Special Announcements: There will be no meeting of the LIGO Executive Committee Monday, January 21, 2008 due to the holiday.
LSC Issues (Reitze)
- The gravitational wave astronomy session at the American Astronomical Society meeting held in Austin, TX last week was well received. On the order of 100 people were in attendance, most coming from from the astronomy community.
- A committee of LSC members has been formed to look into better ways for LSC and Virgo members to participate remotely in collaboration meetings. The goal is to have something in place for the March L-V meeting at Caltech that works better than what has been done in the past.
- Approximately 20 abstracts on LSC work were submitted to the April APS meeting.
LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)
STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Lloyd)
- The table below shows 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 |
| Carleton College |
DAT, OPS, OUT, 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 |
| Northwestern 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 |
| Washington State University |
DAT, OPS, Z |
- This reporting period Washington State (shown in table above), was approved and signed off. It will be posted and submitted to the DCC.
- ACIGA is still under review.
- Sannio is pending, requiring changes requested by the review panel.
PROPERTY MANAGEMENT (Luna)
>From: Rod Luna <rluna@ligo.caltech.edu>
- Worked with US Customs in providing supporting documents to process two Duty-Free forms for the import of two glass masses.
- Coordinated the disposal of a laser system and the relocation of a crane from West Bridge to the Synchrotron Mezzanine.
- Writing exports and imports procedures.
Quality/Safety (Tyler)
No report.
LIGO Hanford Observatory (LHO) and Interferometer Operations (Raab)
Summary of activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory (compiled by M. Landry)
- UFL and LHO staff continued IO work in HAMs 1 and 2. The old Faraday Isolator (FI) was removed and the new one installed. The former was characterized and found to have 85% transmission and 33dB of isolation at 8W. Several alignments were performed, and in order to assess the movement required of MMT2, a beamscan was made. The IO work is largely on schedule and expected to continue all of next week.
- As a test of H2 status after the December ITM work, the 2k IFO was locked in detect mode. This cleared the way for a MY vent, for the following work: mass inspection due to hangup problems, earthquake retrofit, PAM measurements and gapping, bias relief and drag wiping. The majority of barrel stops were situated less than 0.5mm of the cylinder of the optic, some very nearly touching, a clear source of hangup. The retrofitted stops were set as to eliminate this as a problem for Astrowatch running. Additionally, incident and reflected photon calibrator measurements were performed. We intend to vent MX next week for similar work. The 2k then will begin final pumpdown prior to Astrowatch. Students have begun to arrive at the lab for the run.
LIGO Livingston Observatory (LLO) and Interferometer Operations (Giaime)
VE and Enhanced LIGO (Rusyl Wooley):
- We closed the 10" valve on the vertex section and turned off the turbo pump along with the QDP80 backing pump. I restarted the clean air compressor and purged the back fill lines for ~1 hour. I took particle measurements of the air discharged at the back to air valve (reading was 0). I reconnected the purge line to the valve, closed GV1 & GV2 and backfilled the vertex section.
- We removed the cover from the south 84" nozzle of HAM1. While the IO work was performed we installed the new view port on HAM4. After the IO work was complete, we replaced both the inner and outer o-rings and reinstalled the cover on HAM1.
- The o-rings that were removed from HAM1 showed age but were not pinched or rolled. I have saved the o-rings for inspection. When the cover was removed we realized that the o-rings, in particular the outer ring, was not expanded beyond the o-ring groove and could not have sealed.
- We removed the west 84" cover from HAM6, Installed the view port on the septum plate, installed the new view port on HAM1 and began pump down of the vertex section.
- I turned on the turbo pump attached to the vertex section. When the pressure reached 1.18e-5. Harry and I opened GV1 & GV2.
- The annulus space for HAM4 & HAM5 is now on the ion pumps. We have moved the small turbo over to HAM1.
- We performed a helium leak test of the HAM1 annulus space. The outer o-ring leak is fixed.
- While this work was being completed, Mike has been steady building up the new ISI rack. We installed the new supports under the mode cleaner tube near HAM6. These supports will accommodate the new cable tray and the extension of the clean air pipe to HAM6.
CDS Computing (Lisa Bogue):
- Fine-tuned the image I am using to put all of the cds workstations into a common configuration. This includes ldap client configuration. I plan on having all of the cds general use machines upgraded to a current patch level of solaris 9 and ldap by end of day tomorrow. This configuration includes individual login accounts and centralized home accounts.
