Weekly Report for Week Ending July 31, 2008

LSC	Administration	Hanford Observatory	Livingston Observatory
Optical & Mechanical	Controls and Data Systems	40 Meter Facility	TNI
LASTI	CIT Science Group	Laboratory Computing	Adv. LIGO Development & Project

Past Weekly Reports

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LSC Issues (Reitze)

• As noted last week , the annual MOU review panel review was completed last Friday. Reviewers for this year's panel were Stefan Ballmer, Peter Fritschel, Eric Gustafson, Gregg Harry, Mike Landry, Szabi Marka, Nergis Mavalvala, Maria Alessandra Papa, Fred Raab, Keith Riles, Norna Robertson, Peter Saulson, and Alan Weinstein.  In addition to reviewing the progress and MOUs for LSC groups, the panel also heard a presentation on research progress and plans in the LIGO Lab.  A final report has been written, and LSC groups have started to receive feedback from the panel.

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Lloyd)

• 2008 MOU Review was held on July 24-25, 2008. Listed below are the MOUs and their attachments that were reviewed.

  MOU	Attachments
  ACIGA	ACF, DAT, LAS, OPS, OPT, OUT, SUS, Z
  Andrews University	DAT, OPS, OUT, Z
  Balearic Islands	DAT, Z
  Carleton College	DAT, OPS, Z
  Caltech Exper. Grav.-Physics Group	SUS, Z
  Caltech Relativity Group	ACF, DAT, OPT, OUT, Z
  Columbia University	DAT, OPS, OUT, Z
  Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University	DAT, OPT, SUS, Z
  Eotvos University	DAT, OPS, OUT, Z
  Florida, University of	ACF, DAT, OPS, OPT, OUT, SUS, Z
  GEO600	ACF, DAT, LAS, OPS, OPT, OUT, SUS, Z
  Goddard Grav. Wave Astrophys.Group	DAT, OPS, Z
  Hobart & William Smith Colleges	OPS, OPT, OUT, SUS, Z
  Institute of Applied Physics	OPT, OUT, Z
  IUCAA	DAT, Z
  Louisiana State University	DAT, OPS, SUS, Z
  Louisiana Tech University	DAT, OPS, OUT, Z
  Maryland, University of	DAT, OPS, Z
  Massachusetts at Amherst, University of	DAT, OPS, Z
  Michigan Gravitational Wave Group	DAT, OPS, OUT, Z
  Minnesota, University of	DAT, OPS, SUS, Z
  Mississippi, Uiversity of	DAT, OPS, OUT, Z
  Montana Grav. Wave Astronomy Group	DAT, Z
  Moscow State University	Z
  NAOJ-TAMA	ACF, Z
  Northwestern University	ACF, DAT, Z
  Oregon, University	DAT, OPS, OUT, Z
  Pennsylvania State University	DAT, OPS, OUT, Z
  Rochester, University of	DAT, Z
  San Jose State University	ACF, Z
  Sannio, University of at Benevento	DAT, OPT, Z
  Sonoma State University	LAS, OUT, Z
  Stanford University	ACF, LAS, OPS, OPT, OUT, SUS, Z
  Syracuse University	DAT, OPS, OPT, Z
  Texas, University of at Austin	DAT, OUT, Z
  Texas, University of at	DAT, OPS, OPT, OUT, Z
  Trinity University	OPT, OUT, Z
  Washington State University	DAT, OPS, Z
  Wisconsin at Milwaukee, University of	DAT, OPS, Z

PROPERTY ACCOUNTING (Luna)

• Requested an E-waste disposal consisting of seven computers, one monitor and two external disk drives, submitted to the Safety Office.
• Continued working in the FY '08 report for the GSA vehicles at LHO.
• Updated Asset inventory dates and locations for Millikan and East Bridge.
• Created and submitted an Asset Retirement Form for four computers, three network hubs, and one projector.
• Assisted C. Cepeda with packing and shipping a monitor to ViewSonic.

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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

• Processed another very large set of drawings for the Advanced LIGO Suspension System.  Also processed the six DCN's associated with these two sets of drawings.

FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Funaro, Oracion)

>From: "Funaro, Catherine" <Catherine.Funaro@caltech.edu>

• For ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY Press Here.

