Weekly Report for Week Ending January 31, 2008

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)

• Three revised papers:
  • "Search for gravitational waves from binary inspirals in S3 and S4 LIGO data''
  • "Search for gravitational waves associated with 39 gamma-ray bursts using data from the second, third, and fourth LIGO runs"
  • "A joint search for gravitational wave bursts with AURIGA and LIGO"

  were accepted in Phys. Rev. D, Phys. Rev. D, and Classical and Quantum Gravity, respectively.  This has been a really good week for the LSC!

• The LIGO-GEO-Virgo Astrowatch plans have been circulated to the GWIC and the LSC Council.
• The web site for the LSC-Virgo meeting has posted on ligo.org.

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Lloyd)

MOU status remains as reported last reporting period (see below).

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.

• ACIGA is still under review.
• Sannio is pending, requiring changes requested by the review panel.

PROPERTY ACCOUNTING (Luna)

• Assisted Calum Torrie with repacking and shipping a box from CIT to LLO.
• Assisted Sam Waldman with packing and shipping one container and one box from CIT to LLO.
• Created property records for a Phase Noise Measurement System for Rusyl Wooley at LLO.
• Created property records for a Portable Clean Room for Allen Sibley at LLO.
• Assisted Stuart Anderson in correcting the expenditure type on a TechMart requisition for Sun MicroSystems.
• Continued writing exports and imports procedures.

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>

• Working on pending subcontract change orders.
• Working on the monthly closeouts.

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

• Entering FY2008 OPs Budget Ver2.0 to the monthly operations report.
• Requested closeout of old Visitor's Program account (NSFLIGO.VISITO).  Expenditure type corrections were completed successfully.
• Submitted three pre-approved cost transfers to project accounting.
• Started expenditure analysis, invoice review, budget review and data entry for January 2008 monthly operations report.
• Continued to meet with project accounting/IMSS personnel to discuss possible enhancements to operations report (on-going).
• Financial reports can be found at: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport. (For passwords contact Karl)

SUBCONTRACTS MANAGEMENT (Jasnow, Salone)

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

• A modification was prepared for the Triad contract to extend the period of performance.

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

• The Tinsley contract was approved by the NSF.  We will be sending copies for Tinsley to sign and will shortly be under contract.  A kickoff meeting will be scheduled after full execution of the contract.
• As a result of discussions with Intercall and Polycom, video conferencing equipment was sent to Caltech and MIT for use in a three week demonstration to test the viability of such a system for Advanced LIGO communication.  Plans call for systems to be set up at Caltech, MIT, LHO, and LLO.  Results of the demonstration are scheduled to be discussed with Intercall and Polycom on February 20.

BUDGETS, PROPOSALS, and REPORTS (Lindquist)

The revised budgets for FY 2009 – FY 2013 LIGO Operations have been submitted to the NSF through the OSR via FastLane.

Budgets for FY 2008 have been prepared  and submitted to the LIGO Change Control Board as Change Request CR-080001.  The change request was discussed during the meeting of the Executive Committee on January 28 and approval was recommended.

It is time to start the end of January report for the NSF.  I will send out a request for inputs.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

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

• This week an "All-hands" safety meeting originated from Caltech, but included presenters at MIT and UoF.  A second all-hands safety meeting is planned for early March with additional LIGO relevant safety topics.  Among the topics for this first meeting were two different presentations of hazard/risk analysis performed for advanced LIGO designs.  Another important safety topic was the need to address, early in the design process, safety considerations and to not wait until final assembly or installation.
• The meeting was generally well received.  One negative comment: LIGO Caltech needs to make significant improvements in the availability and use of state-of-the-art communication hardware for use in a multi-location conference environment! (ref. Ed Jasnow's report above)

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

Summary of activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory (compiled by M. Landry)

