreach building was connected to our power grid and we braced for possible power outage by turning off HEPI, suspension, high voltage supplies for suspensions, HEPI pumps. Fortunately, there was no power outage.

On Wednesday night and Thursday morning, Ken and Gary worked on RBS to correct the problem caused by obsolete scripts running on Saturday. They ran into problems with WFS4 and could not lock the interferometer during the owl shift. On Thursday afternoon, it was discovered by Rupal, Dan and Mike that the problem is probably due to a bad cable connection. We are back in science mode now.

Despite of all the above problems, we still had 70% duty cycle during the week with the inspiral range close to 14 Mpc.

L1 CDS (Bogue)

  • Worked with John Z. on building a replacement server for delaronde.  This is strictly a hardware upgrade.  We ran into problems with the skge ethernet cards and the server swap had to be delayed.
  • Worked with John Z. on cleaning up the DMT files that were filling up the disk space on the web server.
  • After having the root partition fill up a couple of times over on london, the server crashed and there is data corruption on the disk.  I will be working to get a replacement server built and swapped in as soon as I can.
  • Changed london's home page. - Compiled a list of filter module channels that are not being recorded in our frame.  These will be discussed at our next cross-site channel meeting.

Humongous Educational Kinetic Art Installation (Romie)

Visited and qualified three machine shops this week in preparation for an RFQ for the Kinetic Art fabrication and installation. The Final Design Review is tomorrow. I've got a full size set of drawings and am reviewing their drawings, presentation and BOM.

LLO Outreach (Thacker)

  • monitored/presented at  SLU math/science partnership teacher professional development
  • outreach staff training on interference activities
  • developed giant slinky "snack"
  • developing visitor scrapbook - completed most recent visitor program for the scrapbook
  • developed written material correlating current exhibits with LIGO science themes
  • mentored RET teachers
  • worked on LIGOSEC Opening Event materials (invitation list; event program, commemorative)

LIGO computing and network security (Roddy)

  • working on final nessus scan reports
  • Continuing to work the implementation details for the Charter network connection.
  • Set up two windows servers.  Working on testing AD, workstations, user profiles, automated software installs, etc.  Long list of things to test before I consider implementing this on GC.  First "victims" will likely be the outreach computers since they are more or less "disposable" and do not have any important files/data on them.  Testing with a laptop also for the "roaming user" scenario.
  • Working some Mathematica install problems.  The install scripts do not seem to install the software completely.
  • Set up a windows workstation.
  • Reorganizing the computer lab again... seems to be a continual process.

General Computing and LDAS Admin (Giardina)

  • NIS+ client install on chestnut, qscan files backed up and rsync'ed, /home now automounts from NIS+ server
  • other usual user requests and support
    • ejected tapes for shipment to CIT, imported and labeled new
    • assisted Ben with h(t) C01 to C02 file rename at LLO
    • shelved 82 tapes, imported and labeled new
    • racking 'new' equipment received from CIT
    • need to replace a disk in node208, hoping to have kickstart server up and running to test on node208
    • publishing, RLS, LDR, MySQL, gridftp restart this morning due to rls and publishing failures overnight

Data Analysis (Yakushin)

  • Wrote readCalibrationASCII function to be able to read calibration in an ASCII format into waveburst (previously I used calibration frames; however, the calibration group no longer supports the old calibration frame format while the new one has not been released so far).
  • Reruning S5 incoherent waveburst analysis on DARM_ERR using version 2 calibration.
  • Reruning S5 incoherent waveburst analysis on h(t) obtained with version 2 calibration.
  • While working on reruning waveburst on h(t) at CIT, noticed some missing frames for H2. Found them at LHO and sent Stuart and Xavi a list of missing frames.
  • Working with my SURF student, Lisa, to improve the online waveburst infrastructure. In particular, the current version does not handle gracefully the absence of expected data. Lisa is writing a routine that would check for data availability and reschedule jobs that cannot run at the moment.
  • Working on online coherent waveburst infrastructure which is expected to be launched within the next couple weeks. In particular, discussing with Adam Mercer how to integrate his coherent event display into the pipeline..

Controls and Data Systems (Bork)

No report.

40-Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

IFO Commissioning

  • Rana is back to work locking the IFO in the full DRFPMI configuration, while Rob is away on vacation in Sweden.  Jenne is learning the ropes and the scripts.
  • Monica is using the WFS diagonalization code developed by Rana and Dan, and is preparing to diagonalize the MC WFS system.
  • Royal has been working on testing Mike Smith's oplev telescope, but she's having difficulty establishing a good spot on the PD when the beam gets through the thing.
  • Royal is developing a scheme to calibrate our test mass oplevs by wiggling the mirrors when the arm cavity is locked, and relating the transmitted power to the mirror angle.
  • Royal is exploring oplev configurations which suppress or cancel laser beam (mount) angle jitter.
  • David, working with Osamu, is learning the noise budget program. He is adding the model of the DRFPMI optical response to replace the simple Initial-LIGO-like cavity pole model. He ran on old data; the program ran through, and he's looking at results now.