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

• Created blank template for OPs monthly financial report for the month of July 2008. Started expenditure and budget review for report.
• Completed budget realignment request prompted by Project Accounting to facilitate Oracle billing.
• Requested new task set-up for Advanced LIGO.
• Submitted three cost transfers to project accounting involving UWMIL.LIGO, Advanced LIGO and LIGO Operations accounts to correct various  labor transactions. The cost transfers have been pre-approved by project accounting prior to submission.
• Requested travel expenditure type corrections.
• Reconciled MIT Invoice to MIT "Twonk" report for period 6/1/08-6/30/08.
• Met with EAS Grant Manager to preview a demo of Cognos. Cognos is a new reporting to be rolled out to campus users in mid August.
• Financial reports can be found at: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport. (For passwords contact Karl)

SUBCONTRACTS MANAGEMENT (Jasnow, Salone)

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

• Several RFQ's were issued for various parts of the Advanced LIGO seismic isolation system.  Quotations are due over the next couple of weeks.
• The contract for the glass for some of the core optics was sent to Corning Corporation for signature.

>From: Rudy Arvizu arvisu_r@ligo.caltech.edu

• The contract for the low OH glass for core optics with Heraeus was sent to the Office of General Counsel for review.
• The contracts with the University of Florida for the input optics subsystem and with the Ares Corporation for project controls are now being reviewed by the Purchasing Services office.
• A purchase order with the architectural firm LHSA+DP in the amount of $20,000 was issued for the design of an exhibit entitled "Catch the Wave," which is going to be put up in Grand Central Station in New York.

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

• After several attempts, the supplemental information for both the University of Florida and Ares Corporation subcontracts were submitted to the Office of Sponsored Research via Fastlane.
• Meetings were held between the LIGO Contracts Group and the Advanced LIGO Project Manager, Carol Wilkinson, to review procurement policies and practices to try and streamline the procurement interfaces with the Caltech Purchasing Services organization.

PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist)

• Currently working on the budgets for FY 2009 through FY 2013.  Reviewing and updating budgets for salaries.  We will then meet with each task manager to do some final tuning before submitting updated budget forms to the NSF.
• We will issue requests for contributions for the monthly NSF report for LIGO Operations tomorrow.

CHANGE REQUESTS (Lindquist)

• CR-080008 -- Fred Raab provided information for a change request for budget to cover installation costs in WBS elements 2.8.2 and 3.8.2. The change request has been distributed.
• CR-080009 -- This change request adjusts the MIT budget to reflect a credit for an indirect rate adjustment.  The change request has been distributed.

Pending:

• CR-080010 -- Submitted by G. Billingsley, this request is for funds to cover a Tinsley overrun.  This change request has not been distributed.
• CR-080011 -- Submitted by G. Billingsley, this request is for funds for coating runs on samples of three additional polishing technologies.  This change request has not been distributed.

We have requested change requests for several managers that would return budget to the Director to be used to cover these change requests.

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)

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

• The next staffing committee meeting is scheduled for August 11.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

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

• Members of the LIGO Safety Steering Committee and Directorate continued review and discussion of the proposal for a revised stray power threshold level. As a result, Peter King was asked to complete an updated revision for "final" consideration and action by the Steering Committee.  This revision will be distributed to the committee members before the end of the work-week.
• The intent of this stray light proposal is not to identify if there is a "laser-incident", but how to evaluate the stray beam power level so appropriate corrective actions are implemented.  The proposal is based upon a conservative rationale which permits increasing the stray beam power threshold without increasing personnel hazard.
• LIGO LSOs (Cook, Riesen and King) attended the LSO workshop at Sandia National Laboratories.  Peter King also presented a brief talk at the workshop on "Laser Safety at LIGO".
• Discussed planning for view-port safety inspections with the LIGO Chief Engineer, as a result a special safety meeting with Caltech LIGO lab personnel was conducted.  The meeting included a view-port safety presentation by Coyne, discussion of plans for inspections, requirements for view-port protective equipment, and personnel work/safety restrictions.
• Two action items were identified:
  • Do laser safety glasses also provide "impact" safety protection?
  • The safety protocol document (T-080145) needs editing to assure no confusion (language) regarding implementation of specified safety protocols (they are not "optional").
• Advanced LIGO QA support: working with the new QA person Mick Flanigan, provided LIGO QA related information with discussion.