- Resolving uid permission issues as they arise following migration of all accounts to new uid/gid schema.
- Fixed the dataviewer year problem. Alex was very prompt in getting a bug fix out, but it was quite a bit of work to get it applied correctly here. There are 2 completely different dataviewer trees in cds and there was an undocumented wrapper script in place that was hard-coding an old version of dataviewer.
- Twiddled the l1omc and l1oms machines to be ready for next week. Worked with Brian Lantz to get him the access he needed to those machines.
- Replaced the old broken IRIG-B frequency amplifier with a new and improved one. Fired up the code on l1oms to see if this resolved the timing drift we were seeing previously. It does not.
- Ran security patchs on the beam centering pc.
- Resolved a problem (with Peter Shawhan's help) with conlogger on llo2.
LLO Outreach (John Thacker):
- Developed and delivered Professional Development for 30 Livingston Parish Teachers.
- Designed and Delivered Professional Development at Copper Mill Elementary School in Zachary.
- Program for 2 middle schools and one high school.
- Scheduled and confirmed field trips.
- Reviewed LA GEAR UP two proposals for teacher Professional Development for next year.
- Continued work on annual report.
- Continued work on Next Phase grant activities.
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)
- Rob and company continue to make good progress in lock acquisition. Rob is concentrating on the power recycled FP Michelson configuration, controlled by DC readout after the OMC. He got through the handoff of DARM to the OMC, and is now working on handing off CARM to REFL166.
- Plans are developing for prototyping a auxilliary laser arm-locking scheme, where some light picked off from the PSL is fiber-fed into the ETMs. Tobin and John are setting up a system to measure the phase noise of a long optical fiber. Rana is talking with Jun Ye of JILA, who has developed phase-noise cancelling long fibers.
- Alberto has finalized the schematic for the RF monitor board based on passive Chebyshev band-pass filters. With help from Rich and Ben, he designed and built a test circuit for the 166MHz line using tunable inductors. He gets more than 20 dB of isolation after 33MHz. He's working on a design with more filter orders for better rejection.
- Pinkesh and now Joe B have gotten the GigE camera to work, and Joe is now beginning to develop software for automated readout and analysis of beam profiles.
- Andrey continues to work on suspension controller gain optimization for the arm cavities.
- The ETMY suspension controller has been tripping off lately. It appears to be due to large seismic events. Andrey will move an accelerometer over there to monitor it.
- The signal from the BS UL sensor continues to be ratty, and we believe it is due to scattered light: either on the OSEM photodiode itself or the wires carrying the signal out. Realignment doesn't help much. For now, the UL signal has been switched off in software.
- We have assembled a list of potential SURF08 projects at the 40m, including: auomated beam scanning and aligning; adaptive filtering for noise cancellation; development of our PEM system (weather, voltage monitors, microphones, etc); commissioning our automated dither alignment system; noise budget work; further study and suppression of optical lever noise; Mach Zehnder improvements; implementation of a new RF modulation scheme for length control; aux laser arm locking; SPI stuff.
- IST building construction has begun in earnest with big heavy ground breaking machinery. There can be a huge amount of seismic noise during the day.
- We have been informed that there are plans for a geophysics lab in the CES building (the one we're wrapped around), including a setup that can best be described as a "giant rock tumbler". We have made it clear that vibrations cannot be tolerated after hours, when we try to operate the interferometer.
- Next week is Tobin's last before moving to LLO. Beer at the Ath, Wednesday ~ 5pm!
Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)
- Here are plots of the recent data on optimized (undoped) coatings, along with older plots of doped and undoped periodic coatings.
-
LASTI (Mittleman)
BSC-ISI
- Since most of this past week was dedicated to suspension work (see below) we decided to fix the galled bolts in the stage 0-1 lockers. On tuesday we were able to remove the lockers from the ISI (they were not designed to be easily removable) and Myron has managed to remove all of the stuck bolts. The lockers are now being cleaned and will be reinstalled next week.
Noise Prototype Suspension
- Danny(LLO) and Doug(LHO) have been here this week working with Brett on the Quad alignment. They discovered a fairly serious problem. The blade springs in the suspension are not clamped tightly enough so sideways force produces a permanent shift in the blade tip position. This problem was probably exacerbated when the blade clamps needed to be filed last year. We are working with the suspension group to fix the problem.
