The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday, August 25, 2008 will be:

(Meeting time: 10:30 am Pacific Time)

1. Announcements

2. Programmatic (Marx)

Update on viewport safety -- Mike Zucker

3. Comments on Weekly Report

4. LSC Issues (Reitze)

5. LIGO Lab Operations

Administration (Lindquist)
Sites (Raab, Giaime, Shoemaker)
Commissioning (Fritschel)
Optical and Mechanical (Coyne)
Control and Data Systems (Bork)
40m (Adhikari)
TNI (Libbrecht)
LASTI (Mittleman)
Lab Computing ( Anderson )
Data Analysis Group (Weinstein)
Instrument Science (Gustafson)

6. Enhancements (Zucker)

7. Advanced LIGO (Shoemaker)

8. Change Control Board/Technical Review Board Session as needed

There are no open Change Requests.

Site and other Business Issues:

Calendar of future Executive Commitee Meetings

LSC Issues (Reitze)

News on LSC Observational Papers:

The CW group paper "Beating the Spin-Down Limit on Gravitational Wave Emission from the Crab Pulsar" has been published in the August 10 edition of Ap. J. Lett: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/591526.
The Burst group paper "First joint search for gravitational-wave bursts in LIGO and GEO600 data" has been submitted to Classical and Quantum Gravity.
The Burst group paper "Search for Gravitational Wave Bursts from Soft Gamma Repeaters" has been submitted to the arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.2050

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Lloyd)

MOU

Attachments

Approved

ACIGA
ACF, DAT, LAS, OPS, OPT, OUT, SUS, Z

Andrews University
DAT, OPS, OUT, Z

Balearic Islands
DAT, Z

x

Carleton College
DAT, OPS, Z

x

Caltech Exper. Grav.-Physics Group
SUS, Z

x

Caltech Relativity Group
ACF, DAT, OPT, OUT, Z

x

Columbia University
DAT, OPS, OUT, Z

x

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
DAT, OPT, SUS, Z

Eotvos University
DAT, OPS, OUT, Z

Florida, University of
ACF, DAT, OPS, OPT, OUT, SUS, Z

x

GEO600
ACF, DAT, LAS, OPS, OPT, OUT, SUS, Z

x

Goddard Grav. Wave Astrophys.Group
DAT, OPS, Z

Hobart & William Smith Colleges
OPS, OPT, OUT, SUS, Z

x

Institute of Applied Physics
OPT, OUT, Z

IUCAA
DAT, Z

x

Louisiana State University
DAT, OPS, SUS, Z

x

Louisiana Tech University
DAT, OPS, OUT, Z

x

Maryland, University of
DAT, OPS, Z

x

Massachusetts at Amherst, University of
DAT, OPS, Z

x

Michigan Gravitational Wave Group
DAT, OPS, OUT, Z

x

Minnesota, University of
DAT, OPS, SUS, Z

x

Mississippi, Uiversity of
DAT, OPS, OUT, Z

x

Montana Grav. Wave Astronomy Group
DAT, Z

x

Moscow State University
Z

NAOJ-TAMA
ACF, Z

x

Northwestern University
ACF, DAT, Z

Oregon, University
DAT, OPS, OUT, Z

Pennsylvania State University
DAT, OPS, OUT, Z

Rochester, University of
DAT, Z

x

San Jose State University
ACF, Z

x

Sannio, University of at Benevento
DAT, OPT, Z

Sonoma State University
LAS, OUT, Z

Stanford University
ACF, LAS, OPS, OPT, OUT, SUS, Z

x

Syracuse University
DAT, OPS, OPT, Z

x

Texas, University of at Austin
DAT, OUT, Z

Texas, University of at
DAT, OPS, OPT, OUT, Z

Trinity University
OPT, OUT, Z

x

Washington State University
DAT, OPS, Z

x

Wisconsin at Milwaukee, University of
DAT, OPS, Z

PROPERTY ACCOUNTING (Luna)

No report.

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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

Began processing a very large batch of the new MOUs and attachments.

