Weekly Report for Week Ending March 8, 2007

Past Weekly Reports

There will be no LIGO Executive Committee Monday, March 12, 2007.

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights

LSC Issues (Saulson)

Next week (19-22 March) we will hold the first joint meeting between the LSC and the Virgo collaboration. I hope to see many of you there in Baton Rouge.

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Lloyd)

MOUs completed, posted and submitted to DCC this reporting period:

MOU

Attachments

Columbia

DAT, OPS, OUT, Z

Florida

ACF, DAT, OPS, OPT, OUT, Z

LaTech

OPS, OUT, Z

TexasB

DAT, OPS, OUT, Z

 

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT (Luna)

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

  • Provided assistance to the Detector Group (G. Billingsley) with shipping of one Fused Silica Blank to QED Technologies, NY.  Account Number LIGO.OPT-5.4-NSFLIGO.FY02ON.
  • Provided assistance to the Detector Group (G. Billingsley) with shipping of one Fused Silica Blank to Surface Finishes, IL.  Account Number LIGO.OPT-5.4-NSFLIGO.FY02ON.
  • Provided assistance to J. Miller and G. Salone with the packing and shipping of miscellaneous parts to Digi-Key.  Account Number LIGO.LFNS-5.11-NSFLIGO.FY02ON.
  • Provided assistance to T. Fricke and P. Willems with the packing and shipping of one IR Acousto-Optic Modulator to IntraAction Corp., IL. LIGO.SUS-5.10-NSFLIGO.FY02ON.
  • Provided assistance to the Director's Office with packing and shipping of three Laptops and three Projectors for the LSC meeting @ LLO.  Account Number LIGO.DIR 1.1.1 NSFLIGO.FY02ON.
  • Provided assistance to the Detector Group (H. Armandula) with shipping and the preparation of a Commercial Invoice for US Customs Clearance of sixteen Fused Silica Substrates to Lyon, France.  Account Number LIGO.OPT - 5.4 - NSFLIGO.FY02ON.
  • Assisted the CDS group (J.Heefner) with shipping and the preparation of a Commercial Invoice for US Customs Clearance of one Analog Controller to the Australian National University. Project incurred no cost for shipping.
  • Provided assistance to the Detector Group (G. Billingsley) with shipping and the preparation of a Commercial Invoice for US Customs Clearance of one Fused Silica Blank to CSIRO Australian Centre for Precision Optics.  Account Number LIGO.OPT-5.4-NSFLIGO.FY02ON.
  • Provided assistance to the Detector Group (H. Armandula) with shipping of a crate containing the ERGO arm to MIT (D. Ottaway).  Account Number LIGO.PRLAS - 5.15 - NSFLIGO.FY02CA.

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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

  • Completed processing and scanning 2006 Travel Expense Reports.
  • Progress continues on scanning of miscellaneous large/bulky "C" & "M" documents on file.

Update to Current Document Management System (Lindquist)

No meeting was scheduled this past week.  A meeting has been scheduled for Friday, March 9, 2007.

FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Funaro, Brambila, Kaufman)

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

>From: Florence Kaufman <fkaufman>

  • Completed and posted the monthly report for February for Operations and R&D on the network.
  • Completed and sent out report for the Visitor Award as of the end of February.
  • Completed and sent out various reports for Discretionary accounts, I2U2, and Low Noise Awards.
  • Sent a list of budget realignments required for seven new fabrication accounts requested for the ISC and SUS efforts to Project Accounting, these realignments are the final step required before the accounts can be set up.
  • Sent out an inquiry as to why the fabrication account that we had requested for LIGO.ELOME/5.10.3.1 NSFLIGO.FY02CA has not been processed as yet.
  • Prepared an Intra Award Cost Transfer form for travel expenditures for a visitor that had been charged in error to the HSAS account.
  • Received two new fabrication equipment request forms from Phil Willems; however the forms have not been submitted as yet because revisions are needed to the requests.
  • Updated the list of active account numbers. However the list will not be posted on the Internal Bulletin Board until the 7 new fabrication accounts have been set up, which is supposed to be done tomorrow.
  • Working on a new report that will provide a level of detail for the AdLIGO projects that is similar to the level of detail of expenditures provided for the Hanford and Livingston facilities accounts in the monthly financial report. 
  • 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>

  • Working with Ken Mason to process the change order for the cleaning and baking of the seismic Isolation parts.
  • Waiting for Galli & Morelli final proposal with total cost including hours for each task.

PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist)

LIGO is preparing a proposal to the NSF for Continuing Operations for FY 2009 through FY 2013.  We reviewed a "straw man" outline and suggested writing assignments during the Excomm this week.  The due date for the first draft of the text is June 15.  We are preparing a web page with pointers to all the applicable documentation.

