Weekly Report for Week Ending February 22, 2007

Past Weekly Reports

There will be no LIGO Executive Committee scheduled Monday, January 26, 2007 due to the Staffing Committee Meeting scheduled for that time.

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights: LIGO & Virgo hold first joint Data Analysis Council Meeting; LIGO and Virgo issue press release on MOU that heralds an era of joint analysis!

LSC Issues (Saulson)

Last Tuesday, the joint Virgo/LIGO Data Analysis Council held its first meeting.  Co-chaired by Andrea Vicere and Maria Alessandra Papa, the group will initially focus on discussions of when to recommend the start of data sharing.

Responding to a press release issued jointly by LIGO and Virgo, news of the agreement between our two projects has started to spread. A nice piece appeared on the New Scientist web site: http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn11194-gravitational-wave-observatories-to-join-forces.html   Look for a short piece in an upcoming issue of Physics Today.

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT (Luna)

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

  • Worked with our broker in making shipping arrangements for the Noise Prototype Reaction Mass from the UK to LASTI.
  • Provided assistance to Christian Cepeda in shipping a package to Dell Computers.
  • Continued working on LIGO's Equipment Inventory @ CIT.

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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

  • Most efforts were focused on packaging and transporting documentation for the sub-basement storage move.
  • Began processing 2006 Travel Expense Report Files.
  • Scanning Update - Progress continues on scanning of miscellaneous large/bulky "C" documents on file.

FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Funaro, Brambila, Kaufman)

>From: "Funaro, Catherine" <Catherine.Funaro@caltech.edu>

>From: Florence Kaufman <fkaufman>

  • Submitted 10 Fabrication Equipment Requests mainly for the ISC and SUS efforts.
  • Prepared and submitted funding realignment authorizations requested by Project Accounting.  These realignments are required to enable billing to NSF whenever the expenditures for a particular project exceed the budget in ORACLE for that project.
  • Notified Cindy that an incorrect expenditure type had been used for a Visitor charged to LIGO Operations.  Correction is required to change it to an expenditure type for Participant Support.
  • Financial reports can be found at: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport. (For passwords contact Florence.)

SUBCONTRACTS MANAGEMENT (Jasnow, Salone)

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

  • Both Pathfinder optics polishing contracts have been signed by the contractors, CSIRO and QED, with the QED contract received and about to be signed by Caltech.  The kick-off meetings have been scheduled for March 9 with CSIRO in Sydney, Australia, and March 27 with QED in Rochester, N.Y.
  • Rod Luna, Ed Jasnow, and Carol Wilkinson finalized the letter which will accompany all of the material for Advanced LIGO which will come from outside the United States.  This includes material contributed by collaborators, as well as items purchased directly by LIGO from foreign companies.  The letter is now being reviewed by Ann Bussone of the Office of General Counsel.

PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist)

Nothing new to report.  I will distribute a "straw man" outline for the 2009-2013 LIGO Operations proposal this week.

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)

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

  • The next Staffing Committee meeting is scheduled for Monday, February 26.  All files are posted and up-to-date on the web page.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

There will be kick-off meeting of the LIGO Scafety Committee with the Adv. LIGO management team at CIT next week.

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

Summary of S5 Activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory (compiled by K. Kawabe)

High wind (up to 54 MPH) and subsequent tumbleweed bailing, together with high microseism made this week a rough one.  Duty cycle (Thu Feb/15 to Wed Feb/21 2007) of H1 was 79.4 percent with 14 - 15 Mpc inspiral binary range. For H2 it was 72.1 percent with 6 - 7 Mpc range.

Summaries: Range and Duty Cycle update. Tuesday maintenance summary.

Highlights from the LHO elog are listed below:

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

The S5 run is proceeding well, with 75 percent uptime this past week.

CDS Computing (Lisa Bogue)

  • Worked on a solaris 10 sendmail configuration for CDS machines.  This is so CDS machines can route status messages through the main ligo-la mailserver.
  • Continuing DST patching.

Enhanced/Advanced LIGO (Janeen Romie)

Reported in Advanced LIGO Section below.

LLO Outreach (John Thacker)

Began development of new activity on UV for High School students.  Prepared for and conducted two Group Visits: High School Physics and Ninth Grade Physical Science.  Prepared pre/post visit packets for each group.  Prepared and presented program for middle school Family Math Night.  Prepared for Docent training on three exhibits.  Routine exhibit maintenance

Data Analysis & Computing (Yakushin)

Storage/Condor/LDAS Administration

Reported under LDAS System Administration, see below.

