Weekly Report for Week Ending April 17, 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)

• The APS meeting took place earlier this week, with good participation by the LSC, including invited talks by LSC members Duncan Brown, Alessandra Buonanno, Gabriela Gonzalez, Vicky Kalogera, Erik Katsavounidis, Yi Pan, and Sam Waldmann.
• The next L-V meeting will take place in Orsay from June 9-12 (includes f2f meetings). A web site has been set up: http://events.lal.in2p3.fr/conferences/LSC-VIRGO/ and registration is now available online.
• The S4 pulsar paper "The Einstein@Home search for periodic gravitational waves in LIGO S4 data" was posted on gr-qc <http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1747>.
• The joint LIGO-Auriga paper "A joint search for gravitational wave bursts with AURIGA and LIGO" has been published in CQG: Class. Quantum Grav. 25 (2008) 095004.

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.

  MOU	Attachment
  ACIGA	ACF, DAT, LAS, OPS, OPT, OUT. SUS, Z
  Andrews University	DAT, OPS, Z
  Balearic Islands	DAT, Z
  Caltech Relativity Group	ACF, DAT, OPT, OUT, Z
  Carleton College	DAT, OPS, OUT, Z
  Columbia University	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
  GEO600	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 State University	DAT, LAS, OPS, SUS, Z
  Louisiana Tech University	DAT, OPS, OUT, Z
  Loyola University	DAT, OPS, Z
  Maryland, University of	ACF, DAT, OPS, Z
  Massachusetts at Amherst, University of	DAT, OPS, Z
  Michigan State University	ACF, DAT, OPS, OUT, Z
  Minnesota, University of	DAT, OPS, SUS, Z
  Montana State University	DAT, Z
  National Astronomical Observatory of Japan	ACF, Z
  Northwestern University	DAT, Z
  Oregon, University of	DAT, OPS, OUT, Z
  Pennsylvania State University	DAT, OPS, OUT, Z
  Rochester, University of	DAT, Z
  San Jose State University	ACF, OUT, Z
  Sannio-Benevento, University of	DAT, OPT, Z
  Southeastern Louisiana University	ACF, DAT, OPS, Z
  Stanford University	ACF, DAT, LAS, OPS, OPT, OUT, SUS, Z
  Syracuse University	ACF, DAT, LAS, OPS, OPT, OUT, SUS, Z
  Texas-Austin, University of	DAT, OPS, Z
  Texas-Brownsville, University of	DAT, OPS, OUT, Z
  Trinity University	OPT, OUT, Z
  Washington State University	DAT, OPS, Z
  Wisconsin at Milwaukee, University of	DAT, OPS, Z

• GEO600, LSU, Massachusetts and Minnesota (shown in table above), where signed off and will be posted and submitted to DCC.
• CEGG and Moscow University were approved and are now being routed for signatures.
• The University of Mississippi has been submitted for review

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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

• Processing of LSC-Virgo Meeting presentations is finally complete!
• There has been a surge in document submittals that includes a set of 35 drawings, some safety documents, more GWDAW papers and a handful of DCNs.

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>

• Routed change order #3 to Battelle.
• Followed up with MIT on the A-133 for 2007 and on the status of the modification submitted recently.
• Working on the change order to Yamilet.

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

• Sent out the March 2008 financial reports for a discretionary award and the MIT.GRID award.
• Submitted a draft of budget allocations to IMSS for the 2nd half of FY2008.  Once the draft is approved by IMSS, a request will be sent to OSR to complete the  allocation of funds.
• Requested a revision of task names on certain Advanced LIGO accounts.
• Currently reviewing pre-award expenditures charged to LIGO OPs to be cost transferred to Advance LIGO accounts.
• Working with Human Resources and IMSS on the possibility of using a labor schedule template to facilitate future labor scheduling and adjustments.
• Financial reports can be found at: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport. (For passwords contact Karl)

SUBCONTRACTS MANAGEMENT (Jasnow, Salone)

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

• Account codes were received yesterday for the University of Florida contract, and it is now being assembled.  The non-competitive determination has been written and is being reviewed by David Shoemaker.
• We are awaiting a determination of expenditure type for the MIT contract.  The category "subaward" does not exist in either TechMart or Oracle.  Karl Oracion is working this issue.
• The purchase order for the Ares contract is being prepared.  This is a 100% Advanced LIGO subcontract, so there are no issues involving split costs.
• Representatives of Support Services, Triad, and Northrop-Grumman, the three LIGO personnel contractors, have agreed to accept purchase orders for their people on Advanced LIGO.  This will enable them to bill proportional time worked for both Advanced LIGO and Operations.  The three PO's are being prepared now.
• A request for proposal (RFP) is being prepared for the acquisition of fused silica blanks for Advanced LIGO.  This RFP will go to two companies capable of producing the different size and types of blanks.

PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist)

• The monthly report has been submitted to the NSF.
• I am analyzing the end of March costs and will distribute summaries to the WBS managers in preparation for a review and revised cost estimate currently scheduled for Monday, April 28.

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)

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

• A staffing Committee Meeting was held Monday, April 14, 2008.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

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

• Nothing significant to report this week.

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

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

• The new eLIGO 35W PSL was mode-matched to the PMC, demonstrating the good quality of the beam and producing 96% visibility in the transmissive cavity. Average losses per mirror were higher than expected, although this may simply be due to the power calibration
• With ETMX reinstalled into EX, attention has turned to ETMY. The optic was removed from EY, it's magnets were swapped out, the optic was rehung and a bake commenced. During magnet removal, a small divot was lifted from the optic ("conchoidal fracture"), about a mm wide and fraction of a mm deep. The SmCo magnet was epoxied over this divot
• EX requires considerable bias (i.e. both slider and SUS bias) to be aligned. We are investigating why this is the case. Two fiducials (optical lever and autocollimator) were employed on this vent to be certain of the alignment, but the latter had already been removed when the shift became apparent. Currently we would like to peek down the arm on Fri Apr 25 to confirm the (mis)alignment with the IR beam (PSL/MC permitting), and consider an immediate vent to rectify
• Inspections of the EY test mass revealed globular cluster-like point scatterers
• Results of a dust glitch study were posted to the ilog.

HAM SEI/ISI (Joe H., Ben A., Richard M., Vagesh, Jody, Kyle, Hugh, Corey)

• Optics Table torqued down to ISI assy. A few walls were installed. Adjustment Masses installed on some of our Outer Walls and on the Keel. Currently have Vertical GS13's in, and will get the Horizontals in this afternoon.
• Worked on "setting" the gaps on the Actuators (not much to set). They are now ready to install.
• Sensor Assy work continued. Pins were pressed into the Sensor Mount (felt like good fits). Managed to gall a bolt in one of the collars for this assembly. Have no extras (so, LLO is baking us a new one). Luckily found some Ag-plated bolts in our general supply for the rest of the assemblies. Have not received the actual diamond-cut Targets, but we're hoping they're on the way. Ben A. has taken initial looks at our Sensors; hope to get these Class A-ed in the next few days.
• Joe H. arrived w/ all of our Pods, some Adjustment Masses, and some other miscellaneous items.
• Our HAM6 NW Bellows failed for a 2nd time (once again most likely due to the small inner conflat).
• Ben A. is here and has been working with Richard on ISI/OMC electronics. He also ran measurements on our Sensors.

LHO Outreach (D. Ingram)

• There now exists an LSC outreach group, created by David Reitze and chaired by Marco Cavaglia. Lab outreachers Ingram and Thacker attended the group's weekly telecons. Current topics/projects include presentations on LSC outreach at upcoming meetings and discussions of International Year of Astronomy (09) activities.

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

CDS Computing (Lisa Giaime)

• Working with Rus, Rolf and Dave on a transition plan for CDS.
• Working with Matt Evans on cleaning up the scripts.

Safety & Security (Rich Riesen)

• Posted updated Laser Operator Access posters.
• Recycled 4 non federal non operational monitors.
• Qualified Nick Smith (MIT) and Virginio Sannible (CIT) to LLO Laser Operator status.
• LIGO/LLO Safety Procedures manuals and the ANSI Z136.1-2007 manual have been up dated and distributed.
• Continuing work on posting them on the LLO web page (safety/~riesen).
• Issued 4 new access cards to staff due to previous ones being damaged.

LLO Outreach (John  Thacker)

• Conducted programs for three school field trips.
• Prepared program for visit to a School.
• Conducted a pre-service Teacher Professional Development workshop at Tulane University.
• Provided programming for in-service Teacher Professional Development group from LA Tech University on Saturday and Sunday.
• Docent training preparation.
• Provided support to Lisa Szechter (Tulane U.) for survey data collection.
• Continued work on Next Phase grant.