> From: Turner Linda <turner@ligo.caltech.edu>

All hard-copy incident reports (both laser and general) for Livingston and Hanford have been organized, numbered, scanned and all are available electronically. A spreadsheet captures the location, type of incident, date of incident and the hyperlink for each and can be sorted for various reporting needs. Am awaiting stray electronic versions that Bill Tyler received but that have not been forward to me or the DCC. These will be reviewed and added to the rest of the reports when received.
Worked on edits to the LIGO Laser Safety Program, M960001. Am waiting for further content inputs from Bill Tyler. We will be going through the form appendices and making revisions as needed.
Spent time with Melody reviewing the status of the search options for docDB; status of decision regarding the current DCC metadata conversion; security requirements; and various other issues currently being addressed by her and the committee.
Reviewed past emails from the old DCC's architect and culled information that may be of help to Melody. Will be forwarding a few emails for her review and use if helpful.
Researched options for additional Configuration Management training should that prove useful for me in supporting AdvLIGO.
Received a large LIGO Quality Assurance document from Bill Tyler. Need to scan and convert the .pdf back into an editable format for Mick Flanigan's use.
Received signed contract from venue for the March '09 LSC meeting. Will be meeting with catering there today to ensure that our budget constraints are met for the lunches, breaks, and dinners.
Worked on setting up an additional scanning workstation in my office using the ultra-fast Canon color scanner. The service technician came out for general maintenance and will be replacing one imaging assembly and the rollers. The parts should be here in a couple of weeks. After the new hardware is installed, the machine should be back in service.

FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Funaro, Oracion)

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

For ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY Press Here.

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

Attended Caltech Data Warehouse/Cognos (Caltech reporting tool for campus users) training session. IMSS has added 3 new "datamarts": grants accounting, FAMIS and labor distribution. The session was a brief overview of the "canned" reports within Cognos.
Submitted five cost transfers to project accounting to correct charging errors involving contract labor between Advanced LIGO and LIGO Operations.
Requested travel expenditure type corrections.
Prepared justification for four labor distribution adjustments.
Financial reports can be found at: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport. (For passwords contact Karl)

SUBCONTRACTS MANAGEMENT (Jasnow, Salone)

>From: Rudy Arvizu <arvizu_r@ligo.caltech.edu>

As a result of a teleconference on August 20 with Dick Seligman, Carol Wilkinson, Jay Marx, David Shoemaker, Ed Jasnow, Rudy Arvizu, and Gina Salone, the supplemental information memo to the NSF regarding the proposed contract with the University of Florida is being revised to more directly answer the questions posed by Ann Miller of the NSF.
The RFP for the new clean room for LHO has been issued. Bids are due September 9.

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

Gina Salone, Bert Cresta, and Ken Mailand, traveled to San Luis Obispo on August 19 to visit Next Intent, Inc., the co-bidder on the procurement for the HEPI actuators. The site visit was conducted to ascertain the technical capability of this firm to perform on this contract.
An RFP is being assembled for the warehouse improvement project for LLO required for Advanced LIGO. The RFP will be issued on August 22. A job walk at LLO is scheduled for August 28, with bids due on September 10.

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

We received word today that the contract for Advanced LIGO project controls support with the Ares Corporation has been approved by the NSF.
An acquisition plan for the new Operations Cooperative Agreement is being prepared. The 16 data elements required by the NSF have been completed for the two site electric utility contracts and the two site liquid nitrogen contracts.
A meeting has been set up for Wednesday, August 27, with Tina Lowenthal, Director of Procurement Services, and Monica Marquez, Associate Director of Purchasing Services, to discuss the provision of additional procurement personnel. They have received permission from Sharon Paterson, the Associate Vice President for Finance, to fund two additional procurement people.

PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist)

We prepared EAC projections for LIGO Operations based on the end-of-July data and presented them to the Executive Committee ion Monday.
We also presented a draft account structure for the next Operations Cooperative Agreement.
A draft Preliminary Acquisition Plan for the new Operations Cooperative Agreement to begin October 1 has been prepared and distributed for comment. This plan addresses four large orders that are critical for day-to-day operation of the observatories.
The monthly report was sent to the NSF last Friday.

CHANGE REQUESTS (Lindquist)

There are no open change requests.