CIT Science Group (Weinstein)
Drew Keppel:
_________________
Antony Searle:
_________________
Kent Blackburn and the Grid R&D Team:
GRID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT:
- Write agenda and minutes for weekly LIGO-Pegasus telecon. Attend weekly LIGO_Pegasus, DASWG, OSG_TROUBLESHOOTING, OSG-USERS telecons.
- Installed the OSG client 0.8.0 on osg-itb-se and tested workflow submission with it. No new problems found.
- OSG 0.8.0 production sites testing: FAIL TTU_ANTAEUS, STAR_BNL (GOC tickets opened), SUCCESS at NotreDame, BNL_ATLAS_1.
- WS-GRAM testing on OSG sites: FAIL LIGO_CIT_ITB, OSG_LIGO_MIT, NotreDame (trouble shooting MIT, ND), SUCCESS at BNL_ATLAS_1.
- SRMCP working between osg-itb-se and srm server at CIT_CMS_T2.
- SRM with Pegasus work-flow planner: efforts on hold, waiting for Pegasus wrapper script and MOU approval between LIGO and Pegasus.
- Began working on using Glide-Ins with Pegasus.
OPEN SCIENCE GRID INTEGRATION TESTBED:
- Had to update the DOE Grids CA certificate on the OSG-ITB-SE host as it expired last week and this was preventing proxy certificates from being generated.
- Provided Filippo Grimaldi of MIT with an account on the OSG submit host to allow him to test out and troubleshoot some issues with jobs running at MIT's OSG site that were submitted from this host.
- Asked Phil Ehrens to do an audit using a script he has written of all expired certificates on the box.
OPEN SCIENCE GRID MANAGEMENT:
- Continued developing OSG Project and Resource Management talk for Joint DOE/NSF review of OSG next week. Still a lot of work to do on this.
- Made several suggestions to Patrick Brady and the CompComm regarding the key points being asked of science communities that are presenting at the review.
- Reviewed fourth quarter reports from the OSG's area coordinators.
- Attend OSG Council meeting and worked with Council Chairman on the agenda for the March face-to-face council meeting.
- No word from USC-ISI regarding sign-off of the new MOU that was sent to them last Thursday.
- Conducted a phone interview with a strong candidate for the OSG Integration and Testbed administrator position that is open here at Caltech. Candidate is on a post-doc and will not be available before July of this year. Will need to discuss this with the area coordinator for the Integration and Testbed team to see if the delay is acceptable.
- Registered for OSG's All-Hands-Meeting in March. Circulated the announcements for the meeting to the LIGO-Pegasus email list and the LSC Computer Committee email list.
________________
Amber Stuver:
LIGO Research
- Continued development of the investigation relating the detection delay between LHO and LLO and the SNR ratio of the event. Now, if it is likely that the event could have been physical, the analysis can run backwards to isolate possible sky locations for the source.
- Found an error I made when trying to calibrate the power in the mode cleaner to the arm cavity power (I've been working with Rana for this). It seems that my numbers are off by a factor of 2 and I can't see to find an error in my calculations. I've sent a quick write up to Rana to see if he can find where I went wrong.
SEC Work
- Guided the giant slinky exhibit for about 100 students.
- Assisted in a classroom activity deal with sound from pipes.
- Gave control room tours to about 130 students.
_______________
Anand Sengupta:
- Updating the high mass CBC report page.
- Locating and fixing a bug related to improper ending frequency for EOB templates in the high mass search.
_______________
Kipp Cannon:
- Working on injection code for burst and string searches in LAL.
- Continuing with technical documentation for review of galactic core burst search.
- Reported to daswg on future plans for Onasys.
- Telecons: daswg, ligo/lsc authentication.
_______________
Joseph Betzwieser:
- Writing and debugging a combined injection and F-statistic search code based on ComputeFStatistic_v2 for use in Monte Carlo injection runs. Saves computation time by keeping the injections in memory and not writing them out to the hard drive for each.
Laboratory Computing (Anderson)
LDAS Software Systems (Maros)
- Investigations continue on enhancing the performance of the diskcacheAPI. Currently the algorithm responsible for scheduling the deep scans is being analyzed.
- The cmonClient has been enhanced with a tab under Jobs to generate HTML test report.
