The focus of the upcoming LIGO Executive Committee meeting for Monday, July 30, 2007 will be to review the stauts of the Continuing Operations Proposal. P. Lindquist will chair the meeting and post a copy of the latest draft on the www site set up for this proposal.
Please come prepared with any comments.Last-minute action assignments (hopefully mostly minor) will be assigned.
As a reminder, we intend to send this to PMA and to Caltech's OSR for review and approval as early as possible in August.
(Meeting time: 10:30 am Pacific Time)
CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL WHO HAVE MADE THIS ACHEIVEMENT POSSIBLE!
LSC Issues (Reitze)
The third LSC-Virgo meeting took place this week at MIT, along with analysis group face-to-face meetings and an Experimental Gravity Charging Workshop organized by Gregg Harry, Steve Merkowitz, and Andri Gretarsson. There were 118 registered participants for the combined meetings.
Representative highlights of the meeting include:
- The LSC Council voted to accept 2 new groups in the LSC: the University of Minnesota (headed by Vuk Mandic) and the University of Mississippi (headed by Marco Cavaglia`). In addition, the LSC welcomed new senior members Patrick Sutton and Steve Farihurst (Cardiff & GEO), Michele Zanolin (Embry-Riddle), Hai-Ping Cheng (University of Florida), and Teviet Creighton, Hansheng Lei, Lappoon Tang (University of Texas, Brownsville).
- Executive Committee business:
- The burst group paper "Search for Gravitational Waves Associated with 39 Gamma-Ray Bursts Using Data from the Second, Third, and Fourth LIGO Runs" was approved for submission to Phys. Rev. D pending a final LSC comment period
- The Excomm accepted a proposal by the LSC and Virgo Spokepersons to reduce the number of L-V meetings from 5 to 4. The LSC Conference Committee has been charged to revisit the future L-V meeting schedule to determine suitable dates and venues.
- The GRB070201 analysis paper is in the final stages of development. In addition, several analyses from the Pulsar, CBC, and Burst group are mature and expected to be ready for submission in the near future.
- The Joint Run Planning Committee and Data Analysis Council met to consider a number of issues, including plans for post S5 AstroWatch running.
LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)
STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Lloyd)
- Work continues with Phil Ehrens and Dave Reitze on setting up the information that will be reuqired for the MOU review 16, 17 August.
PROPERTY MANAGEMENT (Luna)
>From: Rod Luna <rluna@ligo.caltech.edu>
- No report -- Rod is on leave
DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)
>From: Cleveland Mak <mak_c@ligo.caltech.edu>
- Processed a handful of presentations from the Amaldi conference.
- Assembled and sent 5 copies of the duty free entry form along with the attachments (over 100 pages) for the YAG Laser over to the U.S. customs office.
- Began processing talks for the LSC/Virgo Collaboration Meeting held this week at MIT.
FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Funaro, Brambila, Kaufman)
>From: "Funaro, Catherine" <Catherine.Funaro@caltech.edu>
>From: "Brambila, Ruth" <Ruth.Brambila@caltech.edu>
- Completed change order #20 to Promec and submitted to vendor.
- Completed change order #36 to Support Services and submitted to vendor.
- Completed the internal mod fund transfers on several subcontracts as requested.
- Completed change order #2 to QED and submitted to vendor.
- Completed Ezus and submitted mod to the vendor.
- Completed the change order to Galli and Morelli and submitted to vendor.
- Working on the order for the Caravan for LLO.
>From: Florence Kaufman <fkaufman>
- Attended a training session on the New Cost Transfer Policy and Process Changes.
- Revised account number list posted on the Internal Bulletin Board because all fabrication requests that have been requested to date have now been set up. Reminder to anyone planning on requesting new fabrications to submit requests as soon as it is determined that a fabrication is required, because it can take several weeks from the time that the request is submitted to the time it is set up.
- Revised budget allocations among various tasks to appear on the report for July based on an e-mail from Carol Wilkinson.
- Prepared a Cost Transfer for some travel expenditures from LIGO Ops Award to the I2U2 Award. Transfer required because of the delay in the getting the I2U2 Award from Fermilab.
- Prepared schedules allocating responsibility for responding to Payroll Distribution Confirmation Reports for the period from October 1, 2006 through September 30, 2007 to the managers of the tasks to which the labor is charged.