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

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

• Work has progressed on the second week of our vent. The ITMs were debiased, first X, then Y, using auxilliary optical levers for fiducial alignment. We installed new manifold baffles into the X and Y arms, a procedure that went smoothly. A large hanging baffle went into the center of HAM5 to limit scatter from the septum plate at HAM6 (elog soon). Other work included a horizontal drag wipe of the 2k ITMs (AdL scatter study), and in-chamber photos of the ITMs that show no significant additional chipping of optic chamfer edges (supporting the idea that earthquake stop rotation and not impacts were the original cause).
• The output modecleaner optic bonding is complete, commissioner bonding continues: link
• The OMC SUS was delivered, uncrated, and staged for assembly in the LVEA
• We considered revisiting the ITMY debiasing, in order to regap the PAMs (the smallest gap being 3.5mm), but instead decided to press onwards with the final (HAM5) vent activities
• Astrowatch has been offline for one week, owing to the venting of the manifolds... the X manifold was pumped down on Thursday, while the Y will go today. H2 will resume running in something on the order of ten days

LHO Outreach (D. Ingram)

• WSU GEAR UP and LIGO partnered on a four-day astronomy camp at LHO for a small group of Stevens Middle School students (Pasco) between 7/28 and 7/31. Astronomy from the Ground Up hands-on activities formed most of the program, along with several LIGO-specific activities such as job shadows. Extra-EOC staff contributions came from Vorvick, McCarthy, Landry, Mendell, Brown, Santini and interns Ramirez and Merlin.

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

No report.

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)

Homestake activities,

• Jan Harms, Angelo Sajeva, Jason Van Beek, Riccardo Desalvo, Vuk Mandic
• We kicked off week the Homestake summer seismic measurement campaign.
• Jan and Angelo will reside here for the summer, Vuk Mandic, Bill Roggenthen, Nelson Christensen and Riccardo DeSalvo will alternate for supervision. Measurements will last for the summer and possibly extend beyond.
• We will establish a number of seismic stations with coherent readouts to study local seismic wave propagation.
• The past two week we took contact with the mine personnel, took the first safety instructions and made the first supervised accesses (only after 15 supervised accesses we will be able to enter without supervision). Only the 100 and 300 foot level were accessible at present with the 800 foot and 2000 foot being released soon.
• We explored several possible locations for a shallow station and chose an old pump platform at the 300 foot level.
• We built two huts, one for the instruments and one for the acquisition computers. The instrument hut with double rigid foam walls, solidly connected to the tunnel walls, is intended to screen against ventilation and acoustic noise (the other stations will be in blind tunnels, mainly old power rooms).They keep the rain out, but we still have some small leaks from the bottom, working to make more water tight.
• We studied the path for internet cabling and signal routing.
• We tested an internet radio bridges down the shaft, where wiring is problematic. The bridge is given for up to 50km range in open air. Because of the reverberation on the steel structure down the shaft, the bridge was fine up to 2400 feet, but started losing signal beyond 2600 feet level. †Plenty of range as the units can be daisy chained. After the test the first two units are being permanently installed between the surface and the 300 foot level. More units will be purchased and installed as more levels will become accessible. Cabling is being established between the shaft and the experimental huts at the 300 foot level.
  STS-2 and Guralp instruments were tested and the surface and are being implemented, together with a weather station (recording temperature, pressure, humidity, magnetic field). The data acquisition computer is also being implemented.
• We identified and †muffled a whistling drain pipe 200 feet away to reduce its acoustic noise at the source.

See Advanced LIGO

Controls and Data Systems (Bork)

See Advanced LIGO

40-Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

From Rana Adhikari (rana@ligo.caltech.edu)

