Weekly Report for Week Ending June 19, 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 & Project

Past Weekly Reports

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LSC Issues (Reitze)

• The second L-V meeting of 2008, a data analysis meeting, took place in Orsay, France from June 9-12.  Approximately 90 people were in attendance.  Highlights from the meeting include a discussion of the search groups' plans for getting ready for S6, a status report on S5 analyses and papers, and a discussion of methods for developing external collaborations with other astronomers for performing coordinated triggered searches.  A meeting of the LIGO-Virgo Data Analysis Council took place, with the focus of the discussion on developing priorities for analysis projects.
• The LSC Executive Committee met on Thursday, with the main agenda items being consideration of two observational papers for approval, the LIGO-GEO S4 paper "First search for gravitational-wave bursts in LIGO and GEO600 data" and the S5 SGR paper, "Search for Gravitational Wave Bursts from Soft Gamma Repeaters".  The Executive Committee voted to approve submission of the LIGO-GEO S4 Burst paper for submission to CQG.  The vote on the S5 SGR paper was tabled since a the paper was revised earlier in the week and many Executive Committee members did not get a chance to read the latest version of the paper.
• News on S5 papers: the Crab pulsar paper has been submitted to Astrophysical Journal Letters.   The GRB 070201 paper will be published in the July 10, 2008 of the Astrophysical Journal.
• A web site has been set up for the September L-V meeting in Amsterdam.  The deadline for booking hotels is very short, so please book if you are planning on attending.

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

• Packaged and shipped some servers to LHO.
• Began processing talks from last week's LSC/Virgo Collaboration Meeting.

>From: Rudy Arvizu

• The contract for the University of Florida has been completed and sent to Purchasing Services for review. From there, it will go to OGC, and then sent on to the NSF.

• NSF Questions – materials have been prepared and sent to the NSF in response to questions they provided in May asking for supporting information for the FY 2009-13 Operations budget sheets we submitted last January. The NSF is attempting to do due diligence before issuing the cooperative agreement for FY 2009 Operations. The NSF has requested additional information, and we are preparing a response.
• We reviewed the FY 2008 Operations Financial Status as of the end of May during the executive committee meeting Monday, June 16. There are several tasks requiring additional analysis and we have been working with task managers this week to explore discrepancies and identify problems. This will help us to improve the estimate-at-completion.
• We sent the monthly report for Operations to the NSF.
• During May, we prepared an integrated staffing plan for Advanced LIGO and Operations. I am now taking this plan and plugging it into the Operations budget model for FY 2009 – FY 2013 and repricing the whole mess. As soon as this is completed (next week) I will distribute the plan to the task managers for their information and comment. This cost estimate will be the basis of budgets established for next year as well as any revisions of the proposal budget that we may have to prepare for the NSF.
• We have to provide a performance metric to the NSF for LIGO Operations in FY2008. The metric will be based on Astrowatch observation time. This metric with a target for FY 2008 has been provided to the NSF.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

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

• Nothing significant to report.

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

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

• For the first time since post-S5 investigative work, the H1 interferometer was fully relocked. Later, the common mode loop was closed, and a spectrum was produced (however, the calibration is surely in question after all the 4k work including the magnet swap). The H1 visibility was measured and found to be excellent, ~94%. The H1 status as of late in the week is briefly described here.
• HAM6 ISI work: the path to better seismic isolation was summarized, and, blended filters were described

Astrowatch (J. Slutsky)

• The weeks summary stats are available here.
• We had 40% science time and 71% up time. Science time was a little low due to commissioning and computer upgrades/maintenance. We have begun to make hardware injections automatically whil in A5 science mode.

LHO Outreach (D. Ingram)

• Approximately 30 students from Pioneer Middle School in Walla Walla started a two-week "Space and Technology Boot Camp" (summer school) with a visit to LHO on 6/16. The students are now back at school developing projects in basic electronics, Perl scripting and analysis of PEM data via the I2U2 Web interface. On 6/27 they will return to LHO for a poster session in which they will display their learning and the outcomes of their projects. The camp is a partnership between WSU GEAR UP, the Walla Walla School District and LIGO.