IFO Modeling

  • Kentaro is working with Osamu and Peter Fritchel on new length sensing schemes for AdLIGO, and maybe 40m. The double-demod offset needs to be understood better. He's checking the dependence on the RF sideband imbalance.
  • Valera is visiting from LLO, and is working on AdLIGO angular controls, optimizing the sensing matrix. He's also learning the 40m controls with Rana.
  • Monica continues to develop the AdVIRGO e2e package, starting with just one arm. It locks, but only with radiation pressure turned off.
  • Osamu in continuing to work on modeling the alignment instability in AdLIGO, with e2e.

DC Detection and Vacuum Squeezing Development

  • Sam and Darcy are trying to get the DC readout beamline fully checked out, so that they can disassemble for clean/bake in less than 2 weeks. They dither-locked the OMC, measured the FSR and finesse, and scanned for PZT resonances. The finesse was around 220-230, low compared to the design of ~300. They will assemble a careful procedure for disassembly, re-assembly, alignment and testing on the clean bench, and then installation, alignment and testing in the vacuum chamber.
  • Ben checked out the DC photodiodes. They are now functioning fine. The correct regulators are in place, and the diodes are healthy. He still want to bolster the protection of the photodiode elements, but he hasn’t implemented anything yet.
  • Sam and Rana are getting the DC PDs mounted and testing their response and noise, using the DC PD satellite amplifier built by Ben.
  • Rob and Sam tested the tip-tilt PZT that was wired incorrectly; it shows no sign of being damaged. Rich, in consultation with Piezo-Jena engineers, established the correct wiring. Rob measured its dynamic range.
  • Sam is driving the tip-tilt PZT mirror with our old existing board. It seems to have a lot of excess noise at high frequencies. Under investigation. He and Darcy plan to implement dither locking of two angular degrees of freedom (along with the OMC length lock), soon. They will also test the 2nd tip-tilt PZT mirror to make sure it works correctly.
  • Ben reports that Alex is testing a computer with PCIE bus, at 32KHz, for us and LASTI. The order is in for components for interface boards, expected in on July 29.
  • Ben's QPD Whitening board PCB layout is finished except for a check to make sure all of the nets are complete. The board should go out in the next couple of days.
  • Rana and Sam are determining the noise and modulation requirements for the tip-tilt PZT and OMC PZT drivers.
  • Go reports that Evgueny is testing a new PPKTP crystal for the OPO. Go is preparing for this new OPO, including the mode matching and is ordering new lenses.

PSL

  • Steve reports that the MOPA head temperature has been stable for the last 2 weeks. He once again removed around 500 cc of water from the chiller... a great mystery.
  • Steve covered the top and two sides of the Mach Zehnder with a Plexiglas box. The long-term drifting of the MZ servo has not changed much since then. Rana suggests building the other two sides.

Electronics, Controls, Computers

  • Bob plans on installing new RF distribution panels at the RF rack and the LSC rack, in the near future. It will take a couple of days and be somewhat disruptive.
  • Jenne is building a mount for an AM laser to be used for PD testing.
  • Osamu and David found a strange electronics noise on the PD2 photo detector; under investigation.

Lab Infrastructure

  • Steve and Bob replaced the fore pump for TP2, and a new convectron gauge controller installed. At that point, all the Vacuum EPICS channels stopped appearing in EPICS and dataviewer. A DAQ reboot seems to have fixed the problem.
  • The presently-installed RGA filament has failed (the electron multiplier failed long ago). Steve gave a spare RGA head to Bob for baking. Bob will modify an oven head mount and bake it next week.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

This week we concentrated on training the new SURF students. They learned how to lock a laser to a fixed-length Fabry-Perot cavity and to measure the open-loop transfer function and noise in the system.  This went very well. They even learned how to align a laser to a cavity in preparation for locking, and the whole process took less than a week. Congratulations to all concerned!

Michael is now setting up his system to observe thermal self locking.  Greg has come up with a simple dynamical model, and the plan is for Michael to test Greg's predictions about the frequency response of a self-locked system. Michael will first mode match and align his laser to his cavity and reproduce Royal's results from last summer. After that, he will start checking Greg's dynamical model experimentally.

