Weekly Report for Week Ending March 15, 2007

Past Weekly Reports

There will be no LIGO Executive Committee scheduled Monday, March 19, 2007 due to the meeting of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration scheduled next week.  A meeting has been scheduled for Monday, March 26.

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights

LSC Issues (Saulson)

No report this week.  LSC Meeting next week.

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Lloyd)

Received revised Goddard, Penn State, Rochester, and Wisconsin MOUs.  Penn State and Rochester were routed for signature to Peter Saulson yesterday.  Goddard and Wisconsin are in the process of being assigned DCC numbers and then will be routed to Peter, probably at the end of today.

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT (Luna)

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

  • Assisted the LLO (A. Sibley) in requesting disposition instructions for one GSA Vehicle.
  • Attended Caltech's cost transfer training session presented by the Project Accounting Office.
  • Successfully obtained a Carnet to Export / Import without any restrictions the aluminum parts that are going to be cleaned by Galli & Morelli in Italy.  Account Number LIGO.BSCCH-5.18-NSFLIGO.FY02CA.
  • LHO FY07 Equipment Inventory is complete; all assets were accounted for and updated in Oracle (Caltech's property records system).
  • LLO FY07 Equipment Inventory is completed, twenty seven assets were not found, the rest were updated in Oracle (Caltech's property records system).  Ed Jasnow, Joe Giaime, and I are working on the missing items.
  • Continued working on LIGO's Equipment Inventory @ CIT.
  • Assisted Joe Giaime by providing copies of the Property Reports for FY03, FY04, FY05, and FY06.

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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

  • Processed a number of MOU attachments.
  • In the process of transporting/packaging boxes of miscellaneous documentation and other items currently located in the hallway right outside of the DCC.
  • Scanning Update - Progress continues on scanning of miscellaneous large/bulky "M" documents on file.

Document Management System - Plan B (Lindquist)

Notes from Friday, March 10, 2007:

I.) David - reported practical experience with DocuShare including discussions with sales reps and engineers as well as additional experience with the IceCube system and a trial version installed at MIT.

Response times reported as acceptable.

A trial version with licenses for 50 users will be set up for the upcoming LSC-VIRGO meeting to be used for public posting of documents.  Will work with DocuShare to allow multiple users as needed.

II.) Albert requested the committee to fix some kind of schedule.

III.) Question posited by Joe: should we switch to a new number format?  In DocDB this would allow us to latch onto their versioning system.  Minimizes customization.  Would need to set up keywords to capture important document information.

For the first time we began to get into the needs of Engineering for drawings.  Their intent is to download PDM works documents, etc., into the document management system for archiving.

David and Joe assumed actions to considering the question of versioning for engineering during future trials of the systems.

Dennis suggested that there must be documentation concerning how others have addressed this problem.

IV.) We discussed document migration.  We do have the old stuff in a data base that we know how to read.  The DocDB developer (at Fermi) could be hired as a consultant to see what would be required to convert the database to DocDB.  It was suggested that we should start with a new system without requiring an immediate conversion and possibly leave the old system as a "frozen skeleton."

FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Funaro, Brambila, Kaufman)

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

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

  • Completed the purchase of the vehicle for LLO.
  • Transferred funds on the MIT subcontract as required for payment.
  • Working on the change order to Galli and Morelli.
  • Followed up on the status of the equipment maintenance orders for LLO and LHO to be issued to Dynamic Systems, due on 4/1/07.

>From: Florence Kaufman <fkaufman>

  • Posted Updated Account Number List on the LIGO Internal Bulletin Board.
  • Prepared and posted on the network a new report for AdLIGO accounts which provides more detailed information than that provided in the monthly financial report.
  • Submitted two New Fabrication Requests and PTA Set Up Forms for AdLIGO AOS Systems.
  • Submitted new Award Set Up Form for the I2U2 Award.
  • Financial reports can be found at: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport. (For passwords contact Florence)

SUBCONTRACTS MANAGEMENT (Jasnow, Salone)

>From: Gina Salone <gsalone@ligo.caltech.edu>

  • Completed the purchase of a 2007 Ford 500 sedan for LLO.  This replaces the Chevrolet Impala, which was returned to the GSA.
  • Finalized an agreement regarding the invoice amount owed to Ezus-Lyon.   There had been some confusion because of a credit erroneously charged to the contract.  The finalized amount owed is e16, 977, or $22,579.