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)

• Most of the week has been occupied by preparations for the 40m Technical Advisory Committee on Thursday, 4/17/08. We have prepared some slides on recent work (noise cancellation, aux lock acquisition techniques) but the main thrust was on plans foran upgrade to the 40m to more closely resemble the most recent design of the advLIGO optical configuration. Slides, and the latest draft of the upgrade technical document, are here: http://lhocds.ligo-wa.caltech.edu:8000/40m/TAC_Meeting-Apr_08
• Rana used Foton to make up some new filters which can be used all over the project in order to downsample/upsample.
• Physical Environment Monitoring: Andrey has fully integrated the weather station with our data acquisition system and documented trends for the last few weeks.
• IST Building construction: Heavy construction work has made it impossible to work with the interferometer during construction work hours.

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Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

• Nothing significant to report this week.

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LASTI (Mittleman)

• The second pumping station has been installed and is in the process of being turned on.
• Myron is installing the blank off ports in the septum plate to separate Lasti into two vacuum volumes.

BSC-ISI

• This was a good week. We installed the BSC-ISI into the BSC vacuum chamber this week and it went very smoothly. While the suspension people are working on the Quad we are installing the feed through ports and working on the cabling (some of which ended up at Hanford somehow or other). We should be up to releasing and rebalancing by early next week.

Noise Prototype Quad

• Ken Mailand(CIT), Derek Bridges(LLO) and Mike Meyers(LLO) were here this week to install the Noise Prototype Pendulum. Using Ken’s fancy tooling they installed the bottom section of the Quad through the BHSC door. Over all it went smoothly with a few minor issues involving bolt placement that could be better.
• Brett will finish up the installation and alignment in the next week.

Fiber Pulling and Welding

• Alastair is in Glasgow this week working on optimizing the fiber profile.

CIT Science Group (Weinstein)

______________

Antony Searle:

• Worked on main Bayesian bursts paper for PRD.
• Worked on testing and integrating the coherent transform and miscellaneous other tasks for WPipeline [https://geco.phys.columbia.edu/omega/].

______________

Gregory Mendell:

• I have started adding to CVS lalapps/src/pulsar/test files for very simple regression testing of the pulsar analysis against changes in Condor, operating systems, and the pulsar group's code.

______________

Amber L. Stuver:

LIGO Research

• Continued working on the follow-up investigation dealing with the detection delay and SNR ratio between detectors.  I did some work on including the noise profile of different detectors so that the SNRs would be comparable. I am a little stalled here since I have done work on this previously and my notes are still somewhere in a box at home.  I should be able to retrieve them soon (i.e. over the weekend).  In the mean time, I have been generalizing the codes to include 3+ detectors.  The more precise sky locations from the time delays help narrow down the possible SNR ratios.  I am still thinking through how best to present these results and use them.  I can generate a table like before, but, for three detectors, it would consist of a sphere in SNR ratio space with the SNR range for each detector being an axis.  I am thinking that instead of inferring likelihoods from pregenerated tables (as I am currently implementing for H1 and L1) that the 3+ detector likelihoods may be best computed on the fly.  This would mean that I would have to do substantial translation of my GravEn functions from MATLAB to python.  I am a little uncomfortable since the MATLAB version of GravEn has been extensively reviewed (and used for MDCs) and I trust it more than a translation.
• This coming week I expect to be working mainly on the h(t) calibration (I had a reprieve this week since I need to speak with Xavi on how to properly undertake an investigation and he has been preoccupied with the APS meeting).

SEC Work

• Met with Gabe Popkin of the APS/AAPT PhysTEC program in St. Louis about developing a pamphlet type document on GWs and LIGO for teachers and policy makers.  We are in agreement that the outline I shared with him before covers everything that can be covered in a short, elementary level document.  I will be writing sections up soon and collecting accompanying graphics (we are still in discussion about how to handle copyrights on these).
• Gave a control room tour to a teacher professional development group (~25 teachers) over the weekend.
• Gave control room tours to ~125 5th graders.
• Interviewed by a high school student who is researching prospective career paths for a school assignment and is considering being a physicist (she came to visit LIGO on 28 Feb).
• The professional development 'conference' that I was to speak at in early May has been postponed.  I will update with new dates once I have them.