Mechanical and Optical Systems (Coyne)

See Advanced LIGO

Controls and Data Systems (Bork)

See Advanced LIGO

40-Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

Mike Zucker livened up the lab for a couple of days this week.

IFO Commissioning, DC Readout, Electronics, Controls, Computers

  • Rana, Kirk and Rob continue to work on improving the locking of the PRFPMI, finding and fixing problems and noise sources.
  • Rob has been working on reducing the noise in the DC readout of the PRFPMI, by changing loop gains, etc. He worked on diagnosing the origin of the large noise peaks in the 1-2 kHz region of the DC readout noise spectrum taken last week.  His theory that it was due to DAC noise on the PZT steering mirrors turned out to be wrong.
  • Royal installed the whitening board she built for the ITM optical lever signals, with improved filtering.  Signals are now seen above the ADC electronic noise floor in the 10-1000 Hz frequency range. She also built and installed new cables.
  • Tobin, Kirk, and Rana changed the main drive resistors on all the TMs from 100 to 400 Ohms and saw the expected noise improvement of 4 at frequencies below ~ 300 Hz. (in the PRFPMI configuration with DC readout).  They tried many things to reduce the noise in the 300-3000 Hz band, without success.
  • Tobin ran Rana's scripts to repeatedly measure the DC power with the arms in the locked and unlocked state, in order to get an estimate of the losses in the arms.  Data are being analyzed.
  • There's something very wrong with the side damping on ITMX, which might be a mis-mapping of the OSEM cables.  Osamu is investigating.
  • Steve will install a HeNe laser for the BS/PRM/SRM oplevs, in the next week.  The HeNe lasers on the ETMs are much less noisy than the diode lasers we have been using. Steve will procure parts to replace the remaining diode lasers, on the ITMs.
  • There have been a fair number of problems associated with the controls computers, but Larry's group has been helpful in resolving them.

Vacuum Squeezing

  • Osamu and Go improved the alignment of the squeezed vacuum injection optics, and obtained much better mode matching into the interferometer. This in turn resulted in a much higher level of squeezing; they measured 3.5 dB of squeezing at 4 MHz.
  • Osamu and Go noise-locked the injected squeezed vacuum with the interferometer in the signal-recycled Michelson (SRMI) configuration. They observed a squeezing-enhanced noise spectrum at frequencies down to 4.5KHz, with about 2dB of broadband noise reduction. They excited the BS to simulate a GW signal at 7kHz and will use that to calibrate the spectrum. It is not certain that the noise is quantum-limited shot noise (for one thing, the spectrum isn't flat). Under investigation.

Lab Infrastructure, Bake Lab

  • Rana ordered, received, and configured two new laptops for EPICS controls in the laboratory.
  • Valera supplied us with a new IR viewer that turns off automatically.
  • Steve is following up on all the action items identified at last week's safety audit. He has also compiled a detailed inventory of all lasers in the lab.
  • Steve obtained five more laser safety glasses with appropriate protection for both IR and green light (from the squeezer SHG). He is researching dual-wavelength glasses which have better visibility.
  • Bob's on vacation this week.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

Greg is working on the spot- size measurement, and Eric is at Hanford for a scimon shift.

LASTI (Ottaway)

ISI

  • Laurent  worked on the temporary pusher to load the blades with the new shims as well as on the future pusher (2 screws) for stage 0-1 blades. Work on the ISI stage 1-2 matlab model and added the riser stiffness, results match Ken's calculations well.
  • Fabrice is working on the calculations and measurements that enable us to compute with more accuracy the shims as a function of the change of load. He's currently checking the calculations by measurements of  the tip angle of the blade against the load  using  an optical lever
  • Rich checked the actuator drive circuit to try to understand why the compliance seems to be a function of the drive amplitude

Quad-Triple Cavity

  • The triple that will be mounted on the HAM SAS platform was extracted from the Xend a located ready to be installed in the Yend. We mounted the full triple on its spacer block and coarsely positioned it in Yend HAM chamber. Fine alignment between the quad and the triple will occur on Friday and Monday.

