Weekly Report for Week Ending November 8, 2007

LSC	Administration	Hanford Observatory	Livingston Observatory
Optical & Mechanical	Controls and Data Systems	40 Meter Facility	TNI
LASTI	CIT Science Group	Laboratory Computing	Adv. LIGO Development

Past Weekly Reports

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LSC Issues (Reitze)

• Planning for the December LSC-Virgo meeting in Boston is well underway - a web site with detailed information will be available next week.
• The LSC has submitted the paper "Implications for the Origin of GRB 070201 from LIGO Observations" to the arXIv http://arxiv.org/abs/0711.1163. 

This is the first S5 paper!!

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Lloyd)

• The table below shows all of the MOUs and their attachments that have been approved and signed off to date by both the LSC Spokesperson and the LIGO Laboratory Director.

  MOU	Attachment
  Andrews University	DAT, OPS, Z
  Embry-Riddle University	DAT, OPT, SUS, Z
  Eotvos University	DAT, OPS, OUT, Z
  Florida, University of	ACF, DAT, LAS, OPS, OPT, OUT, SUS, Z
  Goddard	DAT, OPS, Z
  Hobart and William Smith Colleges	DAT, OPS, Z
  Institute of Applied Physics	OPT, OUT, Z
  IUCAA	DAT, Z
  Louisiana Tech University	DAT, OPS, OUT, Z
  Loyola University	DAT, OPS, Z
  Maryland, University of	ACF, DAT, OPS, Z
  Montana State University	DAT, Z
  Oregon, University of	DAT, OPS, OUT, Z
  Rochester, University of	DAT, Z
  Southeastern Louisiana University	ACF, DAT, OPS, Z
  Stanford University	ACF, DAT, LAS, OPS, OPT, OUT, SUS, Z
  Texas-Austin, University of	DAT, OPS, Z
  Texas-Brownsville, University of	DAT, OPS, OUT, Z

• ACIGA and Carleton College are still under review.
• Northwestern, Sannio and Washington State are pending, requiring changes requested by the review panel.

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT (Luna)

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

• Started entering LHO & LLO data for the Federal Real Property Profile required by the NSF.
• Assisted K. Mason at MIT in making shipping arrangements for two containers from High Precision Devices in Boulder, CO to MIT.  Account Number: LIGO.EHSIM 5.8.2.-NSFLIGO.FY02CA.
• Assisted K. Mason at MIT in making shipping arrangements for one container from High Precision Devices in Boulder, CO to LHO.  Account Number: LIGO.EHSIM 5.8.2.-NSFLIGO.FY02CA.
• Continued working with Property Services on year end reports for Government-Owned vehicles and leased GSA vehicles.

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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

• Completed processing talks from the recent LSC/Virgo Collaborations Meeting.
• Experienced another document submittal surge from another individual who submitted a large quantity of documentation to be processed into the DCC.

FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Funaro, Brambila, Oracion)

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

• For ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY Press Here.

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

• Attended the meeting held on the invoice workflow.  The new workflow was put into effect immediately on the revised process for handling invoices submitted with requisitions.
• Completed the change order for the no-cost extension to Limerick.
• Responded to a vendor's request pertaining to our tax status on various orders we placed with them.  The vendor was being audited and needed a response immediately.
• Completed the monthly close out of POs Inquired and researched orders still open that were dated. Cancelled several orders.  Requested duplicate invoices on orders still open where the vendor had already submitted invoices, however, there were no invoices in the system.
• Placed the order for the purchase of computers for Gary M.
• Completed the renewal of the hardware and software maintenance agreements for Larry.
• Closed out the Filehold subcontract.  Followed up with vendors on pending close outs.
• Working on Ares to route for approval.
• Completing Tyler's order.

>From: Karl Oracion <koracion@ligo.caltech.edu>

• Financial reports can be found at: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport. (For passwords contact Karl)

PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist)

The big exercise this week was the NSF Review.  With a favorable report card from the review committee concerning our proposal for FY 2009 through FY 2013 Operations, this concludes months of intense effort, and I thank those who have contributed.  I project that we will be doing an Annual/Final Report for the current cooperative agreement next summer as well as an update for the budgets for FY 2009 through FY 2013 at about the same time.