CHANGE CONTROL/CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT (Lindquist)

  • There are no open change requests.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

>From: Bill Tyler tyler@ligo.caltech.edu

The LIGO Safety Committee held their first meeting this week.  The enthusiastic group of attendees discussed and assigned actions items for a number of issues and concerns pertaining to the LIGO Laboratory safety program and plans.  The Safety Committee will continue to meet every two weeks (same week day and time) to discuss and resolve to the extent that we can, LIGO safety issues and concerns.  A list of topics for future discussion/action by the committee was also initiated.

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

Wonderful week. Duty cycle (Thu Mar/1 to Wed Mar/7 2007) of H1 was 92.7 percent with typically 15 Mpc inspiral binary range. For H2 it was 92.0 percent with 6 - 7 Mpc range.

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

Highlights from the LHO elog (though it was pretty quiet and there's not too much to report)

Outreach

  • An outreach event on Sat. Mar/03/2007, "Black Holes for Everyone", was quite successful.  According to Dale Ingram, we had roughly 250 guests.

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

S5 Status (Brian O'Reilly)

  • We had a very good week with 84 percent spent in Science Mode. During Tuesday maintenance we replaced two of the old-style optical levers (on ITMX and ITMY) with two of the new style. We now have one spare of each type on hand.
  • The ilog server crashed on Tuesday morning due to a disk failure. It has since been repaired, and restored from backup. There is a short period from 3AM Tuesday morning until around 10AM local time, where files were lost. No critical posts were lost.
  • Most of our CDS computers including all the critical ones are now patched for the new DST change time. There are a couple of machines at the end stations, which are rarely used, which still require patching.

CDS Computing (Lisa Bogue)

  • Finished up the dst patching. This included upgrading 4 machines from solaris 8 to 9.
  • Replaced the ilog server.  Unfortunately, the old server's disk died before the new server was finished.  We had downtime in the ilog because of that.  Ultimately, only a few hours of data on from 06mar07 was lost.  Thanks to Bruce Sears for helping get the new server production ready.

Safety & Security (Rich Riesen)

  • Found no site nor laser safety concerns this reporting peroid.

Outreach (John Thacker)

  • Prepared and delivered one Middle School teacher professional development program: ABC Connections Math Science Partnership
  • Prepared and delivered programs to two High School groups
  • Prepared program and materials for Zone 10 SPS meeting
  • Worked on SEC web page: uploading pictures of school groups and pre- visit activities
  • Prepared documents for RET summer program
  • Coordinated SURF program candidate selections
  • Prepared for upcoming NSF Site visit: Compiling data
  • Planned program and preparing activities for visit to local elementary school Young Astronauts Club
  • Conducted a public tour with Peter Flynn (Naval Research Lab) and discussed outreach ideas
  • Prepared pre-visit packets for upcoming school groups
  • Prepared NSF annual report data

LIGO computing and network security (Roddy)

Reported under General Computing, see below.

General Computing and LDAS Admin (Giardina)

Reported under General Computing, see below.

Reported under LDAS System Administration, see below.

Data Analysis & Computing (Yakushin)

Storage/Condor/LDAS admin: Reported under LDAS System Administration, see below.

Data analysis: Reported under Data Analysis activities, see below.

Mechanical and Optical Systems (Coyne)

See Advanced LIGO

Controls and Data Systems (Bork)

See Advanced LIGO

40-Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

IFO Commissioning, DC readout, Electronics, Controls, Computers

  • Tobin has been commissioning our auto-dither-alignment system. He has written a variety of scripts to configure the controls, apply angular excitations (dithers in the 4-7 Hz band) to the suspended optics and PZT input steering mirrors, and use the system to digitally demodulate signals from the DC photodiodes. He tried some excitations and had trouble getting good coherence. Under investigation.
  • Our Main MOPA laser lost ~1.5 watts of power on Tuesday night, apparently due to a sharp drop in the NPRO power. This may be due to the NPRO pump diode dying, although so far, 2 days later, it's holding steady at the lower power. We have to be prepared with a source of a spare to replace our NPRO if it dies.
  • Tobin applied DST patches to the linux control computers in the lab, and Larry and Mike are doing the same for the Suns.
  • Rob and Alex are debugging a problem with autoburt causing it to die spontaneously.
  • Alex and Sam have installed code in our suspension controllers to excite the "pringle" mode of the optic (UL-UR+LR-LL), as part of a study of upconversion / Barkhausen noise.

IFO Modeling

DC Detection

  • Ben has re-designed the pcb layout for the DC photodiode preamp, incorporating some part choice suggestions from Rana. He'll send it out for fab by early next week.