- The Nightly Unit Test report has been enhanced in several ways. A summary table of packages tested now appears near the top of the report. It displays a line for each package with the number of failed tests and the number of expected tests (PR#3119).
- Work has also resumed on getting parallel builds working (PR#2597). One issue in the Makefile for building the diskcacheAPI shared objects has been identified and corrected.
- Instructions have been added explaining how to rsync CentOS 5 for x86 platforms.
- System testing of LDAS was done using version 1.9.171 of the software. A gsi security context issue from RDSVerify was resolved by ensuring the environment variable LDASMANAGER was set to gateway:10001.
- All of the Linux boxes have been updated to CentOS 5. Currently jobs cannot be submitted to this system via TCLGlobus because of an expired certificate. Administration has been made of the problem and are currently working to resolve the issue.
- Configuration of suntest1 was completed. All of the All Users Tests, except for those requiring the wrapperAPI, passed. The wrapperAPI failures are expected as lal and lalwrapper has not yet been compiled for CentOS 5.
LDAS System Administration (Anderson)
Caltech
(Dan Kozak)
- Pinged Sun _again_ about the morbo crash case (no answer). Will kick this up a notch tomorrow.
- Verified that disabling mpxio for internal disks (while leaving it on for externally attached disks) works.
- Called in bad 3510 controller, but have not received replacement.
- Participated in bringing things back up in Milikan after the annual high rise inspection. Did the final steps to move ldas-sw:/export from a T3 to a 3510 and verify that the connection is fully redundant.
- Worked on CIT fibre channel problem eventually tracked down to 3511-2.
- Helped Greg with big problems with the LHO tape importing/labelling. Ended up having to dump/rebuild the SAM-QFS catalog to fix the problem.
- Configured a 6140 (Test) to be our new metadata/export device Set up /test using the remaing space.
- Helped rack and bring up 2 new 6140s.
- Got the last of S5 archived to tape at LHO.
- Decommissioned ngc101 (my former Linux desktop) and gave the hardware to Christian to take back downstairs. (This involved getting nmh to work on a Sparc/Solaris box.)
- After Scott Koranda finally got the A5 data moving from LLO via LDR, reconfigured the lag plot to display it.
MIT
(Fred Donovan)
- ldas-jobs install vi kickstart server (pxeboot). installing os on new pcraid.
Livingston
(Igor Yakushin)
- Restored L0 frame/segment publishing at LLO and GEO segment publishing at CIT.
- Removed the old lsc default password from ldas-jobs.
- Version 3 h(t) transfer from CIT periodically got stuck; to fix that Scott modified collection.ini to reduce the number of collections and to restrict the upper time of each collection.
General Computing (Wallace)
MIT
(Fred)
- Desktop xp issues: several installs.
- Migrations to new pc.
- Hardware issues(fans, video, mainboard).
- Some linux installs and X issues.
- Wireless drop off's (resolved), purchases.
- MIT-inventory issues(tracking down).
Livingston
(Dwayne)
- Kantech upgrade of server and workstations with Chuck Brannon, test of facility access coordinated with Rich Riesen and Willie Hawkins.
- Ongoing upgrades of Solaris workstations to Sol 10 U 4 and LDAP client, and migration to the new subnet.
- Created a new GC account for a student working with Brian.
- Received new power supply for NS1. Oddly enough, it hasn't crashed since this came in. I will replace it next time it crashes.
- Received one new MacBook for SEC staff, second one is en route. Various configuration and installation on said MacBook.
- Installation of a trouble ticket system on replacement support.ligo-la.
- Repair install on an XP machine, virus scan updates, etc. PC then had local printer issues that were repaired by reinstalling drivers.
- Granted additional users access to docshare.
- Added Traveler Inventory for CIT 40m to Inventory Control System, added an account for Bob Taylor.
- Upgraded Adobe on the scanner PC in visitor office.
- Had a problem with WebDAV on docshare. The lockfile directory had been mysteriously removed.
- Added some documentation to the GC wiki.
- Moving printers to the new network.
- Other usual/unusual user support requests
- Cleared spam trap.
Hanford
(Christine by Larry)
- Will report later. Busy working on a network issue.
Caltech
(Mike)
- Continued work on loading a new webserver.
- Additional work on the lscweb server adding certificates to enable ssl.
- Worked with Larry on getting rack mounts kits and power strips from across the street.
- Installed a new UPS in server rack. Getting ready to swap out an older rack with this new.