Other

• Attended APS Council meeting in St. Louis.
• While at the coucil meeting, I was able to have extensive conversations with the president of AAPT, Lila Adair.  I brought up the possibility of forming a partnership between the AAPT Committee on Graduate Student Education in Physics and the APS Forum on Graduate Student Affairs.  We both agreed that this would be a logical bridge to build and that there are more than a few benefits each could reap from such a cooperation.  I have followed up with a letter to Lila reiterating the points we discussed and that I would be contacting the FGSA to get their approval for such a partnership.  I did contact the rest of the FGSA exec. board and have had favorable responses.  Now I am in the processes of writing our propsal for partnership to the AAPT CGSEP.  This will need a formal vote from the FGSA before we can move forward but I don't expect there to be any difficulty with that.

______________

Drew Keppel:

• Gave talk on CBC low mass search, at APS.
• At the APS meeting listening to many different talks.

______________

Kent Blackburn for the Grid Computing Team:

GRID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

• Attended weekly DASWG, OSG-USERS, OSG-INTEGRATION telecons.
• Prepared for VO validation of ITB 0.9 towards OSG 1.0.0.
• Activities on OSG:
  • TTU_ANTAEUS trouble shooting with Anand lalapps_ihope development to enable osg submissions of injection runs
  • Trouble shooting --running original ihope dag on LDG Einstein@OSG activities
  • Troubleshooting with Thomas: globusrun-ws fail

INTEGRATION AND VALIDATION TESTBED

• Significant amount of testing underway on the OSG ITB in preparation for the next OSG release (1.0.0). This has turned up a number of bugs and challenges which are being worked through.
• Sent Greg Mendell instructions for joining the email list for OSG ITB so that he can track issues that as they are discovered in pre-release VDT by this group and apply this information to his LDG package plans.

OSG MANAGEMENT

• Had several telecons with verious leaders within the OSG about LIGO's use of WS-GRAM for running Einstein@Home jobs on the OSG and how this folded into the OSG plans for rolling out WS-GRAM services. There is small team of people on the OSG that have been evaluating WS-GRAM and finding some issues that are holding back general migration. However, a few sites have agreed to work with LIGO to add one or two new sites every month or two for Einstein@Home, UCSD and UF have been proposed as sites to work with in the next month.
• Interviewed three candidates for the Grid Administrator opening here at Caltech. One had absolutely no Unix experience. I have asked for letters of reference from the other two but the top candidate in the set is not available until August 15th - he worked with the OSG team at BNL for 6 months but is currently in graduate school.
• Established a date of May 30th for the next OSG-LIGO meeting.
• Discussed growing needs for metrics for the funding agency with the OSG Project Manager and suggested some ideas for areas that may be missing from current reporting. Will follow up with him after he has interviewed several others working metrics issues.

______________

Anand Sengupta:

• Generated the V3 calibration frames for the S5 data again as there were some issues in the way the frame files were generated last time. I am currently looking at the difference between h(f) and h(t) around hardware injection times.
• Worked on the \rho(t) and \chi^2(t) for low SNR injections.
• Baby-sat a playground run using EOB templates with some new changes that have been made to the clustering algorithm to check that nominally there are no surprises. These checks are being made to be absolutely sure that there are no bugs before I check the code in to LAL.

______________

Joseph Betzwieser:

• Finishing up h(t) review for Crab paper.  Link to review page is: http://emvogil-3.mit.edu/~josephb/hoft/hoftRevew.html.
• Also preparing presentation for a caltech HEP seminar on CW searches at LIGO.

______________

Diego Fazi:

• Re-running the 1-month SPA injection run with an older version of LAL/LALAPPS, analyzing results and comparing them with analogous PTF results.
• Testing and comparing different types of kludge/effective distances in the PTF intrinsic parameter space.

Laboratory Computing (Anderson)

LDAS Software Systems (Maros)

• Work continues on modifying frameCPP to support version 7 of the frame specification.
• Job through put by 48% by the TCL layer backgrounding the writing of frame files within the frameAPI.
• Closer examination of rmJobFiles has revealed the potential of the managerAPI becoming deadlocked. A solution is be tested and currently shows great promise.
• The genericAPI has been enhanced to log when system exec calls are made. This is for debugging purposes to minimize such calls as they interfere with threads.
• System testing of LDAS was done using version 1.9.262 of the software. The results remain stable.
• Week long testing on ldas-test used version 1.9.259 of the software. Only the normal errors from the datacondAPI of "no such symbol" were observed.
• Several problem reports were added to the problem tracking system. These include the need for the diskcacheAPI to exit cleanly and timely (PR#3257) and the observation of the diskcacheAPI core dumping twice this past week (PR#3256).