Vacuum Squeezing

  • Osamu and go were able to directly drive the beamsplitter at 50 kHz to simulate a GW signal in the signal-recycled Michelson (SRMI) configuration.
  • After a couple of nights of failing to lock the SRMI due to high microseismic noise, they were able to lock the SRMI, implement the noise-locking servo, and make measurements with injected squeezed vacuum.
  • They measured broadband squeezing-enhancement in the SRMI continuously from 40kHz to the end of the SR785 detection band (100kHz). They demonstrated an increase in S/N by decreasing the shot noise level by about 3dB and retaining the strength of a simulated GW signal at 50kHz.
  • The theoretically predicted shot noise level agrees with the measured noise level of the SRMI at frequencies above 40kHz. They also made sure that it's shot noise by doubling the interferometer LO power twice and showing it goes up by 3dB each time. At low frequencies below 30kHz, the noise level goes up by 6dB, which indicates it's laser noise or interferometer length noise.
  • They also calibrated the strain sensitivity of the SRMI using the known strength of the injected simulated GW signal.
  • They will be repeating their measurements and making more checks, but this looks like the real deal. The first squeezing-enhanced suspended-mass interferometer GW detector!

Lab Infrastructure, Bake Lab

  • Steve completed an inventory and photo album of all the lasers in the laboratory.
  • Steve and Tobin installed several beam dumps on the PSL table, and checked the PSL enclosure interlock.
  • The PSL enclosure interlock does not latch when it is tripped off. Ben ordered a relay and switch for the PSL enclosure interlock so it operates in the desired manner. When these come in, he'll install them.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

Nothing significant to report this week.

LASTI (Ottaway)

ISI

  • Rich, Fabrice and Laurent are doing once last round of compliance matrix measurements on the ISI with the new shims to gain more insight of what this does and compare it to the model. Lee Cardenas is visiting to help Myron and Bob get set for dismantling the ISI starting next week in preparation for cleaning.

HAM SAS

  • This week we continued controls development now that we have a stable plant to work on.  We also installed that last of the electronics hardware that enabled the ground to be monitored using Guralp seismometers.

Quad/Triple

  • The quad triple pendulum has been aligned with a 632nm laser, this afternoon we anticipate switching to Nd:YAG.

Ponderomotive

  • The vacuum work on this experiment is completed and they are anxiously waiting the conclusion of the other  vacuum work so that the LASTI vacuum can be evacuated and commissioning of this experiment can start.

CIT Science Group (Weinstein)

Eirini Messaritaki

  • I started testing the performance of the null-stream veto for injections and for glitches in the S5 data. I worked with Vibha on the detection of spinning BBH binaries with non-spinning templates. Specifically, we are trying to quantify how much one gains in efficiency by loosening the chi-sq test parameters.
  • I started working on the detection of gravitational waves from binaries that are eccentric when they enter the LIGO band.

Stefan Ballmer

  • Posted a document summarizing the maximum-likelihood spherical harmonics analysis for a stochastic background. http://tinyurl.com/ynuhd4 The stochastic group intends to implement this by this summer.

Duncan Brown

Last three weeks:

  • Did a week of shifts up at LHO
  • Visited Alessandra Buonanno in Maryland to help her and Yi Pan get  started with inspiral analysis
  • Prepared and gave a colloquium at Syracuse Continued to work on numerical relativity waveforms
  • Finishing a paper on astrophysics of IMRI formation and rates
  • Helped Diego get his PTF filtering code in LAL
  • Did a careful review of the S3/S4 joint BNS paper
  • Investigated the use of compression in the inspiral pipeline to minimize disk usage

Kent Blackburn

Open Science Grid Activities:

  • Group attended Open Science Grid All-Hands-Consortium Meeting this week at the San Diego Super Computing Center.  Lead sessions on client tools for the OSG and international partners.
  • Attended the OSG Council Meeting along with Warren Anderson from University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.  Presented financial status of the OSG.  Presented LIGO status and usage on the road to meeting the LIGO scientific milestone on the OSG.
  • Interviewed a strong candidate to replace departing grid computing technical staff.

Xavier Siemens

  • Finalized S4 h(t) DQ flags for review committee Worked on S5 V3 h(t) generation:
    • Writing code for new and improved frames (as per review committee recommendations) Looked over Eiichi Hirose's H1 digital filters and scripts for the various V3 epochs (4 for H1). They look good!
    • Started work on use of whitened DARM_CTRL to make h(t):

1. generated digital FIR filter for the inverse of the whitening filter,

2. modifiying lal/packages/tools/src/ComputeStrain.c and lalapps/src/calibration/ComputeStrainDriver.c to use DARM_CTRL (in progress)

    • More fun stuff along these lines, such as proposing improved frame contents, updating DAG generators and configuration files...
  • Finished fixing stochastic PRL proofs should be published next week or so! :)  Spent time finding missing S5 C02 h(t) data for Shourov.
  • Spent time with Pinkesh on re-sampling

Patrick Sutton

  • Adding simulations capabilities to X-Pipeline GRB processing scripts.  Also debugging the script and making robust for other users and for clusters other than CIT.  Was to show him how to run the GRB script.  Began processing of LIGO-Virgo WSR1 (project IIB) exchanged data.
  • Launched X-Pipeline/GRB jobs for GRB 070201 (the GRB that occurred near the line of sight with M31).

