LSC
Issues (Reitze)
- Many LSC instrument scientists took part in the Gravitational Wave Advanced Detector Workshop (GWADW) meeting in Elba, Italy last week. The focus of the workshop was on future gravitational wave detectors from Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo to the development of the 3rd generation detectors and experimental techniques needed to bring them to fruition.
- The LSC Executive Committee met last Thursday. The main agenda item was consideration of the Crab pulsar paper for submission to Astrophysical Journal Letters- the paper was unanimously approved by the ExComm. A press release will also be sent out with the paper.
- A number of changes in the chairs of LSC working and search groups have taken place:
- Keith Riles is stepping down as the chair of the detector characterization group after almost 10 years of service. Keith will be replaced by Gaby Gonzalez, who will be taking over in June.
- Mike Landry is stepping down as the co-chair of the CW search group after 7 years on the job. The CW group voted overwhelmingly for a new chair to be appointed and recommended Keith Riles, so he will move into his new job when Mike steps down.
- Steve Fairhurst has been elected to replace Patrick Brady as the co-chair of the CBC group. Patrick is stepping down after serving for 8 years as one of the initial co-chairs of the group.
LIGO
Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)
STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Lloyd)
- No report -- all MOUs completed for this year.
PROPERTY ACCOUNTING (Luna)
- Continued working with A. Koch, Director of Export Compliance, in providing proper documentation to US Customs for the lasers shipped from Germany to LHO and LLO.
- Working with Property Services in tagging and closing 25 fabrication accounts.
- Updating LHO's Inventory database..
FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Funaro, Brambila, Oracion)
>From: "Funaro, Catherine" <Catherine.Funaro@caltech.edu>
>From: "Brambila, Ruth" <Ruth.Brambila@caltech.edu>
- Completed the new order to Northrop for Advanced LIGO. The agreements are pending signature.
- Working on the new order to Support Services for Advanced LIGO. The insurance certificate is still pending, and the agreements may be revised.
- Working on the new order to Triad Services for Advanced LIGO. The certificates are pending, and a possible name change. This one is still in the beginning stages.
- Completed the update of the Access database on the LIGO subcontracts, and reviewed the files to make sure that all the subcontracts have current certificates. Sent out requests for those that were missing the A-133's for 2007, and also requested updated Insurance certificates on expired policies.
- Responsed to inquiries related to tax issues, past due invoices, deliveries, and requests for fund transfers.
>From: Karl Oracion <koracion@ligo.caltech.edu>>
SUBCONTRACTS MANAGEMENT (Jasnow, Salone)
>From: Gina Salone <gsalone@ligo.caltech.edu>
- Purchase Orders to the support contract companies to move their personnel over from Operations to Advanced LIGO in accordance with the staffing plan have been sent to the companies for signature.
- The contract with MIT for Advanced LIGO is now being reviewed by the Caltech Office of General Counsel.
>From: Ed Jasnow <jasnow@ligo.caltech.edu>
- The Evaluation Committee for the fused silica for the Advanced LIGO has made its recommendation to the Source Selection Official (SSO) regarding award. The Evaluation Report is now being reviewed by the Committee before forwarding to the SSO.
PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist)
The following are in progress:
- Analysis of end-of-April Operating costs and end-of-year projections. This is my highest priority at this moment.
- Combined Advanced LIGO – Operations Staffing Plan for FY 2009 – FY 2013. The current status was presented to the Excomm on Thursday, May 22, 2008. I will issue data to task managers organized by WBS and invite an interation.
- Supporting information the FY 2009 – FY 2013 LIGO Operations Proposal as requested by the NSF.
LIGO Change Control Board (Lindquist)
- Change Request CR080004 - Livingston Diode Room Pre Award Costs Budget Adjustments held pending additional information.
- Change Request CR080005 - ARES Project Controls Software Operations Budget adjustments held pending final invoices.
Quality/Safety (Tyler)
- During this reporting period, participated in telephone interviews of candidates for Advanced LIGO Safety and QA Engineer positions.
- Also had contact with Caltech HR regarding LIGO contractor inclusion in data base for Emergency Notification. HR acknowledged receipt of LIGO contractor list and indicated that they are "working-the-issue."
- Working with Rich Riesen to complete plans for next weeks annual safety audit of LLO.