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

  • Ed Jasnow, Stan Whitcomb, and GariLynn Billingsley attended the successful kickoff meeting for the Advanced LIGO Pathfinder optics polishing contract with CSIRO in Sydney, Australia.  CSIRO had already received the substrate for polishing, and provided a tour of the facilities to be used in the polishing effort.  A briefing was also given concerning CSIRO efforts to privatize by being acquired by a larger company.  The Australian Government has set a deadline of September 30, 2007 for the completion of this effort.

PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist)

LIGO is preparing a proposal to the NSF for Continuing Operations for FY 2009 through FY 2013.  Activity this week focused on a straw man budget projection and an analysis of the effect of changing the indirect rate structure as defined by OSR.

The Large Facilities Monthly Report for the end of February has been prepared and sent to the NSF.

CHANGE CONTROL/CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT (Lindquist)

  • There are no open change requests.

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)

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

  • The next Staffing Committee meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, March 27th, and the minutes and action items for the last meeting have been posted on the SC web page.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

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

  • Working action items from LIGO Safety Committee (first meeting).
  • Working with L. Turner to gather LIGO Safety document comments/revisions from reviewers.
  • Started preparations (agenda) for next Safety Committee meeting, 20 March 2007.

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

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

The duty cycle (Thu Mar/8 to Wed Mar/14 2007) of H1 was 85.1 percent with typically 15 Mpc inspiral binary range. The duty cycle of H2 was 74.6 percent with 6 - 7 Mpc range.

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

Highlights from the LHO elog:

Other things:

  • Fortunately we didn't have any problem related to earlier-than-usual DST change, which happened on Sunday.

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

No report.

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

  • Last week, our NPRO power dropped by 30% (which we believe is due to the pump diode), and it hasn't recovered (but it hasn't gotten worse). The MOPA is now only putting out ~ 3 watts. Steve opened up the MOPA to visually inspect the NPRO, and didn't see anything suspicious. We need more power! We are looking for a spare NPRO.
  • Steve redistributed the remaining power so that a sufficient amount goes into the main interferometer, leaving the squeezer optics with almost nothing.
  • Ben built a latching relay box so that when the PSL enclosure interlock is broken (by the enclosure door being opened without deliberately bypassing the interlock), it stays broken until it is manually reset. There's a problem with the bypass function, which Ben hopes to fix soon.
  • Tobin, Rob, and Sam exercised the "pringle" code that Alex installed here last week. They excited the pringle mode of the test masses and adjusted the gains to minimize the coupling to POS.
  • Sam and Tobin continued their commissioning of the new dither-alignment system. They turned up the dithers till they got coherence; adjusted the demodulation phases for the YAW half of the system, and automated the process. They measured the ITMX, ETMX, and PZT sensing matrices, and inverted to get the control matrix. However, the resulting system wasn't able to improve the alignment. More work is required.
  • Rob returned to PRFPMI locking, which went pretty smoothly. Started measuring some frequency noise TFs, but was stymied by test point/syncing problems in the c1omc.
  • Rob struggled with a slew of test point problems in the controls, necessitating some front-end CPU reboots. Not sure what is causing these instabilities. He also struggled with some flakiness in the communication between the EPICS slow controls and the front-end servos, necessitating a reboot of c1losepics. He will consult with Alex and Rolf.
  • Rob switched around some cables and RF photodiodes, so AS166 became AS33 and POX33 became POX166. He thinks this PD setup is more useful for us in the near term. We'll probably want an AS166 back when we go for RF-DC comparisons with the full DRFPMI.
  • Mike installed DST patches on our Solaris machines, and Tobin took care of the linux machines.

Vacuum Squeezing

  • Go is in Japan.  At NAOJ/TAMA, he gave a talk on progress with vacuum squeezing at the 40m.  He'll give a version of this talk at the LSC meeting, and we plan on having a get-together there to talk about the recent results and the next steps.
  • As noted above, our dying laser leaves almost no beam for the squeezing setup.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