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)

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

A Staffing Committee meeting was held on Monday, August 11th. The minutes and action items have been posted on the SC web page. All files for the Staffing Committee are up-to-date and posted on the SC web page.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

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

Safety Report: In addition to a rewrite of the stray beam power threshold incident procedure, other revisions to the LIGO laser safety plan in-work include: Appendix A, Laser Incident Report, minor format change; Appendix B, laser registration (inventory) updated/new form; Appendix C, laser safety inspection updated/new form; Appendix E, SOP template, add FMEA requirement and some typo corrections in the body of the document.
Also working with the Advanced LIGO safety engineer, David Nolting to help get him integrated into Advanced LIGO safety work.
Advanced LIGO QA: Assisted Mick Flanigan with his Advanced LIGO QA requirements document and planning for vendor/supplier QA/QC procurement support.

ADVANCED LIGO SAFETY IS BEING REPORTED UNDER ADVANCED LIGO, BELOW

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

Summary of Activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory
(compiled by K. Kawabe)

eLIGO Commissioning (compiled by Kawabe)

The arms were opened to the H1 vertex on Monday 18/Aug, and the commissioning of both RF and DC readout was restarted.
The beam quality coming out of HAM4 improved by the HAM4 adjustment. ISCT4 alignment is still being worked on.
Despite this, the IFO went to detect mode with beam splitter and QPD centering servo both engaged. This means that the alignment of the large IFO mirrors were back to where they used to.
With the above mentioned alignment, it was confirmed that the bias current for the ITMs decreased by more than a factor of 100 for ITMX and more than 10 for ITMY.
OMC software trigger was implemented.
A new frontend code build procedure with stricter (than iLIGO) version control was put in place for the OMC.

Astrowatch (compiled by Patel)

This week we finally got the interferometer locking regularly and have started shifts/data taking in earnest.
There was a leak in the PSL laser cooling system, which was repaired and no serious damage seems to have occurred.
Cleaning of the ITMs resulted in an incredible increase (9.1% for X and 12.2% for Y) in the arm power transmission. See this elog of Cheryl Vorvick for the numbers and before/after scattering photo.
Due to the above, we need a smaller amount of power on the TCS. We have reached a peak range of around 6.7 and seem to be able to maintain a range around 6.2 -6.3 subject to wind.
Cooling water line inside H2 PSL enclosure was found to be leaking due to over tightening of a plastic fitting.

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)

See Advanced LIGO

Controls and Data Systems (Bork)

See Advanced LIGO

40-Meter Interferometer (Adhikari)

After the recovery works from the earthquake in the air, we finally pumped down the system again on Friday. The vacuum is now fine, and the suspensions are all in ok state. Rob recovered the alignment of MC, both arms and DRM. So all the mirrors are aligned ok, although final tune is still necessary. During the recovery process, Rob developed a lazy but handy method of finding a good alignment of a cavity. That is, slowly modulating the alignment offsets of the relevant mirrors with triangular waves of different frequencies. Leave it for an hour or so and then look for times of cavity flashing in the trend. By reading the offsets applied at those times, the cavity alignment can be brought close enough to the optimal for final hand tuning.
The mode cleaner looses lock sporadically, once or twice an hour.No apparent correlation with seismic noise. We are investigating the cause of this phenomenon.
Diagonalization of the OSEMs of the repaired PRM was done by Jenne. An automatic diagonalization code is under development.
For the adaptive noise cancellation, the accelerometers were calibrated so that they generate the same signal in response to the same acceleration input.
Eric modified ezcaservo to be able to set the max, min, slew rate limits. He also wrote Matlab functions to convert the pixel position in the GigE camera image to the real position.
Large groups of Japanese high school students visited 40m.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

Eric Cahoon and Greg Ogin have taken first data with the new photothermal experiment, but their measured signal is considerably larger than expected and identical for all samples. Evidently there is some spurious signal coming into the lock-in other than the data path.
Eric and Eugene gave their final SURF talks on Thursday. Congratulations to both, and best wishes for the coming school year!

LASTI (Mittleman)

BSC-ISI

We have moved on to the commissioning of stage 1. We are currently redesigning the controllers and working on the tilt decoupling (that means lots of long low frequency measurements).

Quad Prototype

No News is Good News.