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

Enhanced LIGO Commissioning (Valera Frolov):

• The oscillator phase noise coupling to the interferometer output (DARM) was measured in DC readout configuration. Without any attempt to minimize the coupling it was found that the oscillator phase noise contribution to DARM is a factor of 3-4 below the eLIGO expected noise floor around 100 Hz and much less at higher frequencies.
• The laser intensity noise coupling to DARM was measured in DC readout configuration. This noise contribution was found to be at least an order of magnitude below the eLIGO design at all frequencies. The measured coupling is also in agreement with the one obtained from the analytical modeling by Optickle.
• The initial comparison of the shot noise limited sensitivity of the RF and DC readouts showed the improvement in sensitivity in the frequency ranges where the DC readout noise is shot + dark noise limited. This result is very preliminary and all the inputs such as dark noise subtraction, OMC transmission and mode matching, loop gain correction are being revised.
• The OMC angular dither loops were commissioned and provided several Hz control loop bandwidth to suppress the OMC input beam jitter noise. The improved pointing gave an improved DC readout performance: the DARM spectrum below 200 Hz is mostly within a factor of 3-4 from S5 and above 1 kHz the noise is mostly shot noise commensurate with input interferometer power and light splitting on the dark port.

LLO Outreach (Deborah Muhammad):

• Conducted 1 3-Day Teacher Professional Development Workshops for 9 St. Tammany Teachers Monday-Wednesday.
• Hosted 22 Students from Math Circle (LSU High School Summer Math Program).
• Prepare for visit from Fred Rabb (LHO) and Washington state superintendents.  -  Met with RET for orientation.
• Conducted a Friday Public Tour for 50 visitors.
• Scheduled Field Trips for summer and school year 2008-09.
• Scheduled Public Tours for Friday.
• Purchased supplies for teacher PD.
• Managed SEC documents: Archived folder from (shared) Active File.
• Downloaded pictures (St. Tammany MSP) to share folder and uploaded to website.

LIGO computing and network security (Roddy)

Reported under General Computing, see below

General computing and LDAS admin (Giardina)

Reported under General Computing, see below

Reported under LDAS System Administration, see below

Data analysis & computing (Yakushin)

Storage/Condor/LDAS admin:

Reported under LDAS System Administration, see below

Data analysis:

Reported under Data Analysis activities, see below

Mechanical and Optical Systems (Coyne)

See Advanced LIGO

Controls and Data Systems (Bork)

See Advanced LIGO

40-Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

The SURF students have arrived!

• Max Jones is working with Alberto on the 40m noise budget.
• Masha Baryakhtar is working with John on auxiliary laser locking and fiber stabilization.
• Eric Mintun is working with Joe on digital camera deployment and data analysis.
• Sharon Rapoport is working with Jenne on noise suppression techniques.

and Rana is the uber-mentor-of-all.

• Digital camera system: Joe is coding up client/server applications for display and processing of camera images.
• Koji Arai is visiting. He is working with Alberto on measuring the arm cavity lengths (to know how much RF leaks into them) and the recycling cavity lengths (to know the RF phase shifts in them).
• PSL: The PSL NPRO temperature is glitching; we suspect that the NPRO TEC temperature stabilization is broken. Steve and Yoichi did some heating tests; it looks like the LTEC loop is working but the readback is broken. Then they did a MOPA temperature scan, indicating that the temperature loop was working fine. They found a nice working point, and will keep an eye on it.
• PSL: Youichi is studying the PMC transmission (59%, quite low), and is working to optimize the alignment, mode matching, input beam quality, etc.
• Mach Zehnder: John has been investigating MZ glitches and railing.
• CO2 laser tests: Phil, with Steve and Rana, are setting up to test the eLIGO TCS laser in the east arm vacuum tube of the 40m. They are writing an SOP for the CO2 laser operation.
• Front end controls: all the front end control computers went down Wed night for unknown reasons. Everyone is getting good at bringing everything back up in the right order.
• Front end controls: Alberto, Rich and Sam installed Megatron (aka Rolf's Big Brain), the computer for the new control system being assembled by the CDS group. They measured the current drawn by this one computer: 8.1A!
• ITM upgrade: Rana is working with Garilyn on the polishing and coating specs.
• Locking: Rob, John and Youichi continue working on full DRFPMI lock.