LIGO
Hanford
Observatory (LHO) and Interferometer Operations (Raab)
Summary of activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory (compiled by M. Landry)
- Full laser power (30-35W) now illuminates the new UFL EOM. The mode cleaner has been locked with low (few hundred milliwatts) power, and the output tables IOT1, ISTC1, ISCT4 and septum window protected from excess power via blocks and dumps. We expect to open the end stations and begin relocking H1 some time next week. See a PSL update at this link.
- H2 ran at lower ranges this week (~6Mpc). Some low frequency drivers were understood (e.g. HAM1 clean room left on), while others were never isolated. The PRC-DARM correction path was tinkered with, clawing back some, but not all, of the range drop.
- A close quake, 3.7M and 20 miles SSW of LHO, disturbed Astrowatch Sunday, but we were able to recover from it.
- Known funky oplev beam ETMY has been shown to be due to distortion in the associated viewport, and not simply a bad beam out of the oplev.
HAM SEI/ISI (Joe H., Jeff K., Justin, Jodi, Cyrus, Ski, Hugh, Corey et al.)
- Removed Payload Re-Installed On ISI Post-HAM6 Installation: STS2 Pod forklifted onto Optics Table & about 400lbs of counterweights ("hockey pucks") positioned onto table.
- ISI Floated & Balanced: The Lockers were fairly tight and hard to transition to the Unlocked state (this was due to Stage1 not being balanced). Dial Indicators were installed and Stage1 (i.e. the Optics Table) was balanced to within 0.002". ISI was then locked; checked the Lockers again and there were no issues unlocking the system.
- Small Flanges Installed & In-Vacuum Cables Hooked Up: Feedthrus & small blank flanges were installed on HAM6. All of the in-vacuum cables (for GS13's, Position Sensors, Actuators) were connected to their feedthrus.
- Septum Viewport Cover: Original cover had a tight fit, so a workaround was made & Class-B-ed to allow us to mechanically protect the viewport and to act as a Laser Safety cover for HAM6.i
- Clean-Up: With majority of ISI assembly/installation complete, working on closing out and clean up.
LIGO
Livingston Observatory (LLO) and Interferometer
Operations (Giaime)
General Operations (Rusyl Wooley):
- We vented HAM6 and removed both 84" covers.
- Completed the hand rail behind the Outreach Center.
- Rearranged partitions to create office space for RET's and SURF students.
- We continue the installation of the cooling water lines for the new laser.
- Work also continues on the backup air conditioning for the MSR as well as final tie in of the new diode room.
eLIGO Commissioning Report (Valera Frolov):
- The interferometer DC readout noise was improved by a factor of ~10 from the first attempt largely due to the higher input power 2.8 W. The DARM noise investigations are underway. The possible sources are the scattering, electronics, beam jitter, laser and shot noise.
- The interferometer RF readout noise was improved by increasing the input power to 5.6 W (equivalent to about 3W during S5 due 50/50 beam splitter). The BNS range is currently 3 Mpc. The high frequency noise is mostly due to dark and shot noise. The excess noise at low frequency (x5 compared to S5) is under investigation.
- The HAM6 chamber was vented on Monday to commission the ISI damping loops. This will provide the passive seismic isolation for the optical table and facilitate the backscattering noise studies. The ISI table was unlocked and balanced. And the in-vacuum cables were connected to the feedthrough.
Safety & Security (Rich Riesen):
- Continuing work on the laser diode and psl modifications.
- Getting ready for our annual safety audit next week.
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)
- Oplevs: The ETMY oplev HeNe laser failed. Steve replaced it and we were able to restore alignment and lock the arm cavities. Andrey realigned the MCR beam onto the WFSs and restarted those servo loops.
- Digital camera network: Joe continues to work on the network infrastructure.
- John Miller and Rob Ward returned from the GWADW in Elba.
- Tara Chalernsongsak, new grad student working with K. Libbrecht, was introduced to the basics of the 40m operations. Caltech SURF Eric Mintun received the 40m safety training. He'll be working with GigE cameras with Joe.
Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)
From Akira:
- This week at the TNI I connected all the motorized mirror mounts to the vacuum feedthroughs. The alignment can now be adjusted with minimal disturbance to the suspended cavities. Once I get the visibilities up I will be ready to close the chamber.
From Tara:
- I find out that when the beam scan output displays a shaky Gaussian curve, the measured beam width deviates significantly from what it should be. This can be solved by block and unblock the beam to let the beamscan refresh the data until it displays a nice smooth Gaussian curve. Then the plot curve between radius^2 and z look like a normal Guassian beam propagation.
- Steve Vass gave me a laser safety session at 40m lab.