HAM SAS

  • A source of rubbing was found between the magnet and the coil of one of the actuators. This was in all likelihood caused when this particular corner of HAM SAS was somehow mis-matched with the ball and socket joint possibly occuring during shipping. When this was fixed the modal spectrum looked a lot cleaner although still clearly not a long cartesian lines. Riccardo, Dennis and Alberto diagnosed the non-working stepper motors and found a mis-wiring had occurred. This was fixed and the stepper motors now work.

CIT Science Group (Weinstein)

_________________________

Xavier Siemens

This update is for the last three weeks. In no particular order:

  • Visited Case Western in Cleveland recently for a few days. Gave seminar.
  • Found and re-made some h(t) for Drew (for the S5 inspiral search) & dealt with lots of h(t) unpleasantness.
  • Worked with some folks (Irit Maor and Tanmay Vachaspati) at Case on cosmic string microlensing. Work in progress.
  • Worked some more on GW SB from preheating. Turns out some people at Case were also interested in this problem and so now we are collaborating on this as well. Work in progress.
  • Worked on Einstein@home data set
  • Spent time with Pinkesh and Rejean working on re-sampling technique for pulsar searches.
  • Spent time on h(t) review.  Started on creating DQ flags based on fractional differences between h(t) and h(f) for S4 h(t) data.
  • Read Joe Polchinski's latest paper on cosmic string small scale structure in detail.

________________________

Eirini Messaritaki

  • Worked on the null-stream veto; trying to get null-stream results from the accidental coincidences of the first epoch of S5.
  • Worked with Vibha on the detection of spinning waveforms with non-spinning templates.

_______________________

Gregory Mendell

________________________

Rejean Dupuis

  • generated time-frequency spectrograms for all of 2006 and looking for interesting features (www.ligo.caltech.edu/~rejean/S5/spectrograms/2006)
  • working with Pinkesh to set up long FT F-statistic code

Laboratory Computing (Anderson)

LDAS Software (Maros)

  • Efforts to solve PR#2946 which deals with the diskcacheAPI falsely reporting gaps at either end of the frame query have been slow. A solution that was under testing consistently cased core dumps due to an introduction of a race condition. The code has been reverted to gain insight into the problem.
  • The C++ version of kill is being incorporated into the TCL layer. When completed, it will remove another instance where the TCL layer was doing system calls via a forked process.
  • System testing for LDAS was done using version 1.8.460. The single regression test pr2121.tcl failed due to file permission problems by user install in removing the frame directory before running test case 5 as the directory and files were output by user ldas.  Fixed by just removing the frame files in the directory instead of entire directory.
  • System testing on the Opteron platforms continues using ldasbox1 and ldas-suntest1 without globus. ldas-suntest1 DB2 9.1 insertions worked initially but soon jobs were stuck in metadataAPI and built up a huge queue as well as rejecting jobs. DB2 had to be restarted.
  • Jobs ran fine on ldas-test running ldas 1.8.0 with the usual bad symbol error from datacond and the job timed out reading from tcl socket which was fixed in higher versions.
  • The dcmangle related scripts were modified to run under various environments: opterondata-dev, ldas-test with ldas 1.8.0, and linux. All the changes have been committed to cvs.
  • After OS upgrades for DST issues, ldas on ldas-cit was restarted and some test jobs were run. The dataPipeline jobs had to be aborted as it hangs in the eventmon waiting for wrapper to send data over if there is a wrapper. The other commands (createRDS, putMetaData and getMetaData, getFrameElements, conditionData) all worked fine.
  • The script which generated the system status page reporting on the nightly builds has been updated to properly report the word size (PR#3071).

LDAS System Administration (Anderson)

Caltech

(Dan Kozak)

  • Republished h(t) files at LHO (ongoing).
  • Finished relabeling 2nd CIT copy of A4 L1 data tapes.
  • More tapes for shelf storage at LHO.
  • Did shutdown/restart of SAM/segfind/LDR/rls/mysql on ldas-cit and dataserver-cit so they could be updated to Sol10U3.
  • Did regular tape ingest, plus ingest of data that had been mailed/put in silo but never ingested here at CIT (caught by Greg's GapCheck).
  • Updated PDFs of home directory usage so users could find out where the disk space had gone.
  • Did a throttled rm of several million files for user lindy.
  • Called in a bunch of parts to sun (3510 PS, 3510 disk, 880 disk).