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT

(Fred)

• Helping out at LHO this week.

Livingston

(Dwayne)

• Received new Mac for a user, various software installs.
• PQNode config would not allow dates after Dec 31, 2007 to be shown. Modified config to allow current year.
• Adjusted delay on main gate opening.
• Helped a user with some documentation.
• Attempting to recover files from corrupted disk in a linux workstation, ongoing.
• Worked a few software renewals.
• Worked a few procurement items.
• Other usual/unusual user support requests.
• Cleared spam trap, upstream filtering has continued to reduce load.

Hanford

(Larry)

• Worked on the spam filters. Updated them which helped a little but still some more work to do on them.
• Fixed a few of the user accounts. They can now login and get their e-mail.
• Working on renewing the Matlab licenses. Checking on getting them consolidated into a single contract.
• Some minor work on different servers. Tweaked one a little to try and take care of a license dropout problem.
• With Fred installed a couple of monitors.
• Working with Fred on checking out some tools for automating the backups on the pc side of the house.
• Some scanning on a couple of PC's and getting them cleaned up.
• Working on some SUN procurements for each of the groups at LHO.
• Regular user assistance on different applications.

(Mike)

• Install a new license on the Advance LIGO server “yacolt”.
• Some work on Calcium Calendar issues.
• Other support, with their dhcp server.

Caltech

(Mike)

• West Bridge 3rd floor had a networking issue. This turned out to be a dead UPS. One switch took awhile to come back up. We have a backup switch just in case we have more problems in the future.
• Cleveland Mak - Resolve a few software installation issues. Installed Adobe 7.0 and PDF stamp which did not run on Adobe 8.0. I also ended up having to re-install office 2003.
• Updated Barry Barish's workstation in his office. I also worked on a few software related issues.
• Started loading Sun server for 40meter "Ultra 40" with Centos 5.1. There is a hardware issue with this server, which turned out to be a system fan. I updated the bios thinking that this would resolve the issue, but it rebooted again 4 hours later. I called this box into Sun. After going through many diagnostics on this server Sun is sending out a replacement fan module.
• Greer Scarborough - Worked on PDMWORKS issue trying to delete a part that turned out to be a reference file. I put in a call to Go Engineer and it turns out the only way to delete this, is to delete the whole assembly. We decided to hold off for now.
• Installed a new license on Advance LIGO backup server “alcor”.
• Other misc. user support and daily admin tasks.

(Melody)

• New DCC:  Testing the DocDB's Signoff feature.  This allows one or more users to sign a document by entering their password.  Currently writing a document on how this feature is set and used.  Also created and added into the database the preliminary list of topics/categories for which documents are organized.  Entered the list of LSC institutions and document types in the configuration database.

(Veronica)

• LIGO:  AdvLIGO - User support per Dwight C./David S.  Front end and backend database for an application for LIGO conference attendance per a request from Gregg Harry; ready to be used, some logistical issues remain to be resolved (ie where to host it).  Attended a campus webmasters meeting, the discussion focused on mashups and usability issues.  Various web updates /user support.
• LSC:  Posted the rest of the presentations of the last meeting. Updates of the database of technical papers.

(Larry)

• Resolved a number of procurement issues. Reconciled p-card. Working on orders for new equipment and misc. items for different users. More time than usual dealing with travel issues.
• Time spent taking care of a couple of e-mail aliases.
• Took care of a couple of accounts.
• Testing of equipment to be used with EVO. The test with Francesco F. and others went well. The test with the GC group went well and proved out some of the equipment that will work with small groups.

(Christian)

• Phil Willems - configured new MacBook pro laptop.
• Alan Weinstein - configured new Dell Vostro Laptop.
• Dennis Coyne - Called Dell support to have Dennis’s fans replaced on laptop.
• Minor tweaks to the new Filemaker pro server.
• Checking old loaner laptops to see if some need to be surplus.
• Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Advanced LIGO Systems

Modeling and Simulation

From: Hiroaki Yamamoto hiro@ligo.caltech.edu

Static IFO Simulation (Hiro)