LASTI (Mittleman)
BSC-ISI
- The actuators have all been reinstalled and appear to be working. It seems that the interference problem that we were struggling with was fixed after the first reinstallation, after that it was an electronics problem in the sensors. This was fixed using the spare ADE electronics. We still need to figure out the cause of this failure.
- We now need to finish the L4c witness sensor installation, free up the pendulum and then should be ready to seal the chamber.
Fiber Pulling and Welding
- Measurements of beam diameter of the CO2 laser have been made looking at divergence. An optical design for the beam path up to the welding zone has been made. ZnSe optics have been used to show that we can reduce the beam diameter at a 3m length in order to route it down the articulated arm.
CIT Science Group (Weinstein)
________________
Amber L. Stuver:
LIGO Research
- Continued working on the h(t) large scale validation. The SLOPE automation infrastructure to run over the pseudo-spectrogram of the ratio FFT(h(t))/h(f) is functional and undergoing fine adjustments for final use. The web page I used this week to demonstrate the work being done for the rest of the time domain calibration group is at: http://touro.ligo-la.caltech.edu/~stuver/research/hoft/slope/.
- I am on the ExTrig agenda for this week (the call is tomorrow [Friday]). I will circulate the updated documentation on the investigation between event detection times and SNR ratios (and the potential for efficient source location determination) next week.
SEC Work
- Wrote a section on the available gravitational wave classroom activities for the ASP conference proceedings and helped edit the paper as a whole. The paper is titled "Gravitational-wave Astronomy: Opening a New Window on the Universe for Students, Educators and the Public" and the authorship is the current membership of the EPO. This paper should be available for review on the P&P Committee website.
- Went on a school visit with Kathy Holt and Lisa Szechter (as well as Brygg Ullmer from LSU [who is working with John on something for the SEC] and his graduate student). This gave me tho opportunity to speak with Lisa about getting the education research I want to do organized for the next school year.
- Worked on getting the HD version of Einstein's Messengers function in the Livingston auditorium. It's working - sort of. The computer I am using is having memory issues that is causing 'stalls' at random times in the movie (in other words, it freezes up temporarily if it has to think at all about anything other than the movie).
- Gave control room tours to ~30 students, had a question and answer session with a group of parents while their children were participating in an activity, and gave a private 'public' tour to a staff member's family.
Other
- Drafted a proposal to the AAPT Committee on Graduate Education in Physics to form a partnership with the APS Forum on Graduate Student Affairs (I am on the exec. board). I've called for a formal vote on the proposal from the rest of the FGSA executive board and currently have a majority vote (however I am waiting to hear from others who have not voted just in case they have a major concern or objection). My efforts have also drawn attention from others in the APS and it has been suggested that a similar partnership with the APS Committee on Education be formed. I am currently in communication with the Committee on Education and the forum discussing the potential and desire for a partnership between our groups.
________________
Antony Searle:
- Reimplementing portions of WPIPELINE Bayesian search in C++ for performance reasons.
- Improved importance function.
- Working on new error estimator for Monte-Carlo integrator to handle long-tailed distributions in the regime before CLT applies.
- Finalised several sections of Bayesian paper draft.
- Began work on Orsay presentation.
________________
Chad Hanna:
________________
Kent Blackburn for the Grid Computing R&D team:
GRID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT
- Wrote agenda/minutes and lead OSG User Group telecon. Wrote agenda and minutes for LIGO-Pegasus telecon.
- Attended LIGO-Peagsus, OSG-USERS, INSPIRAL CODING, DASWG and OSG-INTEGRATION telecons.
- Updated DASWG's page OSG-LIGO pages with Einstein@OSG (Einstein@ Home running on the OSG) news: http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/ daswg/projects/OSG-LIGO.html.
E@OSG ACTIVITIES
- Now running E@H application at TTU, BNL_ATLAS_1.
- Still troubleshooting at UCSDT2 and UWMilwaukee.
- Looked at Pegasus new site catalogue schema.
OPEN SCIENCE GRID INTEGRATION AND VALIDATION TESTBED
- ITB TESTING:
- Testing has completed on the following sites: FNAL_FERMIGRID_ITB, BNL_ITB_Test1, UC_ITB, and LBNL_DSD_ITB
- Currently waiting for Condor Collector fix at CIT_ITB_1 site
GRID COMPUTING MANAGEMENT
- Composed an inquiry to the OSG Executive Director, OSG PI, OSG Cybersecurity Officers on the behalf of the LSC Computer Committee as to what if anything the OSG could do to facilitate raising the awareness of international Certificate Authorities to the risks to our common goals and communities associated with the announcement of weak keys being generated by some versions of operating systems that are very popular overseas. The OSG responded that they were in communication with several CAs and umbrella organizations to review the concerns. LIGO remains in the loop on these communications and is pleased to learn that the international community is taking actions both address this concern and to improve the process in the future.