(Phil Ehrens)

  • Test modifications to TAR form requested by Albert Lazzarini.
  • Various grid certificate related tasks.
  • System upgrade support.

(Erik Espinoza)

  • Replaced disk in node118 (p0).
  • Moved Condor negotiator, collector & postgresql from ldas-grid to ldas-condor.
  • Installed/Configured new ldas-grid (x4600m2).
  • Installed/Configured new ldas-pcdev1 (x4600m2).
  • Updated Condor config files to match new hardware configuration.
  • Upgraded cluster to Condor 6.8.4.
  • Updated all nodes for DST changes.
  • Tested speed of software raid, hardware raid and single disk configuration on x4600m2.
  • Sent logs to Condor team regarding failing jobs.
  • Testing and configuring trunking on Solaris/Cisco.

MIT

(Fred Donovan)

  • More ganglia.
  • Cfg smartmon for 3ware on data1, with sendmail cfg.
  • Data1-11 will be primary data stores (not nodes).

Livingston

(Igor Yakushin)

  • Inserted the missing segment number (for a few science segments) into the database.
  • Working on implementing segment database changes.
  • Weekly tape export/import/shipment.

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

  • As a part of routine sys admin work, I fixed a few gaps in the transfer of RDS and trend data to CIT. These are now up-to-date. I am still working on the LDG 4.4 release.

(Ben Johnson)

  • Working on Matlab NDS client. So far, I have a beta client that works under 64-bit Linux. Cleanups still need to be made so that it can be used in multi-hour Matlab sessions under Linux, Solaris, and Mac. A windows client is still on the drawing board.
  • I put an FrCheck test into the publication script, and turned it on for H1 and H2 h(t). L1 h(t) FrCheck will be activated today.
  • Changed ldas-grid's kernel back to 2.6.17-1.2143_FC4 from the custom 2.6.19.2. This increased disk I/O bandwidth by an order of magnitude.  Unfortunately this is only a UP kernel; it will need to be switched next Tuesday.
  • Put the ldbdd servers under SMF at LHO. The setup is not ideal, my original plan was to have the servers dependant upon a "DB2" service; now the ldbdd services are only dependant upon the ligo-server milestone. Hopefully this will not cause too much trouble in practice.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT

(Fred)

  • gar file server erratic: decommissioned and moved to nova as new fs with firewalling
  • testing 4 scsi hdd (2X181, 2X140) on pellinore for tubera additions (2X140 reports errors)
  • local matlab installs on gc computers (from prev client/server (gar))
  • DST patches downloaded (Friday pm or Sunday am install planned)
  • Housecleaning (old equipment -> deactivated)
  • NSF conference Thursday/Friday

Hanford

(Christine)

  • Continuing to install the DST patches.  Decided to install the complete Security and Recommended patch clusters on as many Solaris computers as possible.  Installed the cluster on the file server on Monday.  Didn't get to all the servers last Tues. so I will install the cluster on the mail server and the LSC sandbox computer next Tuesday. Will install the cluster on the DHCP server this weekend.  Had to upgrade two loaner laptops to WinXP because there is no DST patch for Win2k.  They needed to be upgraded anyway.
  • Getting quotes to renew and upgrade the service contract for the Cisco equipment.  Currently have two contracts that will be combined and extended for three years at 24x7x4 hours on-site.
  • Renewed the maintenance contract for the Mathematica network license.
  • Continuing work on building the new router, servers and disk systems.

Caltech

(Mike)

  • Continued work on updating servers with DST patches.
  • Worked on a Sun box over in 40Meter. This had a corrupted library that was preventing this system from booting. I ended up upgrading this unit which corrected this issue.
  • Working on DCC nightly-process computer. I’m working on putting together another computer just in case the current system has some hardware/system issues. Larry has requested this.
  • Configured a new wireless access point for Wilson House.
  • Other user support plus sysadmin tasks

(Christian)

  • Installed monthly Microsoft security patches on all Windows 2000 and 2003 servers.
  • Calum Torrie- returned laptop back to LIGO. I created a backup and re-imaged it with our standard image.
  • Irene Baldon- Needed a loaner laptop to be configured so she can login remotely and work from home.
  • 3flr W/B- Replaced broken DVD burner on the scanner/ CD burner system.
  • Toner cartridge replacements- 40 Meter, Irene Baldon and Albert Lazzarini
  • Re-imaged laptops that were returned to the loaner pull this week.
  • Worked on the Spam Filters with Mike and Larry.
  • Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.