Currently assembling the monthly report for the end of October.  There is still a section or two for which I have not received any material.  This report is due to be sent to the NSF next week.

We will be resurrecting our interest in finalizing the budgets for FY 2008.  Karl is incorporating what we have so far into the reports for the end of October.  We have received the funding for the first half of FY 2008.

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 Monday, November 12.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

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

• No report.

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

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

Post-S5 measurements continued. Most of the activities are related to calibration. A partial list of activities is shown below.

• Tuesday maintenance summary.
• Measurements for DC calibration of the actuators.
• Calibration using VCO.
• Photon calibrator test.
• Photographing of TMs in full power continued.
• TCS power calibration for both H1 and H2.
• New tidal file.
• OS of GDS machines are being upgraded. Some hardware are replaced also.

Outreach (D. Ingram)

• LHO hosted an open house on 10/20/07 for ~60 GEAR UP students from Wapato and Yakima. Staffing was provided by Raab, Ingram and LHO interns Guillermo Rodriguez and Antonio Trevino. The WA section of AAPT held its annual meeting at LHO on 10/27/07. Vern Sandberg gave one of two plenary talks. Scientists Raab, Landry, Mendell and Sandberg served as panelists for a discussion of modern physics instruction. Raab and Ingram provided a site tour. Terry Santini provided catering services on 10/20/07 and 10/27/07.

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

VE work associated with ELIGO (Rusyl Wooley):

• We completed step #24 thru #48 of the ELI Vent and Septum Installation Procedure E070250-00-V which is posted under vacuum mods at the eLIGO wiki site http://ilog.ligo-wa.caltech.edu:7285/mLIGO/ Vacuum_Equipment_Modifications? action=AttachFile&do=get&target=E070250-00-1.pdf. To summarize - The septum plate is in.
• In addition to that:
  • Today we removed IP1 & IP2 and replaced the 14" valves. We then reinstalled IP1 & IP2. They will be pumped out tomorrow.
  • We pumped down IP3 & IP4 and started the ion pumps. The ion pumps came up fine but I left the turbos spinning for the night.
  • This afternoon we received the parts for the view port and will process them in the morning.
  • I also spun up the main volume turbo pump. We are tight up to the new 10" valve.
  • Tomorrow we will install the blanks on septum ports A & C and the view port on septum port B. I am also going to put the tie rods back into the mode cleaner tube bellows. If it is a reasonable hour, I will begin the pump down of the vertex section.

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)

• The 40m Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) met today. Rana showed these slides, which includes results on suspension optimization by SURF Sonia Buckley, noise cancellation adaptive filtering by SURFs Keenan Pepper and Elena Gaspari, DC readout noise transfer functions from Rob, results from our MC drag-wiping exercise (see below), and recent results from Stefan and Rana on modeling the 40m length sensing and control system and noise sources (Bench).
• After completion of the drag wiping of the mode cleaner optics last week, Steve and company sealed up the MC chambers, and he and Andrey pumped back down on Monday. The pump down went smoothly (and slowly, to avoid stirring up dust).
• After returning to vacuum, Rob and company got the mode cleaner locked with little difficulty. The beam went through the Faraday isolator into the main interferometer, and the XARM was also locked with little difficulty. The MC was measured to by 2.7mm shorter than before the vent (not surprisingly), and the RF frequencies were all adjusted accordingly.
• Tobin re-measured the MC cavity ringdowns and Rob re-measured the MC pole frequency. Both measurements were approximately unchanged with respect to the measurements made before drag-wiping. We conclude that the inferred ~100 ppm loss per mirror is not due to dust particles on the mirror surfaces. This, plus some pencil beam scatterometer measurements made by Liyuan, suggests that the anomalous losses are due to many small coating defects.
• Tobin and Rob are optimizing the PSL intensity stabilization servo (ISS). They cranked the gain up to get a 35kHZ UGF without saturating the current shunt actuator. They are finding problems with the electronics chain, so there is room for much improvement.
• Sam and Pinkesh continue to make progress in commissioning the eLIGO OMC. They made a whole mess of characterizations of the PZT control and then locked the OMC with a PZT dither lock and a 600 Hz loop. They also worked on measuring the transfer functions of the 6 degrees of freedom in the OMS SUS. It will be disassembled next week for vacuum prepping.
• Tobin hooked our Tektronix scopes up to the network, gave them IP addresses, and wrote a script to access their data and get it on to the controls computers. Neat!