- Worked with Caltech HR to identify other venues for advertising jobs that have been shown to be very successful for hiring IT personnel. Will be working with HR to advertise positions using these venues.
- Worked with the "At-Large VO Representation" subcommittee to identify VO contacts to interview in our next meeting to learn what the expectations and needs from this class of VOs is for the OSG Council.
- Worked with OSG Executive Director to work through the loss of the Users Group Leader at Fermilab that is being pulled back to address internal issues surrounding their furlough. It was recommended that Britta Daudert step into the role of leader for the Users Group after discussions with her and other members of the Users Group. Identified key members of the OSG that will support this transition.
________________
Diego Fazi:
- Analysed results from the 1-month PTF injection run setting the SNR threshold to 6.4 and compared them with the corresponding SPA search.
- Started following up missed injections at low effective distance.
- Started an estimation of the background for PTF with the new threshold.
________________
Joseph Betzwieser:
- Worked with Chad on h(t) and h(f) comparison code and pipeline.
- 40m Lab: Began working with new surf student Eric Mintun on image processing and coding for the digital cameras at the 40m.
________________
Kipp Cannon:
Reviews
- Trying to finish up sgr flare review (today?).
- Reviewing a paper for cqg.
- s4 string search post processing.
Telecons
Software
- Patched glue.ligow and metaio to fix some mutual incompatibilities.
- Some LAL work in injection and tools packages.
________________
Gregory Mendell:
- I have updated the Generalized PowerFlux paper written with Karl Wetta for the Amalidi 2007 proceedings, so that the web version http://arxiv.org/abs/0710.4362, matches the now published version Class. Quantum Grav. 25 (2008) 114044.
________________
Pinkesh Patel:
- Working on commissioning H2.
- Learning a little bit of Perl to write a auto-damping script for H2.
- Worked a little bit on the resampling paper.
________________
Anand Sengupta:
- Prepared and circulated a 2 page document regarding the nudging of templates. this was required by the code reviewers.
- Finished plotting the rho vs chisq plots for injections and background for 3 different chisq bin values.
- Started condor job to analyze last month of s5 2nd year with high mass EOB templates.
Laboratory Computing (Anderson)
LDAS Software Systems (Maros)
- This week sees the first integration of the new version of frameCPP being integrated into the LDAS software. Several build issues were discovered and addressed immediately. Issues of this type are addressed as they are observed. Use of the new version of frameCPP is responsible for an observed memory leak. Isolation of the problem is under way.
- Documentation instructions fro updating DB2 for Solaris 10 on Opteron.
- System testing was inconclusive this week as NFS issues plague the running. Preliminary system testing using the new frameCPP base revealed many tests requiring version 4 frames which currently is not supported by frameCPP. These tests will be updated to use the latest version of frame files. The tests have been flagged so they con be skipped. Parallel to this effort is the reintegration of version 3 and 4 frame files into frameCPP.
LDAS System Administration (Anderson)
Caltech
(Dan Kozak)
- Worked on archiver.cmd config at CIT (trying to eliminate "small tar file" problem...no luck so far).
- Rearchiving data in /backup to T10KA tapes (ongoing).
- Set up more users with RLS and gridftp permissions for using Pegasus.
- Worked on getting RLS pool attribute sorted out for Chad and other Pegasus types (ongoing--waiting on feedback from Scott/Brian Moe).
- Configured and mounted /backup on morbo & thumper2.
- Worked with Igor on problems with LLO's fb0_frames filesystem.
- Confirmed T3s for retirement at LLO.
- Opened case with Sun in relation to the large number of mpxio failovers on the 6140s when a host on the SAN is rebooted (ongoing).
- Worked with Greg to configure the 6140 at LHO (ongoing).
- Patched ldas-dev, opterondata-dev and dataserver-test to SAM-QFS 4.6.49.
- Installed SAM-QFS 4.6.49 on sunopteronbuild so Ed would have access to the SAM API libraries.
- Ran samfsck on nscratch.
- Worked with damaged files at CIT.
- Found a few new bad frame files in the cluster, working on replacing them with good copies.
- Worked with Igor on recovering from T3-22 (part of LLO's /archive) freezing up.