• We experienced some delay at the outset of the week, owing to an ice and snowstorm on the weekend. This meant IO work resumed Tuesday. Nearing completion, investigations concentrated on refining alignment, and looking into losses. The thin-film polarizer (TFP) was identified as a source of nearly 8% loss - it was rotated and the power restored.  The loss mechanism here is still not completely understood and is under investigation, and the corrective rotation in fact undid a rotation that was made earlier in the IO procedures (see details in the link above).  In the optics lab, the TFP was shown to be uniform, not suffering from local defects.  In other IO work, the impact of moving the Faraday Isolator downstream of MMT1 was further assessed. Beam-centering servos actuate on MMT1, so the cost and feasibility of moving that servo to MMT2 is being looked into, as leaving the actuation on MMT1 would mean more active alignment on the REFL port.  Once we have a stable enough MC lock we will look at the extrema of MMT2 angular motions and see if we can use this to correct beam centering.
• Recent highlights from the elog include:
  • Data quality flags were created for glitches induced by Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) power grid line faults.
  • Resonances of new structures on HAM1 were obtained; the wire baffle for MMT3 is low at 12Hz, probably requiring mitigation/stiffening.
  • Work continued on the PSL diode room.
  • People continue to arrive for the H2 Astrowatch run; four new students are here.  The 2k mid-Y station is now available for state 3 locking as gate valves were opened Thursday.
    

Outreach (D. Ingram)

• LHO hosted the second annual TechREACH kickoff event on 1/26.  TechREACH <http://www.psctlt.org/techREACH/program_info/about_tr.html> is a program of the Puget Sound Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology <http://www.pugetsoundcenter.org/splash.html> that operates in the Columbia Basin region in partnership with Yakima Valley/Tri-Cities MESA <http://www.washingtonmesa.org/> and with support from the NSF.  The program pairs mid school students with science and engineering professionals in e-mail mentoring relationships.  The kickoff provided a face-to-face opportunity for mentors and students.  Several LHO staff and interns participated on 1/26 as mentors and event hosts.  Terry Santini and Tara Brown provided meals for both kickoff sessions (girls & boys), feeding 175 guests with help from the pizza man.  The timing of the event was auspicious.  The next day the Tri-Cities was hit with nine inches of snow.
  

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

CDS Computing (Lisa Bogue)

• Continued work on commissioning ISI and OMC. It doesn't sound like much but it's a lot.

Cleaning/Baking (Tom Evans)

• We have finished baking a load of ceramic position sensor probes, which had to be baked separately since they could only be baked at 100 C.
• We are now preparing to bake a load of viewports for HAM 6.

Safety & Security (Rich Riesen)

• Conducted an unannounced fire drill in the corner station.  All hands evacuated the building and were accounted for before being released back in the building.
• Found no site/laser hazard concerns this period.

  [J. Giaime: During the drill, there was a harmless FM200 discharge in the computer users room, indicating a misconfiguration of our fire suppression system.  This is being remedied.]

LLO Outreach (John Thacker)

• Purchased materials for MSP PD in February.
• Developing teacher Professional Development programs for February.
• Provided interview (Stuver) to reporter from Hammond Daily Star during school visit.
• Sent email confirmations and cancellations for school field trips.
• Prepared and delivered programs for three school groups.
• Provided program at Lewis Vincent Elementary School Young Astronauts Club.
• Met with Chevron-supported teacher professional development providers to observe their PD and invite to LIGOSEC.
• NSF Annual Report 95% complete.
• Completed list of Next Phase 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)

• Tobin is off to LLO to begin his LSC Fellowship.
• Joe has succeeded in reading out the GigE camera and getting the data into Matlab for display and manipulation. He will now set up a system for reading out multiple cameras, and compressing and archiving the beam spot images on a regular schedule. Next is to automatically destermine the spot centroi, width, and non-gaussianity, and log these data to frames. Then, deploy many such cameras throughout the interferometer.
• Alberto has a final design for RF filters to isolate and monitor the power transmitted through the mode cleaner at all RF frequencies of interest: 33, 133, 166, 199 MHz.
• John continues to work towards locking the arms with auxiliary lasers. He has run an optical fibre from the SP table to the ISCT at the Y-end. In the coming days he will try to mode match the beam from this fibre into the arm through ETMY.
• Rana wrote a matlab script to produce band limited RMS trends from our accelerometers. It mimics the code written by Ed Daw which makes the seismic FOMs at the sites. It pulls data from mDV and puts the results in EPICS channels.
• Andrey continues to study the effect of damping gain of ITMX and ETMX on the BLRMS noise of XARM. He is seeing a broad minimum of noise for some values of the damping gain (Q). We is now working on a noise model to understand this better.
• Rana continues to work on getting meaningful data from the accelerometers and seismometers, to be used for adaptive filter noise cancellation.
• It has been established that, as a general rule, "clicking random blue buttons chaotically" is not a good problem solving technique. It is thus now explicitly discouraged as an option in the LIGO 40m Lab.