- 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>
- Negotiations between Gina Salone and Kara DeNutte, of MIT, have concluded with agreement being reached on the correct dollar amount for the remainder of the fiscal year on the MIT subcontract. The current change order is being amended to reflect this agreement.
- After receipt of several bids, LLO has selected a Dodge Grand Caravan mini-van to replace the two pickup trucks being returned to the GSA. A purchase order for this van is now being prepared.
>From: Ed Jasnow <jasnow@ligo.caltech.edu>
- We have been conducting interviews for the LIGO financial analyst position.
- The LIGO travel coordinator has announced her intention to retire at year's end. We will begin seeking a replacement in August.
PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist)
- Trying to put together a more-or-less final version of the Continuing Operations Proposal. We have tentatively scheduled a review with the authors at the time normally scheduled for the Executive Committee meeting on Monday, July 30. P. Lindquist will distribute copies of the latest and greatest text prior to that meeting.
- We need to start putting together an Annual report.
- Met today with the Office of Sponsored Research regarding preparations for the upcoming TBSR. They want me to put some pointers to LIGO documentation onto the web page by mid next week.
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 Wednesday, August 22.
- A Staffing Committee meeting was held on Monday, July 16. The minutes and action items have been posted on the SC web page.
- All files for the Staffing Committee are up-to-date and posted on the SC web page.
Quality/Safety (Tyler)
>From: Bill Tyler tyler@ligo.caltech.edu
- Per Jasnow's request, I wrote up short report regard plans for LLO LDAS fire suppression system.
- Coordinated/assisted with evacuation and smoke (fire) alarm tests of the LIGO Wilson House building complex, all OK except buildings need improved audible alarms.
- Assisted D. Lloyd with completing "final" version of LIGO System Safety Plan update, to be distributed next week.
- Safety Steering Committee meeting:
- Caz(CIT safety office) reported that he now has two organizations that will supply their on-line laser safety training files to LIGO.
- Useful discussion and suggestions on how to implement Work Permits at sites other than LHO.
LIGO
Hanford
Observatory (LHO) and Interferometer Operations (Raab)
Summary of S5 Activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory (compiled by M. Landry)
The H1 IFO ran in science mode 87% of the time this week, with a range of 15-16Mpc, while H2 had the lower duty cycle of 78% and range of 6-7Mpc. The experiment reached a milestone, surpassing 1 year of LLO-LHO intersite coincidence (see the range and duty cycled updated linked below). However H2's NPRO and power supply promptly failed and hence were swapped out.
S5 highlights from the LHO elog are bulleted below:
- summaries: Tuesday maintenance, latest range & duty cycle compilation
- we moved to three diodes on H2, zeroing input from ASPD4 to AS_Q. This was prompted by studies on ISCT10 that showed increased acoustic coupling, necessitating a realignment on that table and a likely return to using all four photodiodes after that
- the recently installed H2 NPRO laser died. The NPRO and associated power supply were then replaced the next day
- ancient push-rod technology kicks up more 10Hz noise than smoothly tuned desmodromics
-
Outreach (D. Ingram)
Austin Healey owners/enthusiasts from several western states converged on the Tri-Cities for a mid-July meeting. The group toured LHO, gracing the parking lot with a fine collection of convertibles.
LIGO
Livingston
Observatory (LLO) and Interferometer Operations (Giaime)
Igor Yakushin
- 74% duty cycle. Most of the time the inspiral range was about 14 Mpc.
- During the recent days there was an intensive logging nearby.
- One of the LDAS HVAC was broken and had to be repaired.
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)
- We still plan to vent next week (Monday or Tuesday) to drag-wipe ITMX and ITMY. Josh has been taking lots of photos using the CCD cameras with the laser resonant in the arms, and also in air with the Nikon D40.
- We may also install the new DC photodiode preamp during the vent.
- Sonia continuies to take data with undamped suspended optics to diagonalize the input matrix, a necessary step before optimizing the damping gains.
- Alice has been taking transfer functions of the WFS quandrant photodiode.
- Our PSL head temperature started getting unstable earlier in the week, peaking as high as 45C and tripping an alarm, but in the last 5 days it seems to have gone back to normal, stable at 18C. Steve is watching it closely.
- Our frame builder computer (fb40m) has been running happily since Alex replaced the system disk last week.
Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)
- Ilaria and Greg are tuning the arm cavities in preparation for closing the chamber. SAC's visibility is in excess of 80%, and NAC's is around 35%. (NAC had been higher, but it drifted while they were adjusting SAC.)
- Akira is still on scimon duty.
LASTI (Mittleman)
No report
CIT Science Group (Weinstein)
__________________
Kent Blackburn:
GRID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT:
- Wrote agenda for weekly LIGO-Pegasus telecon
- Attend weekly LIGO-Pegasus telecon
- Upload presentation on OSG-USERS meeting site
- Debugging:
- workflow error: gap in data (OSG but not ldas-grid)
- chmod failure at UWMilwaukee and UFlorida_HPC
- Attending OSG-USERS meeting at Fermilab and presented on LIGO's experiences running Binary Inspiral workflows on the OSG
OSG INTEGRATION TESTBED:
- Attend OSG Operations, PEGASUS, DASWG and OSG ITB telecons
- Contribute a post data analysis script for Britta
- Request to add DN on various RLS, RLI sites and debug the results
- Run Pegasus LIGO test case on both osg-itb and osg-vtb server before VDT upgrade
- Upgrade vdt to 1.7.1 on osg-vtb server
- Convert "site.xml" and "tc.data" for the new VDT 1.7.1 and Pegasus 2.0 release
- Validate the new Pegasus 2.0 release (inside VDT 1.7.1 release) with LIGO test case
- Debug and report Pegasus 2.0 (inside VDT 1.7.1 release) bugs and made suggestions to both Pegasus and VDT team for improvements
- Writing "VDT upgrade Guide" to document the whole VDT upgrade process on Caltech OSG-VTB Servers (include gatekeeper node and worker node)
OSG MANAGEMENT:
- Met with Project Associate at Fermilab to review OSG year one finances and develop a plan improving accuracy and resolution of current budget expenditures and plan for carry over into the year two funding
- Met with OSG Executive Director and CMS software architect to discuss strategies and technical options available for developing and delivering a resource allocation management strategy and process
- Met with OSG Storage manager to discuss LIGO's data access model for LIGO applications running on the OSG and discuss planning for how to further support LIGO's data needs on the OSG
- Reviewed draft reports and assisted with the editting of materials to be sent to the funding agencies needed by August 1st to continue OSG funds
- Met with OSG Extensions Coordinator to discuss work assignment for Caltech staff supporting the extensions area of OSG
- Worked with Integration Testbed Coordinator to define work assignments for Caltech staff supporting ITB and VTB areas of OSG
- Worked with LIGO's OSG Council person and the Computer Committee to develop a year 2 science milestone for LIGO to be carried on the OSG schedule
- Attending OSG Users Group and Appilcations Developers Workshop
__________________
Igor Yakushin:
- Redoing S5 fully year all-sky untriggered burst search with version 3 h(t) and version 4.5.4 coherent waveburst
__________________
Gregory Mendell:
- I gave two presentation at the 7th Edoardo Amaldi Conference on Gravitational Waves in Sydney Australia, 8-14 July, 2007: "Recent Results From The LIGO Search For Periodic Gravitational Waves" (DCC #: LIGO-G070408-00-W) on behalf of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and "Using Generalized PowerFlux Methods To Estimate The Parameters Of Periodic Gravitational Waves" (DCC#: LIGO-G070407-00-Z) as a poster with Karl Wette.
- I also have set up code to start generating SFTs for the 1st year of S5 from the C03 h(t) data at Caltech.
Laboratory Computing (Anderson)
LDAS Software Systems (Maros)
- There were a couple of issues that were discovered with LDAS once the 1.9.0 version was installed at the sites. They were resolved before the end of the day and the systems have been running stably since late Tuesday evening. CIT and MIT were upgraded on to 1.9.0 on Friday while Hanford and Livingston were upgraded on Tuesday during the maintenance window.
- Along with the upgrading the production systems with version 1.9.0 of LDAS, documentation describing the changes and source tarball distributions were made. Adam Miller has been provided with a source RPM which he has successfully built for x86_64 and i386 platforms. DB2 was also upgraded on the production sites to 8.2.7 and certificate authentication has been enabled.
- Efforts are under way to make all of ligotools certificate aware so guild and other user tools will be able to connect to LDAS using certificate authentication. There will be a separate announcement made when these tools are ready for end users.