- Worked on Wireless Access MAC list, cleaning up old mac addresses. There is still much more work on this.
- Other misc. user support and sysadmin tasks.
(Veronica)
- Ongoing work on the website for the March meeting, LSC website redo. Working with campus Finances on setting up an ecommerce account for the March meeting.
- Updates of the database of technical papers.
- Implementation of the LSC password change.
- A high-res image for a publisher. Misc web updates.
(Christian)
- Riccardo Desalvo - Fixed power point file to print to new plotter.
- Linda Turner - computer running slow. Removed spyware and viruses on Linda’s laptop.
- Bob Kirsner - Installed additional monitor for Bob.
- Ken Mailand - Can’t login to Ansys 11. Working with Ansys support to fix to issue.
- Toner cartridge replacements- 3flr W/B and Millikan.
- Worked on the security patches.
- Assisted in moving a rack to the lab down stairs.
- Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.
(Melody)
- Migrated the MySQL database onto another (bigger) disk.
- Upgraded MediaWiki to a newer release.
- Tested the wiki using https.
- Cleaned up the wiki pages (removed debug and test pages).
- Started on the security features: More refined usergroups.
- Need to find out about user authentication over Apache.
(Larry)
- Worked a number of procurements. Surprisingly a number of items arrived before scheduled. Still a few more orders to work on. Working on a order for a couple of SUN boxes and still waiting on some Dell quotes. Reconciled p-card. Wrapped up another licensing issue.
- Helped a number of users with environment configurations. All just little things that took time to track down.
- Still working a number of documentation items.
- Working logistics for the LSC and all hands meetings.
- Testing out a number of programs and items for teleconferencing. Many of the companies we've looked at in the past have made some improvements so we are looking at them again. We are going to check out a couple of new webcams today.
- More work done in the computer room. Mostly clean up and moving some of the equipment around.
- Started working on programming the new edge switches. They are definitely a step up in performance with a light load on them.
- Time working with Shannon on different computer issues. Going through the reports and tracking different items down.
- Usual user assistance.
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
Static IFO simulation (Hiro)
- Signal loss due to the aberration in the arm cavity was simulated. Without thermal deformation, the loss increases 30~40% for the stable and marginally stable cavity. (The loss is calculated by comparing with a perfect cavity with the ETM transmission comparable to the diffractive loss + 34ppm) When the arm loss was calculated using FP cavity simulated, the loss due to the same aberration was larger when the thermal deformation existed. This effect will be calculated for the two Michelson cavity configuration.
- The RF sideband was observed to be much more stable for the stable Michelson cavity against the RM ROC change. There is some inconsistency in the calculation about the power stability and that is being investigated.
- The code development is going on, including the modification to calculate the comparison of Stable Power Recycling <==> Stable Signal Recycling vs Stable Power Recycling <==> Marginally Stable Signal Recycling configuration.
Modeler - e2e simulation engine (Hiro, John, Melody)
- Bruce is coming on the week of January 28th to transfer his past work in e2e:
Alfi related issues to Melody (how to release new version, alfi bundeler, etc)
Implementation of UserDefinedPrimitive in the simulation code to John and Melody.
- John is studying e2e front-end and simulation engine code so that he can take over the work done by Bruce.
Mechanical Simulation for advanced LIGO (Sany and SLU team)
- Using our previous e2e model, computed the beam pointing of Initial LIGO Input Mode Cleaner’s transmitted light for Peter King. The resultant Yaw spectrum shows 5e-7 rad/rtHz at 0.1 Hz, 1.5e-7 rad/rtHz at 1 Hz, 1e-10 rad/rtHz at 10 Hz and 1e-15 rad/rtHz at 100 Hz. The Pitch spectrum is similar to Yaw except that it is a factor of 5 higher at 1 Hz and factor of 2-5 lower at 2 – 100 Hz than Yaw.
Prestabilized Laser
- PSL: Nothing significant to report. Still moving stuff from one end of
campus to the other.
- AdL PSL: The cause for the loss of output power for the functional prototype laser
has been found. A dust particle was burnt onto the output coupler.
- Paperwork has been submitted for the importation of the 35-W laser for
LHO.
- I have been working on a system diagram for the controls. Along with
chasing up some hardware details.