Fiber Pulling-Welding

Working without Alistair, David Kelley and Gregg Harry continued on with research on welding for Advanced LIGO suspensions. A number of welds were tested in the proof tester. Welds made with the ceramic pusher and with and without low laser power annealing consistently broke at very low force right along the bottom of the ear, where no weld was made. This was true using both a universal joint and a rigid joint at the top of the proof tester, to try to determine the effect of the welds asymmetry. However, a weld made with the usual front and side welds, but also a weld along the bottom seam where the other welds had broken still broke at low force, but did so in a thin part of the rod, not along the plane of the bottom of the ear. The role of this seam and the bond's asymmetry is still not completely clear, but this does suggest that making a third weld along the bottom seam may be useful.
There are some pictures and more discussion on the Lasti ilog at http://www.ligo.mit.edu/ilog/, AdvancedLigoOptics.

CIT Science Group (Weinstein)

___________________

Kent Blackburn for the Grid R&D Team:

GRID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT:

Write agenda and lead LIGO-Pegasus and OSG-USERS telecons.
Write minutes for LIGO-Pegasus telecon.
Attend OSG-USERS, LIGO-Inspiral, DASWG and LIGO-Pegasus telecon.
E@OSG:
- Open GOC ticket: E@OSG troubleshooting
- GOC ticket RCAC resolved (WS-GRAM restarted)
- GOC ticket SBGrid open
- Troubleshooting CIT_CMS_T2 (after maintainance), AGLT2 (after virtualization of gatekeeper)
GEO600-1.1 troubleshooting with Thomas.
Start moving GEO600-devel code to tclproxy.ligo.caltech.edu (osg-itb-se to be turned off).
Inspiral activity:
- Pegasus nightly build testing

OSG INTEGRATION and VALIDATION TESTBED

Recent stability issues with the Eintein At Home code on the OSG lead to a request to upgrade the globus on this box. Given that the VDT no longer support Fedora Core 4 (which is on the box), it would not be a simple matter to upgrade. An alternate box (tclproxy), which was upgraded to CentOS 5.x some time ago was proposed as an alternative as job submission should only require the client Globus (or VDT, or OSG) software. However, testing of the Einstein at Home job submission after installing the client software revealed that some server functionality was needed. Unfortunately the box is very old and doesn't have sufficient diskspace to support installing any of the OSG services. A plan has been pushed forward to turn Britta's desktop into a submit host early next week when the Linux system administrator is back and can install CentOS 5.2 on the workstation.
The cluster vendor reported that they had not received the PO. This was do to an error in transcribing the PO# by purchasing staff. Once the actual PO number was tracked down, the vendor reported that they did in fact have the PO.
On the other hand, cables and switches for the new ITB/VTB cluster are starting to show up at Caltech and we should have a new environment with plenty of CPU/Memory/Storage to support OSG software stacks and job submission in about a month.

GRID MANAGEMENT

Had an unusually large number of requests for new DOE certificates and LAMS accounts this week, and associated issues. Probably due to students and post-docs beginning to migrate to new institutions.
Worked with OSG PI and Executive Director to suggest changes to the a revised Cooperative Agreement to capture recently approved changes in the OSG Organizational Structure by the OSG Council.
Discussed Caltech's year 3 staffing plans with the OSG Project Manager and suggested changes to the work group association in the staffing spreadsheet based on past work areas. The OSG Executive Director would like to explore this further next week.
Reviewed a few candidates for the OSG Science Advisory Group that were made by Council members as we continue to plan for growth.
Worked with NSF staff to prepare necessary documentations to participate in a OOI cyberinfrastructure review at UCSD in early September.
Attended a meeting with OSG Project Manager, along with Britta to discuss issues recently seen with job submission of Einstein at Home jobs on the OSG and to plan for OSG troubleshooting team involvement. Also set with Britta to understand the issues in more details and the current limitations of the OSG for setup an running of these types of jobs which use WSGram.

___________________

Gregory Mendell:

I posted on the CW wiki some notes about fscans. I will discuss these and fscan plans for S6 at the next CW telecon.

___________________

Pinkesh Patel:

Debugging a memory leak in the resampling code. Found that I was accessing a false part of the array.
Finalizing the choice of NGC 6455 as the target for the globular cluster search. Beginning looking at a data set to use.
Working with Cheryl on processing images from the ITMs.
Worked for 2-3 full days on H2, since we have just come back from a vent and there were a lot of problems with it. We are back up in good condition now at 6.2-6.3 Mpc Inspiral range.