Matt and Cacey are moving up from the training system to the main interferometer, learning how to lock it, calibrate it, and take data.  As soon as we have a sample mirror with the new ring-damper design, they will install it in the interferometer and evaluate its performance.

Akira is working on a drawing for the ring dampers, based on a design Riccardo, Dennis Coyne and I came up with.

All three SURF students are also reading background papers, and they will start to give talks on them next week.

LASTI (Mittleman)

ISI Assembly

Brian O'rielly, Ken, Myron, Rich

We have done a resonant mode test of the horizontal version of the GS13 can. We installed some dummy mass in the can to imitate the GS13 and then using endevco accelerometers measured the power spectra of the motion of the can.  There appear to be a couple of resonances around 75Hz which could be a problem. We are going to think about making the can stiffer, it should not be too hard.  There are a number of entries on this and the fit test in the SEI log some will be copied onto the Lasti ilog soon.

Jon, Myron, Ken, Rich

Jon has finished measuring the first long blade spring on the spring tester.  This first measurement appears to agree with the measurements of the short springs in that it is coming out about 15 percent less then the number provided by ASI.  There are entries on both the SEI and Lasti ilogs.

Quad-Pendulum Controls Prototype

Brett, Myron, Rich

We vented Lasti this week so that we could investigate issue, make fixes and install new equipment.  One of the chains on the Quad has some strange transfer functions in the vertical and roll directions, after a visual inspection we have not yet found anything wrong.  One OSEM has been operating on the edge of its range and also has a maximum signal about 50% of nominal so it has been replace.  We are planning to install the eddy current damper on the chain which is not displaying funny resonances.  There are a number of entries on the Lasti ilog about this issue.

Data Analysis (Anderson for Lazzarini)

Here is the weekly report for Albert since he is on travel.  Please put the E2E section under Advanced LIGO and create a hyperlink to it.

Data Analysis Activities (Anderson)

(Vuk Mandic)

  • I am working on the analysis of the S4 H1L1 data at high frequency (~900 Hz). The goal is to use it as a cross-check of the ALLEGRO-L1 analysis.
  • I am preparing a new version of the S4 all-sky stochastic paper.
  • With a SURF student, M. Lukic, we started looking at the possibility of using time-shifts to estimate instrumental correlations for the H1H2 pair.

(Duncan Brown)

  • Worked with Tapir numerical relativity group to understand how to use their binary black hole evolution code.
  • Worked with SURF student Alexei Zaliznyak on his template placement project.
  • Worked on LIGO EMRI project: set up outline for Diego's implementation of the physical template family and started implementing code necessary to evolve basis vectors of spinning binaries.
  • Worked with Lisa to get the ringdown pipeline working for S4 data.
  • Continued with inspiral BNS review work.
  • Investigated 64 bit compatibility of LSC analysis software on the CIT cluster and created new RPMs for lscsoft repository. Created an x86_64 binary distribution of the LIGO ringdown analysis code which the Condor team will incorporate into their test suite.
  • Performed some maintenance on the segment database for GEO segments and helped Chris and Martin finalize the specification for inserting GEO science mode information into the database.

(Gregory Mendell)

The SURF students I am working with are now up-to-speed on their projects, so I am back to work on the S4 PowerFlux, StackSlide, and Hough paper. I am also writing a technical report with Karl Wette from ANU on our work on parameter estimation and its relationship to the PowerFlux method. All of this will be reported on at the August CW F2F and LSC meetings.

(Igor Yakushin)

  • Wrote readCalibrationASCII function to be able to read calibration in an ASCII format into waveburst (previously I used calibration frames; however, the calibration group no longer supports the old calibration frame format while the new one has not been released so far).
  • Reruning S5 incoherent waveburst analysis on DARM_ERR using version 2 calibration.
  • Reruning S5 incoherent waveburst analysis on h(t) obtained with version 2 calibration.
  • While working on reruning waveburst on h(t) at CIT, noticed some missing frames for H2. Found them at LHO and sent Stuart and Xavi a list of missing frames.
  • Working with my SURF student, Lisa, to improve the online waveburst infrastructure. In particular, the current version does not handle gracefully the absence of expected data. Lisa is writing a routine that would check for data availability and reschedule jobs that cannot run at the moment.
  • Working on online coherent waveburst infrastructure which is expected to be launched within the next couple weeks. In particular, discussing with Adam Mercer how to integrate his coherent event display into the pipeline.

(Patrick Sutton)

These week I've been working with Stephen Poprocki (SURF) to compile and run our Xpipeline coherent analysis package on the CIT cluster.  I've generalized the package to handle several of the different maximum likelihood formulations proposed by various LSC groups, such as the constraint likelihood.  I've also optimized the code for scanning large amounts of data in search mode.  We're now running cluster jobs scanning the LIGO-Virgo project 1b simulated data set.  Finally, I set up a first draft of the XPipeline web home page, where we will be posting documentation and results.