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Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

• Akira and Innocenzo continue to analyze our recent data on optimized coatings. Innocenzo is working on an automated procedure that will take into account the various peaks in our data and hopefully give a better estimate of our error bars.
• Greg has returned from Italy, where he reports success working with Claire Baley and the Sannio group porting their optimization code into bench.

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LASTI (Mittleman)

No report.

CIT Science Group (Weinstein)

___________________

Drew Keppel:

• Babysitting software injections runs for the S5 1Yr Low Mass CBC analysis.
• Developing a mass population convolution routine for generating upper limits for arbitrary mass populations.
• Investigating the amount of overlap between different mass regions of the S5 1Yr Low Mass CBC search.
• Answering review questions for the S5 1Yr Low Mass CBC search.

___________________

Kent for the Grid Computing R&D team:

GRID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT:

• Write Agenda and minutes for weekly LIGO-Pegasus telecon.
• Attend weekly LIGO-Pegasus, DASWG, Inspiral Coding and OSG-USERS telecon.
• Attend LIGO All Hands Safety meeting.
• Worked with participants for the LIGO-Pegasus F2F meeting coming up Feb 11 & 12 at ISI to develop the agenda. Contacted the Einstein at Home developers that ported to D-Grid to arrange a teleconference as part of the LIGO-Pegasus meeting to discuss running Einstein at Home on Grids. Contacted the local LIGO post-docs and scientists to let them know about the meeting and arrange teleconference participation if any one is interested. Invited OSG scientists at Nebraska and Fermilab about the meeting schedule as they have expressed interest. Uploaded agenda to the meeting twiki at UWM.
• LIGO application development activities on OSG:
  • Troubleshooting binary inspiral workflow at UWM with help from Scott and Brian
  • Troubleshooting binary inspiral workflow at Star-BNL, TTU_ANTAEUS with help from Grid Operations Center (GOC) and the OSG Troubleshooting team
  • Testing the use of WS-Gram for LIGO jobs at AGLT2
• LIGO activity on LDG:
  • Begain testing binary inspiral workflows with bot 32 bit and 64 bit binaries
  • Update Glue/Lal/Lalapps versions
  • Worked with Kent and Phil to get ldcg mounted on osg-itb-se so that LAL and LALapps code could be built there
• Updated operating system on osg-itb-se, installing latest patches, including a security patch for kernel.

OPEN SCIENCE GRID MANAGEMENT:

• Attended the Joint DOE/NSF Review of the Open Science Grid in Washington DC last week. Presented to the reviewers on the OSG Project and Resource Management. The review of OSG went very well with lots of good feedback from the reviewers and funding agencies. More follow-up is expected in the next couple of weeks.
• Updated the opportunistic resource management process document to reflect comments from last week's executive team meeting and distributed to the OSG PI, Executive Director, Resource Managers, Project Associate and area coordinator for metrics and measurements for comment.
• Identified a second strong candidate for the integration testbed grid administrator position that is open here at Caltech. Interviewed the candidate on the phone and found him to be an excellent fit. Discussed the candidate with Rob Gardner (integration testbed coordinator) and got a very positive response. Have also asked Stuart Anderson to interview the candidate this week. The candidate has an offer from industry and is interviewing concurrently with another university but has expressed interest in coming to Caltech.
• Preparing for U.S. LHC Review next week at UC Irvine.
• Attended first bi-weekly OSG Area Coordinator Teleconference and reported on the recent accomplishments, current activities and concerns and issues regarding OSG project and resource management.