  • Greg has finished the spot-size measurement and found it to be equal to our spec within his measurement uncertainty.  We had assumed 160 microns for the spot radius, and he finds 163 p/m 10 microns.  We also found that the coating thickness we had been using in our analysis was for undoped coatings.  Laurent Pinard of LMA sent us the doped- coating thickness, and it is about 6% larger than that of the  undoped. This correction would change our noise floor by about 3%.
  • Akira is at Hanford, and he has been working on a refinement of our model for H, the servo filter transfer function.  He now has a model  that is more accurate than the old one by a few percent, and we are in the process of incorporating that into our analysis.
  • The big news is that Akira discovered that our cavity length is about twenty percent longer than what we thought it was.  At the edges, the mirrors are very close to being a centimeter apart (our design spec), but we neglected to take into account the radius of curvature of the mirrors, which is one meter. It turns out that the concavities add about 1.3mm at each mirror to the cavity length.  Taking into account the center of mass shift and the measured separation at the mirror edges, our cavity length is actually closer to 1.21cm than to the spec of 1.0cm.  This brings our measured noise floor for the doped- tantala coatings closer to the prediction from the Q measurements, but it does not account for all of the discrepancy.

LASTI (Ottaway)

No report.

CIT Science Group (Weinstein)

Eirini Messaritaki

  • I worked on the null stream implementation for the S5 inspiral searches.
  • I tried to apply the null stream test on the S3 SBBH candidate events and on some known glitches. SBBH application proved a bit challenging due to the fact that the code currently does not handle BCV-Spin templates; more work required on this.
  • I worked with Vibha on producing the chisq vs snr plots for spinning injections recovered with SPA templates.

Kent Blackburn

OPEN SCIENCE GRID VALIDATION TESTBED

  • No VTB activity this week.

OPEN SCIENCE GRID INTEGRATION TESTBED

  • Setup new catalog, scripts and pegasus components for testing new algorithm for producing and supporting data cleanup dags.
  • Validated new 0.6.0 installation on OSG_LIGO_PSU with nanoHIPE.
  • Fixed OSG Twiki documentation on Locating Storage Elements so that examples are valid with Glue 1.2 schema in the case of Storage URLs.
  • Documented on OSG Twiki how to set site specific attributes to overwrite incorrectly configured attributes.
  • Attended weekly DASWG, ITB, Pegasus, VTB and telecoms.

OSG DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES

  • Submitted title, author list, abstract and acknowledgment to LIGO directorate for an advanced workflow technical paper.
  • Worked with PSU on issue associated with being able to test advanced workflow tools off their OSG head node.
  • Interviewed OSG applications support person.  Meet with Cindy and Florence regarding HR and account aspects of new hire.

OSG MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES

  • Reviewed and commented on proposal to allow commercial entities into the OSG to the Executive Team
  • Reviewed and approved agreement between OSG/Fermilab and EGEE/CERN to support a full time editor for the iSGTW newsletter.
  • Continued work on Statements of Work.  Continued working on Change Control Requests associated with OSG's WBS.
  • Tracked down Caltech's OSG subaward contract location with help from Gayle Lund.
  • Attended weekly OSG Executive Team Meeting.

Patrick Sutton

Coherent Network Analysis

  • Added ability to perform GWB simulations to the X-Pipeline GRB triggered search package.
  • With Michal Was, studying results of running the X-Pipeline GRB package on the LIGO-Virgo WSR1 exchange data, for presentation at the burst face-to-face meeting.
  • Met with Tinto, Messaritaki to discuss null stream use in inspiral searches as a veto/consistency test, particularly for high-mass BBH searches which are troubled by low-frequency H1-H2 glitches.
  • Reading Poprocki's undergraduate thesis (College of Wooster) on "Bayesian source direction determination for GWBs".  Reviewing results and compiling comments on the thesis.

Other

  • Discussed heterodyning for pulsar searches with Patel.

Xavier Siemens

  • Finished h(t) frame writing code (that took most of the week).
  • Prepared presentation for the Pacific Coast Gravity Meeting

Laboratory Computing (Anderson)

LDAS Software Systems (Maros)

  • The core dumps observed when running the beta release of LDAS have been identified and code corrections to address each of them are currently being tested on tandem systems.
  • Under heavy createRDS production, it has been observed that some jobs are not returning. This is under investigation.
  • The flushing of jobs from cmonClient still fails under some circumstances. Suppression of the NoOp ping to servers which do not have the NoOp command has been implemented.
  • The cntmonAPI is being modified to support outputting the nightly test results.
  • LDAS was tested using version 1.8.483 of the software. All of the system tests passed.
  • The createRDS tests scripts have been modified to support S5 data sets and generate L1, L3 and L4 RDS for this data set.
  • The function snedCmd in pipeloop.tcl has been modified to prevent an infinite loop. The allows dcmean test to run without terminating prematurely. The memTest function has also been modified in an attempt to prevent a similar infinite loop.
  • A new loop test is being developed which will continuously test the getFrameData command. The command is based on the usage model seen on ldas-cit.
  • The LDASJobH now supports an environment variable to specify the timeout value for a job as some of the test jobs now run for a longer time than previous allowed.