(Peter Shawhan)

  • Reviewed pulsar analyses.
  • Continued to work on defining GEO science segments.
  • Worked with SURF student Chris Pointon.
  • With Erik Katsavounidis, wrote summaries of Burst Group activities for LIGO annual report and data analysis white paper.

Simulation and Modeling (Yamamoto)

Se Advanced LIGO Modeling and Simulation.

LDAS Software Systems (Blackburn)

LDAS

To get a different view of LDAS problems with Tcl/Tk 8.4, a threaded version was installed for a couple of days. It help to reveal additional places were global variables were being used in callbacks. Tcl/Tk has been reverted to the non-threaded version.

The latest version of valgrind (3.2.0) has been installed on ldas-dev. This tool is being used to help analyze places to improve the code. It helps to identify some errors such as use of uninitialized memory an memory leaks. It only works for *86 systems running Linux.

System testing of LDAS was done using version 1.8.214. Failures continue to be seen in the loop testing associated with the new version of TCL/TK. Code rework is underway to correct this.

TCLGLOBUS

TCLGlobus 1.2.0 has been fully tested agains Globus 4.0.x.  However an error was discovered with the 1.2.0 release of TclGlobus against the Globus 3.2.x release: The unit test for FTP control failed when linking against globus toolkit 3.2.x. The fix has been identified and implemented.

Inquired of the VDT developers during thier weekly office hours what the schedule for inclusion of TCLGlobus was likely to be. They have plans to include TCLGlobus in the VDT 1.3.12 release due out in mid to late summer. This is same release of VDT that will be used int he 0.6.0 release of OSG.

Began drafting the sections of the ITR annual report to the NSF regarding TCLGlobus at the request of Erik Katsavounidis. This is due July 1st.

GRID COMPUTING

The set of packages needed to run the LIGO Workflow Planner from a workstation has been identified. None of them require root.  The means by which to distribute these packages is yet to be decided.

Met via Telecom with Pegasus/ISI engineers and Kent Blackburn regarding previous request for functionality to update vds-get-sites utility to produce accurate tables tc.data and sites.xml.  ISI engineers are exploring this request.

Obtained possible solution for supporting a native unix command entry in the VDS transformation catalog (tc.data) from the ISI engineers. Will test this possible solution next week.

Replaced the host certificate which had expired on LIGO-CIT-ITB CE with the assistance of Phil Ehrens.

Working with Duncan Brown, determined that Duncan had inadvertently changed out the lscsoft library on kitalpha necessary to link lal and lalapps for hierarchical inspiral pipe analysis. To prevent future resource conflicts, I am moving hipe development to ldas-pcdev2 which is not maintained by Duncan.

Working with Michael Samidi and Kent Blackburn, developed a model of deployment for the LIGO work flow planner that employs ldas-pcdev2 as the stage-out host to meet the requirement for host-certificate on the systems where staging of i/o is required.

Met with Shourov Chaatterji and Kent Blackburn , to examine the progress made in the last month to support the MatLab R13 based Q pipeline burst analysis on the OSG. Determined that the X pipeline under development by the Burst group is the appropriate candidate for an OSG based tool. The X pipeline is new, under development and not yet in a stage of maturity to use as a basis for an OSG port.

Testing of the LIGO work flow planner uncovered numerous bugs, each of which has been added to the PR database.

Testing of the LIGO work flow planner with the inspiral pipe analysis on Nebraska, PSU and UWMilwaukee has been sucessful this week. Testing on CIT_CMS_T2 and Purdue-ITaP has resulted in failures with aborts. The failures on CIT_CMS_T2 are the result of misconfiguration of the CE. The Purdue-ITaP failure mode is under investigation.

Laboratory Computing (Anderson)

LDAS System Administration (Anderson)

Caltech

(Dan Kozak)

  • Normal ingesting stuff.
  • Gave LLO a list of tapes for shelf storage.
  • 3510 parts replacement (2 disks and a controller at CIT).  All lights are green now!
  • Fixed stuck staging a number of times.
  • Fixed incorrect grid-mapfile entry for ldas-cit's LDRdataFindServer
  • Worked on characterizing and developing a workaround for SAM's stagerd memory leak.