• We suffered from the 5.4 EQ on Tuesday which was ~20 miles SE of Caltech.
• Currently, the PRM, ITMX, and others are severely mis-aligned and probably stuck somewhere.
• We are comparing the pendulum eigenfrequencies before/after the earthquake to check for touching. Currently the MC and the Y arm can be locked.
• We plan to vent on the next Monday.
• The MC length was measured by injecting a 2kHz signal into the MC error point and moving around the 166MHz sideband frequency to minimize the demodulated signal at the reflection port (166MHz). The 166MHz sidebands were 6kHz off the resonance. We corrected the other RF frequencies (33MHz, 133MHz, 199MHz) accordingly.
• The arm cavity absolute length measurement made some progress. Koji found the pump diode current of the auxiliary laser was too low. By putting it back to the normal value, the beat between the PSL laser and the auxiliary one can be seen at a reasonable crystal temperature (48.5 C whereas the MOPA's NPRO is at 45 C). The PLL now works fine and we are ready to search for the FSR of the arm cavity. This setup can also be used to find the transverse mode spacing (g-factor measurement).
• After finding that we were using a wrong order beam from the AOM for the reference cavity of the PSL, we picked the right one and re-aligned the RC. Now the incident power is about 10 times stronger than before. We also installed new lens mounts for better mode matching. However, even with the increased optical gain, the FSS loop bandwidth is still limited to below 200kHz where we expect 500kHz. The transfer function measurements show the loop should be stable even with a higher bandwidth. But when the gain is increased further, the phase corrector path suddenly starts oscillating incoherently. We are investigating this problem; it may be that the switching supply noise around 80 kHz is the culprit. If so, we will have to move the DC-DC converter out of the NPRO head and into a seperate box.
• We replaced the PMC which had been in the PSL for > 6 yrs with a spare in the lab. Range and gain of the new one is much larger leading us to believe that the old one had a bad PZT for many years.
• The fiber noise measurement setup was moved to the Bridge. A Mach Zehnder with a 50m fiber arm is now working. Marha measured preliminary noise spectra.
• The adaptive filter now runs a new C code, which saves the FIR coefficients and restores them when invoked next time. A bit of adaptation time improvement was achieved.
• Max added 40m specific seismic noise estimate to the noise budget code.
• We got another GC750 CMOS camera. Joe found it has an identical "background" pattern in 1064nm as the one we already have. The camera to EPICS communication is now working and so the camera based cavity alignment can now begin.
• Eric did PMC scans to test fitting the mode peaks so as to make an automated HOM analyzer, similar to the one used on the diagnostic breadboard from LZH/AEI.

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Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

• This week all of the remaining hardware on order for the new photothermal experiment arrived, including our first batch of samples. Eric Cahoon set up the CO2 laser and is in the process of aligning the pump beam inside the chamber, and Greg Ogin is characterizing the Michelson servo.

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LASTI (Mittleman)

No report provided.

CIT Science Group (Weinstein)

___________________

Antony Searle:

• Sam makes progress on conditioning/normalization bugs.

___________________

Drew Keppel:

• Creating flowcharts for the S5 1 Yr Low Mass CBC Search <http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/ligovirgo/cbc/protected/projects/s5/lowcbc/20051104-20061114/report_page/pipeline.html>.
• Following up slight anomalies in the upper limit calculation.

___________________

Kent Blackburn for the Grid R&D Team:

GRID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

• Wrote agenda and lead LIGO-Pegasus telecon.
• Wrote minutes for LIGO-Pegasus telecon.
• Evaluated new 'Join the OSG pages' .
• Test new OSG-USERS Discussion Forum.
• Attending OSG Blueprint meeting in Madison:  Wednesday through   Friday of this week.

EINSTEIN@HOME ON THE OSG

• Made code changes to E@OSG job submission script to avoid over submitting .
• Troubleshooting at CIT RC 106/107: can't fetch task from   database, recording state E not P.
• Troubleshoot TTU_ANTAEUS RC 127, log only states: Terminated.

BINARY INSPIRAL (IHOPE)

• WS-GRAM with Pegasus troubleshooting.
• Dynamic cleanup testing, all LIGO files removed at LIGO_UWM_NEMO .
• Troubleshooting CIT_CMS_T2: nfs lite wrapper scrip to   accommmodate condor remote_initialdir not working on some WNs.

OSG INTEGRATION TESTBED

• No Report.

GRID MANAGEMENT

• Continued to evolve agenda for next week's OSG Council Face-to-Face   meeting being held in Chicago.
• Reviewing an agreement document between the OSG and WLCG.
• Met with Lee Lindblom to discuss possibilities of having his research   groups numerical relativity codes run on the Open Science Grid. In   the meeting, we identified a strategy for moving forward that would   make use of the OSG's Engage Team, which as it turns out were   looking for a new MPI based application to work with on the OSG.
• Contacted the Engage Team and put them in touch with Lee to start the ball rolling. Exchanged several thoughts with the Engage   Team on ways to explore leveraging more of the OSG for MPI based   applications.
• Put in a purchase request for new OSG ITB/VTB clusters. Still waiting   to hear that all the paperwork is in place.
• Extended offer to top candidate for the Grid Administrator position.
• Contacted HR to draft the offer letter. The offer letter is now   waiting for approval from deputy director before going out to the   candidate. Now need to provide HR with list of candidates that were   interviewed.

___________________

Chad Hanna:

• I worked with Adrian on preparing his project writeup and presentation on low-latency inspiral searches.
• I worked with Becky on computing valid parameter regions for spinning injections for the high mass search.
• I held the High Mass CBC call and we have set a hopefully final list of investigations to do before launching the full run.
• Joe and I along with the h(t) group finally got V3 approved!!!