Other:

  • Tracking down S3 and S4 authors.
  • Tracking down scimons for CIT shifts.

Laboratory Computing (Anderson)

LDAS Software (Maros)

  • Getting the pre-release of LDAS out onto ldas-cit revealed a couple of overlooked packages. Python had to be built for the Solaris x86 platform and LDAS had to be modified to detect the installation. Although not strictly needed, the version of globus toolkit has been upgraded to 4.0.4.TCL code has been put in place to work around the issue of tclglobus not producing TCL events for some of the commands (PR#3077).Unsupported resource limits are now flagged with a purple ball. System testing was done using version 1.8.474 of LDAS. All tests completed as expected. The summary page was edited to remove obsolete comments. Several obsolete tests, nodes/user tests, locked segment, and sft, have been removed from the test summary page. The burstwrapper has been removed from dataPipeline testing as the code always fails and the code base is unsupported. The createRDS test has been modified to use S5 data.
  • Have resumed testing of the python version of cacheDump.

LDAS System Administration (Anderson)

Caltech(Dan Kozak)

  • Republished more h(t) files at LHO (more to go).Replaced a second 3510 power supply .Did some testing with the 6140s.Ejected tapes at LHO for shelf storage.  Tried to debug problem with ldas-cit (replaced CPU board, removed CPU board) and restarted services after crash.  Evaluated CPU boards in old dataserver-cit (diagnostic boot).Helped replace ldas-cit with old dataserver-dev box after 2nd crash, restarted services.  Did more tape repacking at CIT.Set up peaches for Ed Maros' testing of diskcacheAPI.  Started talking to Imation about warranty replacement of tapes.
  • Released files for Duncan Brown.

(Phil Ehrens)

  • Various certificate related duties.  System upgrade and DST patch maintenance.  Patched LDAS manager and generic API's to support group readability of LDAS configuration files.
  • Feature enhancements to TAR cgi per Albert's request.

(Erik Espinoza)

  • Requeued the open ticket with Cisco TAC, brought new tech up to speed.  Assisted Larry in building second scanning server.  Monitored scanning servers closely with Larry.  Wrote documentation on various scanning mail related services.  Assisted Dwayne w/ NIS+ & Fedora Updates.  Configured webmail on eltanin, produced SSL CSR for Larry to get certificate from CA.  Hardened/installed php on ldas-jobs.
  • Looked into Cisco GC 6500 Switch.

MIT(Fred Donovan)

  • A few more smartmon installations to monitor disk issues.

Livingston(Igor Yakushin)

  • Gateway and dataserver were upgraded to Solaris 10 update 3 and patched. All linux machines were updated.
  • Condor was updated to 6.8.4.

(Dwayne Giardina)

  • modifications to cluster_mon application  for disk I/O and cluster information, still need to add network traffic reporting.... open to suggestions for improvements   http://ldas-gridmon.ligo-la.caltech.edu/cluster_mon/yum update on all LDAS linux machines.  I overlooked a flag in a config file, and Igor had to run the update a second time to complete the DST patch.  nodes 95, 158 and 159 are down after DST patches.  I am going to be working on them todaynode190 remains down, memory test yielded no errors.
  • tape eject and shipment

Hanford(Greg Mendell)

(Ben Johnson)

  • Continuing work on Windows Matlab NDS client. Purchased "Win32 System Programming" by Johnson M Hart, which provides descriptions of the Win32 API and mappings between Win32 and POSIX+UNIX. Upgrading dataserver to Sol10 U3 (plus recent kernel and network patches). Dataserver is the only host at LDAS@LHO not to have the DST patch. Host certificates on ldas-grid expired and were kindly renewed by Phil.
  • Ldas-condori was properly installed, though it is not running any condor daemons presently.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT (Fred)

  • Finished up main DST upgrades (ligo, tubera, etc.)Installed disksuite on tubera, plus 2 scsi disks (mirrored),Begun moving home directories to new filesystem (last modified 1st) with nfs auto_homes updated.Installed docushare on amd windows server 2003 machine; Installing same on solaris virtual machine (on pellinore)  conference web page form for GH. More backup zones made on pellinore.
  • misc. user assistance

Livingston (Dwayne Giardina)

  • helped Rich track down misc. inventory items in LDAS and GC land. created an email account for a new user rounding up various equipment (projectors, power strips, etc.) for the LSC meeting DST patches replaced ink cartridge in a printer troubleshooting a few NIS+ issues after the DST patches.  User logins on chestnut are still broken.  touro was hanging on login - a reboot has cleared this. received reports of drops in network connectivity, investigation ongoing. one linux workstation won't boot after DST patches, will try to resolve soon but this is not priority spam filter cleanup
  • other usual user requests and support

LLO mail summary for 22 February - 1 March 2007:

Rejected:      10,517 (148 containing virus)

Accepted:     3,708

Total:            14,225

Hanford (Christine)

  • Finishing up the last of the DST patches.  Everything will be done by Saturday. Helping a new long term visitor get settled in.  Created a new account for him. Investigating a problem that when a user's files are shared with group permissions other users in the same group are not able to access the files.  It should work, but doesn’t. Sent in the PR for renewal and upgrade of the Cisco equipment maintenance contract. Helped a user use TechMart for the first time to purchase a new laptop.
  • Learned about Tomcat as a user needed to install it in order to interact with the I2U2 program.