---

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

• The analog OSEM controllers for the arm cavities are acting up. Akira is working on them, and Greg and Eric are looking into possible replacements. These units are old prototypes from the early '90s.  When they work, they work fine for our needs, but they often fail due to intermittent connections. There is rather a lot of "spaghetti" wiring inside these boxes.
• Greg is out this week.

---

LASTI (Mittleman)

BSC-ISI

• We have been working to restore the system to its free hanging position. The discovery of the mis-seated shims and mis-positioned lockers as reported over the last couple of weeks requires a realignment of all of the high tolerance gaps in the system. The lockers are almost all reset, after which we will move on to the actuators, after that we can rebalance and move on to trying to drive the platforms.

Noise Prototype Quad

• Brett has been preparing for Joe O’Dell’s visit from RAL. The purpose of which is to install new blade brackets to account for the slightly softer then expected springs. This will require the removal of the lower half of the quad structure.

CIT Science Group (Weinstein)

__________________

Drew Keppel:

• Over the past week I have been working on:
  • baby-sitting some S5 1yr low mass cbc runs for producing an upper limit
  • continuing to write the S5 1yr low mass cbc paper
  • investigating how to combine double and triple coincident triggers found in triple coincident time
    <http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/cgi-bin/enote.pl?nb=iags5bns&action=view& page=30>

__________________

Gregory Mendell:

• Nothing significant to report this week.  However, I plan to start today some fscan work for the CW group.

__________________

Kipp Cannon:

• Continued making progress on efficiency improvements in the excess power based galactic core burst search.

__________________

Anand Sengupta:

• I continued to look at the injections near the \chi^2 and r^2 thresholds.
• Study the distribution of ethinca parameters for a wide variety of injection families.

__________________

Kent Blackburn for the Grid Research Group:

GRID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT AND SUPPORT

• Wrote submission file for submission of E@H as standalone application on OSG. Attempted to run E@H stand-alone on AGLT2, NERSC_PDSF (both failed).
• Wrote DAX for submission of E@H as standalone application on OSG. Then convert the DAX to a DAG. Attempted to run dag via condor_submit on OSG (it also failed).
• Attended Workflow Workshop at UWMilwaukee hosted by the LIGO binary inspiral analysis group. Presented on the use of Pegasus for running workflows on the Open Science Grid.

OPEN SCIENCE GRID MANAGEMENT

• Attended and chaired the Open Science Grid Finance Board Meeting at Fermilab. Reviewed year one summary and year two status and planning. Currently righting a formal report from the meeting to be presented to the OSG Council and added to the materials to be presented to the Joint Oversight Team and external review committee for the OSG in January in Washington, DC.
• Attended and presented at the NSF review, responding to specific questions for which I was responsible.

__________________

Lisa Goggin:

• At the Inspiral Workflow meeting at UWM.

__________________

Pinkesh Patel:

• Writing up his F-statistic resampling algorithm.

__________________

Joseph Betzwieser:

• Cleaned up code and re-ran Monte Carlo simulations for the frequency domain Crab Pulsar search centered on known values with size in parameter space suggested by reviewers.  Preparing for final few reviews.
• Reviewed Powerflux S5 paper.

__________________

Alan Weinstein:

• Gave talk on DA for NSF review.

Laboratory Computing (Anderson)

LDAS Software Systems (Maros)

• Updated test results for system test 1.9.102 on dev.
• Modified datacondMDC email verifications to get some tests e.g. tseriesapi to pass; also added missing tests fftapi02* and pipeapi01.  fixed regexp syntax for egrep to escape () in subject so email verification can pass.
• Created createRDSTest.tcl from rdsloop.tcl to test createRDS different level frames with the standard system test harness. Created createRDSTest_S3.tcl test driver to run different levels of RDS output. Using S3 frames for now.  Added code to verify number of output frames and frame times.
• rsync 1.9.98 to ldas-test. Had to kill stuck diskcacheAPI on ldas-test two or 3 times a week so manager could reboot it.