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Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

• This week Greg is wrapping up the final design of the new photothermal experiment, and Tara is taking his first qual. SURF students Eugene Evans, Eric Cahoon, and Zach Korth (for Mike Smith) have arrived and are getting oriented and receiving their first assignments. Akira is finishing up his polarization work at the TNI and has included a short paragraph which follows.

from Akira:

• This week I reinstalled the mirror that I had removed to make a measurement of the transmission.
  I worked on alignment for a while.
  I am also looking into an issue with the beamsplitter. It does not split the power evenly between the two test cavities. I would like to fix this to make the test cavities more identical.

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LASTI (Mittleman)

BSC-ISI

• We have implemented 8 displacement sensor HEPI loops.
• This gives us high driving impedance for the ISI actuators. We are now designing the blended controllers for stage 2.

Noise Prototype Suspension

• Brett has been gathering quad parameters and measurements to create a matlab model of LASTI's quad NP. I am beginning with the metal configuration to verify it against current measurements. From there it should be easy to update it to the glass configuration.

CIT Science Group (Weinstein)

________________

The SURF students have arrived!

• Sam Schoenholz is working with Antony on modeling unmodel-able bursts in the context of the fast Bayesian burst search.
• Ashley King is working with Kipp on source localization of inspiral signals.
• Satish Shrestha is working with Rana, Sanjit and Anand on optimizing the location and geometry of new GW detectors.
• Michael Kaye is working with Alan on the effects of graviton mass on observed inspiral signals.
• Shinkee Chung (arriving next week) is working with Linqing on GPU-accelerated searches for gravitational waves.

________________

Gregory Mendell:

• I am still working to start generating SFTs for the next Einstein@Home run, which will include the 1st and 2nd year of S5.

________________

Antony Searle:

• Attended LSC-Virgo meeting - Attended Omega pipeline meeting - Joined X-Pipeline review - Worked on C++ implementation of fast Bayesian burst search.

________________

Joseph Betzwieser:

• Worked with Chad on develping a sensible method of presenting systematics between h(t) and h(f) and non-gaussianity of noise added in during calibration.

________________

Diego Fazi:

• Compared efficiency of PTF and SPA in recovering high-spin injections (http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/cgi-bin/enote.pl?nb=iags5sbbh&action=view&page=68).
• Started tuning mass-cuts for PTF at the first coincidence stage.
• Compared efficiency of PTF and SPA in recovering injections after the first coincidence stage (http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/cgi-bin/enote.pl?nb=iags5sbbh&action=view&page=69).

________________

Pinkesh Patel:

• Made a presentation to the Pulsar group on some issues relating to the --signalonly flag used in ComputeFstatistic_resamp. I also presented a series of injections done to validate the code.
• Worked on the auto-lock script and some of the Epicstools perl module scripts.
• Wrote a routine to calculate centroids of beams and measure the beam waists using just a digital image of the optic when locked.

________________

Amber L. Stuver:

LIGO Research

• Attended L-V Meeting in Orsay and presented the work I have done using SNR ratios and detection delays between detectors to measure the likelihood that a candidate gravitational wave event is physical. Extensions of this work correspond well with the research being done within the LOOC-UP group and there is interest in combining efforts.
• Continued working on h(t) validation.

SEC Work

• Developed classroom activity introducing relativity by deriving the expression for time dilation and discussing its effects. I presented this to a group of talented secondary students in a summer math program and it went well.
• Gave control room tours to ~25 students.
• Gave feedback to Lisa Szechter on her current grant proposal.