(Phil Ehrens)

  • Added SURF students to the GRID resource access files and helped them with simple account related issues.
  • Configured new desktop machine m8 which is located on the 3rd floor of Bridge.
  • Added GRID sandbox capacity to m28.
  • Created GRID user addition script and used it to add five users.
  • Detected and corrected issuance of bad UID to Sanjit Mitra.
  • Detected and reported cascading failure of user home directory services. The log_mon.tcl script detected the first home directory mount failure within seconds of it's occurrence.
  • Wrote do-on-all-nodes.tcl script for running ssh and scp commands across the cluster using the /etc/nodes file. Output from the script can be captured and used to track configuration changes without additional reporting by hand.

(Stuart Anderson)

  • Worked on fixing the SAM-QFS crash after upgrading at CIT.
  • Worked on major water leak in the LDAS-CIT computer room.
  • Upgraded Condor at LDAS-CIT to version 6.7.20 to pick up a number of LIGO specific bug fixes.
  • Helped profile an I/O intensive cluster job that needs tuning.
  • Setup 8 cluster nodes for a successful test of the Caltech Numerical Relativity code by Duncan Brown.
  • Worked with Erik to upgrade the kernel on the cluster nodes.

(Erik Espinoza)

  • Assisted Dwayne with NIS+ Configuration.
  • Sent FC4 Desktop configuration info to GC Admins.
  • Rebuilt Frog from scratch for testing.
  • Tested "ring" code for Duncan, for use by Condor devs.
  • Assisted Ed Maros on WiFi for laptop (ndiswrapper).
  • Configured http authentication on ldas-pcdev1.
  • Worked with Shourov for standardized ACL for ldas-pcdev1/ldas-jobs.
  • Investigating MCE issues w/ Ken (Supermicro) & Sean (ASA)

-         Tested CPU re-greasing on node325 and node327 (was node68).  Conclusion, this did not resolve the problem.

-         Currently testing 1:1 (slot for slot) ram swap between nodes (node324:node325 & node326:node327)

  • Worked with Stuart on Condor/Kernel upgrade of cluster.

-         Upgraded fedora-ligo updates repo to add kernel 2.6.16-1.2115_FC4smp

-         ALL NODES: Upgraded kernel to 2.6.16-1.2115_FC4smp, Removed legacy /etc/ld.so.conf.d/ldas.conf, executed ldconfig, rebooted

-         Moved PostgreSQL from /var/pgsql to /usr1/pgsql on ldas-grid

-         Re-enabled Quill on ldas-grid

-         Modified kickstart to match new node configuration

  • Node Reboots:

-         Saturday June 17, 2006 - node50, node159, node255

-         Sunday June 18, 2006 - node325 twice

-         Monday June 19, 2006 - All nodes (Condor/Kernel Upgrade), moved node68 to node327

-         Tuesday June 20, 2006 - node325

-         Wednesday June 21, 2006 - node95

MIT

(Keith Bayer)

  • Moved several cluster nodes over to different circuits in attempt to prevent the power strips from tripping their internal fuses.

Livingston

(Dwayne Giardina)

  • Ejected tapes for shipment to CIT, imported and labeled new.
  • Assisted Ben with h(t) C01 to C02 file rename at LLO.
  • Shelved 82 tapes, imported and labeled new.
  • Racking 'new' equipment received from CIT.
  • Need to replace a disk in node208, hoping to have kickstart server up and running to test on node208.
  • Publishing, RLS, LDR, MySQL, gridftp restart this morning due to rls and publishing failures overnight.

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

  • I am working on plans to purchase tapes for archiving the rest of S5 data, and continuing to work on SFT generation.

(Ben Johnson)

  • Kickstarted nodes 1-18, except node4 which has power supply issues.  This resulted in loss of important user data on nodes 10 and 11. It otherwise went well.
  • Ordered 8-port gigabit switch for the LDAS <-> GC connection (ldas-grid/ldas-pcdev1/ldas-jobs, etc.). This will replace the old 16-port fast ethernet hub. The hub will be kept as a backup.
  • About to finish up work on a "--show-times" option to LSCdataFind, and corresponding support in the server.
  • The IPFilter setup is ready to test on ldas.mit.edu. I even have a SMF .xml file to put in the necessary NFS-specific rules after nfs/server has been started.
  • The diskcacheAPI-based LDRdataFindServer is now running at LHO with no major problems.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT

(Keith)

  • Dealing with various urop issues
  • Ordering laptop for grad student
  • Investigating OpenVZ linux virtualization utility

Livingston

(Dwayne)

  • NIS+ client install on chestnut, qscan files backed up and rsync'ed, /home now automounts from NIS+ server
  • other usual user requests and support

(Shannon)

  • Working on final nessus scan reports
  • Continuing to work the implementation details for the Charter network connection.
  • Set up two windows servers.  Working on testing AD, workstations, user profiles, automated software installs, etc.  Long list of things to test before I consider implementing this on GC.  First "victims" will likely be the outreach computers since they are more or less "disposable" and do not have any important files/data on them.  Testing with a laptop also for the "roaming user" scenario.
  • Working some Mathematica install problems.  The install scripts do not seem to install the software completely.
  • Set up a windows workstation.
  • Reorganizing the computer lab again... seems to be a continual process.