CIT (Mike)

  • Continued work on upgrading sun servers with DST patches. Additional work on Primavera/Prism server. I also have the server installed back in our server room. Spent a lot of time working with Primavera getting things squared away with some licensing issues. Worked with Larry and Erick on our new mail servers.
  • Other misc. user support plus sysadmin tasks.

(Christian)

  • Charles Osthelder- Installed and configured new system with  the Ligo standard image. Todd Etzel- Getting multiple errors in Adobe acrobat 6.  Upgraded to Adobe 7.Updated the laptops that are traveling to Livingston Observatory with the latest security patches and virus definitions. Minor tweaks on the unit in the display case.
  • Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.

(Veronica)

  • LIGO:  Website update.  Roster database/mailing lists update. Addressed an issue with streaming video accessibility.  Updates of the PAC meeting website.  Working on the LAAC website updates.  A DVD of the last PMA seminar per Kip's request.  LSC:  Updates of the databases of technical papers and publications.  Website updates.  Ongoing support of the March meeting.
  • CaJAGWR:  Taped and compressed the video of the last seminar.  Updates of the website / user support.

(Bruce)

  • -iLog Maintenance:  (2.0 days) Emergency installation of perl and perl modules for iLog at LLO.
  • General checking and testing of the new iLog installation at LLO after the disk crash recovery.

(Larry)

  • Assisted Gina with a couple of different procurement/contract issues. We are still waiting on a resolution on one of the phone bills. Assisted Christine in tracking down an issue with a network contract. Made a number of small purchases for different people and working on a number of other purchases including a new laptop. Worked with Mike on a couple of different software contracts. Rebuilt the mail services on one of the new mail support units. The patches wiped out the programs and configurations which all had to be redone. There is still some work and testing to be done on the unit but it is now functional. Worked with Erik and Mike on getting the new mail server setup and in place. We also have setup a new web mail server. Spending time getting in the DST patches. We have a few more boxes to do. We've had a number of units that have had to have changes/repairs made after the patch install. This has been a real time sink. Transported equipment to various locations. Setup a couple of new accounts and made a number of modifications to the e-mail alias files. Worked on backups of different machines. Worked on the spam filters. Both on the new and old servers. The new servers have cut down the spam getting through (by about 50%) but it is gradually increasing, still a big improvement.
  • Assisted with the regular requests; updating s/w, fixing printers, moving files...

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Advanced LIGO Systems

Modeling and Simulation

From: Hiroaki Yamamoto hiro@ligo.caltech.eduStatic IFO simulation (Hiro)

  • Hiro is comparing available data and measurements of the mirror surface scattering loss more carefully.
  • Using the simulation and analytical calculations, it has been demonstrated that the losses measured by difference cavities can be different. The loss measured by the LIGO arm and that by the loss cavity (0.5m long cavity in the basement) can be different by factor of 10. This is due to the fact that the LIGO arm cone is very small (~10^-5 radian) and any scattered light outside of this code is essentially lost, but the effective cone size of the short cavity is 100 times larger and the loss is smaller. If the micro roughness spectrum is parameterized as A f^-n (n = 1.4 ~ 1.8), then the ratio of the loss comes out to be 8 ~ 40.

The results : loss from LIGO arm = 40ppm and loss from the loss cavity = 4ppm : can be consistent.

What matters is the loss in the LIGO arm, and it will be useless to investigate the reason of the difference of these 2 numbers.

Fast simulation of Dual Recycled Michelson Cavity  (Hiro, Keiko)

  • Keiko sent me the final report of her work last year, "fast simulation of FP cavity using modal model"I will refine it so that it can be used more directly for the simulation of the dual recycled Michleson cavity using modal model.
  • It will take time to get the refinement, and her original version will be posted as a preliminary version.

Modeler - e2e simulation engine and ALFI : e2e front end  (Hiro, Bruce, Melody)

  • Bruce is working to implement the UserDefinedPrimitive in the engine and Melody is updating the front end.
  • The documentation is also being written so that other people can take over the development and maintenance.

Mechanical Simulation for advanced LIGO (Sany and SLU team) (Quave)

  • Started converting P Fritschel et al’s LSC and Frequency control model (T970218-02) for the Initial LIGO Mode Cleaner (i.e., single suspension) to an e2e model by directly replacing the filters used by them with equivalent e2e’s digital filters for comparison.