___________________

Kipp Cannon:

• Preparing for review of SGR "Flare" pipeline.
• Running excess power galactic core search on S4 to prepare review readiness document.
• Debugging/testing/validating software injection code in LAL.
• Telecons:  bursts, daswg.
• Attended authcomm f2f at caltech.

___________________

Antony Searle:

• Making incremental improvements in X-Pipeline's Bayesian statistic and beginning planning to run as triggered follow-up on real data.
• Numerical issues in prototype full Bayesian search being investigated.

___________________

Gregory Mendell:

• Nothing significant to report this week, though I have started work on some additional checks for the CW group.

___________________

Diego Fazi:

• I have been re-running the 1-month PTF search on S5 playground data, using different clusterization methods to avoid memory failures at the first coincidence stage.

___________________

Anand Sengupta:

• Analysed the S5 1 calendar year data (cal V3) with new code after bug fix. Plotting graphs.
• In order to understand the difference in tigger rates - looked at the effect of clustering after the e-thinca bug fix: <http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/cgi-bin/enote.pl?nb=iags5tdfindchirp&action=view&page=59>

• EOB injection run is now complete  - plots have been made by Craig and are available at <http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/cgi-bin/enote.pl?nb=iags5tdfindchirp&action=view&page=60>
• Edited the e-thinca paper to incorporate suggested changes (after comments from CBC group members).
• Telecon with Craig Robinson to discuss about the S5 high mass search.

Laboratory Computing (Anderson)

LDAS Software Systems (Maros)

• TclGlobus has been enhanced to build properly when subset of the Globus Toolkit been built. With this modification, the pacman rules can now build GenericPro on Solaris as a 64-bit module. Testing with LDAS has revealed that some of the libraries needed to make the globus channels work in TCL are missing. The GenericPro-Globus.pacman rule set is be extended to build the missing libraries (PR#3228).
• The time for the diskcacheAPI to scan all mount points is now deterministic. The TCL layer was modified to use a much simpler algorithm to schedule the next mount point to be scanned.
• The test report generated via cmonClient has been extended to report the number of red balls and mail gifs. Logs are also filtered into known categories.
• Within the frameAPI, code was added to unset jobid array in killJobReattach to prevent using old data (PR#3240). Similarly, code in the genericAPI was modified to remove socket descriptors from the job array when the socket was closed to prevent illegal use of the resource.
• Efforts to improve the C++ documentation continue. A script is being worked on to transform percep comments to Doxygen comments. All but three of the warning messages generated by Doxygen for lib/ilwd have been eliminated (PR#3187).
• System testing of LDAS was done using version 1.9.185 of the software. Most of the tests were done using the automated script. The datacondMDC test and the createRDS tests had to be run by hand. Failure analysis of these two tests resulted in the creation of the previously mentioned problem report PR#3240. The datasocket test is being converted for incorporation into the automated testing script.

LDAS System Administration (Anderson)

Caltech

(Phil Ehrens)

• Refactored parts of the diskcache.tcl script (part of LDAS) to remove event management from the update code. Updates now run about 6 times faster on a test system with 5.5 million files visible.
• Replaced vibrating fans in nodes 4 and 285 as soon as disk glitches were detected on these nodes - The disk problems ceased.
• Met with Hannah Williams to discuss requirements for Attachment Z materials to be incorporated into MOU review documents.

MIT

(Fred Donovan)

• Updated cluster monitoring (gar.mit.edu); kickstart install node18.

Livingston

(Igor Yakushin)

• Received two 6140 raid arrays.
• Sent one of 6140 arrays to CIT.
• Working on documenting the changes to the segment database and putting the code into CVS.

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

• I have verified that all the S5 raw and RDS data did successfully get transferred to CIT via LDR or by tape.  This data exists in the LDAS archive through the end of the post-S5 measurement period, i.e., up to Nov. 06, 2007 at LLO and up to Dec. 05, 2007 at LHO.  LDAS continues to archive all the second and minute trend data, and this data is up-to-date at LHO, LLO, and CIT.  As a part of routine sys. admin. work, I continue to help lab staff and LSC members access this data, with this my main sys. admin. contribution since my last report.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT

(Fred)

• Xp setup 2 machines optics lab, and one for Bob.
• Some video dry runs.
• Set up fedora directory server for testing.
• ilog upgrade @mit w\ bruce.
• Some purchasing.
• Polycom setup.