LDAS System Administration (Dan Kozak)
MIT
Fred Donovan
Livingston
Igor Yakushin
- Installed glue-1.15 on linux machines
- Backed up LDAS databases at LLO, LHO before the LDAS upgrade
Dwayne Giardina
- Ejected tapes for shipment to CIT
- Ejected tapes for shelf storage at LLO
- Worked with Dan to get opterondata-llo on its feet
- Worked with Dan to troubleshoot strange goings-on with the tape robot
- LDAS HVAC issues required shutdown of 100 nodes late Tuesday
- The HVAC was repaired and nodes brought back online early Wednesday
Hanford
Greg Mendell
- I have tested and restarted RDS generation at LHO and LLO using the new release of LDAS, version 1.9.0. I am starting work on a new release of LDG, and performing the usual tasks to make sure LDAS is up-to-date with data archiving, reduction, and transfer to CIT.
Ben Johnson
- Drive 44 at in the L700 has gone into a not available state twice. Both times requiring a manual tape unload. Will call Sun/StorageTek.
- LDAS 1.9.0 is running here stably. The X4600 powered itself off for some reason on Tuesday. Will have to keep an eye on it.
- Helping local users use DTT to see data; also working on setting up DTT on ldas-pcdev1 here (and eventually CIT and LLO).
- FrCheck failed at LLO during the Tuesday upgrade. This was due to the executable being removed by rsync. All file gaps were filled in.
CIT
Erik Espinoza
- Wrote documentation on cups/printing for FC4 desktops
- Pushed out condor changes
- Modified cluster NFS settings
- Built new lsof w/ ZFS support
- Spoke with ASA regarding continuing fan issues
- Assisted MIT with Condor RPM deployment
- Found problem user that caused Condor disconnects and other issues
- Improving test suite for condor @ CIT
- Merging current 6.8 Condor configs w/ 6.9.x for 6.9.4 upgrade
- Rebuilt node218 raid array, fan was cause of failure
- Provided comments for ldg-os-comm report
Phil Ehrens
- Bugfixes, documentation, and customer support of the MOU Webforms Project
Dan Kozak
- Finally got bug ID from Sun for morbo crash (1-22106847). Still working with them to prioritize a fix.
- Updated CIT's archiver.cmd for /home now that all the home directories are being served from ZFS. Still working at getting the last of the files on tape and a full samfsdump of /home.
- Generated list of tapes for shelf storage at LHO/LLO.
- at CIT. Had Sun replace two drives but had to manually update our configuration with the new WWNs for the drives (the old ones were not recoverable).
- Added Charlie to RLS server configuration (read permissions).
- Moved some crash dumps after LLO dataserver / filled up.
- Worked with Ben at LHO on some tape drive/robot/SAM problems.
- Worked with Dwayne at LLO on some tape drive/robot/SAM problems.
- Fixed stuck staging at CIT.
- Got opterondata-lho/llo updated with latest Solaris and SAM-QFS patches and mounted /archive via shared QFS.
- Finally finished filling in gaps in data on cluster nodes.
- Finally removed dmt from mcf file at LHO.
- Worked on a "data strewn across many tapes" problem at LHO.
General Computing (Wallace)
MIT
Fred
- Occupied with LSC conference tech support
Livingston
Dwayne
- Restarted the comsol license server running on abundance, again.
- Installed Matlab on a SURF PC, and added memory to two of the PCs.
- Still working on a new install on a MacBook Pro. it has been a tag-team effort since I was out last Friday. OS X is now installed, just have to add all other software.
- Attempting to track down some printer connectivity issues.
- Replaced backup tapes in the GC library.
- Usual user support requests.
- Cleared spam trap.
Shannon
- Worked through an issue with VMware with tech support. This was also related to work with the JASS toolkit, AKA the solaris security toolkit. Worked on documenting the process until I ran into a driver problem preventing installation of Solaris patches under VMware.
- Added printer to Nagios.
- Tweaked the daily port scan for CIT - will need to further modify the script & cron job to account for weekends so that Monday's change report will not fail. Also a problem when the scan runs past midnight.
- Helped Kathy with a calendaring issue for outreach.
- Investigated a XSS alert to an ldas machine. Looks like a failed attempt to infect the web server with Yahoo phishing scripts.
- Usual reviewing of IDS alerts.