Control and Data Systems
From: rolf <rolf@ligo.caltech.edu>
AdvLigo Timing System
- I've been communicating with Szabi and Daniel concerning the timing system design, particularly thoughts of the timing interface to the I/O modules/chassis. Daniel will be giving a timing system design presentation at next week's CDS meeting.
Suspensions
- Jay and Todd have been working on testing the UK electronics and writing up test reports. This will continue over the next month, with a tentative plan to install these units at Lasti in mid February.
- Guess we took down the OMC test stand in room 56 too soon, as there is a desire to test the LHO OMC system as well. We still have the parts and will probably reassemble it in the high bay after we get final word from Norna.
Networking
- Continuing to test possible network topologies for AdvLigo:
- Alex has Infiniband broadcasting working between our test computers. Given its high performance (close to 1GByte/sec in our tests), low latency and relatively low cost, we are also looking at the possibility of use in ELigo. It could be used here to broadcast frames to the DMT machines and broadcast data to new CDS Network Data Server (NDS) computers. The latter would allow internal and external data delivery without these connections affecting the FrameBuilder loading.
- In early March, we will start testing new PCI express (PCIe) links and switches for communications between CDS realtime computers and between these computers and the CDS I/O chassis. These new systems advertise choice of fiber/cable connections, up to 20Gbit/sec, the ability for any computer on the switch to access any PCIe module in switch connected I/O chassis, and low data transmission latencies (<1usec).
I/O Chassis
- One manufacturer of our PCI-X I/O chassis sent us an updated fiber link to test. This unit reduces the number of fibers required and may allow us to run a PCIe connection directly from a computer at the corner station to ADC/DAC cards at the end stations ie no computer required at the end stations. This long link is what they would like us to test and I may be able to try it at LLO next week.
- More ADC/DAC modules are now available in PCIe format, including units we presently use that are now PCI-X. Given this and the PCIe links mentioned above, we will start moving to fully PCIe. We will still be able to use our present ADC/DAC modules by simply moving them from a PCI-X carrier card to a PCIe card.
OMC
- We will be travelling to LLO over the next two weeks to begin the electronics install and test.
- Rich gave a presentation on the ISC part of the OMC at this week' s CDS meeting, the last in a series of three CDS OMC design presentations. He is gathering up all of the CDS OMC information into a 'Book of OMC', which will be posted to the CDS Wiki and hardbound copies produced by graphic arts.
Seismic Isolation
BSC Seismic Isolation Assembly and Test
- We had 5 bolts seize up on the locater/lock assemblies. These were removed and are being re cleaned. We hope to have them back on the isolation system on Friday.
- Fabrice has designed a fixture which will allow us to disassemble the actuators to look inside and clean them if necessary. Scott Stewart will be at MIT on Wednesday to walk us through the disassembly and inspection.
Single Stage HAM Assembly and Test
- Andy is at LLO this week assisting in the assembly. Next week Rich, Ben, Rolf, Pradeep, and Brian L. will be at LLO.
- Several screws were specified as stainless steel being screwed into stainless steel. Silver plated screws are being made to replace the stainless screws and prevent galling.
- Stephany has completed the assembly hazard analysis (E070330-00) with all approvals. Fabrice has written a draft installation hazard analysis.
Suspensions
From: Janeen Romie <janeen@ligo-la.caltech.edu>
- Output Mode Cleaner Suspension: More parts are being baked by Bob. The OMC suspension has been partially assembled. Assembly will continue with the metal bench starting Thursday.
- Recycling Mirror Suspension: Nothing significant to report
- Input Mode Cleaner: Mike is looking into incorporating the RAL-designed cam adjustment mechanism for the initial LIGO osems on the IMC. He's got the structure in Solidworks for welding and is coordinating with Calum on fea.
- Provided feedback to Dennis on procurement/contracts services. Working on harzard analysis of OMC assembly and installation. Trying to schedule an ANSYS class with Mike, Derek, myself and possibly Chris Echols here at LLO.
From: Norna Robertson <nroberts@ligo.caltech.edu>
- OMC SUS work: Calum, Chris and Norna are working on assembling cleaned and baked parts for the LLO OMC at Caltech prior to shipping. 2nd OMC SUS for LHO - revised blade design (for heavier mass) now complete and drawings are being modified by Calum. We are aiming to have RFQ for these blades and blades for the RM noise prototype sent out within the next few days.