LDAS System Administration (Anderson)

Caltech

(Dan Kozak)

• Last week's cluster frame check detected no new bad frames in the cluster, just the previously reported 5 bad Burst-MDC frames.
• Finished publishing regenerated h(t), copied some regenerated h(t) L2s back to the cluster (these aren't showing up in LSCdataFind queries yet, tho').  Deleted some remaining L1 h(t) data from the cluster.  Confirmed that all h(t) files in Xavi's master list are in /archive/frames and all L2 h(t) in Xavi's lists are on cluster nodes.
• Worked on metadata testing with new 6140.
• Upgraded firmware on new 6140.
• Remounted /scratch on ldas-test (for some reason it wasn't shared on the server).
• Spent some time trying to figure out why the LLO tape space monitor page isn't working anymore, but it will require someone who knows Python.
• Did some tests of the local performance differences between /archive and /export on ldas-cit to try to narrow down the cause of the problem that Scott Koranda noted.
• Shelf storage ejects at LHO/LLO.
• Worked with Greg to try to track down problem with createRDS failing to reading an input file from /archive.
• Set up Astrowatch (A5) archiving at LLO.

MIT

(Fred Donovan)

• Usual 3ware issues (pcraid4,8,13).

Livingston

(Igor Yakushin)

• Published HBLW2_S5_R2 burst MDC frames at CIT.
• Created current complete version of each DQ segment type as version 10 in the segment database (same as version 99 in segwizard dump).
• Inserted SIDECOIL_ETMX_RMS_6HZ into LLO database, however, due to a replication problem described below, the new segments have not propagated yet to other sites.
• There is a problem with segment replication at LLO.  The origin of the problem seems to be the fact that the database and websphere were not configured to handle transactions of a size needed by the modified version of the insertion script (previously, only small segment lists were inserted, now each segment list covers the whole run). At first I could not insert some of the segment lists covering the whole S5. The error message was: DB2 transaction log full. I have increased the number of transaction logs and their size for DB2 and now can insert big segments without problems. However, websphere was not configured to handle replication of such big transactions as well. I have increased the parameters recommended in the documentation (message size for various queues, number of primary and secondary logs) but it did not help: it looks like some of the messages sent between sites are already lost or stuck somewhere. I am rereading websphere documentation to figure out how to fix it. I am not yet sure if a complete resynchronization between the databases is required or one can handle it in a less invasive way.

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

• The LSC Data Grid (LDG) web pages have been updated and this marks the formal release of the LDG 4.5 Client and Server packages. See:

http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/lscdatagrid/

http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/lscdatagrid/doc/installclient.html

http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/lscdatagrid/doc/installserver.html

The most important change made with this release is the inclusion of the latest versions of the certificate utilities, LSCrenewCert, LSCrequestCert, and LSCretrieveCert. Older versions of these are now deprecated. You will need these to obtain or renew your certificates, if you are using a certificate from the U.S. doegrids. Thus, if you using LDG and do not already have a pre-released version of LDG 4.5 installed it is highly recommended that you update to LDG 4.5.

(Ben Johnson)

• Updated firmware in 3511 test unit. I have not performed any I/O tests, but the update was otherwise successful.
• Showed Greg how to replace a 3511 disk (3511-4 had a failed disk).  Replacement came from test unit, and was made a global spare.
• The Solaris patch tool, PCA, is being used in a limited form as a proxy patch server. This is especially important due to Sun's download site being very flaky.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT

(Fred)

• Some issues with spamd firewall; (wedged).
• Some more LASTI setups
• Gwdaw12 planning/web work.
• Twiki for sysadm on tintage.
• Smartd tubera/ligo integrated with nagios(via send_nsca).
• Debugging ilog command-line tool, starting on web interface.
• Routine adm; mathworks r2007b lic/tubera.

Livingston

(Dwayne)

• Inventory DB work.
• Couple of procurement items.
• Cleaned drive in GC tape system, restarted arkeiad, ran full backup.
• Work on kantech system, troubleshooting problems at the X end.

Hanford

(Christine)

• Investigating an error message from the new mail server.  No fix yet.
• Started installing spamassassin, clamav and MIMEdefang on the new mail server.
• Finally have full DNS authority for the ligo-wa.caltech.edu domain. Caltech ITS was still maintaining the reverse lookup authority until Tuesday afternoon.
• Talked with Lockheed Martin.  They are getting ready to move the backup network to new fiber.  Will start next week and will coordinate with me before doing the final change over.
• Bought a new MAC and Parallels for a user and provided some documentation for initial setup.