- Notified Mike Pedraza/Larry Wallace about some AOL IM attempts. Doesn't look like the client was vulnerable.
- Pointed Kent in the direction of the CIT credit card policy. http://www.its.caltech.edu/its/help/policies/ecommerce.shtml
Hanford
Christine
- Sent out an email to lsc-all, trying to clean up user accounts that have not been used in over a year. Removed quite a few accounts.
- Started moving the "small disk" users over to the new disk system.
- Setup a computer for a new contractor.
CIT
Mike
- Loaded a Sun box as a backup DNS server.
- Mounted a Sun box in a server rack located in B/A room 18.
- Worked on the 3rd floor printer in W/B; fixed a cartridge issue plus a problem with the fuser kit.
- Ran backup scripts to tape on many of our critical Sun Servers.
- Spent time ordering equipment for GC using Techmart.
- Additional work with Sold Works user support.
- Setup some additional user accounts.
- Other misc. user support and sysadmin tasks.
Christian
- Dennis Coyne - Installed 24 inch LCD monitor and laptop docking station.
- Syd Meshkov Configured new MacBook Pro laptop
- 2flr W/B replaced and configured network card on HP plotter printer.
- Toner cartridge replacements- Millikan, 2flr W/B and Irene¹s local printer.
- Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.
Veronica
- LIGO: Videotaped the all-hands meeting, burned it on DVDs for requests. Troubleshooting of arcturus access. Assisted Cindy with web postings, troubleshooting of tegmeni. Various web updates.
- LSC: Support of the meeting at MIT. Posting the presentations. Updates of the database of technical papers. Other web updates.
Larry
- Worked a few procurement issues. Checking on some license and maint. contracts that need to be renewed.
- Assisting Fred and others with the LSC mtg. at MIT. Logistically this has been one of the best meetings. Things went well and we were able to use lessons learned to take care of some issues quickly. Overall, the facilities were easy to setup and use. Everyone involved did a good job. Video conferencing is still an item that we need to work on.
- Did some remote troubleshooting on a couple of boxes. One is a new box that will be put on-line to replace canopus in the near future.
Bruce Sears
- General iLog maintenance and issue handling. (0.5 days).
Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)
Advanced LIGO Systems
Modeling and Simulation
From: Hiroaki Yamamoto hiro@ligo.caltech.edu
Scattering loss analysis (Hiro)
Static IFO simulation (Hiro)
- Mode matching of the stable cavity system is being investigated.
- Application of the simulation for TCS study has been discussed with Phil and Virginio.
Modeler : e2e simulation engine and ALFI : e2e front end (Hiro, Bruce, Melody)
Bruce is back from maternity leave.
- Fixed Copy/Paste problem in Alfi for FuncX and UDP nodes.
- Adding better end-user diagnostics regarding files associated with UDPs. I.e., clear explanations to end-users when such files are not found in the correct locations.
- Continuing general UDP testing in Alfi and modeler.
Melody
- Modeler
- Finished implementing and testing a new UDP setting to insert"preaction" code for delay modules.
- Working on creating a DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) UDP to test UDPs with different timing.
- ALFI
- Continuing with testing and documentation of the UDP.
- Other
- Testing Intel Threading Building Blocks (TBB) on the multicore Linux boxes.
Mechanical Simulation for advanced LIGO (Sany and SLU team)
- Continued e2e modeling of AdvLIGO Input Mode Cleaner. Made some progress in frequency and MC length control filter design. We can now lock the MC by feeding the frequency servo error signal back to the laser (previously we were using a pseudo frequency servo which was adjusting the mirror position directly). Further improvement of the filters will be continued for more robust lock.
- Richard continued implementation of violin dynamics based on Mark Barton’s mathematica model. He solved most of the initial problems in running Mark’s mathematica codes on his computer. He still has a problem in setting the path of an auxiliary code of the newest version, which seems to come from the difference in the operating system. (It worked perfectly for the previous version). He is looking into the problem with Mark’s help.
CDS Prestabilized Laser
From: Peter King <pking@ligo.caltech.edu>
- The Beckhoff Automation panel has been returned to the factory in Germany for upgrading and repair. I wasn't told why exactly whenever one attempted to run any PLC software on the unit, the mother application would delete itself.