Livingston

(Dwayne)

• Demo of the Inventory Control system, ongoing tweaks and requirements gathering.
• Setup for All Hands meeting and presentation by Carol Wilkinson.
• With Shannon, recovered data from a "failed" disk in legacy router.
• Software installs on a few Macs.
• Kantech controller reset.
• More testing of new IP cam.
• Pulled the light control switch from the auditorium.  switch had become stuck again and unusable.  handed-off to Allen.
• Setup a mailman server to host some needed mailing lists.
• Ongoing migration of servers and workstations to new subnet.
• Other usual/unusual user support requests.
• Cleared spam trap.

Hanford

No report this week.

Caltech

(Mike)

• Ordered misc. equipment using techmart.
• Rear fan issue on a SUN 64 bit AMD Opteron computer. This was causing the computer to reboot by its self. I downloaded the latest BIOS update, and ran it. This seems to have fix the problem.
• Updated Primavera and Prismpm. This update is from LHO server "yacolt" to the Advance LIGO server "Alcor" here at CIT.
• Dry run setup and testing for All Hands Safety meeting. Testing webcamXP and EVO.
• Helped with setting up the All Hands Safety meeting.
• Other misc. user support and sysadmin tasks.

(Veronica)

• LSC:  Most time was devoted to development /setup of the website for the March meeting.  Working with the campus treasury and the ecommerce provider on setting up an credit card payment utility.  Finished/tested the setup of the online registration form.
• LIGO:  Support of the LIGO all-hands security meeting and its dry run, webcam and video setup testing; taped the event and produced a number of DVDs for the sites.  Updates of AdvLIGO webpages, other web updates.

(Christian)

• Jay Heefner - Configured testing system with matlab for Jay.
• Riccardo Desalvo - Laptop won’t boot. Lid switch on laptop needs to be fixed.
• Did an inventory on printing supplies.
• Setup for the all hands meeting this week.
• Testing polycom unit that arrived this week.
• Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.

(Melody)

• LAAC: Worked on the mediawiki's security features:  More refined usergroups and user authentication over Apache.
• DCC upgrade: Started reading DocDB documents.
• E2E: During Bruce's visit to Caltech this week, he provided some knowledge transfer regarding ALFI releases and object classes.

(Larry)

• Procured a number of items. We are in the process of procuring items for video conferencing, computer upgrades, and general support.
• Time spent working things out for the all hands meeting. Worked with Bill on a number of logistical items. Worked with the GC group and Richard M. on getting the conferencing items setup. The WebcamXP s/w setup worked well. There were at least 10+ connections with no degradation in performance. The audio was hit and miss. Some locations worked well and others did not. Having a lapel mic is necessary to help out in that arena. The EVO test went OK. Things quit working but it may have been a computer problem and nothing to do with the EVO system. So, while it was working it appeared to be OK in that the audio and video worked out well. Thanks to all that helped in testing the system out before the meeting and got things going for the meeting.
• Worked on the polycom video conferencing system test. The video and audio quality for up to 4 locations has been good. More testing will be done in the near future.
• Working on some edge switch setups. I have a basic configuration setup that can be used for emergencies. The documentation for it is just about finished.
• Still working with Shannon on different log items. This will be a continual process.
• Worked with Veronica and others concerning some logistical issues with the LSC/Virgo meeting webpage setup.
• Working with a group getting things ready for the LSC meeting that is coming up. Still a number of issues to be worked on.
• The 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, John, Eric G)

• Eric found a paper to calculate the ABCD matrix of a prism. Based on this document, the beam splitter wedge angle effect was revisited. Contrary to Hiro's estimate that the effect would be O( beam splitter size / rayleigh range )^2 < 10^-4, the effect was O( wedge angle ) ~ a few %.
• When a circular beam goes through BS with wedge angle of 0.9 degree, astigmatism with a few % asymmetry is introduced. Because the curvature error of 1% is being discussed as the requirement of the mirror surface curvature figure tolerance and as the criteria to choose stable or marginally stable recycling cavity configurations, this could introduce a non-negligible effect.
• Analytical and numerical study of this effect is underway, so that we can have enough understanding to have a useful discussion at Florida next week.
• Tentative simulation results show several % degradation of the TEM00 signal due to this astigmatism.