________________

Kipp Cannon:

• Two paper reviews for cqg.
• SGR flare paper report to burst review committee.
• SGR flare paper report to lsc executive committee
• SURF student arrival: getting student set up with LAL/LALApps/etc., grid certificate, etc.

________________

Chad Hanna:

• Finished running H1 and H2 jobs that compare systematic errors between h(t) and h(f). Joe and I are working on interpreting the results.
• Worked on the high mass cbc search, showed that additional chisq cuts will not positively impact the event rate. We came up with a plan to move forward with the search as is.

________________

Anand Sengupta:

• Incorporated the higher order moment of the chisquare time series calculation code to the lal/apps codebase.
• The EOBNR injection has finished - plotthinca results are being posted.
• Plotted and posted the 1st year playground time slides.

Laboratory Computing (Anderson)

LDAS Software Systems (Maros)

• Much has been done on frameCPP to improve stability and memory usage. All changes have been committed to CVS and will be part of this week's System Testing.
• Examination of memory issues reported in the metadataAPI has started.
• Log filter links in test reports now point to archived files if archive option is selected.
• Preliminary testing of earlier versions of frameCPP supporting version 4 frames still showed many problems.
• The system ldas-test continues to run version 1.9.321 of the LDAS software base as frameCPP is not yet ready for week long testing.

LDAS System Administration (Anderson)

Caltech

(Dan Kozak)

• Shipped 2 3510s and 2 3511s to LHO (with help from Phil).
• Worked on sorting out tape space at LHO, including relabelling tapes
• Worked with Greg on setup of LHO's 6140, set up /test filesystem on it and put frames files on it.
• Check of frames in cluster storage at CIT showed no new bad frames.
• Worked with Greg on 3511 JBOD configuration for CDS.
• Set up read-write NFS export of /archive/frames/S5/Burst-MDC from x2200 to cluster (CIT).
• Added Kipp Cannon to Pegasus users (per Chad Hanna).
• Updated lagplot creation to link to new mrtg plot from LLO and also CIT (new).
• Worked on coming up with procedures for S5 L0 "data train".

(Phil Ehrens)

• Spent most of the last week working on the alpha release of the MOU website software. Released it late yesterday, and am now working on getting it to beta.
• 16 fans are currently failed in the cluster. This is the same number as were detected two weeks ago, so we are not seeing a cascade of fan failures yet. Two fans were replaced due to vibration in the last week.
• Node323 is showing consistently large numbers of correctable memory errors every day. Since no concomitant failure has been observed it may be that these errors are spurious. Other nodes have shown bursts of errors over 1 to 3 days without a critical condition arising. Since crashes are not resulting, I would tend to discount the significance of these errors.
• Users are requesting a more dynamic group-based access model for web resources and cvs/svn. When the time comes that we can address this, I have a few ideas about how this can be done with maximum flexibility and robustness.
• Service quotation for Liebert maintenance is awaiting the recording of the serial number for the third unit. I require the assistance of a nearsighted amenuensis to collect the necessary data.

MIT

(Fred Donovan)

• Rec'd sata card and installing solaris x86 on pcraid; finishing up condor upgrade.

Livingston

(Igor Yakushin)

• Replaced copper GigE card with fiber GigE in gateway.
• LDAS servers with GC interface switched to a new set of IP addresses; the dedicated fiber to gateway machine did not work; currently gateway is connected to the same switch as the rest of the servers.
• RLS server crashed again; I am looking into how to enable more debugging info logged by publishing scripts.

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

• I am continuing to prepare for the LDAS filesystem reconfigurations at LHO scheduled for next week, timing and special S5 RDS generation, the next round of h(t) and SFT generation, and the next release of LDG.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT

(Fred)

• Nothing major to report for GC.