- Maik, Basti, Christian and I have finished the 200 page submission to the FDA to release the 35-W laser to customs. Hopefully the FDA will be better at responding than they are at returning phone calls and that an accession number will be granted soon. Then the laser can be released to customs. The request for duty-free entry was completed last week.
- I completed the layout of a new low-noise amplifier. The amplifier should be an improvement on the one we tested at the AEI. The performance at low frequencies should be interesting; we shall see.
- A pair of linear DC power supplies was fitted into a chassis. These are intended for powering up and biasing photodetectors. Another one will be fabricated for powering up the acousto-optic modulator driver.
Control and Data Systems
No report
Seismic Isolation
From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu
BSC Seismic Isolation Assembly and Test
- The Stage 1 assembly is complete and it has been assembled to stage 0 and 2 on the test stand. The two keel plates were found to have dirty holes. These are being cleaned and checked with FTIR testing.
- We have received the springs, trim masses, and STS-2 mounting brackets from Bob Taylor. The locater lock sleeves are scheduled to be shipped to us on Friday.
- Brian O'Rielly has been testing the seismometers and geophones before they are installed on the BSC Structure. Corey Gray and Joe Hanson are leaving this week. Hugh Radkins is scheduled to return on 7/31.
HAM Single Stage Isolation Design and Build
- Andy Stein has finished the design of the HAM test stand. The drawings have been checked and they are being sent for quote. Andy has started to redesign the HAM gullwing.
- Fabrice Matichard has started the design of the Enhanced LIGO risers which will bring the HAM optic table surface up to the Advanced LIGO height.
- All mechanical drawings have been complete with only actuator brackets and tooling remaining.
Suspensions
From: Janeen Romie <janeen@ligo-la.caltech.edu>
Advanced/Enhanced LIGO
- Recycling Mirror Suspension: Worked with Greer, Bob & Norna last week on the recycling mirror suspension design. Greer is working on the blade support. Bob is working on the blade adjuster assembly. I cut out styrofoam in the shape of the tablecloth and penultimate mass to use with the wooden RM structure. It gave us an idea of which stiffeners need to be removable. Bob moved on to the earthquake stop bracket designs. Greer gave the weld sample drawing to Mike Gerfen and reports that Mike plans to water-jet the X stiffeners so no need to create a weld sample of this.
- Output Mode Cleaner Suspension: Discussed with Norna, Chris and Alejandro the offset of the OMC tablecloth with respect to the osems after moving the locked down suspension to the table. The table needed new legs so it had to be moved off. The portable clean room is also installed around the table. Chris believes that the offset occured because of transverse movement of the tablecloth. He's going to add pins to stop this from happening. Alejandro & Sam hung the new metal bench. They'll take photos, which Calum will put on the wiki. They hope to let the upper mass off its stops, align the osems and take transfer functions and decay measurements tomorrow. The suspension will be disassembled after testing to machine the structure. Planned suspension of the ULE bench is end of August.
- Enhanced LIGO Earthquake Stops: Mike Zucker reported that he assembled the Enhanced LIGO earthquake stop prototypes and will test the installation them soon. He'll write up a report after which I'll call a meeting to settle design details. After that I'll start fabrication of production stops for retrofit into the LOSs.
- Quad: Worked with Betsy on travel plans for a trip to RAL for quad assembly training Aug 19-27.
From: k mailand kmailand@ligo.caltech.edu
- I finished an FEA model of the Manifold Baffle for Mike Smith. I'm doing a black glass Cryo Pump Baffle for Mike.
- The faraday 4 wire dampened suspension test setup parts are in the shop.
- A set of spherical and ball bearing parts in a clean and bake cycle, to see how they will perform dry
Core Optic
From: Bill Kells kells@ligo.caltech.edu
Just got back Tuesday from Australia (post Amaldi R&R). However there have immediately been some important items to launch into:
- The impetus of V. Frolov's new measurements of ITM scatter at LLO has prompted me to finally resolve some interpretation issues with Hiro concerning PSD representation of scatter loss (the actual differential scatter observed is not surprisingly different from the old LHO data, however PSD representation showed a large discrepancy !). It seems this puzzle (which had other ramifications ) is essentially understood.
- Participated in reviews of metrology for AdLIGO. In particular I had spent a day at CSIRO when in Sydney with C. Kreath and G. Billingsley. This then segued into sessions this week with potential "full" aperture vendors, Zygo.