• Wedge effect: More details are studied. Due to the wedge angle, the phase of the field in the Michelson cavity (ITM<->BS, BS<->MMT3) due to the beam size change . Muzammil expresses as "Gouy phase change". Muzammil summarized the effect using modal model (T080082).
  • Effectively, this is like a Michelson cavity length adjustment, and the signal loss due to the wedge angle depends on the signal sideband frequency. The other way to say is that the sensitivity depends on the detuning phase, and this detuning phase is affected by the wedge angle.Runs with detuning angle 0 and 11 degree are done and the result will be summarized and reported.
• Effect of the change of the FP arm mode due to thermal effect for e-LIGO: negligible, in short.
  • The change of the ROC due to the coating absorption (overly estimated) is ~8% (~1km) for eLIGO and that for advLIGO is ~1.5% (~30m).
  • Because advLIGO uses almost concentric ROCs, the change of the beam size on the test mass is 20 times larger due to this change of ROC.
  • The mode mismatching due to the difference of ROC is proportional to dR/R x w^2/R and this coupling is smaller for eLIGO because of the larger ROC and the smaller beam size w.
• In summary, the effect of the change of mode in the arm due to thermal deformation is small for eLIGO.

Mechanical Simulation for Advanced LIGO (Sany and SLU team)

• I have made a program in Matlab which propagates a laser beam through a system of lenses.  The user determines the number of lenses as well as their properties.  The output of the program is the beam waist of the resultant beam, the position of the beam waist, and a graph of spot size of the beam as a function of position.  I tested the program using values from LIGO for the mc waist, MMT1, MMT2, and MMT3, and confirmed the resultant waist size and location in the arm cavity was reasonable.  I will continue to develop the program to use for the purpose of mode matching.

(Yoshida)

• Continued modeling AdvLIGO Input Mode Cleaner with PSL’s frequency noise incident to IMC. Confirmed that the e2e code works properly. Computed the frequency noise of the IMC’s transmitted light due to both IMC’s length fluctuation due to seismic disturbance and to the PSL’s frequency noise. Found that it necessary to increase the frequency servo gain to suppress the PSL’s frequency noise more aggressively.

Facilities Modifications and Preparation

From: John Worden <worden_j@ligo-wa.caltech.edu>

• Preparing for the FMP multi-phase design review.

Prestabilized Laser

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

• EnL PSL: The 35-W laser for LLO has shipped from LZH and should be at the site at the time of writing this report (plus or minus a day).
• AdL PSL: Nothing significant to report.

Control and Data Systems

From: Rolf Bork rolf@ligo.caltech.edu

ELigo

• Seismic control electronics install completed this week at LHO.
• Computer/networking equip. installed at 40m lab to test new DAQ data broadcasts / NDS.

AdL Design Phase

• UK electronics installed at Lasti in support of the Quad noise prototype tests.
• A 'Quick Start' guide for the quad controls was put together, describing the electronics and software, and presented at this week's CDS meeting.
• A plan to upgrade the 40m lab controls will be presented at next week's CDS meeting.

Seismic Isolation

From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

• SEI Activities and Progress at LHO: Ben Abbott and Joe Hanson at at LHO assisting in the installation. Still have leaky Bellows on HAM6 Chamber.  Actuators are assembled. Actuators and GS-13s will be installed shortly.  Some weight is on Keel and walls.  It will be towards the end of next week to get the position sensors installed. ~Hugh R.
• BSC ISI Installation and Test: The BSC/ISI has been installed into the BSC chamber at LASTI. We are now installing feedthroughs and cabling.
• HAM Crossbeam Design: Slightly revised version of the Crossbeam redesign FEA report is posted on the aLIGO wiki, in the SEI section. Working through ideas for packaging the new "Low Crossbeam" design while minimizing impact to HEPI system design. - Andy S.
• SEI Project Activities: A Fabrication/Procurement Plan and Project Schedule has been written  for the ADLigo HEPI Fabrication Readiness Review scheduled for next week. All assembly drawings and assembly procedures from the LLO installation have been placed into the DCC. -Ken M.

Suspensions

From Janeen Romie and Norna Robertson

(romie_j@ligo-la.caltech.edu, nroberts@ligo.caltech.edu)

Operations Work

• HAM Suspensions for Advanced & Enhanced LIGO: All parts ordering for the LHO OMC suspension is complete. Most part fabrication will be done on the Caltech campus. Documentation work is ongoing including assembly/alignment documents and DCNs.
• BSC Suspensions for Advanced LIGO: Good news from LASTI is that the quad/ISI installation into the BSC has been successfully carried out. LIGO personnel from Caltech LLO and LHO have been supporting this work over the last couple of weeks.
• Mark Barton gave a presentation at this week's SYS meeting on behalf of colleagues at Glasgow on the proposal to change from ribbons to an optimised cylindrical fibre design for the monolithic stage of the quadruple pendulum. The proposal was well received.
• A revised version of the beamsplitter conceptual design document has been circulated to the ALIGO_SUS group for comments.