(Yoshida)

  • Continued e2e modeling of AdvLIGO Input Mode Cleaner. The simple control filters previously used for the frequency-control and length-control loops have now been replaced with more sophisticated ones, similar to the ones used by P. Fritschel et al (T970218-02) in their frequency domain model for the Initial LIGO Input Mode Cleaner. Our model uses the triple suspension model developed by M. Barton, and the three MC optics (the lowest mass) are damped via actuation forces applied directly to the optics (i.e., not modal controlled). The MC seems to be locked quite steadily. More detailed analyses such as measurement of open loop transfer functions will be made      

Prestabilized Laser

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

  • Jay and I assembled the Beckhoff Automation hardware and powered it up. Unfortunately the four-channel digital input module was immolated in the process.  Otherwise we have seen the touch panel display on the network but have not been able to communicate with it.I have incorporated a few changes to the draft AdLIGO PSL Laser Safety Plan.
  • The Advanced LIGO Edition of the InnoLight 2-W NPRO has arrived.

LSC/AdL telecon notes: Stanford:

  • The effort has shifted towards work on fibre amplifiers.  A rod-based amplifier was cobbled together from existing parts and achieved an output power of ~7W.  Some problems were encountered with the polarisation stability of the fibres used.

LZH:

  • The functional prototype diode box was assembled, no photodetectors were installed however.  The amplifier alignment was completed. Stabilisation experiments on the beam profile and DC power are scheduled to start this week (the week of 3/5). A jig was made to allow machine polishing of the fibre bundles.  This would allow the fabrication of the fibre bundles to be more reproducible.  Other aspects of the mechanical design of the laser are being worked on. The good news is that with the replacement of the air handling system, the dust problem seems to have been mitigated. An alignment procedure has been worked out.  This has lead to the laser reproducibly producing between 140 - 145W of output power.

AEI:

  • After encountering delays in getting a quotation from Isomet, the decision was made to use an AOM from Crystal Technology.  The performance of the two AOMs is very similar. With the current position of the instrument racks, we may have an issue with the cable length of the NPRO umbilical cable.  The longest length tested thus far was 12m.

Control and Data Systems

From: Rolf Bork rolf@ligo.caltech.eduLIGO:

  • LOS Bias modules are at Logic-Plus for testing and should be back by 3/16

40m Lab (Ben):

  • I have re-done the pcb layout incorporating some part choice suggestions from Rana.  I'll send it out for fab by early next week.
  • I ordered a relay and switch for the PSL enclosure interlock so it operates in the desired manner.  When these come in, I'll install them.

ELigo:

  • I will be meeting w/Benno Willke et al from AEI at LLO on March 19 to do a walk thru and planning for the ELigo PSL installation.
  • (Jay) The Beckhoff PLC equipment similar to the system being used for the PSL has been received and powered up. I am in the process of learning how to use it so that we can write an interface for our controls.

AdvLigo:

  • CDS Infrastructure Requirements: Put together a set of high level block diagrams which depict all of the various CDS subsystems planned for AdvLigo. These diagrams are based on prototyping experience to date at Lasti, etc. and data provided by other subsystem leaders. The top level block shows most of the components (a few items still missing) in each chamber. Remaining diagrams show controls by subsystem, including ISI, HEPI, suspensions, etc., with possible equipment rack layouts. The idea now is to take these block diagrams and develop a list of all electronics to be designed and quantities to be produced.

I sent out the CDS requirements document to a limited group of people for comment. A conceptual design to go with it is in progress and should be out next week.

  • Suspension controls (Jay): The UK SUS group has modified their designs in response to the review comments. They have a new coil driver design for the UIM and are still shooting for delivery of the noise prototype electronics in late April. Their design are nearing a point where we (US) can begin designing the whitening and dewhitening circuits.

The system drawings for the OMC SUS have been started and should be complete in one week. Orders for the ADC, DAC, CPU and IO chassis need to be placed.

Next week I will be working with Brett at LASTI to incorporate modal control into the quad.

Anti-aliasing / Anti Image Chassis (Jay): The prototype board for the AA and AI filter has been received and will be stuffed by the end of this week. Testing will be done when I return from LASTI.

  • ISC (Rich): Working on evaluating the performance of oxide coatings on aluminum substrates as a method of in-vacuum radiation cooling. Preliminary results show a factor of ~3 improvement over bare metal. Vacuum compatibility tests are also being conducted by Bob Taylor in the 40m lab.

Did length estimate of in-vacuum wiring needs for Aligo in order to evaluate buying a bulk order of wire.  Still working on the quotes and technical specifications.