Hanford

(Christine)

  • Still setting up new computers.
  • Created a new account for a visiting teacher.  Set up a computer and printer for him in the Staging building.
  • Requested a new DNS alias for one of the CDS/GC gateways.

CIT

(Mike)

  • Tested Microsofts monthly critical updates, making sure they're compatible with all OS's, XP, Win 2000, Server 2000, and Server 2003; plus GC/Engineering software.
  • Finish loading Solaris 10 patches on a work station for Wilson House. I needed some help from Larry to configure a dual head video card. Added some documentation to the sysadmin FAQ on this.
  • Additional work on DCC. We now have Linda and Cleveland up and running.  This is only a temporary fix until DCC gets migrated over to the new DCC system.
  • Some work on the DHCP server. We ran out of TCP/IP addresses again.
  • Work on the mail servers: Restarting services, and clearing out the mail queue.
  • Spent time working in the B/A server room, installing rack mount servers into their new home. I also rerouted some power cables to take some stress off one of the UPS's.
  • Worked with Cleveland on an Adobe issue. I ended up having to reinstall this software, plus run all updates.
  • Worked on the Spam Filters searching for false positives.
  • Additional misc. user support.

(Bruce Sears)

  • iLog Maintenance: (0.5 days)

Finished draft of iLog admin documentation.

General iLog maintenance (user adds, keyword adds, etc.)

(Veronica)

  • Videotaped and processed the SURF lectures.  LIGO website updates. 
  • LSC website updates (authorlist, LSC-related mailing lists).  Working on the webpages for LSC educational resources.
  • CaJAGWR website updates.

(Christian)

  • Linda Turner- Installed and configured new docking station for Linda.
  • Irene Baldon- Replaced toner cartridges on Irene's local printer.
  • Finished reloading laptops that were returned from MIT this week.
  • Working on creating a new Ligo image for the new laptops that are going to the loaner Pull.
  • Worked on the Spam Filters with Mike and Larry.
  • Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.

(Larry)

  • Worked a number of procurement items.  Ordered a few more SUN items to go with equipment we just received.  Received the Dell items that were ordered last week. Christian is working on the notebooks and all other items have been distributed.  Reconciliation of the P-card took a more time than normal. Problems with getting paperwork from vendors and a discrepancy on one of the orders took their toll.  Still working with Monarch on getting the computer repaired. All of the memory is to be replaced this Friday.
  • Assisting the SURF students with their issues is still taking time but it is tapering off.
  • Assisted the LDAS group in some modifications they requested on different items -Repaired a couple of disks on the home account server. We are in the process of replacing the home account server. It will be a few weeks before all of the h/w arrives and then another couple of weeks to get everything transferred over.
  • Worked with the DCC group in troubleshooting a number of different items. They have been receiving files that we are having problems converting to PDF.
  • Worked out some application licensing and configuration issues for different users and different programs.
  • Worked spam filters with Mike and Christian. Also, a number of minor user requests.

Mail Statistics for June 15-21, 06

Mail Statistics

6/22/2006

Rejected Messages

47,238

Virus Messages

2,406

Accepted Messages

23,144

Total Messages

70,352

 

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Advanced LIGO Systems

From: Dennis Coyne coyne@ligo.caltech.edu

No report.

From: Hiroaki Yamamoto <hiro@ligo.caltech.edu>

Modeling and Simulation (Hiro Yamamoto)

ASC/LSC design for AdvLIGO using high power FP arm (Osamu)

We are continuously investigating a FP cavity with quad suspension and AdLIGO laser power. Local damping gain has been set correctly and strange drift was gone. However the number of DOF for Local damping is still limited, and it might cause unexpected noise on some masses. We will implement local damping into all DOFs as soon as possible.  Osamu gave a talk in the AdvLIGO ASC design meeting and his material and simulation setup are available in http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~omiyaka/AdLIGO_ASC/.

AdvLIGO Mechanical system modeling (SLU group lead by Sany)

Continued e2e modeling of triple/quad suspension on AdvLIGO HAM/BSC tables.  Table translational motions were created using the e2e’s standard ground X and Y motions (the same ground motion as SimLIGO uses), and the toy HAM/BSC model (the AdvLIGO seismic isolation model that creates table top translational motions required by AdvLIGO specification). Table Yaw motion was created by the same model as our model for LIGO 1 HAM table (based on differential table top translational motions). These table top motions are passed to the suspension point of the triple/quad suspension model one DOF at a time. We completed computation with suspension Yaw input, and now continuing equivalent computations with suspension X and Y inputs.