___________________

Amber L. Stuver:

LIGO Research

• Worked on adapting the test mass IFOtest scripting to all coils on ETMX, ETMY, ITMX, ITMY and BS.  Currently, I am working on integrating these scripts onto the appropriate MEDM screens but am having difficulty successfully executing the scripts through MEDM (there is a short message on the terminal window that pops up but the window is killed by MEDM before I can actually read the error message).  Doug has been helping me with working out the reason for this.  After this is done, I just need to go through a final debug for each script to make sure it is performing properly and measuring the correct values.
• Worked on characterizing the MDC detection results across ETGs for the year 1 burst results (my thesis work is finally coming in handy).

SEC Work

• Gave public tour to a family.
• Discussed wave phenomena with teachers and effective measures to demonstrate these to students.

___________________

Joseph Betzwieser:

• Finished V3 h(t) calibration document.
• Starting to coordinate efforts on large parameter targeted searches.

___________________

Anand Sengupta:

• Running the high mass iHope over one month S5 data around the equinox event. I already had the results from a previous run but decided to redo it using iHope. There are some job failures which I am looking into.
• The iHope dag for 3 months of S5 data - this is to check that the hgh mass iHope dag runs for larger chunks of data  - 99% of these jobs have finished. The plotting dags haven't and I am investigating why.
• Working with Sukanta and Sathees on the SURF project. Helped Satheesh with organising and running the code.

___________________

Diego Fazi:

• Analyzed results from the PTF background estimation and compared them with SPA.
• Continued tuning the first coincidence stage for PTF using box-thinca.
• Started working on the projected metric for the PTF intrinsic parameter space.

___________________

Kipp Cannon:

• Working with Ashley King on assessing pointing accuracy of coherent inspral analyses.
• Working with Chad Hanna and Adrian Chapman on low latency, hardware-assisted, inspiral data analysis techniques.
• S4 cosmic string code and paper review work.
• Spent some time looking into the design of the coherent stage of the inspiral pipeline, looking for possible performance improvements.

Laboratory Computing (Anderson)

(Anderson, compiled this week by Kozak)

LDAS Software Systems (Maros)

(Lei reporting for Maros)

Documentation

• Updated db2 installation to include solaris tarball for DB2 9.1.5.

Testing

• Dev nightly loop testing: Continues to run with metadata being monitored by a standalone script. One or two gcores are seen during some nights. Had to restart db2 one time because db2 detected a deadlock in gds_trigger.
• Dev system testing: No changes for system testing.
• ldas-test running DB2 8.2.7: Running fine with special build with only datacond no such symbol errors.
• ldas-suntest1 (sunopteron) running DB2 9.1.4: Still running with db2 monitor; restart of db2 occurs every two days or so with some ipcrm in between.

Tandem-iv Running DB2 9.1.5

• Have Phil created user ldasdb and /usr/databases partition.
• Installed solaris DB2 9.1.5 on ldas-suntest4 and created ldas_tst database.
• Updated /ldcg with IBMdb2 9.1.5 include and libs for solaris only.
• Stowed new build 1.9.377 build with solaris DB2 includes/libs to tandem-iv.
• Put metadata on suntest4. But metadata send to ligolw on testbox4 results in connection failure. Moved ligolw also to suntest4. Running database jobs on tandem-iv. Reduced max number of db2 agents from default 400 to 350 in attempt to reduce the page buffer allocation error but still see one or two per day.

mysql: Adjusted load command option to ingest DB2 unique Id correctly without the leading " char in the field. Now except for blob, all fields compared ok. Started converted ldas table sql files into sql accepted by mysql. Table files converted so far:

• calib_info.sql
• frameset_chanlist.sql
• process.sql
• search_summary.sql
• sim_inst.sql
• filter.sql
• frameset_writer.sql
• process_params.sql
• segment.sql
• sim_type.sql
• frameset.sql
• ilwdtypes.sql
• runlist.sql
• segment_definer.sql
• sim_type_params.sq

LDAS System Administration (Anderson)

(Kozak reporting for Anderson)

Caltech

(Dan Kozak)