___________________

Drew Keppel:

Working on completing the S5 1Yr Low Mass CBC Search paper.
Continuing the review of the search.

___________________

Amber L. Stuver:

Continued investigating burst MDC characteristics WRT different combinations (ONLY, AND, OR) of ETGs. This work was slowed a bit this week since I forgot to collect a vital variable for each simulation. The data is being recollected with this variable and sets that are already completed are being used to debug the post-processing analysis.
Gave the public tour to a family.
Developed 2 new math based activities for the SEC which will be used this Saturday as part of a math teacher professional development workshop. These activities deal with the Tautochrone and the Gravity's Rainbow exhibits and are appropriate for use with our student school visits as well as with professional development. Pending feedback from the this workshop, the activities will be entered into the DCC as T080199-00-G (Tautochrone) and T080200-00-G (Gravity's Rainbow). Ultimately, these activities are the start of a math based repertoire for the SEC being developed in response to educator requests for expanded mathematics outreach.

___________________

Joseph Betzwieser:

Testing CW resampling code as well as performed some editing of the V3 h(t) document suggested by the review committee.
Have multi-casting of camera outputs working at the 40m, such that a client simply signs up to a multi-cast address, without needing to reset or talk to the server.
Also continuing to move the 40m network over to the newer gigabit switches from the old hubs.

___________________

Diego Fazi:

Completed two more spinning injection runs and compared PTF and SPA efficiencies.
Started looking at how to implement a full search pipeline for PTF.

___________________

Chad Hanna:

I investigated the possibility of computing a metric for the phenomenological IMR template families. It is ongoing.
I held the IMR telecon.
I also worked a bit on a simulation module for the low-latency pipeline.

___________________

Anand Sengupta:

Called the high-mass call meeting last week on Thursday.
I am writing and debugging a function to do the bandpassing.
Went through Satish's slides and suggested changes.
Proof read the final PRD draft of the e-thinca paper.

Laboratory Computing (Anderson)

LDAS Software Systems (Maros)

Attempts to enhance the frameAPI have caused the code to become unstable when jobs are run in parallel. Efforts are under way to isolate the code responsible. It is known that the code in question was added after LDAS version 1.9.393.
The fr2ilwd test has been modified to work on tandem systems.
The ldas-test system which is using DB2 8.2.7 continues to only have errors from the datacondAPI reporting "no such symbols".
The following regression tests have been modified to work with the System Test framework: pr2807.tcl, pr2824.tcl, pr3170.tcl, pr2848.tcl, pr2823.tcl, pr2946.tcl, pr2873.tcl. Because the test systems were unavailable, these changes have not yet been verified.
Peter Shawhan's recommendations to LDASJobH have been merged into the CVS code base. These changes still require testing on ldas-dev.

LDAS System Administration (Anderson)

Caltech

(Dan Kozak)

Replaced damaged files at CIT from LHO.
Put Virgo data on thumper2 for MIT.
Helped pack up thumper2 for shipping.
Confirmed with Sun that ssum bug only a stager problem.
Participated in planned move of equipment in Powell-Booth and subsequent rerouting of fibres.
Implemented fibre channel zoning change as per instructions from Sun, then when that had limited efficacy, implemented FC zoning changes as needed to isolate the original problem (6140 volumes "flapping" between controllers when hosts login to the SAN).
Rolled the SAM logs.
Moved LLO's /export to /export-llo (new ZFS filesystems).
Gave Igor instructions on how to replace bad 3510-1 controller.
Patched LLO's gateway box.

(Ed Maros)

Helped with moving SAM-QFS cables and systems.

MIT

(Fred Donovan)

The MIT Bates center will be ready for move-in of equipment in early 2009 -- Jan. or Feb.
Nothing to report for weekly this week -- all quite.

Livingston

(Igor Yakushin)

Wrote a script that monitors RLS, shows its status on the publishing web page, restarts RLS if it is not running. Currently the script is running at LLO. Once the testing is over, I'll install it at LHO and CIT as well.
Working to replace a failed controller and failing disk in 3510-1 and to upgrade /export.