Caltech

(Veronica)

• LIGO:  Support of the NSF review meeting.  Updates of the PAC website. Misc LIGO web updates.
• LSC:  Started working on a website for the next L-V meeting, setting up a registration interface.  Posting presentations from the last L-V meeting.  Updates of the database of technical papers.  LSC web updates.
• CaJAGWR:  Web updates/user support.

(Mike)

• Helped setup meeting rooms for NSF review.
• Added multiple user mac addresses to our wireless access points.
• Christian and I updated all SolidWorks users to SP4.0.
• Worked on a few printers.
• Setup a few user accounts.
• Other user support and sysadmin tasks.

(Larry)

• Worked a number of procurement issues. Renewed some of the licenses and purchased another new Solidworks license. Misc. h/w has arrived and is being distributed. Still a number of workstations to be purchased.
• Worked with Christian, Mike, Veronica and Julie on a number of items dealing with the NSF review. Overall things went well. Having a backup NAT wireless box and a few other items paid off.
• Worked with a number of others on documentation for presentations.
• Working with Christine on a couple of different fronts. Now that the DNS issue has been resolved the mail server is performing the way it should. Still trying to resolve some erroneous error messages.
• Setup a number of specialty accounts and modified file systems for those accounts.
• Worked with Veronica on a couple of different web items. There's a good possibility that Veronica will help out with the Safety web training setup for campus.
• Checking on a box for Shannon. It looks like the power supply is not working properly on the unit.
• Misc. user support.

(Christian)

• Created workstation backup for Irene Baldon and Marilyn Wright.
• Mike and I upgraded Solidworks users to SP4.
• Configured new PowerBook laptop with OS leopard.
• Helped setup for the NSF review this week.
• Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Advanced LIGO Management

• No report.

Advanced LIGO Systems

Modeling and Simulation

From: Hiroaki Yamamoto hiro@ligo.caltech.edu

e2e weekly meeting

• Sany reported his worksabout the AdvLIGO MC modeling. Some resonances 
  observed in the frequency noise spectrum was diagnosed to be caused by 
  the coupling of LSC and MC yaw motion.
• The effect of the correlation of seismic motions under the two HAM 
  tables used for the MC is studied as the effect on the frequency noise.

Static IFO simulation (Hiro, John)

• John started working on fining the optimal ring heater correction for an asymmetric arm (ROC(ITM)=1971, ROC(ETM)=2191) with low finesse option (T(ITM) = 1%). He also works on the code to down sample data to course grids. This is needed to properly convert the phasemap file to be used in the simulation code.
• Hiro works on the Stable Coupled Cavity simulation to find how well the adjustment of the distance between MMT2 and MMT3 can recover the mode coupling when ITM curvature is off.
• Several % level of signal loss is observed for 1% ITM curvature mismatch, which is larger than the Florida group predicts. The cause is being investigated.
• Hiro improved the locking algorithm ( error signal is normalized by the sqrt(Power in cavity) to enhance the linear region ). This seems to have improved the stability of finding proper locked points.

Mechanical Simulation for advanced LIGO (Sany and SLU team)

• Further investigated the peak appearing at 1.35 Hz in the AdvLIGO MC residual length fluctuation spectrum that we previously found in our e2e calculation.  From new analysis, we found that by locally damping the pos DOF of the intermediate mass of the MC2 (the optic controlled by the MC length control servo) suspension, this peak could be reduced 
  by an order of magnitude. MC triple suspension has mechanical resonance at 0.67 Hz (mode 1 resonance according to Mark Barton's definition), which is dominantly due to pitch motions of the three masses. There is no mechanical resonance at 1.35 Hz. Our previous analysis indicates that MC2 yaw spectrum has a prominent peak at 1.35 Hz. The other DOF of MC2, or any DOF of other MC optics does not show a prominent peak at 1.35 Hz. A possible explanation of these observations is as follows. When the MC length control force is applied to MC2 optic, the above-mentioned mode 1 resonance is excited, and its energy is coupled to MC2 optic's yaw motion (most likely via pos motions). Consequently, the MC intra-cavity triangular optical path pivots around MC2. Since this motion is horizontally symmetric (i.e., symmetric about the axis connecting the center of MC1-MC2 path and MC2 optic center), the total MC intra-cavity optical path length fluctuation occurs at the doubled frequency. By suppressing the middle mass's motion with the local damping, the energy is dissipated, leading to the reduced peak at 1.35 Hz.