Modeler : e2e simulation engine and ALFI : e2e front end

(Hiro, Bruce, Melody, John)

• Bruce is visiting Caltech from Jan.28th to Feb.25th to transfer his codes and expertise related to e2e to us. ALFI related issues will be fully taken care by Melody and modeler code will be taken care by John.

Mechanical Simulation for advanced LIGO (Sany and SLU team)

• Modified the previous e2e model of Advanced LIGO Input Mode Cleaner with Single-stage HAM seismic isolation. The model now takes into account the locations of the three Mode Cleaner suspensions on HAM1 and HAM2. The HAM table's center of mass displacements are converted to the displacements of the suspension point of each optic, with the suspensions location on the table and the height of the suspension cage taken into account.

Control and Data Systems

From: Rolf Bork rolf@ligo.caltech.edu

AdL SUS

• We have now received 3 top drivers, 1 UIM coil driver and 1 PUM coil driver. In addition, we have received one satellite amp, but the circuit needs to be modified to make it  the current revision.
• A detailed test plan for evaluation of the pre-production prototype of the top driver has been written and the one unit we have is being tested. In addition, comments on manufacturing, documentation, etc. are being collected. The test plan for the UIM coil driver should be complete by early next week. Testing of all unit types should be done by Feb 15.
• The date for installation of the UK electronics at LASTI is TBD.

AdL CDS

• Preliminary tests of the Innovative Integration DSP board with ADCs and DACs have been started. Initial measurements of the ADC show an input referred noise voltage of ~1uV/rtHz with a dynamic range of 20Vp-p. Initial tests of the DAC show approximately the same numbers.

Bridge Laser Lab

• Installation of the controls for Rana's laser lab in the sub-basement of Bridge have started. The system should be operational by early next week.

OMC SUS

• LLO OMC SUS controls electronics are installed.
• LHO OMC SUS electronics are 90% complete and tested. They will be used for the test system installed at Caltech and then shipped to LHO for installation.

ISI

• All Electronics and cables have been delivered to LLO (with one exception, to follow), installed, and quickly tested.  The testing of the system was shortened due to infrastucture issues and fiber optics problems.  The entire test procedure was completed, however, and due to the fact that all of this electronics was working at HPD, I think that all should be fine at LLO.
• Two Capacitive Position Sensor Interface Chassis have been shipped here to CIT from MIT.  Rich thought that he had the boxes for LHO, so  they weren't shipped to LLO in time for installation.  I am hoping to get a sensor head from Rich or Hugh so that I can test test the boxes for noise issues.  If so, they should be at LLO next week.

Seismic Isolation

From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

BSC Seismic Isolation Assembly and Test

• We have installed the locater/locks with silver plated hardware, rebalanced the stages, and started measuring transfer functions again.
• Two position sensors which have been giving us trouble have been removed, These will be replaced with spares.

Single Stage HAM Assembly and Installation

• Work continues on the structure assembly at LLO. Rich Mittleman and Hugh Radkins are at LLO to help with the assembly. Hugh is assembling the external hardware which includes the piers, crossbeams, support tubes and bellows.
• An updated schedule for the assembly of the seismic isolation at LHO has been posted on the SEI ILOG. The assembly and installation has been delayed 3 weeks to allow us to focus on the installation at LLO.

Hydraulic Pre-isolator (HEPI)

• Andy Stein has been designing a stiffer gullwing for the HAM. Several layouts can be found in this week's seismic ILOG.
• We have begun working on a HEPI procurement/fabrication plan and pulling together drawings.

From: Ben Abbott <abbott_b@ligo.caltech.edu>

Two Stage ISI (BSC)

• All the electronics are tested and installed at LASTI, and the system now has both stages floating.  They are using the Position Sensors as gauges, and are moving along toward a full commissioning.