Also continued was e2e modeling of LIGO 1 Mode Cleaner. Several minor bugs were found in the original MC box and have been fixed. With the e2e standard ground motion to LIGO 1 HAM seismic isolation model, we have confirmed clear correlation between MC 1 optic yaw motion and MC transmitted beam's yaw motion. More detailed analysis is under way.

Adv.Virgo Simulation using e2e (Monica)

Investigation of one single arm (Fabry-Perot cavity) configuration with Virgo parameters: the control system for the lock works fine without including the radiation pressure. Next step modify the control scheme in order to acquire and maintain the lock including the radiation pressure on input and end mirror.  Investigation of the AdVirgo configuration: attempt to lock one single arm (done with the demodulated reflected light) without radiation pressure (excluding all the mirrors), then the Michelson and the FPMI.

Static IFO Simulation (Hiro)

Code development for the FP simulation (back end) is almost over and the user interface (front end) is being implemented.  A short summary talk will be given in the COC modeling meeting on 23rd.

Seismic Isolation

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

BSC Assembly and Test

We have received all parts for the seismic isolation structure and spring flexure fixture. After analyzing the position and angle of the stage 1-2 springs we have modified the rod mounting plate so that the mount can be positioned as shown in the solid model from ASI and designed a shim to place the spring at the correct height. The shim has been placed on order with Lavallee Machine.

Jon and Rich have assembled the flexure fixture with parts designed for the new stage 0-1 softer springs. The first blade has been measured and found to be 14.6% softer than predicted by ASI. This is consistent with what we found with the stage 1-2 springs. We will install this spring today and go through the same analysis to calculate a new position for mounting the spring.

All mass simulators for the sensors have been recieved.

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

Agenda for the weekly SEI telecom

Friday, June 16, 2:00 pm Eastern, 1:00 pm Central, 11:00 am Pacific time

BSC SEI Status

  • Last part from Limerick received, the stage 0-1 spring base.
  • Expect last part for stage 0-1 spring tester to be received soon.
  • Tolerance buildup seems to result in approx 0.02" vertical mis-positioning of stage 2 with respect to stage 1.  This will be corrected, probably with shims, before stage 0-1 springs will be installed.
  • Ken Watts working on sensor pod electronics installation and testing at LLO.

HAM Conceptual Design

  • Joe & Brian will meet with Corwin next Tuesday to agree on a delivery date and content of the conceptual (mechanical) design report.
  • Meeting held last week to discuss options for the HAM prototyping and the post-S5 upgrade.

Stanford: Seismometer, Platform

  • Matt has 11 DOF loops closed; They are looking for an error in the sys-id analysis.
  • Tarm preparing to carry out brazing and welding of seismometer parts.  Readout (in separate experiment) seems to work.

From: Ben Abbott <abbott_b@ligo.caltech.edu>

Szabi made a recommendation for the HAM-SAS stepper motor drivers, and Virginio and I will work together to prepare an order.

I corresponded with Gianni about the wiring pinouts on the HAH-SAS cabling.  I'm waiting for him to get back with me.

Suspension

From: Janeen Romie romie_j@ligo.caltech.edu

Working with many folks on the differences in suspensions between the nearly degenerate recycling cavity and the stable recycling cavity. Mike Smith and Chris Echols sent and updated requirements list for the pick off mirror suspension and for the ETM telescope suspension.

Working with IO and SUS folks on the recycling mirror size and suspension.

Provided an update to the SUS progress schedule, through June 1, to Dwight and Carol. Had a meeting with both on Friday.

From: Ken Mailand kmailand@ligo.caltech.edu

I'm using the latest information from Ian and working on a lower quad installation arm shop drawings, and a simpler 'conveyor' version to be used at the LASTI site.

On the existing five axis fixture, the stainless hardware change out is planned for next week, this will replace some alloy steel fasteners originally installed.

Core Optics

From: Bill Kells kells@ligo.caltech.edu

Parametric instability studies have heated up for this summer. I have been mostly occupied by getting my SURF student up and running on the computer intensive study of the "infinite spectrum of HTMS" which may contribute (simulaneously) to the PI feedback. Good progress so far (extracting acoustic modes, properly normalized from IDEAS).  The [arm] cavity sector of the problem is awaiting the launch of Hiro's new FFT code version.

Also on the PI front, I've been digesting new results by Pablo Baranga, and D. Ottaway (his recent note on the SRC influence, which I had modeled previously in '05). I had discussed Pablo's new results with Ju Li and D. Blair at GWADW in May. Also I've re-contacted B. Bhawal to appreciate his take on these new developments (since they go beyond his previous results on HTM coupling and loss).