Prestabilized Laser

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

• I have been checking the LHO architect's drawings for the laser diode
  enclosure, in particular the amount of HEPA filtering pencilled in.  My
  understanding suggests with the HEPA filter unit drawn, it would have to
  operate at 100% in order to maintain a Class 10000 environment.
• A number of hose materials have been looked at for use with de-ionised
  water.  Of concern is that over a long period of time, contaminants bleach
  out of the hoses and cause problems.  This is a concern primarily for AdL
  where the water comes into physical contact with the laser rods.

Control and Data Systems

From: Rolf Bork rolf@ligo.caltech.edu

ADVLIGO

• No report

AdL SUS

• Initial testing of the first UIM coil driver confirms that the unit meets the design requirements.
• Jay will be at Univ of Birmingham next week to discuss the noise prototype electronics testing and status. There will also be discussions of required production testing.
• Jay has started to use Norna's and Rana's matlab models for the  RM and IMC and displacement noise curves from Stefan to generate the design requirements for the RM and IMC electronics. These requirements should be ready for review in early December.
• Jay is working with Rich Mittleman to develop the test plan for the noise prototype electronics being sent to LASTI. The plan should be ready for review by early December.

DC Power Distribution

• Rich worked on DC power packaging issues.  Met with Peter Fritschel, Rana and Rai to show them the results of the prototype packaging experiment.  A 10 amp power module was successfully contained within a filtered chassis.  The switching frequency of the supply was 1.88 MHz, the conducted emission was measured to be ~-75dBm.  Using a 1 meter piece of wire, a radiated emission test was performed at a distance of about 1 meter, and no observable radiation was measured, setting an upper limit at about -120 dBm.  The low frequency noise characteristics a few microvolts per rtHz in the several tens of Hz region, dropping to less than 100 nV per rtHz at a few tens of KHz.  The test offers hope that packaging of a high power DC to DC converter can result in a low noise supply suitable for LIGO use.
• The next phase of the DC power is to get the pre-regulator and post-regulator working together nicely.  A request was made to LHO to send the existing test setup to CIT for further analysis. Ben has started looking at how to provide differential filtering.

Commercial ADC/DAC Modules

• Investigating a few more commercial ADC/DAC modules suggested by one of the outside reviewers from last week's ADC/DAC review. A few look promising.
• Received the PCI cards for timestamping our ADC data at the I/O chassis. Alex wrote the necessary drivers and we are starting tests.

ELIGO

• Rich and Charles are working on finishing some of the last bits of in-vacuum cabling for the OMC, as well as improving the flexibility of the existing harnesses by removal of all but the most essential coverings.
• Continuing to ship computer/network components to LHO for first OMC computer testing there next week.

Seismic Isolation

From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

BSC Seismic Isolation Assembly and Test

• This week on the BSC we decided to try to reposition the lockers in order to hopefully correct any difficulty we've had balancing the stages. After a careful check of the system we had found that stages 1 and 2 were not necessarily sitting level (using stage 0 as "level").  But the stage positions had been defined by centering the locker pin in the locker sleeve; meaning that something was amiss in the locker assemblies' vertical positioning.
• We re-inserted tooling posts between the stages to re-establish good relative vertical positions of stages 0, 1, and 2.  We are now centering the lockers to these nominal heights. Next we'll need to re-balance the stages-- this should be only a matter of shifting small trim weights at this point (e.g. <20 lbs shift on each of the corners).  Then we'll need to slightly re-position the actuators to accommodate the corrected relative positions of the stages.
• There has been much debate over the best way to set these lockers but it will eventually result in a more easily repeatable process for the production models of the BSC for the Advanced installation.

HAM Seismic Isolation Assembly and Test

• Brian L. Brian O, Jeff K, and Pradeep are at HPD this week. They have been troubleshooting the sensors and actuators and characterizing the system. This work will continue next week and then we will disassemble the structure the week after Thanksgiving.
• PSI has redesigned the tooling used to wind the bobbins. The new bobbins do not have wires extending over the aluminum body and look considerably better.
• Astropak is having trouble removing the stain from the large plates machined by Zimmerman's. Bob Taylor is planning on visiting Astropak to do an FTIR test on the plates. This will determine whether or not we have a problem or simply an oxide coating on the plates.