Livingston

(Dwayne)

• Troubleshooting various matlab issues on an Ubuntu install. had to upgrade to a new unofficially-released java build to be able to print. still not yet printing in color.
• Cleanup of CUR to allow for workspace for new machine builds.
• With Shannon and Igor, moved LDAS systems with GC interface to new GC network.
• Provided an assist to Peter King and Anamaria with PSL PC network connection.
• Second SURF student arrival, buildup of Linux workstation in addition to the XP workstation already created for this SURF student.
• RET arrival, PC is a loaner from the SEC.
• Troubleshooting the disappearance of LaTeX and other tools on our new Solaris 10U4 builds. I had to mount portions of an older share as the temporary solution.
• More LDAP group investigation/repairs.
• Updated and rebooted kantech server.
• Patched VPN server, after reboot VPN service failed. re-install and configuration with the settings I could remember. after much hair-pulling it is working again.
• Other usual/unusual user support requests.
• Cleared spam trap.

Hanford

(Larry)

• Purchased a couple of computer upgrades. Working on purchases of other misc. equipment for the Observatory.
• Made some progress on a couple of maintenance contracts. Hopefully, they will be wrapped up in the next couple of weeks.
• Still working on spam filter modifications.
• Reviewing some documentation for the GC area of LHO.
• Working issues for the SURF students and their mentors.
• Went over some logistical items with Terry G. concerning the PAC mtg.

(Mike)

• Cleaned out DHCP tables.
• Worked on Advanced LIGO items.

Caltech

(Melody)

• New DCC: Continued work on the content search for the new DCC. Having more luck with Apache Lucene which is a java library and is well-maintained. Still have to test calling the java classes from perl (docdb). Htdig's latest release was at 2004 and hasn't been upgraded to compile with gcc 4.0.+.

(Mike)

• Worked on more testing with Solid Works trying to get the software to work with a new 64bit PC.
• Setup multiple workstations for new uses and surf students. This also took some time shuffling equipment around to make this all happen.
• Loaded a LINUX workstation for a new staff user.
• Installed some SW2007/OS service packs to bring this users workstation up to date with the rest of the Engineering group.
• Setup user accounts for staff/surf students.
• Other misc. user support and sysadmin tasks.

(Veronica)

• LIGO: Ongoing support of the PAC24 meeting. Addressed an issue of conversion of legacy media to digital format. Various web related updates. Attended a presentation by IMSS on a web template with a built-in content management system.
• LSC: ongoing work on the ligo.org redo. Update of a database of technical papers. Other web related updates.

(Christian)

• Working on setting up Surf student this week.
• Toner cartridge replacement - Basement E/B.
• Testing Time Capsule system this week.
• Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.

(Larry)

• Worked and still working a number of procurement items. New arrivals, students and upgrades all causing the need for new computer purchases. Wrapped up a number of reconciliation issues.
• Prepared things for the SURF students. Fortunately, Christian and Mike have carried a big part of the load. Still a number of specific/specialty items that need to be taken care of.
• Some more tests on the EVO system. Getting people up to speed on the tool is now becoming more critical.
• Setting up of new accounts and regular end user assistance.

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Advanced LIGO Management

Advanced LIGO Systems

Modeling and Simulation

From: Hiroaki Yamamoto hiro@ligo.caltech.edu

Static IFO Simulation (Melody)

• Melody continued revising the SIS Users Manual.  

Mechanical Simulation for Advanced LIGO (Sany and SLU team)

• Continued working on the modification of the AdvLIGO IMC servo filter (e2e model). Recent increase in the IMC length control gain reduced the frequency noise of the IMC transmitted light. However, this caused an increase in the frequency noise (a bump appears) near the crossover frequency (60 Hz). The open loop transfer function indicates that the slope near the crossover frequency is too steep causing this bump. Have been trying to solve this problem by increasing the IMC frequency servo gain, and found that in order to increase the frequency servo gain further, the current computation time step (i.e., the standard e2e time step of 1.33e-5 s) is not small enough; it causes instability associated with the phase delay. By reducing the time step to 1e-6 s, it is possible to increase the frequency servo gain to some extent without losing the instability problem. However, it seems that further increase in the frequency servo gain near the crossover frequency is necessary. Will continue working on the issue. 