LDAS System Administration (Anderson)

Caltech

(Dan Kozak)

  • Working on crashing Solaris servers at CIT. Currently testing a patch from Sun.

(Phil Ehrens)

  • Upgraded/patched 5 computers used by the e2e group.
  • Supported Dan Kozak with ldas-cit server issues.
  • Maintenance and bug fixing of log_mon.tcl to reduce amount of email sent when large numbers of machines are affected by server failure.
  • Patched travel auth form and visitor application form to support lowercase hexadecimal alphabetic escape sequences as generated by the lynx browser.

(Erik Espinoza)

  • Worked with Larry on acrux ClamAV issue.
  • Assisted with crashes on the Condor side.
  • Rebooted nodes that were hung after nfs issues.
  • Worked w/ Condor team on X509 forwarding.
  • Investigating trunks + solaris.
  • Rebuilt node219 after double disk failure.
  • Working w/ Larry on DNS Replacement.

MIT

(Fred Donovan)

  • Expired certificates affected logins.
  • pcraid 4 swapped out 3Ware; needs 2 new disk.

Livingston

(Igor Yakushin)

  • Gateway crashed twice this week: the first time the error messages indicated a problem with the mirror on which / file system lives.  However, the system rebooted cleanly without problems and there was no indication in the logs or output from metadb, metastat what disk had problems. There was no orange light on any of the disks either. Log messages on gateway and 3510 indicated a possible problem with one of the 3510 disks but the disk has not failed yet and it is unlikely that it could cause gateway to crash even if it did fail. The replacement disk from SUN arrived.  About 3 hours after the second crash gateway came up by itself, again nothing in the logs showed what the problem was and there were no 3510-1 error messages during that day. Considering that dataserver and gateway started crashing recently at CIT, it all might be related to the recent upgrade to Solaris 10 Update 3.
  • One of the power strips for the nodes shut down twice this week.  Ordering replacements.
  • Due to nodes problems there were several diskcacheAPI crashes this week.

(Dwayne Giardina)

  • Replaced memory in nodes 158 and 159, node159 is now reporting problems with /usr1 filesystem.
  • Replaced hda in nodes 95 and 190, node190 has died again.
  • Need to check sendmail config on all LDAS machines, clear mail queues and restart sendmail service.
  • Moved beowulf to an unused node machine, the old beowulf machine is now ready to become ldas-condor.
  • Gateway crashed twice, the first time was sometime Monday morning, rebooted machine and was OK for a while.  crashed again Wednesday night, but apparently restarted itself after a few hours.
  • Restarted condor on 68 nodes after condor died for yet to be determined reasons, but most likely related to gateway crash.
  • Tape storage eject.
  • Tape eject and shipment.

Hanford

(Ben Johnson)

  • Archiving was stalled from the 8th to the 13th of this month due to my forgetting to copy over /var/opt/SUNWsamfs/catalog from the original dataserver disk.
  • Staging was also in a bad state this week (i.e., not work). The cluster is still severly slown down, most likely due to NFS waiting forever for data it will never get.
  • Have a stable NDS client for Windows 2000/XP and Matlab 2006b and 2007a. It only works with non-trend data at the moment. The client also works on Mac, Linux, and Solaris.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT

(Fred)

  • Setup web page /cgi for conference registration GH desktop gnome issues; pc laptop issues;
  • Reconfiguration ldap/nis automount tables to accommodate some home dirs move from gar to nova
  • Set up docushare (window and unix) for conference -More issues with catfish email firewall; will add 2nd nic to ligo -Last of dst fixes over (this last) weekend

Livingston

(Dwayne)