(Veronica)

  • LSC:  Updates of the databases of publications and technical papers. Various web updates.  Assisted Dorothy with postings of the MOUs. Updates of LSC-related mailing lists.  Ongoing support of the March meeting.
  • LIGO:  Website updates.  Set up a mailing list for CDS.  Assisted Sydney with file transfer from his laptop for web posting.  High-res images for two popular science magazines.
  • CaJAGWR:  Website updates/ user support.

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Advanced LIGO Systems

Modeling and Simulation (Hiro Yamamoto) hiro@ligo.caltech.edu

Static IFO simulation (Hiro)

  • The diffractive loss due to the thermal deformation has been studied. For the symmetric cavity (2076-2076), the loss is small, ~ a few ppm. The mode matching loss can increase to 15ppm x Finess level when the same input beam is used for a cold and a hot cavity. A small tilt, ~10 nano radian, does not induce any observable diffractive loss.

Mechanical Simulation for advanced LIGO (Sany and SLU team)

  • Continued e2e modeling of AdvLIGO triple suspensions modal control for the Yaw DOF. Found a bug in the e2e code that I previously made and fixed it. Consequently, with the same impulse input to the suspension point and the same estimator/control filter settings, the time series of the three masses' yaw motions are identical to the corresponding time series obtained with the Simulink model developed by Laurent Ruet.

modeler (simulation engine) and ALFI (GUI front-end)  (Melody, Bruce, Hiro)

[ UserDefinedPrimitive is an e2e equivalent of MATLAB MEX-file extension, i.e., adding new functionality to the engine program without modifying the engine code. ]

  • The implementation of the UserDefinedPrimitive has been revisited.
  • A better implementation has been chosen to implement which makes the customized UsefDefinedPrimitive more easier to develop and use. This can be implemented along the line of the development plan of current alfi (e2e GUI front-end) and no modification of modeler (e2e simulation engine) is needed.
  • Melody has been working on improving the UserDefinePrimitive editor, and Bruce has been working with Hiro to implementing the UserDefinedPrimitive in modeler.
  • As the highest priority, they will work together to upgrade alfi to support the new design of UserDefinedPrimitive.

CDS

From: Rolf Bork rolf@ligo.caltech.edu

ISI

  • STS2 Test box design in progress.
  • One ISI course/fine driver chassis is complete; Fab of additional units in progress.
  • Guralps cables have shipped from Europe and should arrive soon.
  • GS-13/L4C Emulation module: (Ben) I thought that I had finished the schematic, but there was a part that I was going to use that is only available in batches of 2500.  I have redesigned for a more common part, and will alter the PCB tomorrow.  I'll send it off for fab soon.
  • GS-13/L4C Control Module - The schematic is about done, I just want to look it over one last time before making a PCB.  It should be done tomorrow.

SUS

  • Seven satellite amp. modules in fab.
  • Electronics design review comments sent to UK.

HAM SAS

  • Stepper motor control hardware/software assembled and undergoing tests at CIT; Alex will travel to MIT for installation at Lasti next week.

CDS Infrastructure

  • Travelled to LHO for AdvLigo CDS design requirements meetings with site staff last week; in progress of adding discussion  items to requirements document.
  • As a follow on to last weeks discussions at LHO, plan to meet with S. Anderson next Tuesday to discuss data retrieval in support of ops and commissioning activities.

Prestabilized Laser

From: Peter King <pking@ligo.caltech.edu>

  • I am still working ym way through the pages of documentation for programming the Beckhoff Automation interface.
  • In checking my numbers in the draft PSL laser safety plan, I discovered I made a mistake (over estimate) and that the optical density I required was too high - not that that's a bad thing.  Checking over the latest ANSI Z136.1-2000 standard I was surprised to find that the requirements were relaxed over the 1993 standard.  I hope to check this out next week. Otherwise my numbers are consistent with a commercial program.
  • In working on the draft safety plan I have also begun a sample SOP for the Advanced LIGO Laser.