Facilities Modifications and Preparations

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

• LLO and LHO are working on preparing bid packages for building renovations and cleanroom procurements. We decided to go with a single activity to procure cleanrooms for both sites. A machinery vendor has found a used powered pallet jack suitable for our needs so I have started a procurement for this.

Prestabilized Laser

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

Operations

• I made some requested modifications to the LLO vacuum equipment EPICS records to add another Pirani gauge and cold cathode gauge for HAM6.

Project

• The communication between the control box, diode box and PSL computer was tested out.  Everything checked out okay.  The plumbing for the cooling lines has been comprehensively tested by Mike Fyffe (thanks Radar).  Things should be good to go when we decide on the installation date.
• The laser control software was updated by Christian Veltkamp (LZH).

Control and Data Systems

From: Rolf Bork rolf@ligo.caltech.edu

ELigo

OMC:

• OMC hardware shutter driver unit delivered to LLO and being installed.
• Installed new parallel processing software for the OMC at LLO. Testing is in progress.

DAQ:

• New daq software installed at LLO to support OMC parallel processing (multiple processors from same computer sending separate data streams.)
• With the help of Tom Evans, set up 3 of the new Sun 4600 computers. One is destined to become the new OMC realtime controller and the other two will become the new FrameWriters. The actual change over will not occur until a future visit.

TCS:

• Received the AA Interface Board from the PCB Express.
• Finished the LHO Wiring schematics.
• Getting ready to ship the electronics for the LHO installation next week.

AdvLigo R&D

Lasti:

• Jay and Alex have been at MIT updating the Lasti control system.

Timing System (Szabi)

• Iteration on the timing module integration into the "blue box" started. Mechanical requirements are transmitted and these can be included as long as the front/back panel drawings and the arrangement of electronics withing the blue box become available. Wiring plan, cooling arrangement, signal levels and connector requirements are also transmitted and are being iterated at the moment.
• Assembled RevB slave modules are scheduled to arrive next week. Standalone testing followed by daughter board integration trial shall follow.
• Documentation effort is ongoing.

AdvLigo Project

HEPI:

• We met with people from ADE on Tuesday, and discussed Capacitive Position Sensor possibilities that could replace the Inductive Position Sensors, if it turns out that it's needed. They will give us quotes on several possibilities, along with some options that would make our lives easier as we put the ISI system into production.
• Tests are ongoing at LASTI and Stanford to measure the noise of the Inductive Position Sensors, to see if they are quiet enough to not need replacing in the first place.
• Working on a slight re-layout of the 8-Ch Valve Driver board.
• Looking at the SEI Interface Chassis, and the Pier Interface Chassis to see how much of their functionality will be needed in the new configuration.

Seismic Isolation

From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

SEI Electronics Design and Fabrication:

• We met with people from ADE on Tuesday, and discussed Capacitive Position Sensor possibilities that could replace the Inductive Position Sensors, if it turns out that it's needed. They will give us quotes on several possibilities, along with some options that would make our lives easier as we put the ISI system into production.
• Tests are ongoing at LASTI and Stanford to measure the noise of the Inductive Position Sensors, to see if they are quiet enough to not need replacing in the first place. Looks promising.
• Working on a slight re-layout of the 8-Ch Valve Driver board.
• Looking at the SEI Interface Chassis, and the Pier Interface Chassis to see how much of their functionality will be needed in the new configuration. ~ Ben A.

SEI Activities and Progress at LHO:

• Rich Mittleman and Jeff Kissel are at LHO this week helping with the single stage HAM development.  Computer problems are slowing down development however we still plan on a completion date of  6/27. ~ Brian O.