  • Continued preparations for the LSC meeting
  • Network issues appear to have been related to DNS and possibly DST patches.  NS1and NS2 had incorrect time, we reset via ntpdate.  built a replacement for bartholomew, which went live today.  building a replacement for NS2 this afternoon.
  • Users reported problems running qscan on chestnut.  The cause was /archive which is served by ldas-gateway that has crashed twice in the last week.
  • The projector in the SEC classroom has died.  The manual says the solution for the particular combination of blinking lights is "contact your vendor".  Installed a temporary replacement.
  • Spam filter cleanup
  • Other usual user requests and support

LLO mail summary for 22 February - 1 March 2007:

Rejected:      9,758 (127 containing virus)

Accepted:      4,453

Total:        14,211

(Shannon)

  • LSC meeting prep has taken most of my time for the last week.
    • set up NAT router, DHCP server, DNS proxy, etc. for the meeting.
    • received loaner/eval WAPs from Foundry. Testing is ongoing for these.  If it works well for the LSC meeting,  I will consider using these on my network at LLO on GC.
    • ordered various bits and pieces of needed items for the LSC meeting.
    • working with Cox Comm. on the network connectivity for the meeting.
    • had to work with the telecom guy at the hotel to track down various interconnections between the conference area, network closet, etc. at the hotel.
  • Helped Dwayne in replacing our 130.39.245 DNS server.
  • Investigated what looks like was a DNS zone transfer failure.  This had fallout for CDS/DMT at LLO.  DMT evidently cannot handle a timeout of a primary nameserver.  Most services just roll over to the secondary, but something in DMT prevents this.
  • Went over IDS logs, etc.  Still need to eliminate many false positives.  *really* need a management solution for snort configs.

Hanford

(Christine)

  • Returned to configuring the new router/switch.  As this is a switch that does routing, it has taken a while to figure out how to tell it to route not switch.  There are a lot of configuration items that are set as defaults that I have never seen before.  I'm having to search the Cisco web pages for documentation on each unknown configuration to figure out what it does.  I will be testing the new router on Tues. 3/20.
  • Set up another MAC laptop for a user.  I'm using the CIS guidelines as the base security configuration.  Couldn't get Matlab 7.3 or 7.4 to work on the MAC.  Investigating a rumor that 7.2 was the last version to work on the Intel MACs.
  • Vern discovered a new ssh/sftp/scp GUI for Windows that works with PuTTY.  Looks pretty good, does more than the SSHWin3.2.9 software.

CIT

(Mike)

  • Finished up the DST patches on a number of machines.
  • Reset some of configuration files our Solaris 8 boxes. After installing the patch_cluster to get the DST patches installed, sendmail and a few other services were turned on. After this I went around checking to see what other services were turned on, with all of our Solaris servers 6, 7, 8, 9, & 10. Larry found some issues with Solaris 10, we almost lost a mail server behind the patches.
  • Setup GDE conference for Barry Barish over in East Bridge.
  • Added multiple users to the wireless access points.
  • Spent more time looking into the Primavera licensing. I think things are now worked out. I am also working on a backup scheme for the Primavera database. For now I'm doing manual weekly backups.
  • Additional user support and other sysadmin tasks.

(Christian)

  • Installed monthly Microsoft security patches to all Windows 2000 and 2003 servers.
  • Paul Russell- Installed and configured new system for Paul.
  • Gina Salone- Needed loaner laptop to be configured so she can login remotely and work from home.
  • Updated display case system with the latest security patches.
  • Setup laptop and wireless router for the GDE/EC meeting.
  • Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.

(Veronica)

  • LSC:  Ongoing support of the March meeting:  Improvements of the database of participants to make it more user-friendly; an application to generate a payment report; helped Bonnie with access to/working with the database.  Updates of the LSC mailing lists.  Working on converting the roster data into a portable format for a new roster utility.  Updates of the database of technical papers, publications for review, other miscellaneous web updates.
  • LIGO:  Continued work on the homepage redo; the changes have been ok'd by Jay, continuing work on the layout and content generation.  PAC website update, other various web updates.
  • CaJAGWR:  Website update /user support.