• Got ngateway hooked up to SAN to support T10KB testing.
• T10KB testing dead in the water--first attempt to write to a tape failed, no one from Sun is responding to email.
• Generated an actual occurence of the "adding something to the SAN" problem and submitted fresh case to Sun. Progress is being made--the guy handling the case thinks that we need to implement FC zoning, but is going to consult more expert people before we take downtime to do this.
• Debugged multiple cert related problems, some related to new UK cert authority, some due to the plethora of copies of our hostcerts. To wit:
  • The automatic update of VDT certs on ldas-grid & ldas-pcdev1 is broken, leaving UK users out in the cold. This has been "fixed" by hand and the cron job stopped until a real solution is fashioned.
  • RLS certs are copies (under different permissions) of our hostcerts. Phil updated the later but not the former.
  • LSCdataFind/LSCsegFind broke due to looking at old certificates directories--Phil updated them by hand to fix the problem.
• Set up the modified "Australian" patch on the LHO CDS machine ldasgw (again) and explained its functioning to Alex Ivanov and Dave Barker (they'd ignored the comment in /etc/dfs/dfstab telling them to use /etc/dfs/dfstab.qfs for all NFS exports of QFS filesystems).
• Figured out that held condor jobs were due to a node failing to mount the home dirs.
• Checked out that Virgo V1r23 and V2 Hrec data had all made it to CIT and announ ced its availability on DASWG mailing list.
• Ran framecheck--no new bad frames, though still no response from Keith Thorne a bout the bad Burst-MDC frames.
• Started putting Virgo data on thumper2 ahead of its shipping to MIT.
• Looked for LIGO property tags on our 5600 fibre channel switches...in vain.

(Phil Ehrens)

• Replaced all fans in cluster node 91.
• Various certificate related duties.
• Configuring vcs.ligo.caltech.edu to be new cvs/svn server.

MIT

(Fred Donovan)

• Nothing to report for LDAS this week.

Livingston

(Igor Yakushin)

• RLS server and publishing scripts stopped working because RLS certificate expired today. Replaced it with ldas host certificate and restarted RLS and publishing scripts.
• LSCdataFind stopped working today because the corresponding host certificates on nodes expired. Copied host certificates from ldas to nodes and LSCdataFind is working again.
• LSCdataFind could not find recent data due to the fact that beowulf crashed and the cronjob that copies framecache file to nodes did not run. Restarted beowulf.
• The failed disk 9 in 3511-3 was replaced.

Hanford

(Gregory Mendell)

• I have been performing the usual tasks, working with LDAS to keep the archiving and transfer of trend and astrowatch data up-to-date at LHO, LLO, and CIT, and to keep the LDAS services working. There have been a number of certificate issues that are being fixed this week. I am also continuing work on a script to generate an S5 timing and additional DQ channels RDS rerun, which will also drive the rearchiving of raw S5 data onto new tapes at CIT.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT

(Fred)

• Cont. work on ilog -- hope to have demo for Hanford by w/e or first of week.
• Some hardware problems, resolved.
• Some matlab licensing issues (mix ups),resolved.

Livingston

(Dwayne)

• Installed VPN software for a user.
• Kantech troubles with external LVEA doors. having to bypass part of an old system. work is ongoing. two of five doors completed.
• Installed gpg4win for a user.
• Assisted SURF students with network connectivity issues.
• Installed RHEL 5 on vmhost3, installed one VM - Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server, to be used as a testbed for inventory control development.
• Numerous usual/unusual user support requests.
• Cleared spam trap.
• Noticed an increase in weekly spam volume, especially containing virus.

Hanford

(Larry)

• Some work on mail service items. Still need to update some of the filters.
• Ordered more equipment. Some of the items are no longer fabricated so now looking for substitutes.
• Assisted Mike on a couple of his items he was working on at the Observatory.

(Mike)

• Setup multiple new user accounts.
• Continued work on managing dhcp server.
• Work on mail server flushing out the queue.
• Configured Terminal server for ADVLIGO.
• Loaded a new PC to replace a users workstation that had hardware issues. Also involve a lot of data recovery.
• Worked on DHCP server issues. I also updated the IP database.
• Other misc. user support and sysadmin tasks.

Caltech

(Veronica)

• LIGO: Assisted Cindy with Dreamweaver/html. Roster database update, other web related updates.
• LSC: Ongoing work on ligo.org redo. Updates of the technical papers database.
• CaJAGWR: Taped the last talk and compressed for streaming, an evo broadcast setup, updates of the website.

(Christian)

• Mark Barton - Called Viewsonic support to have Mark's monitor replaced.
• Kari Hodge - Powerbook won't start. I reseated the memory, cleared PRAM.
• Minor tweaks to WSUS windows server.
• Re-imaged 2 laptops that were returned to the loaner pull this week.
• Working on creating a new Windows unattended DVD with SATA drivers and updates.
• Taking care of issues with some of the older equipment being turned over to Caltech.
• Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.