General

• The report by the LASTI Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) following the recent LASTI review has been completed and sent out.

Advanced LIGO Activities

• Work is ongoing to update the SUS section of the Advanced LIGO costbook to reflect the change from marginally stable to stable recycling cavity configuration. A preliminary summary has been provided to Dennis.

Core Optics

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

Advanced LIGO

• Submitted the RFQ for material -last- week.  There is no movement on that yet.
  Completed the Core Optics element of the change request accounting for the move to the stable recycling cavity.

Development

• We have received the Schedule update from Tinsley for their pathfinder effort.
• REO has asked if we have further need for the 250mm coating tooling that they have had since '98.  The answer is yes.  We have iLIGO ongoing operation and plan a 250 mm optic for the pick off telescope in AdvLIGO.

Auxiliary Optics

From:   k mailand <kmailand@ligo.caltech.edu>

ADLIGO

• COC: Mike analyzed the effect of optical distortions in the ETM reaction mass on the ETM output beam shape and position at the ETM monitor QPD. The QPD was placed at a defocused postion that produces a spot size of approximately 1 mm. Under these conditions, the position of the centroid of the spot varies approximately linearly with the displacement of the spot on the ETM, with a total distortion in the ETM and Reaction mass of 2.5 waves of astigmatic and comatic phase irregularity, as well as hgher order distortions over the central 160 mm diameter clear aperture.
• ETM Telescope Suspension: Chris and Virginio are working on the design of the suspension for the ETM telescope/output bench. Peter F. suggested that the ETM telescope aperture might be increased to 195 mm diameter. This will require building new ETM telescopes. Chris will design the ETM Tel suspension so that it can accomodate a larger ETM telescope.
• IFO Layout: Mike corrected the model for the HAM small triple suspensions and revised the Zemax layout for the folded IFO. The recycling cavity optics fit on the HAM tables without interference, and the recycling cavity lengths agree with the values proposed by Stefan. Independent suspensions were modeled for the ITM and FM; and the FMs were placed so that a Schnupp assymetry (total optical path difference) of 0 - 200 mm can be obtained by moving the ITMs.

ELIGO

• SLC: A preliminary design review was held on 4/14/08 for the ELIGO baffles, which includes the end BSC baffle, manifold baffle, and HAM5 baffle. The ELIGO group suggested that the HAM5 baffle should intercept all the scattered light from HAM4 that would impinge upon the spool piece flange leading to the output beam tube. Luke will revise the size of the baffle accordingly.

Input Optics

From: David tanner@phys.ufl.edu

AdvLIGO Modulators

• We continue to do work on AdvLIGO modulators and MZ scheme. (Even though the MZ scheme is not presently in the baseline, we plan to complete a  prototype, as a backup.) (Volker)

AdvLIGO Faraday

• We are doing some Comsol programing to ease field simulations when the geometry    of the FI magnet changes. (Volker)

AdvLIGO Coatings

• Work continues on Damage Testing experiment - 30W on CVI mirror, no problems yet. We will study the commercial mirrors, followed by REO and LMH articles. (Marcus and Volker)

eLIGO Installation

• We moved the LLO MMT2 about 4 mm closer to MMT3/MMT1 to improve the mode matching into the interferometer. (Kate and Dave, with help from LLO staff)
• Work continues on the three-electrode modulators for eLIGO. (Volker)
• Antonio is in LHO for work on the PSL installation there.

Advanced LIGO Design

• We are laying out in solidworks the folded IFO according to T080078-02. We are also looking into the proper SOS optic dimensions & wedge geometry. A first draft of a "Facilities requirements table (IO)" was completed. (Luke)
• We have looked at the effect of BS wedge angle on signal loss using a simple modal model. A note has been submitted to DCC with the number LIGO-E080170-00-Z. (Muzammil)
• We have been considering the  higher-order modes in AdvLIGO arm/PR/SR cavities.(Volker)

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For additional information about this report, contact Albert Lazzarini