(Larry)

  • Worked a number of licensing issues. Some time spent with Mike and others working on the Primavera contract.  Made some minor purchases of computer items for different people. All of the items received have been delivered. Still waiting on a couple of small items.  Working on the purchase of a couple of laptop units.
  • Worked with Mike in finishing up the DST patches. Only one machine came up with the incorrect time but it did not affect anything and reloading the patch solved the problem.  The latest set of microsoft patches has caused some problems with a couple of notebook units. They would get the blue-screen, backing out the patches solved the problem. Still need to check out why the patch is causing the problem. The issue has been sent to Microsoft.
  • Installed a new OS on a couple of different boxes.
  • Worked a variety of mail alias items.
  • Setup a new account and modified a couple of others.
  • Worked some air-conditioning issues.
  • Assisted with some h/w installations in room 19.
  • Assisted Mike, Christian and Julie with the GDE/EC meeting.
  • Worked with a number of people on the LSC meeting taking place next week.
  • The usual end-user assistance.

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Advanced LIGO Systems

Modeling and Simulation

From: Hiroaki Yamamoto hiro@ligo.caltech.edu

e2e weekly meeting

SLU group explained their analysis of the frequency noise induced by the advLIGO MC.  They are improving the analysis, like a realistic seismic correlations among two HAMs by using measured seismic motions.

Static IFO simulation (Hiro)

  • The analysis of various measured losses due to scattering (large cavity, small cavity and integrating sphere) are underway to understand their implications.
  • The studied of the effect of the aperture size and thickness of the BS and the physics thermal deformation on the ITM and ETM test masses are summarized in T070052 and it will be released soon.
  • The code is cleaned and is installed on linux platform for public use. This simulates three optical systems, (1) BS,  (2) FP and (3) FP with BS inside (part of a Michelson cavity).

Mechanical Simulation for advanced LIGO (Sany and SLU team)

We continued e2e modeling of AdvLIGO Input Optics. Jameson improved the performance of the Input Mode Cleaner’s length sensing and frequency controls by adjusting the dc gains of the respective control filters. Consequently, the Mode Cleaner is now locked much more steadily. We placed this Mode Cleaner model (consisting of three triple suspensions based on Mark Barton’s state space model) on a HAM-SAS model (based on Valerio Boschi’s state space model), and simulated the frequency noise on the Mode Cleaner’s transmitted light due to Mode Cleaner’s length fluctuation. For this simulation, a floor displacement model of the Hanford site (the standard ground motion used by SimLIGO) was fed into the base of the HAM-SAS model. (Currently, only translational displacement is used for the simulation.) The result of this simulation indicates that the frequency fluctuation is on the order of 1e-3 Hz/rtHz at 0.1 Hz, 1e-5 Hz/rtHz at 1 Hz, and 1e-9 Hz/rtHz for >100 Hz. The frequency fluctuation in the 100 Hz – 200 Hz range is four orders of magnitude better than the equivalent calculation we performed previously for the Initial LIGO mode cleaner (single suspended optics on the Initial LIGO HAM seismic isolation model).

ALFI : e2e front end (Melody)

Continue working on ALFI enhancements for the UserDefinedPrimitive support:   fixing dialog to display the default MemberDecl settings correctly and   allowing port placements for UDPs.

Seismic Isolation

From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

BSC Seismic Isolation Assembly and Test

We started the disassembly of the structure on Monday. The actuators, instruments, springs, and all masses have been removed. We are on schedule to finish the disassembly by 3/26.

Laurent has completed the design of new tooling for installing the stage 0-1 springs. This design is flexible enough to allow a wide range of shims to be installed.

The SEI procurement list for the HEPI system, BSC seismic isolation system, and HAM seismic isolation system has been completed with Carol W.

HAM Single Stage Isolation System Design

HPD has been making good progress with the part details. They are 87% complete for the FDR scheduled for 4/2 and 68% complete for the completed design which includes fabrication drawings and assembly procedures. They anticipate they will be 27% over the estimated cost, the majority of which is due to changes in scope.

From: Dennis Coyne coyne@ligo.caltech.edu

Subject: HAM-SAS 3/14 meeting notes

Achieved DC and damping controls on the horizontal and vertical stages (separately) last week

Tried the electronic anti-spring control for the vertical -- only managed to increase the frequency, more work to be done

Changed the tilt stabilization springs to more compliant springs in order to reduce the tip & tilt mode frequencies from ~400 mHz to 211 mHz and 244 mHz

Adjusted the GAS blade springs to reduce the vertical bounce mode frequency from 377 mHz to 315 mHz

Plan to address mechanical issues before pumping down:

  • separate large masses into smaller masses to permit tuning & allow for bouncy mass removal (350 gm)
  • mechanically adjust vertical frequencies down:
    • start with position scan to make sure we're at the minimum (working point) and not bistable
    • adjust cantilevered blades to reduce frequency
    • if needed adjust tilt-stabilization springs
  • 3) mechanically adjust horizontal stage (if needed) after the vertical stage is completed
  • 4) replace stepper motor cables (if available)
  • 5) re-tap stepper motor nut to prevent seizing
  • 6) keep the triple locked for this 1st pump down
  • 7) pump down with controls on and adjust pier scissor tables to compensate for floor tilt

Guralps working OK now

DTT readback for geophones  does not work properly -- Jay referred problem to Rolf, Alex

Simulation -- ongoing

Control objectives in the near term:

  • DC control to level table and keep IP vertical, and then offload to stepper motors after pumpdown
  • system identification: transfer functions and diagonalization
  • electronic anti-spring for the vertical stage to tune down the vertical bounce

Suspension

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

Scimon shifts at LHO

Preparing LSC presentation on OMC suspension design

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

Enhanced/Advanced LIGO

Overseeing fabrication of OMC parts. Meeting with Chris & Calum about two remaining OMC designs.  Working with Sam and Calum on interface of OMC wires to optical bench.  Sent two DCNs of OMC drawings to Dennis for review.  Coordinating deliveries and visits for assembly and test of OMC.

Provided an update to the thermal compensator plate drawing for Gari. Have DCN ready.

Working with Russell on the compensator plate wire break-off prism.

Coordinating input for various LSC presentations.

Working on initial LIGO count.

From: k mailand kmailand@ligo.caltech.edu

Advanced LIGO

The CES shop is continuing work on the LASTI tooling assemblies the elevator mechanism, should be ready to test tomorrow.

We are waiting for Ian's outer support frame for the lower SUS, we will use this for a dimensional fit check.

Core Optics

From: Bill Kells kells@ligo.caltech.edu

Actually quite a lot has been considered (plans) this week concerning LIGO I [scatter] loss. See T070051-00  for the "summary"

Also: PI discussions with D. Ottaway. We are at the point where we ~fully understand each other, and there appears to be no discrepancy.

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

Met with David Gritz of Heraeus to discuss homogeneity of 3001 material for possible use in the beamsplitter for Advanced LIGO.

Met with the team at ACPO(CSIRO) for the polishing pathfinder kickoff meeting.  We will need to revise our drawing to include a reference mark for metrology purposes.  We have no new news on the privatization process, we hope to know more in September.  Our specifications, while challenging, appear to be achievable, ACPO is aware of the contributions to loss from different types of surface error and so, is prepared to feed back their experience into the design process.

There is a new chamber door for the coating chamber at ACPO, it can hold two blanks of up to 400 mm diameter each.  This has been developed for another customer.  There are also several new large laps in place, presumably in support of the same project.

The LASTI ETM is ready to ship to LMA

Auxiliary Optics

From: Michael Smith smith@ligo.caltech.edu

SLC

I am in the process of revising the SLC conceptual design requirements doc into two separate documents: Design Requirements and Conceptual Design.

ETM Telescope

I am in the process of extracting the ETM Telescope component from the PO Mirror and Tel conceptual design requirements doc. and creating two separate documents: Design Requirements and Conceptual Design for only the ETM Telescope.

Pre-Stabilized Laser

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

I have been trying to communicate with the Beckhoff Automation hardware down in the lab.  The documentation on setting this aspect up is practically non-existant.

Went through and made some comments about the existing project laser safety plan.  Bits of it need to be updated and at the moment comments are being gathered.

The draft PSL Laser Safety plan is probably at a stage now where it can be circulated for comments.  I haven't done this yet.  From glancing at the proposed ANSI Z136.1-2007 standard there are no changes from the 2000 edition that affect the PSL in terms of MPEs and so forth.

I have requested datasheets from the manufacturer of the chiller to be used in the functional prototype.  Unfortunately their website doesn't have any useful information in this regard.  The electrical requirements for the power supplies have been obtained.

Control and Data Systems

From: Rolf Bork rolf@ligo.caltech.edu

LASTI (Jay)

  • Installed remaining controls for the HAMX triple suspension. Several of the osems on L1 and L2 need to be realigned.
  • Working with Brett on new Quad suspension control algorithms.

CDS Designs

  • 4 docs in progress for conceptual design; sent out for limited, informal review.

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