Then, there has been ongoing monitoring of the OTF work on TM HR loss and scattering, which progresses. Various new comments and results from VIRGO are now adding a new dimension to this effort.

Then too, I have been studying the docs for the imminent review of AdL TCS, for early July.

From: Gregg Harry <gharry@ligo.mit.edu>

We have the first two Q results on the silica-doped titania coating from CSIRO:

2809 Hz   Q = 9.8 105

9811 Hz   Q = 8.7 105

These are very high Q's, but the lower Young's modulus of titania means the loss angle isn't that much improved over undoped tantala. The lower index of titania vs tantala also is a drawback, requiring thicker coatings.  The importance of the Young's modulus to evaluating this coating means we will plan to directly measure it with a nanoindenter.

From: Helena Armandula ahelena@ligo.caltech.edu

CSIRO finished and shipped another three-sample run (thick, thin and small) this time using a Tantala/Silica mixture which contains ~ 35 percent silica in Tantala. The refractive index of this mixture is 1.9, approximately the same as the titania/silica mixture sample we received previously. The total 30 x 1/4wave layer thickness is thus also the same (~4.8 microns). The samples were also annealed for the same 24 hours at 500C. All substrates looked OK after annealing.

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

We have received polished samples of Heraeus 311 & 312 fused silica which will be characterized at Caltech then sent to Hobart William Smith for annealing studies.

Pre-Stabilized Laser

From: Peter King pking@ligo.caltech.edu

Benno and I went through the AEI schedule for the PSL to see that we haven't missed out on any tasks/milestones.  The adopted schedule will be the one that we report progress against.

I sent the drawings for the reference cavity vacuum chamber and vibration isolation stack so that AEI will be able to fabricate a copy of the existing setup.  This is in the event that we recycle the existing hardware at the observatories.

Auxiliary Optics

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

Non-folded IFO

The allowed mounting space on the BSC1 optical table was determined to accommodate the ITMY SUS and an estimated footprint for the BS PO mirror. The ITMY was placed in the middle of its movement range, and the PRM position was set to achieve a free spectral range for the PRC equal to 18.97164 MHz, as specified in T010076-01--resulting in an optical path length of 8341 mm for the PRC; and then, the ITMX and ITMY were moved to create a Schnoop asymmetry of 400mm. The SRM was placed to provide an optical path length of 8327 mm for the SRC, as specified in T010076-01.

The maximum Schnoop asymmetry is approximately 676 mm.

An updated list of COC positions, surface normals, and main beam ray vectors was created using Zemax.

A list of IO optical train component positions is in process, in conjunction with Luke Williams.

PO MIRROR & TEL

A footprint for the BS PO mirror has been established as a maximum envelope for the BS PO mirror SUS.

The heights of the BS PO mirror and ETM Telescope suspensions were determined using Zemax. and communicated to Janeen.

OPTICAL LEVER RECEIVER

I am assisting Royal Reinecke a SURF student in setting up the prototype optical lever receiver test with the 40M IFO.

From: Chris Echols <cechols@ligo.caltech.edu>

Currently working on detailed layout for BSC 1.

PO MIRROR & TEL

Built a revised SolidWorks conceptual model of the Pick-Off Mirror suspension.  Completed a revised AdLIGO conceptual version of the ETM Telescope.  Renamed the DLC assembly and components per LIGO-T030143-03-D.

Controls, Data Systems

From: Jay Heefner jay@ligo.caltech.edu

AdL CDS

  • Noise measurements of the PCIX ADCs and DACs have been started. Preliminary results show an ADC input referred noise of 10uV/rtHz with a 40Vp-p (+/-20V) maximum input and a sample rate of 16384 samples per second. This input referred noise was measured using both the standard single tone and low pass filtered white noise. In the single tone tests using a nearly full scale 100Hz sine wave the harmonics are all more than 80dB below the fundamental.
  • DAC testing will be started when the ADC tests are complete but should be ready for review at the AdL CDS meeting presently scheduled for the first week of August.

Anti-Alias and Anti-Image Chassis

  • AA and AI chassis production is currently on hold for delivery of DRV135s. One shipment has supposedly shipped. This shipment will give us enough parts to outfit HAM SAS, 40M OMC, LASTI squeezing experiment and AdL ISI at LASTI. The next shipment is scheduled for July 29. If we do not receive the first shipment soon we will need to produce partial chassis for the higher priority systems.

LASTI Squeezing Experiment

  • System wiring diagrams are started and should be completed next week after discussions with Daniel and Nergis.

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