LLO Single Stage ISI (HAM)

• One SS-ISI is needed at LLO in January.
• All Electronics and cables have been delivered to LLO (with one exception, to follow), installed, and quickly tested.  The testing of the system was shortened due to infrastructure issues and fiber optics problems.  The entire test procedure was completed, however, and due to the fact that all of this electronics was working at HPD, I think that all should be fine at LLO.
• Two Capacitive Position Sensor Interface Chassis have been shipped here to CIT from MIT.  Rich thought that he had the boxes for LHO, so  they weren't shipped to LLO in time for installation.  I am hoping to get a sensor head from Rich or Hugh so that I can test test the boxes for noise issues.  If so, they should be at LLO next week.

HPD Install (HAM)

• HPD Install completed, tested O.K., and dismantled.  All parts were shipped to LLO, except the Capacitive Position Sensor Interface Chassis which were sent to Rich Mittlemann for testing.

Talitha Directory

• I'm still spending some time to help set up the Talitha directory as an intuitive and accessible repository for all CDS electronics files.

DC Distribution

• Rich and I have designed a filter for the DC distribution chassis.  I have layed out the board, and will send it out for fab today.  It should be here next week, and we will evaluate its efficacy then.

Suspensions

From: "Greenhalgh, RJS" <J.Greenhalgh@rl.ac.uk>

ALUK held its latest Project Management Committee on 25 Jan 2008 (See LIGO-M080015-00-K). A brief activity summary follows:

• RAL: Some parts for the BS prototype are out for manufacture; others are nearly done. Work on blade clamp investigations is taking priority. OJEU process status now as follows:
  • Machined items. RFQs sent out with return date of 5th March
  • Weldments. Responses to RFQs returned.
  • Blade springs alternate material suppliers being investigated
• Glasgow: Alistair Heptonstall has transferred to LIGO lab. Work continues on pulling, bonding and welding processes and machines. The welding jig is now designed
• Birmingham/Strathclyde: OSEM manufacturing study and recosting complete – now waiting on outcome of ETM/ITM FRR (delayed by “blade clamp” problem). All of the electronics for LASTI are now delivered. Still hoping to discuss/respond to all comments at a meeting in end Feb/early March; this would require feedback from Jay in the next couple of weeks.
• Overall: Steady progress towards placing orders at RAL and Birmingham; steady progress towards installing fibres at LASTI. Pause in fab readiness review (FRR) preparations due to problem with alignment (thought to be blade clamps slipping) – identified as a potential show-stopper so high priority at RAL. A possible change is being considered, to eliminate combined ITM/FM structure allowing re-use of existing ITM and BS structures instead. This would save significant design and test time. Gearing up for pre-production check of electronics ~end of Feb.

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

• Attended monthly Advanced LIGO UK project management meeting.
• Worked with Calum on final items for packing and shipping to LLO for OMC SUS.
• Updated RM MATLAB model with corrected code for including flexure lengths for wires.
• At LLO: Walk-through of procurement steps for HAM optics with Carol, Dwight and Janeen
• Walk-though of facilities for assembly of Adv LIGO suspensions with Carol, Janeen, Allen Sibley and Brian O'Reilly

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

Output Mode Cleaner

• The OMC SUS with its metal bench is here along with a box of extras. Another box is due today and the Birm. osems are due tomorrow. There are a few items being reworked/fabed that all will be done in a week. Sam's bench is due here on Wednesday. Sam and Chris will be here the week of Feb 18th to hang the glass bench an prepare it for installation. Will work with Norna tomorrow on uncrating the suspension and getting it under a flow hood. We'll attach the osems and align.

Recycling Mirror Suspension

• The recycling mirror structure drawing will go to CES this afternoon. Bob has spent time with Calum & Greer this week to make sure the access holes are in the correct location. Time was also spent to make sure that the Matlab model parameters match the Solidworks. They'll spend next week incorporating the neat design updates from RAL. Thank you to Calum for all of his work on this suspension.
• Worked with Carol & Dwight on procurement steps for suspension production. Did a walk-thru with Allen, Carol, Brian & Norna on facilities for production suspension storage, assembly & test.
• Worked with Brett & Rich last week at LASTI on preparing the quad for ISI locker re-installation and ISI transfer function measurements. Supported ISI locker re-installation (changed out bolts.)