Seismic Isolation

From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

BSC Seismic Isolation Testing

  • We have recieved quotes for the UHV cleaning of the large parts from Galli & Morelli. The cost is in line with our other quotes and the delivery time having them process our parts is 8 weeks compared to 12 weeks for the other options.
  • The second set of shims will be installed next week which adjust for the full payload and to reduce cross coupling. Our target date for starting the disassembly and sending it out for cleaning is the week of march 5th. The crates have been recieved for shipping all parts.
  • Additional high vacuum cabling and connectors have been ordered for installation into the BSC chamber.

HAM single stage isolation system

  • We have accepted the design and performance parameters submitted by HPD on 2/20 and requested they complete the design details.

From: Dennis Coyne coyne@ligo.caltech.edu

Subject: HAM-SAS weekly report

  • We have mounted new stiffer anti-tilt springs and have found improved angular stability. We discovered that the cause of the abnormal behavior of one of the vertical Geometric Anti-Spring (GAS) filter stages was due to contact/rubbing of the LVDT coil. This contact occurred at the stage with the ball-and-socket interface where we know there is a high lateral force due to the interface plate bending. By re-positioning the magnet ring structure we were able to get reasonable clearance. The optics table with payload now appears to float normally and has been leveled.
  • The stepper motor wiring has been corrected and all stepper motors now function properly.
  • We are in the process of taking transfer function measurements.

From: Ben Abbott abbott_b@ligo.caltech.edu

All new activity since last weekly is written in red.

40m

DC PhotoDiode

  • Have finished the new DCPD schematic and pcb layout.  I await feedback on the schematic that was sent out to interested 40m people.

HAM-SAS

Custom Electronics chassis: (# needed + #spares)

  • LVDT Driver (2 + 1) -2 Installed the spare is stuffed, but needs boxing and testing
  • LVDT Interface (2) Installed
  • Stepper Motor Interface (2 + 1)  - Installed
  • Coil Driver Interface (1) - Installed
  • QPD Whitening (2 + 1) - 2 Installed, 1 spare here, needs testing and boxing.
  • QPDs (4 + 1) - 4 in electronics lab, 1 is just a bare board and I'll keep it for a spare board.
  • Guralps Interface (1 + 1) - 1 installed, 1 built but untested.
  • AA Interface Rev 4 (1) - Installed
  • AA Interface Rev B5 (1) - Installed
  • AI Interface Rev 3 (1) - Installed
  • Coil Driver (4 + 1) - Installed
  • In-Vac Breakout boards (2) Installed

Commercial Electronics

  • Opteron Processor (1) - Installed
  • Stepper Motor Driver (4) - Installed
  • I/O Chassis (1) - Installed
  • Power Supplies (2) - Installed

Miscellaneous

  • In-Vac Accuglass cables (13) - Installed
  • Guralps cables - Specialty cables from Guralps Instruments Ordered 12/21 quoted a 30 day lead, but they now say that they have been shipped from Europe, and should arrive here very soon.
  • Special cable connecting the LVDT 25-pin Witness board connector to the 9-pin ADC connector - Installed
  • The 5 L-COM cables that were short were delivered to Alberto last week.  Marie told me that Riccardo came and picked them up after Alberto had left for the day.  I assume that Riccardo installed them.
  • The decision has been made to read back the stepper motor steps so we can keep track of the actuator position when we move the steppers.  The first stage of this effort will be to move the motors manually via the front panel, and read back the RS232 signal that records the # of steps through the PCIX adapter module to a terminal window.  We have jumped ahead to stage three which involves actually controlling the motors from epics, and reading them back there also.  This came to pass because of great efforts on the part of Alex, and because we were sent a spare to use for the test bed for the controller and a spare stepper motor. It will be shipped out on Friday, and Alex will be there next week to install it.
  • The RS232 to PCIX adapter board has arrived.  Alex has been using it to control the stepper motors.
  • Of the five coil drivers sent from Italy, two do not work.  David and Alberto have installed one of the remaining unmodified coil drivers instead. Riccardo has shipped the broken boards to me to diagnose and repair I will diagnose them as I get time.
  • I have finalized the system schematic, and it now agrees with the observed controls pinouts.