Placed order for in-vacuum packaging for OMC electronics

  • DC Power Distribution (Rich): Did a series of measurements on the prototype DC power design sent to me by Rusyl.  Obtained and evaluated a revised (but similar) chip from Vicor that has good performance.  Will be sending the design back to Rusyl after a few more tests so he can take a look and continue.
  • ISI (Ben):

ISI Interface Chassis: I sent around an email with the requirements for this board, as I see them.  I am hoping for some feedback soon.GS-13/L4C Emulation Module - I finished the pcb, and have received the boards from PCB Express.  The parts should arrive today, and I can get them stuffed.GS-13/L4C Control Module - I finished the pcb, and have received the boards from PCB Express.  The parts should arrive today, and I can get them stuffed.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) - One Coil Driver chassis is complete, and looks really good.  One is being put together, and two more will be coming soon.STS-2 Emulation Module - Mohana is finishing the PCB layout for this board.  It should go out for fab soon.

STS-2 Control Module - Mohana will continue the schematic for this board once she is done with the Emulator PCB.

Seismic Isolation

From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

  • BSC Assembly and Test

    We have put off the disassembly of the BSC isolation system until Monday 3/12 to allow Rich to complete the testing with the new shims.  Lee Cardenas has arrived from Caltech to help with the disassembly. We are moving the granite table and portable clean room to make disassembly easier.

    Myron has accumulated the crates we need to ship the smaller parts to Caltech for cleaning. Arland Tool will pick up the large parts, remove helicoils, and crate for shipment to Galli & Morelli.

    Bob LaLiberty has inventoried the hardware and received quotes on shortages.
  • Single Stage HAM design

    Jonas Waterman from HPD has stiffened stage 0 in the design effort, which has resulted in a calculated satisfactory blade tip deflection.

From: Brian Lantz BLantz@stanford.edu

Notes from the SEI teleconFriday, March 2 at 2 pm eastern, 1 pm central, 11 am pacific, etc.

Announcements

Part 1 of the HPD Final Design Review will be Monday, April 2, at HPD in BoulderCO.  This will be an all day review.  In addition to the usual crowd, Mike Zucker may attend.

Stefany Foley joined MIT group.  Welcome to the group.

HAM contract status

  • HPD detailing is going ahead. Working on stiffening stage 0, figuring out when to use tapped holes/ nitronic 60 helicoils/ nitronic 60 barrel nuts.

We do want insets for the table top. These can not be installed while the parts are being cleaned. So, if some are installed for the air-testing, they will have to be removed for cleaning.

  • Rich M. reiterates that we must have the non-slick coatings on the locks. The important place is the threads, but we will probably do the locking surfaces also, because it will be better and easier. We will probably coat the male screw part, because the application will be easier, but this is still TBD.

2 coatings are under investigation, Rich M. is tracking the progress. 1st has passed the RGA: NeDox (includes some teflon) in Q for optical cavity testing. 3rd in line2nd is Tungsten Carbide Carbon, soon to go the RGA.

For application, Ken M suggests that we first electropolish, then coat. We need to find out the coating thickness so we can figure out how much metal needs to be removed first.

  • Want to open up the gaps in the limiter. Brian calculates that the maximum allowed motion at a critical part in the critical direction is about 0.63 mm with the current locks. The smallest part gap is 2.0 mm, so it is possible to open things up a bit. This would be very nice for installation and for operation.
  • HPD mentioned that 303 stainless is not so good for UHV, because it has sulfur, Ken will track this back through HDP. Dennis points out that Advanced Light Source vacuum policy says 300 series OK, 304 316 324, are preferred, but 303 not excluded. Rich M finds another source which says we should not use 303.

Progress on the BSC

  • Disassembly and cleaning plans: The system is back together with the 2nd set of new stage 0-1 shims installed. These should give different cross coupling than the first new set.

Rich saw some issues on the flexure angle. The flexures don't seem to be hanging quite straight when compared with a straight edge. Stage 0-1 can be seen, and have a small flex. Stage 1-2 can not readily be measured. The stage 0-1 shims are the critical ones, so this is probably OK.  What is Figure of merit for the angle of the flexures? Rich's calculation is that we want the flexures to be aligned to be about 1 mrad.  Rich M. has noticed that the flexures are wiggling in their mounts. Procedure is to inset the flexure, press fit the shim onto the rod. Shim has cutout to fit into top of blade, push in and hold with thumb. little bit of wiggle in the angle of the rod.

Rich will put the reqs in the log, have people look at the req's and try to get some solutions.

  • Still plan to start disassembling on Thursday.  Lee Cardinas will help.

On disassembly we should remember to:

check bolts for damage

do fit check for STS-2 pods.

  • Cleaning: Need to get new schedule together for when pods are needed for Brian O. Ken expects 8 weeks for cleaning and shipping of large parts. Ken and Stefany will separate parts by aluminum alloy for shipping and cleaning. 2-bolt spring tensioners: still in design stage 2 actuators locations: parts out for machining
  • ISI electronics: L4C / GS13 emulator in fab, due back next week, then CDS will start stuffing.