- Very promising coating absorption measurements have been concluded by L. Zhang (his wkly !). I've been interpreting and guiding the ongoing work in this direction.
- Amaldi: made a summary in my latest work on the direct photography of the HR surface scatter. I am now in the process of comparing this with what we know otherwise (OTF scatter scans and in situ scatterometer). With the correct interpretation of the beam spot scatter images now understood, these various data are not too inconsistent. A summary of this will follow.
From: Liyuan Zhang <zhang_l@ligo.caltech.edu>
- A transmission scan of 160 x 160 mm^2 has been done on the LASTI LEM-1 mirror, both beam size (1/e, in diameter) and step size are 1 mm. While most pixels are around 9.5 ppm, indicating a very good uniformity (rms<1%), there are 9 high transmission points causing about 30 pixels saturated at 45 ppm, the upper limit of the lock-in scale in that setting. We'll look at these points again after finishing the scan of AR coating reflection which is underway.
Auxiliary Optics
From: Phil Willems <willems@ligo.caltech.edu>
- I delivered the ring heater prototype to LASTI when I came to the LSC-Virgo meeting. Foolishly, I took it as luggage, and even though it was packed in a sturdy case one of the two halves broke. It turns out that only one of the halves could be mounted onto the SUS quad prototype anyway- the lower heater half cannot be installed until cutaways are machined into the test mass installation cradle to make room for it, and the mounting holes in the SUS quad structure need threaded inserts before either half can be installed. Still, the holes line up, and the sides of the heater do not interfere with the stiffening struts on the sides of the SUS quad structure. The schedule for making the modifications necessary to mount the heaters will be discussed but I will repair the heater at my first opportunity.
Input Optics
From: David tanner@phys.ufl.edu
Muzammil Arain:
- We have conducted experiment on compensation of thermal lensing using active heating on anegative dn/dT material (DKDP). The results show that an effective adaptive system could be devised for active correction of thermal lensing problems. A precise control of wavefront is possible by this technique.
Luke Williams:
- Made vacuum bake list for eligo
- Completed design for thermally conductive TGG holders
- Completed design for larger inductor box for the eligo EOM
Other R&D
From: "D. Zeb Rocklin" <zeb@caltech.edu>
David Zeb Rocklin
- This week the bulk of my time was spent with the program "sis", created by Dr. Yamamoto to simulate realistic Fabry-Perot cavities. I have learned the program and arranged the necessary network drives, accounts, etc. to use the program. I have created Mathematica structures to interpret the fields generated by the program. I have discussed the program extensively with John Miller and Dr. Yamamoto, and identified a simple but key bug in the program, which Dr. Yamamoto quickly fixed. I am currently attempting to generate the Pound-Drever-Hall error signal by artificially attaching frequencies to the fields produced by the program.
- I have assisted (mostly watched) John as he measured the flatness of mirrors to be used in an upcoming experiment, as well as comparing the effects of different mounts on said flatness.
- I organized the weekly meeting and weekly report submissions. At the meeting, I presented a short Power Point presentation on my project entitled "Mesa Beams".
Valerio Boschi
- I'm concluding my work on HAM-SAS MBDyn mechanical simulations. A last model will be developed to study the effect of the tilt instabilities on the vertical control of the system.
- New work on data analysis started. The goal is to develop an algorithm for the study of the nonlinearities present in the interferometer sensitivity.
Arianna Dicintio and Maria Sartor
- We'are studying the lvdt response.we want to find their range of linearity response.we are also going to calibrate the coil we'll put under the load of the gas filter to generate an external force.All this is the preparation to the future measure of the gas filter' hysteresis.
Andrea Conte
- I want to study the feasibility of an in-vacuum scatterometer in order to better understand the causes of losses of the total power of the laser. So what I'm doing and what I'll do this week is to collect information about the current study of loss due to microroughness of the mirror surface, which is the most unknown one, and to start a double study with some photodiodes:
- a geometrical study to understand where is the best positions of the detectors
inside the chamber, and how configurate them.
- a study of their spectral noise.
John Miller
- This week I've been attempting to quantify the tolerances necessary for the mirrors of our new power recycling cavity. With help from GariLynn I've been looking at how the mirror mounts affect the shape of the HR surface .
For additional information about this report, contact Albert Lazzarini or Phil Lindquist