(Melody)

• New DCC: Finished the substring content searches. Looking into incorporating the current DCC's numbering scheme with DocDB's. Also, working on the universal search capability to search through the old DCC, docdb, and wikis (?).

(Larry)

• More procurement related items. Purchased a number of workstations and notebooks. All have been received and are in the process or waiting to be imaged.
• Tracking other items that are in the process of being shipped.
• Resolved a couple of paperwork issues.
• RMA a phoenix unit to be upgraded. It should be returned the end of next week.
• Took care of another maintenance contract and working on two more.
• Still working on the mailman server. Was not able to get the time needed for the new unit so, I have updated the old pkg. and should have it setup and running in a day or so depending on the time I can devote to it. All of the tests on the minor upgrade have passed so far and just a few more to run.
• Assisted one of the lab groups with some equipment moves.
• Assisted a number of people with different document and document transfer issues. So far all has worked out.
• Setup a couple more accounts for new arrivals. Also, assisting them with their different computer related issues.
• Resolved a server issue. One of the analysis boxes appears to have had a memory problem. It is now working properly but we are keeping an eye on it.
• Reset a couple of license services.
• Updated and patched a couple of the linux boxes.
• Regular user support and meetings attended.

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Advanced LIGO Management

No report.

Advanced LIGO Systems

Modeling and Simulation

From: Hiroaki Yamamoto hiro@ligo.caltech.edu

Static IFO Simulation (Hiro)

• The signal generation (oscillation by a mirror to generate the signal sideband) code is being validated. It was validated to be OK for the mirror displacement (compared with twiddle), but the size of the signal generated by non-displacement (generating higher order mode, like LG20) is smaller than a naive calculation. Trying to understand if this is true or is caused by a bug.
• An accurate implementation of field propagation through substrate is being implemented.
• SIS user support  Technical answers and code modification to fulfill the user's request, and updating of documents.

Core Optics (Hiro)

• Hiro analyzed the LASTI AR coating to figure out the layer thickness variation.
• The analysis confirmed the calculation done by Eric recently.
• In short, to explain the change of the reflectivity of the AR surface from the center (230ppm) to the edge (153ppm), the thickness should change by around 0.4%.
• Using this value, the thickness of a AR coating with 36 layers would change (center vs edge) by 18*lambda/4(1/1.45+1/2.03)*0.004 = 20nm, while the measurement by LMA indicates around 7nm. This difference needs to be understood to keep the curvature change due to the coating under control.

Facilities Modifications and Preparations

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

• We are making the last edits to the staging building modifications bid package. Our A/E should get back with the final drawings and bid docs next week so that I can forward to Caltech.

Seismic Isolation

From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

• SEI Project Activities: The purchase order was issued for the hydraulic servo valves used on the HEPI actuator. Statements of work and updated drawings were sent to procurement for the HEPI housings and crossbeam foot. With the redesign of the HAM crossbeam complete we have decided to have different configurations for the HAM and BSC instead of re-machining existing parts. This means we will build a complete set of HEPI's for the HAM chambers at LLO and ship the existing HEPI's to LHO for use on the BSC chambers. ~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:

• OMC: The OMC SUS with metal dummy bench has arrived at LHO. Two of the SUS team, Derek Bridges and Chris Echols, are at LHO and have started unpacking and staging parts. The aim is to suspend the OMC silica bench early next week.
• Large triple: The blades for the large triple prototype are now back at LLO having been shot peened to correct their radii of curvature. They will now undergo characterisation. Some of them will be used to test out nickel plating procedures for reducing corrosion.

BSC Suspensions for Advanced LIGO:

• Work continue towards the monolithic build at LASTI now scheduled for September.
• Brett Shapiro has drafted a document on quad balancing and alignment procedure and circulated for comments.
• A document has been drafted capturing the outcome of work to resolve the outstanding design issues arising at the BOSEM FRR and FDR held earlier this year.

Project-Funded Activities

• The solid stack which will form part of the mechanical test stand for the assembly of quads at LLO starting with the "training"quad in November is being shipped from MIT.

Core Optics

From: GariLynn Billingsley Billingsley_G@ligo.caltech.edu

• Working on procurements.