Mohana working on the STS-2 emulator.  The emulators for the GS-13/ L-4C and the STS-2 will be in the same box.  Different connectors and circuit boards, but the single box should simplify things.L4C/ GS13 emulator and pod testers should be ready in about 2 weeks, STS2 about 3 weeks.

Ben is waiting to hear back on ISI interface electronics

  • Real pods at LLO - locker code, clean assembly, STS-2s?  Shyang out of town for a few weeks.  Danny Sellers is making cables.  Who made the original in-pod STS-2 cable?  Want to farm out the cable manufacture, Brian O will look into it LLO has two STS-2s from Hanford, this is enough to run the BSC.  Mike will look up notes on admixtures of gas to fill the pods.

Other BSC issues:

  • Brian L to send noise floor to Rich
  • seismometry and Corner station SPI: Dan has the barometers for seismometer working. Scale factor is now calibrated. Dan C noticed at 0.050 torr differential drift between the 2 sensors over the night. This is probably from temperature.

Tarm working on the noise calculations for the instrument.

  • SPI - John did some noise measurements for the matched arm Michelson. Laser intensity noise OK, IFO noise OK, electronics noise OK. Now we need to get an estimate for the freq noise by mismatching the arms. We also found a stabilized HeNe which should be tested for noise performance
  • Tech Demo - Brian took some new data. It looks quite good. Z motion is 1e-11 at 1 Hz, 5e-12 m/rtHz at 2 Hz. We see about a factor of 2000 motion reduction at 10 Hz in Z.

From: Ben Abbott abbott_b@ligo.caltech.edu

HAM-SAS

Custom Electronics chassis: (# needed + #spares)

  • LVDT Driver (2 + 1) -2 Installed the spare is stuffed, but needs boxing and testingLVDT 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) - InstalledGuralps cables - Specialty cables from Guralps Instruments Ordered 12/21 quoted a 30 day lead. They have been shipped to LASTI, and await installation by Dave or Alberto.  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.  Alex installed computer control of the stepper motors, and it seems to be working fine.  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.  Charles in the back shop is troubleshooting these boards now.  I have finalized the system schematic, and it now agrees with the observed controls pinouts.  I ordered new in-vac specialty cables from Accuglass to replace some that were pinned incorrectly.  They have arrived here, and I'll give them to Bob to clean and bake this afternoon.
  • I ordered PEEK and stainless zip-ties from Accuglass.  They should arrive today, and I'll give them to Bob with the cables

ISI

  • ISI Interface - (3 + 1)  I sent around an email with the requirements for this board, as I see them.  I am hoping for some feedback soon.  GS-13/L4C Emulation Module - I finished the pcb, and have received the boards from PCB Express.  The parts should arrive today, and I can get them stuffed.GS-13/L4C Control Module - I finished the pcb, and have received the boards from PCB Express.  The parts should arrive today, and I can get them stuffed.  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) - One Coil Driver chassis is complete, and looks really good.  One is being put together, and two more will be coming soon.  STS-2 Emulation Module - Mohana is finishing the PCB layout for this board.  It should go out for fab soon.
  • STS-2 Control Module - Mohana will continue the schematic for this board once she is done with the Emulator PCB.

Suspensions

Advanced & Enhanced LIGO (Janeen Romie)

  • Overseeing fabrication of OMC parts. Met with sales engineer from Southern Enterprises yesterday.Met with Norna and Dennis about lab space at Caltech.
  • Met with Carol & Dwight yesterday on SUS progress update.

From: k mailand kmailand@ligo.caltech.eduAdv. LIGO

  • The CES shop is continuing work on the LASTI tooling assemblies they are slowed some by their work load. I spoke to Janeen today, and Brett at MIT  re. needing items of tooling sooner than planned if possible. Ian said his outer support frame for the lower SUS should arrive at CIT next week, we will use it to test our assembly.

Core Optics

From: Helena Armandula ahelena@ligo.caltech.edu

  • I picked up the LASTI test mass from GO, it looks good. We had to make some modifications to the carrier, that worked very well for moving the part. As soon as the modification is complete, early next week, it will be sent to LMA.

Auxiliary Optics

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

  • I modeled the thermoelastic deformation of the output mode cleaner breadboard given an assumed 5W heat load from the PDs, preamplifiers, and thermally actuated mirror mount.  Assuming a fused silica breadboard, the cavity length will grow by 1.6 microns and the mirror will tilt by about 3 microradians.  These are very small values and so thermal deformation will not be a problem for this design.  The model can be seen in the mLIGO wiki.

Test Mass Absorption Measurements

  • I have only begun analyzing the new data for the 14 kHz breathing mode obtained from the fast channel, but for H2 the frequency shifts for the 9.2 kHz and 14.3 kHz modes under TCS loading overlap exactly when you scale them by frequency, as expected.  Thus, the data are as consistent as can be.  More work is needed to quantify the TM absorption levels.

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