- Working with Igor on bringing up 6140 at LLO (accelerated timetable due to T3-22 problems).
(Phil Ehrens)
- Node323 is showing an increasing frequency of MCE errors. After generating 1-3 errors on sporadic days over the last several weeks, it is showing 23 errors since midnight last. They have all been correctable errors.
- 9 fans have failed since last week. All failures have been detected at an early stage based on unusual numbers of hd ecc errors. None of these fans was missing any blades at the time they were replaced. We currently have only 8 spare fans. I have asked ASA for a quote for more fans, and have contacted the engineer at the fan manufacturer for guidance in possible part substitution.
- Returned 4 HDs and 17 memory dimms to ASA Computers for warranty replacement.
- Discussed maintenance of Leibert AC units in 215A synchrotron with Jeff from campus operations. He recommended contacting Rosanne Scholey and Rudy Spit, admninistrators of similar facilities on campus (IPAC and IMSS respectively) for suggestions regarding Liebert support contracts. Rosanne subsequently suggested the possibility of negotiating a site-wide contract. Rosanne also mentioned that Liebert maintains IPAC's McQuay units.
- Installed and configured CentOS 5.1 on my own desktop computer. I had some issues due to NIS+ configuration and the adoption of utf-8 as the new default terminal encoding. all issues were resolved, and I will be making a kickstart configuration for desktop use shortly.
MIT
(Fred Donovan)
- Problems with data4 and data2 pcraids; moved disks data2 to data1 chassis; put together another pcraid from parts, waiting for 8 port sata card (supermicro) for solaris install on this pcraid unit; reworked cluster monitoring scripts (using some code from Greg M.).
Livingston
(Igor Yakushin)
- Last week fb0's 3511 failed after a power outage since it is not currently on UPS. Powercycling 3511 fixed the problem.
- Due to the problems with fb0_frames (until 3511 was fixed) there were problems with LDAS Disk2Disk scripts (which depend on /fb0_frames).
- There were also a few problems with publishing scripts due to RLS server crashes (it seems to become less stable after the recent upgrade).
- A few days ago t3-22 froze. Powercycling it fixed the problem, however, according to the logs t3-22 keeps disappearing and appearing in the fabric so most likely its controller might fail again soon.
- The new 6140 is mounted and connected to FC switch and internal T3 network.
Hanford
(Greg Mendell)
- I fixed a bug in GapCheckCompareAndReport.tcl, and checked this into the dsorun/contrib/gapchecker directory of the lscsoft CVS Repository. The code now correctly identifies gaps in the data between the last file found on disk and the requested end time specified when the script runs, minus the requested latency. The astrowatch data is up-to-date at LHO and CIT, and I am checking on some gaps in the LLO trend data at CIT. I am also working with Caltech to set up a new Sun 6140 Disk Array as a part of LDAS filesystem upgrades at LHO, and with the Det. Char. group on plans to generated special RDS data sets for further characterization of the S5 data.
General Computing (Wallace)
MIT
(Fred)
- Installed sony ait-2 drive (ebay: $35) in tintagle for data archiving.
- Web page for xp backup status logs (via procmail, perl:mime) on tintagle.
- Nessus scan.
- Some network issues (arp cache issues with switches affecting Andy's computer, wake-on-lan).
- Moving printers from lpd/emvogil-3 print server (berkeley lpd) to direct printing.
Livingston
(Dwayne)
- More work preparing to put fans in the top of the GC racks in the CUR.
- Kantech settings changes.
- Installed switch in MSR.
- Other usual/unusual user support requests.
- Cleared spam trap.
Hanford
(Larry)
- Worked on a couple of computer/equipment orders. Still a few more items to order of the EVO connections.
- Minor spam work.
(Mike)
- DHCP: clearing up expired IP numbers.
- Added a few new user accounts.
- Some cleanup work on mail aliases.
Caltech
(Veronica)
- LIGO: LIGO-CIT Visitor website: finalised the setup; incorporated APIs for interactive features, e.g., directions, traffic, and business search.
- The feedback from the Management has been positive. The website is ready to go live. Attended a couple of talks hosted by the campus webmaster forum. Discussed with Jay possibilities of setting up LIGO presence on Second Life for outreach /PR purposes. GWIC website setup. Ongoing support of the PAC meeting website. Other web updates.
- LSC: Updates of the database of technical papers. Other web-related updates /user support.
(Mike)
- Reloaded a Sun workstation, plus set this up in user’s lab.
- Loaded a Sun server to replace a server that is scheduled for an upgrade. This is an ongoing project.