Auxiliary Optics

From:   Michael Smith smith@ligo.caltech.edu

Work Under Operations Budget

ADLIGO:

• OPTLEV: Riccardo is proceeding with a conceptual design for a carbon fiber composite pier that would be permanently bolted and grouted to the LVEA floor. He intends to make several prototypes and test the stability of the piers at CIT. Tara and Giovanni are continuing preliminary relative intensity noise measurements of a free-space HeNe beam on a benchtop hitting a quad photodiode. Zach is analyzing the optimum spot size on the QPD and is investigating various RIN models. Robert Schofield is continuing to measure the angular noise characteristics of the LVEA floor and the optical lever piers at LHO.
• ETM TEL SUS: Peter F. has a preliminary size of the ETM transmission monitor table of 0.5 x 1.0 meter. A new ETM telescope with nominally 190mm diameter input aperture will also mount to the suspended table. The larger diameter ETM telescope is not in the AOS baseline and will require a change in scope with an increase in cost.

ELIGO:

• SLC: Luke completed the installation of the HAM5 baffle at LHO, pending verification that the flashed PSL beam in not vignetted by the openings in the baffle. Ken installed the x-arm manifold baffle, and is in the process of installing the y-arm manifold baffle. The Staff at LLO assembled one of the ETM baffles, in preparation for subsequent installation. Riccardo reported that the safety committee decided that a hazard analysis was not necessary for the ELIGO Baffle installation.
• TCS: Aidan tested the damage threshold of gold-coated pyrex and silicon mirrors with a focused CO2 laser beam. Pyrex mirrors fail destructively, whereas silicon substrates are satisfactory with an approx 0.5 mm focused spot @ 30W.

Input Optics

From: Rodica Martin <rmartin@phys.ufl.edu>

ELIGO Commissioning

• ELIGO PSL work at LLO: Alignment of the PMC beam path. Measurement of the PMC visibility (about 90%). Installation and alignment of the FSS optical components. - Antonio
• ELIGO commissioning at LHO: After a final set of power budged measurements from PSL to REFL-port and closing the west HAM1 door we re-verified that the REFL beam exits the window (nearly) centered - Volker, Kate, Muzammil
• Worked on characterizing the LHO OMC - Kate

Advanced LIGO

• Work is going on for determining flatness requirements on BS. Losses at several hundred ppm level are expected but TCS can effectively drive them close to tens of ppm level. - Muzammil
• Work on parallel modulation MZ experiment - Volker
• Final adjustments to bid package for IO glass procurement; Completed updates on monthly Schedule Progress - Rodica

Prestabilized Laser

From: Peter King pking@ligo.caltech.edu

Operations

• A revised version of the laser incident threshold level document was completed.  I have started sketching up the verification instrumentation proposed therein.

Project

• Work continues on installing the 35-W laser onto the PSL table at LLO. At the moment the optical train to the reference cavity is being laid out. The cross connect wiring for the Lightwave 10-W laser was removed and the signals from external sensors were added.  The EPICS records database was modified to reflect these changes.
• In preparation for the preliminary design documentation, I have been checking to see if other documentation needs to be updated - the safety plan in particular.
• Some of the vacuum compatible connectors to be used for the in-vac photodetectors have arrived.

Control and Data Systems

From: Rolf Bork rolf@ligo.caltech.edu

• DAQS PDR documentation being finalized. Presently, the documents are out for initial review by a small group prior to dissemination to the review committee.
• Timing: An 18bit version of the 32 channel ADC board is now available; in process of ordering one unit for testing.
• The medium duration end-to-end tests of the upgraded FPGA based DAQ.
• Timebase distribution sub-subsystem indicate good performance that is consistent with the short term test results reported last week. The results indicates that the accuracy is much better than the required.
  • The input 1PPS was compared to the 1PPS at the very end of the distribution chain:  99% of measurements were within DDT_99%_CL = 3.1 ns of the median, the maximum positive deviation from the median was DDT_MAX = 3.8 ns, the maximum positive deviation from the median was DDT_MIN = 4.3 ns. The test was executed in a conservative environment with open chassis. Extreme temperature tests indicated that even when ice was building up on the top of the OCXO or when it was heated with a heat gun, the transient maximum did not surpass +/-150 ns from the median.
  • The Master-FanOut assembly automatically compensated for the connecting fiber length.
  • The maximum demonstrated diagnostic data rate between the FanOut and diagnostic host computer was ~100x faster than required, leaving space for future upgrades.
  • The DuoTone signal interface daughter board arrived to the lab, testing is ongoing.

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For additional information about this report, contact Albert Lazzarini