From: k mailand kmailand@ligo.caltech.edu

• My part of Sam's OMC task is complete.
• I'm working on an end station beam dump, metal material,  to be black porcelain coated and suspended, for Mike Smith. Samples and specifications of three materials that are recommended for this process will be tested.
• I have completed an input test mass drawing for Eric Black/ Helena.
• 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, and are on schedule.
• 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, the quote has been received.
• I'm working on a eddy current damper for the faraday isolator, also brakes and handles for the quad installation arm.
• Three different vendors have sent samples of their jet cut black glass process, and are complete at CIT, for evaluation.

Core Optics

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

• The Tinsley contract has been approved by NSF, Gina has made some minor changes to the contract as requested by Tinsley.  The material is ready to ship.
• The COC PDR telecon is scheduled for 2-21, with documents available for review by 2-7.  This will be a final design review for the material blanks.
• The weekly optics meeting has moved to Tuesday morning, 10am Pacific time, mailing list Aligo_coc.
• There are interesting results from the witness samples taken from the chambers at Hanford.  Liyuan and Cheryl are coordinating the results.

From: Bill Kells <kells@ligo.caltech.edu>

• I have been spending all my effort generating a DRR document for the [now scheduled] PDR. A draft has begun to circulate amongst optics people for editorial comment.
• Also this week David Blair visited with a new Gin Gin proposal to experimentally study PI. We have been intensively studying and reviewing this proposal (since he is asking for significant LIGO lab participation).

Auxiliary Optics

From: Michael Smith smith@ligo.caltech.edu

• IFO LAYOUT: Mike has updated the ZEMAX layouts to agree with the recycling cavity lengths calculated by Stefan for the three cases: 1) stable, non-folded, 2) stable, folded, and 3) marginally stable non-folded. Stefan is still looking for a reasonable solution for the marginally stable-folded configuration.
  The marginally stable, non-folded case requires an ITM vertical wedge of approximately 1.2 deg in order to lower the beam in the vicinity of HAM 3 and HAM 4 so that the recycling mirror suspension does not interfere with the HAM chamber ceilings. In addition, the MC2 mirror must be lowered to approximately -167mm global so that the MC2 triple SUS does not interfere with the HAM3 chamber ceiling.

• SLC: Luke presented an updated design for the LASTI prototype arm cavity baffle assembly. He will discuss with Ken Mason the need for extra tapped mounting holes in the HEPI 0-stage for attaching baffles and beam dumps.

• ETM PO TELESCOPE SUS: Virginio and Riccardo proposed damping the ETM PO Telescope suspension by means of two eddy current coupled pendula of different frequencies.

• TCS: Phil requested to Peter F. that someone from MIT assist him in hand-selecting additional HgCdTe photodetectors from the vendor Boston Electronics.

• STEERING MIRRORS: Ken will investigate the design (or purchase) of flexure mirror mounts as an alternative to the Dynamic Light Control mounts that are currenty being used in LIGO.

ELIGO

• BAFFLES: Ken and Mike have developed concepts for the following ELIGO baffles: 1) ETM back chamber wall baffle, 2) ITM manifold baffle, and 3) HAM4 output baffle. The preliminary designs will begin shortly.

Input Optics

From: David tanner@phys.ufl.edu

Guido:

• Calculated the new radius of curvatures for the stable power and signal recycling cavities using the new distances provided by Mike Smith.
• Started calculating alignment sensing signals based on the new length sensing scheme (Ongoing).
• Worked on a design for the Mach-Zehnder interferometer.

Muzammil:

• e-LIGO installation: We are working on e-LIGO commissioning strategy. Specifically about the issue of beam steering and divergence due to the FI being downstream of MMT1. We are also looking into the the feasibility and necessity of adaptive telescope in a stable recycling cavity configuration.

Luke:

• Gave hazard analysis talk.
• AOS arm cavity baffle design.
• Beginning new IO aligo layouts in solidworks.

Rodica:

• Measuring angular dependence of reflection and transmission of CVI thin-film polarizer.
• Monthly progress report for AdvLIGO.

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