BSC SEI Documentation and Design:

• Continuing with work on the actuator re-design.The purchase order was placed with PSI for stage 1-2 actuators. They say they'd have a SolidWorks model of the small actuators ready in a couple of weeks. ~ Stephany F.

HAM SEI Crossbeam Redesign:

• Fabrication drawings have been given to a machine shop for quote. ~ Andy S.

SEI Project Activities:

• The first RFQ has been sent out for the maraging steel springs. We are waiting for approval to order actuators. ~Ken M.
• Machine shop has finished first Pump Station Frame.  Other shops still working on quotes for PS manifold.  Pumps, motors, etc, purchase orders out this week.  ~Hugh R.

Suspensions

From Janeen Romie and Norna Robertson

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

Operations Work

HAM Suspensions for Advanced & Enhanced LIGO:

• OMC: A meeting with the blade vendor was held this afternoon and they are going to try a re-work approach with some leftover blades in the coming days. It is not clear at this point how much of a schedule hit this will produce. The structure is over in the Synchrotron, in the clean room, being helicoiled, along with some other parts. The tablecloth should be ready tonight or tomorrow. There are some other small parts, needed at LHO, that should be completed very soon and gotten into a clean and bake cycle. LHO OMC hazard analysis has been drafted and is out for review. OMC assembly and alignment document has been updated.
  
  We welcome two SURF students to Caltech - Julian Freed-Brown and Jimmy Chen - who will be working on the effects of electronic cabling on the isolation of the OMC suspension.
  
  
• RM: Solidworks issues have been addressed. Drawing creation is ongoing. Wire jigs have been designed and are being drawn up. The machine shop is waiting for an opening to have the thicker top crossbeams fabricated.
  
  
• IMC: Discussions have been ongoing on the tight noise requirements for the SRM, which may lead to smaller magnets at the bottom mass. Vendors for these magnets have been questioned about availability - awaiting answers. Requirements discussions are ongoing.

BSC Suspensions for Advanced LIGO:

• Metal prisms for the compensator plate were developed in Glasgow and quoted for here in the US. A small change has been incorporated to assure clean epoxy lines. New quotes for fabrication will be requested. Started updating the MATLAB model of the as-built quad noise prototype with information from RAL.

Project-Funded Activities

• Put together a revised version of SUS accounts for mechanical fabrication.
• Discussed first article builds with the the UK team (summary document in preparation)

Core Optics

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

Project (Liyuan Zhang)

• After two days struggling for fixing a water leakage inside the power supply unit, I have recovered the 30W YAG laser at the new OTF lab. We are ready to switch the RTS bench to the absorption configuration. Before doing that, however, it would be better to first check the scatter of the annealed 1" REO mirror at REO, which is supposed to be back next week. Improving the CASI is underway.

Development

• Helena is trying to pry a tooling design out of Navitar so that we can proceed with coating the LASTI compensation plate. A 1" sample sent to REO for second annealing has arrived back at Caltech.  We are trying to duplicate and effect seen on an iLIGO IO steering mirror.

Auxiliary Optics

From:   Michael Smith <smith@ligo.caltech.edu>

ADLIGO

Work Under Project Budget

• IFO Layout: Luke is updating the latest stable recycling cavity optical layouts into solidworks.

Work Under Operations Budget

• ETM Telescope Suspension: Riccardo made preliminary measurements of the eddy current damping force for two different magnet configurations as a function of separation from the conducting aluminum plate. Chris is making a preliminary design of a larger diameter ETM telescope housing, which would accomodate a 200mm clear aperture telescope. He will investigate using loose guy wires from the suspended telescope structure attached to the BSC chamber walls as earthquake stops. The bracketry for suspending the ETM telescope assembly will be mounted to the optical table as part of the "cartridge installation" and a "quick-connect " interface will be designed to attach the telescope suspension to the brackets after installing the quad suspenspension in the chamber. AOS would prefer to have the ETM mirror secured with earthquake stops before the ETM telescope assembly and the Arm Cavity Baffle are installed, to avoid any danger to the ETM suspension fibers. Chris will talk to Norna about this.
• TCS: Aidan and Phil will be at LHO during the next two weeks to install the upgraded TCS system.
• SLC: Mike is revising the MatLab files for calculating the scattered light noise in the stable recycling cavity configurations.
• OPTLEV: Mike is training Zach, the new SURF student, to use ZEMAX to determine the location of the optical lever beams for the stable recycling cavity configurations.