- User support on setting up and connecting to the PRISMPM for testing at CIT.
- Work on mail services which went down a couple of times this week.
- Moved our nisplus, kuma, and cheetah to a new UPS, due to our old UPS failing after yesterdays power outage.
- Other misc. user support and sysadmin tasks.
(Christian)
- Stan Whitcomb - Configured new laptop with Matlab 2008.
- Cindy Akutagawa - Installed and configured Adobe Dreamweaver CS3.
- Marilyn Wright - Configured loaner laptop for Marilyn to use on travel.
- Mark Lubinski (LHO) - Multiple errors after installing MS service Pack 3.
- Assisted Mark with repairing the OS by using the Windows system repair disc.
- Minor tweaks on the new Windows backup system.
- Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.
(Melody)
- New DCC: Addressed some configuration requests for the DocDB setup. Set up a google customized search with the new DCC server to see if we can use it for searching the documents' contents. So far, the site hasn't been included in google's index, so the newly added documents are not included in the search results. Looking for a tool to track the issues and requests raised regarding DocDB. This should yield a prioritized requirements list.
(Larry)
- Worked a number of procurement items, hardware and maintenance contracts for the most part. Wrapped up P-card reconciliation.
- Worked with Mike and Christian in moving a number of servers to a new rack and connected to a new UPS. This also allowed us to cleanup some of the cabling in the computer room.
- Fixed some of the issues on a new server for the 40M.
- Went over a number of DCC issues.
- Helped on a few web items.
- Modified a number of aliases for different people.
- Worked on a couple of EVO issues. Things are getting better as people are becoming more familiar with the service.
- Took care a number of h/w issues people were having with different systems. Most fixes required a replacement of some part(monitor, cable, memory...).
- Worked with Shannon on a couple of items. Mostly, tracking down info.
- The regular end user assistance.
Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)
Advanced LIGO
Systems
Advanced LIGO Project Management
From Carol Wilkinson
Project Controls
- Reported time for AdL staff is nearing the expected levels. Project controls is collecting information on corrections needed for the project’s first month and preparing a request to transfer costs. There will be a net transfer from operations to project accounts.
Procurements
- A meeting with the Caltech Office of Sponsored Research will be held on Friday, May 23, in order to provide training for project management on the institutional requirements for conducting the project.
- The contract for MIT sub-award is working its way through CIT Procurement Services as fast as possible.
- Contract for the University of Florida Advanced LIGO effort has been submitted to the CIT procurements office for processing.
Progress Updates
- Request for schedule progress updates have been sent out. The next schedule progress update will be due on May 28.
Meetings & Reviews
- Project managers and procurement personnel will be traveling to Washington, DC to meet with the NSF financial officers.
Systems
From: Dennis Coyne <coyne@ligo.caltech.edu>
From: Peter Fritschel <pf@ligo.mit.edu>
Operations Activities
- Nothing sinificant to report.
AdL Project-Funded Activities
Reviews:
- Supporting or conducting the following reviews simultaneously, all at various stages of completion:
- E/ITM Glass FDR/PRR: Held successful review. Report in preparation.
- COC fused silica blank bid evaluation report completed
- Posted Systems final design phase plan to the wiki page.
- Reviewed and approved technical input to HEPI double helix, machined maraging steel spring RFQ.
For a list of reviews, see the main AdL wiki page
Technical Review Board (TRB)
- Gold coated TM TRB:
- revised thermal noise calculation with correct beam size
- working on calculation of modal damping to compare to UWA calculations
- see the TRB log
Vacuum Review Board (VRB)
- Nothing significant to report.
Configuration Control
- Nothing significant to report.
Design
- AOS/SYS issued optic coordinates and cavity lengths for the small wedge angle (~0.08 deg) layout for the H2 interferometer. This layout will be checked and then reviewed for adoption as the baseline layout.
- Performed preliminary FEA of localized optics table attachment compliance as a possible explanantion for the discrepancy between calculated first resonance of the coupled quad/BSC-ISI system and LASTI results. More refined analysis underway.
- Reviewing FEA results used in parametric instability studies by Kells and Bantilan; appears that it will be necessary to repeat the modal analysis to allow for calculation of modal damping due to non-homogeneous loss (i.e. passive damping measures such as the gold coating, ring dampers or piezoelectric damping)
Interfaces
Modeling and Simulation
Static IFO Simulation (Hiro, Melody)
- The basic clean up of SIS is still going. After this is done, several tasks are waiting to be calculated.