- Quad UK electronics: Timescale for testing prototype boxes and installing them at LASTI discussed with Jay and others. Current plan is that Jay will complete bench tests here and then carry out the install immediately thereafter (sometime in February). Jay believes he can install the UK electronics somewhat independently of the temporary system there and switch them over at the last minute.
- RM modelling: Provided Mark Barton with updated parameter list for revised thermal noise estimate.
- BS design: conceptual design document further updated - T040027-02-R and submitted to DCC (latest update includes easier to read graphs, common parameter set for thermal noise estimates and transfer functions and some general editing)
From: k mailand kmailand@ligo.caltech.edu
Adv. LIGO
- Assembly of the frame for Sam's OMC bench assembly /shipping frame is ongoing in the 40m clean room.
- Two other samples of Calum's welded structural joints have been brite dipped, and have been returned to CIT.
- 15 Ham table beam dumps are in process to be delivered by Feb. 4th. 5 Ham table side beam dumps will also be delivered by the 4th., for Sam Waldman.
- The black glass pieces for the Ham mounts have been cut to size and arrived at CIT , some will go out for a 1064 ar coating.
- I'm working on a eddy current damper for the faraday isolator, also brakes and handles for the quad installation arm.
- I'm working on a end station beam dump, metal, to be black porcelain coated and suspended , for Mike Smith.
- Three different vendors have sent samples of their jet cut black glass process, and are complete at CIT for evaluation.
Core Optics
From: Gregg Harry <gharry@ligo.mit.edu>
- The MIT coating lab is nearly back up and working. We are starting out measuring the Q of a single layer tantala sample, mostly as a test to see that everything is working alright. But we will follow up on previous work on Q versus temperature with this tantala sample, to get a clearer view of how tantala is effected by temperatures up to 30 C above room temperature.
Auxiliary Optics
IFO LAYOUT
- Mike has published a document on the ADLIGO Wiki, T080007-00, that summarizes the available ranges of mounting locations for the recycling cavity optics for the stable and marginally stable, folded and non-folded configurations with all horizontal wedges, and an optional configuration with vertical wedges in the ITM. The mounting locations are restricted by geometrical constrainsts inside the HAM chambers. The HAM chamber geometry for this first draft assumed pessimistically that the inside diameter of the HAM chamber was reduced to the extent by which the interior HAM brackets projected inside from the chamber wall. He has modeled the actual chamber geometry with brackets and is in the process of re-evaluating the optics locations using ZEMAX.
SLC
- Virginio, Riccardo, and Ken are developing an inexpensive, universal eddy-current damping concept that will be used for all the AOS suspended baffles, beam dumps, and telescopes.
Luke is proceeding with the design of the LASTI prototype arm cavity baffle frame. He will create a new design of the louver arm cavity baffle and the conical elliptical baffle using porcelainized stainless steel.
ELIGO - TCS
- Phil and Aidan report that the ELIGO prototype CO2 laser intensity stabilazaton servo reduces the TCS-induced IFO noise to at least a factor 5 below the LIGO minimum sensitivity noise floor for all gravity wave frequencies.
- The axicon illumination lens for the projection mask appears to produce an appropriate annular illumination pattern; further adjustments may be needed.
- A novel TCS noise suppression technique is being analyzed, in which the TCS noise measured in the projector for one arm is injected into the TCS RIN servo for the other arm, thereby achieving a common mode noise rejection for the combined output signal.
- The noise spikes caused by the step-function rotation of the intensity control polarizer will be eliminated by re-programming the stepper motor controller to produce a smooth, ramped rotation of the polarizer.
OUTREACH
- Mike gave a presentation about ADLIGO to 25 members of the Microscope Society of Southern CA, followed by a tour of the 40 M IFO on the campus.
Input Optics
Volker Quetschke, Hsin-Jung Lin, Muzammil Arain, Rodica Martin, and David Tanner (with Betsy Bland, Doug Cook, and Rick Savage):
- We have been busy installing the eLIGO Faraday at LHO. All the parts have been set on the HAM1 table; the HAM1 table is balanced; and the beam aligned well enough that the power recycling mirrors sends a beam out of the REFL port. Alignment and beam characterization has begun and will continue next week.
Muzammil Arain and Guido Mueller:
Luke Williams:
- Communicating with the eligo installation teams when info requested.
- Submitting eligo docs to the DCC.
Other R&D
No report.
For additional information about this report, contact Albert Lazzarini or Phil Lindquist