ELIGO

• SLC: The final machining detail on the support rings for the manifold baffle is currently in process at the CES shop. Luke finished the drawings for the ETM chamber baffle and HAM5 baffle. Ken is designing a single crate for shipment to LLO for all of the baffle parts, the crate will be used again to ship cleaned parts to LHO. Luke designed a new MMT1 errant beam baffle and an oxidized stainless steel cavity beam dump to catch one of the stray input Faraday polarizer beams. Ken is in the process of designing a stiffening brace for the MMT3 errant beam baffle. Ken sent  additional Ham6 beam dumps, and OMC fixture parts, to Sam Waldman. The schedule for installing all baffles at the sites is posted at this link: http://ilog.ligo-wa.caltech.edu:7285/mLIGO/Auxiliary_Optics_System/Baffling_ Upgrade . The earliest date to begin installation appears to be 7/17/08 at either site; however, that would entail paying a premium for shipping by air, which may not be warranted in view of other schedule slippage at the sites.

Input Optics

From: David tanner@phys.ufl.edu

Adv LIGO Development

• We have develioped the ZEMAX design of the Faraday isolator for AdvLIGO. Also, using optical layout from Mike Smith, we have attempted to align the beam on the IO components, with the Faraday isolator in place, and managed to propagate the beam to the recycling cavity pick-off points after PRM3. We need to decide on the wedge angle of the calcite polarizers for fine tuning the layout. (Rodica)
• We are putting aligo optical layout into solidworks.  (Luke)
• We have worked on the AdvLIGO EOM prototypes. (Volker)
• We are working on a fast beam pointing stabilization experiment (EO prism, cavity  stabilization). (Volker)
• We have submitted a revised paper to Optics Express entitled: "Design of the Advanced LIGO recycling cavities". This paper describes the motivation for going to the stable geometry. It also describes mode matching and optical parameter tolerances for Advanced LIGO. The revised manuscript can be found at: http://lhocds.ligo-wa.caltech.edu:8000/advligo/Recycling_Cavity_Geometry. The document will be submitted to the DCC as LIGO-P080004-02-Z. (Muzammil)

eLIGO Comissioning

• We have worked on the eLIGO PSL at LLO, including update of the optical layout, hardware staging, and installation plan. (Antonio)
• We took more mode matching data by changing the distance between MMT2 and MMT1&3 a total of 1mm using HEPI. There was no pattern and the mode mismatch was always 13-14%. (Kate)
• We did a power budget of the input optics. About 6-10% of the light going into vacuum is lost at the Faraday. We probably need to replace the black glass beam dump collecting the anti-refl beam before going to high power. (Kate)
• We are working on analysis of light scattering from a stainless steel beam dump, as a possible replacment for the black glass at the antiREFL port in ELIGO.
• We have investigated the behavior of the TFP, including heating the mount and the HWP to check for induced polarization losses, also we rechecked the AR coating reflectance for the quartz rotator, DKDP and calcite polarizer. Muzammil wrote a presentation describing the power budget in the IO components at LLO and LHO and posted it at http://ilog.ligo-wa.caltech.edu:7285/mLIGO/Input_Optics_Opticsaction=AttachFile&do=get&target=IO+ Power+Budget+.pdf. (Rodica, Muzammil, and Volker)
• We have designed MMT1 eligo baffle.  (Luke)
• We are reworking an eLIGO (LLO) modulator with Boron Nitrite. (Volker)

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For additional information about this report, contact Albert Lazzarini