- Quantitative justification of stable cavity over marginally stable cavity (documentation purpose)
- Effect of the finite size of BS and MMT3, i.e., if it is necessary to reduce the beam size on ITM more than the current 5.6cm
- Test mass surface aberration effect, including the comparison with actual mirror map data
- Old MIT FFT code is being dug up to be used for the mode matching / TCS study for eLIGO. The code cannot be compiled by the current gnu compilers and mirror clean up is needed.
- Melody has started to help simulation related works. She is cleaning the SIS manual now.
Beam in AdvLIGO Arm with Tilted Mirror (Hiro)
- A simple mode coupling formula, 1 - (theta / divergence angle)^2, is used in the OL requirement document.
- This is correct when the theta is interpreted as the beam axis tilt, not the mirror tilt angle. Because of the nearly concentric cavity design, a tilt mirror induces 13.5 times larger beam axis tilt. Also, the beam shift on ITM is 2.7 cm x ETM tilt in micro radian. I.e., the clipping loss is much larger than naiively expected. This is summarized in T080130.
Mechanical Simulation for Advanced LIGO (Sany and SLU team)
- Continued working on the servo filter of our e2e AdvLIGO Input Mode Cleaner (IMC) model. Our recent modification on the frequency servo filter reduces the frequency noise of the IMC transmitted light as expected above the crossover frequency (60 Hz), but increases the frequency noise at f<1 Hz. Now the length servo filter is being redesigned to see if the frequency noise at f<1 Hz can be reduced.
Facilities Modifications and Preparations
From: John Worden <worden_j@ligo-wa.caltech.edu>
- The focus this week has been to define cleanroom configurations for the assembly work planned in the staging buildings.
Prestabilized
Laser
From: Peter King <pking@ligo.caltech.edu>
Operations
- Nothing significant to report.
Project
- The DAQ hardware showed up after being trucked in via Brussels and passing customs. Rolf and Alex (remotely) have been sorting out some software teething problems. The setup here has two front end computers and a framebuilder. The separated models for the PSL, the PSL and intensity stabilisation, have been run on their own separate cores in the same front end computer. In addition a PCI-X expansion chassis was filled and run at a sampling rate of 64 kHz, seemingly without any hiccups thus far.
Control and Data Systems
From: Vern Sandberg <sandberg@ligo-wa.caltech.edu>
advLIGO CDS Activity Highlights
Seismic:
- ISI - repackaging and updating the schematic, PCB, chassis panels, and bill of materials for the STS2 Interface
- Follow up on the Coil Driver issues at LASTI. The good news is that the Coil Driver responded perfectly, as designed, to having its outputs shorted with aluminum foil. The only thing that happened to the Chassis was that the 24V fuses blew, and shut down the high current output. Fuses replaced and unit was back in operation. QA activity to improve documentation and who to call list to be added.
Facilities:
- DC Power distribution test set up using Vicor parts. Standard suite of tests underway to evaluate and compare systems.
SUS:
- Report on the requirements for the UK Triple Suspension in its final edit. To be sent to the UK by the end of the week.
DAQ:
- Worked with General Standards to fix the over-drive of the input voltage problem. We expect a modified ADC card with the proposed solution from them very soon.
- Work continues on the timing system Master Fan Out board's FPGA programming. Finished the fiber
delay compensation and error detection and should have the GPS and External 1pps input
finished by the end of the week.
- "Bug" list being collected for prototpe DAQ boxes from problems observed during ISI-HAM6 commissioning.
QA:
- A "Bugzilla" bug reporting and follow-up system has been set up and is under evaluation for QA bug reporting and tracking.
ISC:
- The electronic shutter prototype for the tip-tilt mirror alignment stage has finished testing and will be shipped to LLO.
- In-vacuum evaluations of micro-D sub-miniature connectors is underway at the 40m.
Seismic Isolation
- SEI Activities and Progress at LHO: ISI loaded with full payload, floated, and balanced in HAM6. The in-vacuum cabling is connected to HAM6 feedthrus. Post-HAM6 ISI clean up begins. ~Corey G.
- BSC SEI Documentation and Design: All the problems have been compiled for the current troublesome actuator assembly design for the BSC ISI. We've started to incorporate many of the HAM ISI actuator assembly elements into a new BSC design since the HAM's actuators were built, installed and tested without major incident. ~ Stephany F.