Suspensions

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

• Further work on schedules and staffing issues to support Adv LIGO SUS work at LASTI.
• Provided comments on Justin's revised UK scope document.
• Supplied transfer function info for beamsplitter to Stefan for control authority investigations. Updated conceptual design document for BS - almost complete.
• Looked at consequences of small changes (reduction) in weight of as-received glass masses with respect to the "d" values for the quad. Conclusion - 80 g reduction, with ~150 micron d changes resulted in insignificant pitch frequency changes.
• OMC SUS work ongoing. Pinkesh and Sam are looking into effect of electrical cabling on the transfer functions. Consideration of reworks to allow for heavier bench underway.

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

Recycling Mirror Suspension

• Nothing significant to report

Output Mode Cleaner Suspension

• Submitted a draft of the OMC installation procedure to Gary Traylor for input and comments and to Norna for comments. Updated the OMC drawing tree enough to get OMC cleaning and baking travelers to Stephany and Bob Taylor for planning purposes. I've asked Mike Meyer to review the OMC assy in the vault and review/edit the parts list/drawing tree so that we won't miss anything. Submitted an eDrawing of the two new EQ stop brackets to Norna & Sam for review prior to fabrication. Reviewing the latest version of the OMC structure drawing in preparation for 2nd structure fab. Participated in a welding telecon on Friday. Ken Mailand hopes to have a quote for electropolishing the OMC structure by today.

Earthquake Stop Retrofit

• Bob has begun to send parts back for assembly. But, he won't have all of the parts here until Tuesday, 13 Nov. At that point, all of Kyle's parts should be here as well. We will assemble the stops as soon as all of the parts are here. I submitted Joe's drawings DCN  for release. Some of the tools have been air baked but more needs to be done.
• Worked with Norna on schedules and travel issues.

From: k mailand kmailand@ligo.caltech.edu

• Parts for Sam Waldman's Septum plate /Ham table top and table side mounted beam dumps are complete, and in Bob Taylor's clean and bake Q.
• I'm designing a shipping container for the mode cleaner optical bench, for carry on
  transportation to site.
• I have made contact with a local aluminum electro-polisher for Calum /Janeen
  waiting for quote on structure.
• I have contacted a local water jet cutter for the baffle and beam dump black glass cutting, they will do a sample part next week.
• I have contacted the local vendor re. black porcelain on metal base for some of our baffle applications, they will do samples of the process.
• Testing the faraday 4 wire style damper is in Phil Willems lab, is in progress.
• The assembly of the installation arm basic tool is complete, load testing has been completed at CES the results are good, guards, grab handles, and brakes will be installed next.
• The preliminary design for the zero expansion is complete and on hold.

Core Optics

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

• We have identified a CSIRO coated optic that we could/should check forscatter/holes - Gregg reports the Q sample that Andri is finished with will be sent to CIT. Helena has found one bubble at the edge of the CSIRO sample (annealed at a lower temperature)
• The CSIRO  Review for the polishing pathfinder was held 11-4-07 in Sydney
  They raised the points that inspecting for point defects is a serious concern -
  cleaning is key to this measurement.
• CSIRO has provided TOPO dat sets in .opd format for the Pathfinder polishing.  We have not received the full aperture data yet.
  
• The TOPO data are available in unique folders on the CIT network at, ~gari\cocdocs\LIGO2\Pathfinder\CSIRO contract

Auxiliary Optics

From: Michael Smith smith@ligo.caltech.edu

IFO LAYOUT

• Mike has completed the new ZEMAX layout of the stable power/signal recycling cavity IFO. He has also finished a new ZEMAX layout of the marginally stable reycling cavity IFO, with 0.08 deg wedge angles on the PRM and SRM. However, the placement of the two recycling mirrors may interfere with the height of the HAM chamber.
  Hiro pointed out that an important role for the x-arm and y-arm recycling cavity elliptical baffles is to block the excess beam margin of the two recombining beams, caused by the finite horizontal size of the BS, so that the uncombined light does not reach the output detector and cause DC noise.

Input Optics

• No report.

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