ISI

  • ISI Interface - (3 + 1) I continue to work on the schematic.
  • GS-13/L4C Emulation Module - I've thought that I had finished the schematic, but there was a part that I was going to use that is only available in batches of 2500.  I have redesigned for a more common part, and will alter the PCB tomorrow.  I'll send it off for fab soon.
  • GS-13/L4C Control Module - The schematic is about done, I just want to look it over one last time before making a PCB.  It should be done tomorrow.
  • GS-13 Boards - (many) 15 boards came back from PCB Express.  They'll get stuffed sometime soon, and delivered sometime thereafter.
  • Coil Driver - (3 + 1) (Mohana) - The Coil Driver board has been stuffed and in test.  The new interface board has arrived and been stuffed  Testing of the entire chassis will occur soon.  The metalwork has been sent out to Front Panel Express.
  • STS-2 Emulation Module - Mohana is looking at requirements for this board.
  • STS-2 Control Module - Mohana will start thinking about this module after she gathers requirements for the Emulation Module.

Suspensions

From: Norna Robertson <nroberts@ligo.caltech.edu>

  • LASTI TAC report on the long term research plan at LASTI was completed, circulated and sent to the DCC (T070031-00-R)
  • Thermal noise modelling for beamsplitter has been carried out by M Barton to see if a wire suspension could meet noise requirements, thus avoiding the optical loss from the flats needed for silicate bonding, and simplifying the construction.  Estimate depends on how much coupling from vertical to longitudinal (will vary with wedge angle), but could just meet target at 10 Hz. However highest vertical mode falls above 10 Hz (~16 Hz in current model).
  • Estimate of required person-months for quad suspension assembly (clean, metal-only) carried out with J Romie and C Torrie, for use in comparison to costbook number. Triple assembly estimate underway.
  • Quad noise prototype test plan outlined with input from J Greenhalgh and K Strain.

From: Janeen Romie <janeen@ligo-la.caltech.edu>

  • Working on OMC design. Safety stop design OKed; moving forward on bracket details. Last week, facilitated daily meetings with the engineers. Checked some drawings. Provided structure hole dimensions to Mike Gerfen. Answered some questions of his and Ric Paniaguas yesterday. I am the point of contact and procurement person for packages to Valley Precision from Calum and Chris. Facilitated DCN for initial release of some of Chris's drawings.
  • Answered some questions of Bram's for tip-tilt suspensions.
  • Still working with Carol and Florence on opening the 8 fabrication accounts pertaining to Advanced and Enhanced LIGO. Working with Justin on the Birmingham and initial LIGO osem count for prototypes and production.
  • Provided labor estimates for quad and triple assembly tasks.

From: k mailand kmailand@ligo.caltech.edu

  • The CES shop is continuing work on the LASTI  tooling assemblies.
  • Ian will deliver his outer support frame to CIT the first week in March, we will use it to test our assembly.

From: Helena Armandula ahelena@ligo.caltech.edu

Advanced LIGO - SUS

  • Received the new mask for the electrostatic drive. We'll have a trial coating run (at no charge) at Navitar to see how it works.
  • The modifications to the ERGO arm will be finished next week and the arm will be shipped to LASTI
  • The shipping box for the arm is almost ready, Ken Mailand supported this effort by overseeing the construction of the shipping container.

Core Optics

From: Helena Armandula ahelena@ligo.caltech.edu

Advanced LIGO - Coatings

  • We expect some 2"dia. mirrors from Lyon. The scatter measured in Lyon is very low, we'll be testing them at Caltech to compare results.

Advanced LIGO - Contamination Control

  • I am performing some tests to evaluate possible contamination caused by the UHV foil used for wrapping cleaned parts. Contrary to my expectations, I can not see (under a microscope) particles generated by crumpling or tearing the foil on top of a clean substrate. Next, I will repeat the tests while running a particle counter.

Auxiliary Optics

From: Michael Smith smith@ligo.caltech.edu

OPTICAL LAYOUT

  • I revised the stable RC optical layout based on the criteria of achieving minimum wedge angles for the BS (1.66 deg) and choosing the ITM wedge (1.45 deg) plus CP wedge (0.61 deg) so that the PRM wedge was eliminated. I am in the process of revising the cost comparison between the stable recycling cavity and the unstable RC cavity.

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

  • Mike Landry, Sam Waldman and I performed measurements of the test mass drumhead mode frequencies as H2's laser power was modulated.  We also tried to collect data with the TCS power modulated but lock losses severely limited what we could do.  Analysis of the data has only just begun.

Input Optics

For additional information about this report, contact Albert Lazzarini or Phil Lindquist