- SEI electronics design and fabrication: We have been repackaging and updating the schematics, PCB, chassis panels, and bill of materials for the STS2 Interface. I've also been in contact with Rich Mittlemann regarding the Coil Driver issues at MIT. The good news is that the Coil Driver responded perfectly, as designed to having its outputs shorted with aluminum foil. The only thing that happened to the Chassis was that the 24V fuses blew, and shut down the high current output. Once they were replaced, the driver worked again. ~ Ben A.
- SEI Project Activities: A request for quote was issued for the HEPI maraging steel springs ~Ken M.
Suspensions
From Janeen Romie and Norna Robertson
Operations Work
- HAM Suspensions for Advanced & Enhanced LIGO: OMC SUS for LHO. The 303 steel parts have been remade but we are still waiting on a number of other machined parts. The blade manufacturer hopes to have blades at LLO for characterization by next week. The structure is due for Brite Dip next week as well. These delays may impact the LHO OMC SUS schedule by 2 weeks.
- BSC Suspensions for Advanced LIGO: Norna is currently in the UK. She has been working at Glasgow and also visited RAL and Birmingham to see the progress on the UK work. A fuller report will follow next week.
Core Optics
From: GariLynn Billingsley <Billingsley_G@ligo.caltech.edu>
Project
- The source selection committee has made a recommendation on the procurement of fused silica for the Core Optics. Ed Jasnow is reviewing terms and conditions with one vendor. When this is resolved we can go ahead with the first order. The second will wait on NSF approval.
Development
- We have a contract modification in place with Navitar to coat the barrel and ESD pattern on the LASTI Compensation plate.
- Liyuan is verifying that the TIS measurement in the new Lab is consistent with before by measuring a 1" REO mirror and ETM04. The steering mirror from LLO was also measured for the TIS, its average in an area of 10 x 10 mm^2 is about 3 ppm, the best ever we measured. This is the mirror that was sent back to REO for annealing because the absorption was exceptional. We look forward to the post-anneal absorption results. Unfortunately, these will have to wait until chilled water is installed in the new lab.
Auxiliary Optics
From: Michael Smith <smith@ligo.caltech.edu>
ADLIGO
Work under Project budget:
- IFO Layout: Mike has completed the layout of the folded IFO with the same wedge angles as the non-folded. The layout appears to be successful. A few more checks will be made and the COC coordinates will be published shortly.
Work under Operations budget:
- ETM Telescope Suspension: Chris is working on the SW model of the ETM telescope suspension. Phil will determine what requirements the ETM Hartmann beam will impose on the ETM Telescope suspension.
- TCS: Aidan and Phil are working with Adelaide on the design of the ADLIGO Hartmann wavefront sensors.
ELIGO
- SLC: Mike published a design document, T080129-00, ELIGO Baffles Preliminary Design; it is on the 40 m WIKI. The ELIGO working committee approved the preliminary design of the ELIGO baffles--ETM chamber baffle, ITM manifold baffle, and HAM5 baffle.
- Ken and Luke are in the process of analyzing the normal eigenfrequencies of the baffles using FEA, and are completing the final, detail working drawings.
- Steve Vass will measure the effect of the orientation of the polished stainless steel samples on the BRDF, so that we can determine if the louver baffle material should have a preferred orientation of the polishing marks. Ken and Luke are coordinating the baffle material source and fabrication vendors.
- Various shops will be given the go ahead to begin fabricating the baffle parts; parts are expected to be at LLO for cleaning and baking in the middle of July.
Input Optics
Adv LIGO R&D (Development)
Mode matching:
- We have been working on the ring heater solutions for DKDP thermal lenses. We have found some flexible heaters made out of heating elements insulated between Kapton layers. These heaters look very promising. There small size makes them attractive for DKDP heating from the barrel. The temperature performance is quite linear in applied power. (Muzammil)
- We are also researching heater and insulator materials and geometries for DKDP segmented ring heater. (Luke)
IO component specifications:
- We are continuing scattering analysis from the IO components, including estimating the BRDF values and calculating back scattered power for FI components. We are akso evaluating the noise from scattering by the IO optics and injected in the IFO in order to determine a scattering requirement. (Rodica)
E-LIGO (Development)
- At LLO we are working on the eLIGO PSL layout, Updating the new ISCT1 table layoutm and measuring the sensing matrix of the RBS servos on the ISCT1 table. (Antonio)
- At LHO, an RTP crystal modulator has been installed on the PSL table. It survives 30 W without difficulty. A second crystal was found to have a defect on the coated surface and will be returned to the vendor for repolishing or replacement. (Volker)
For additional
information about this report, contact Albert Lazzarini