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

Beside routine tasks to keep LDAS services running and to support LDG, I have continued to test the new framebuilder data at LHO, and to work on a script to generate additional S5 reduced data sets and drive archiving of S5 raw data onto new tapes at CIT.
I have also verified that the archiving of data is up-to-date at LHO and LLO, and will check soon that the transfer of data to CIT has caught up, after recent downtime of raw data publishing at the sites and LDAS services at CIT.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT

(Fred)

More work on ilog (search function, about done).
Some performance issues lasti machines (swap reconfiguration, ram).
Notebook drive data recovery.
Centralized smartd monitoring via nagios for critical nodes.
Resolved a number of xp annoyances (matlab failures, outlook issues, one bad drive).

Livingston

(Dwayne)

Software installs on a MacBook Pro.
Worked a couple procurement items, including printer ink and a Dell laptop.
Modified event parameters in the kantech system to stop annoying pop-up alerts when the operator opens the gate.
Installed newer version of arkeia NB on kantech, setup nightly backups, had issues with Windows firewall, but now resolved.
Report share from kantech had been busted since move to new network, was Windows firewall issue.
Began work on new parts management system, database design and some UI development.
Gave one user some EVO training.
pcard reconciliation -Renewed Altium license.
Numerous usual/unusual user support requests.
Cleared spam trap

Hanford

(Larry)

More purchases made for the Observatory. A new home account server order is in the works and getting pricing on a few network related items.
Cleaned up a couple of accounts. Some minor modifications to one of the servers.
Made contact with some of the applicants for the Sysadmin position and will start interviewing in the near future.

(Mike)

Continued work on freeing up expired dhcp numbers and clearing out trapped spam on their mail server.

Caltech

(Mike)

Setup an additional workstation to connect a high end SCSI scanner for DCC.
Spent time calling in a Dell workstation that had a motherboard issue. Dell came out and replaced the motherboard.
Some work on configuring SAMBA on a new home account server. I could not get to work the pre-installed version of SAMBA to work correctly. Real busy with user support, will get back to this ASAP.
Barry Barish: Loaded a new laptop, installed GC software, other applications, and transferred data over from old laptop top new laptop, plus moved over his email.
Other misc. user support and sysadmin tasks.

(Christian)

Guy Fish - Replacing old workstation and transferring Guy's files and setting.
Toner cartridge replacement - Basement E/B, 3flr W/Bridge.
Re-imaged 2 laptops that were returned to the loaner pull this week.
Working on new Unattended Windows Xp with SP3.
Gina Salone - Working on Gina's new workstation PC this week.
Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.

(Melody)

New DCC: Working on incorporating the current DCC's numbering scheme into DocDB. Continuing with code modifications.
User Support: Provided user support (wiki and webpage creation questions).

(Veronica)

LSC: Continued work on the ligo.org redo. The feedback from Dave Reitze has been good. Updates of the database of technical papers, other web updates.
LIGO: User support -- Assisted Eric G. with web posting /password protection, Ed J. with high-resolution images. Web updates of CIT and MIT sites.

(Larry)

Worked a number of procurement issues. Still need to wrap some things up on a couple of maintenance contracts. Still collecting documentation for pcard but all has been reconciled. Ordered a number of items for other groups.
Assisted the DCC with a couple of minor items. The scanner system is up and running but will have some changes done with the support hardware in the next month or so.
Worked with Christian in checking out some of the equipment for the EVO setup. Just a few more items to purchase and we will start changing out the conference rooms.
Assisted a number of the students with different items. Software installation and configuration were the major tasks that took place.
Minor logistical work for the upcoming LSC meeting and some other smaller meetings taking place over the next month.
Regular end-user assistance.

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Advanced LIGO Management

From Carol Wilkinson

Project Controls

Two Advanced LIGO Change Requests (ACR) are in process for review by the AdL CCB:
- ACR to incorporate the changes due to the decision to go to a stable recycling cavity is in process. Equipment costs are expected to increase by ~$400K, which is within estimated contingency. NSF has been notified of the changes.
- ACR for additional SUS labor to offset a decrease in planned support by the UK during the assembly phase of the BSC suspensions.

Procurements

The NSF has approved the contract for the ARES project controls staff contract (PM).
Bids for the SEI HEPI actuators have returned and an evaluation team is reviewing the documents.
RFQ’s for SEI HEPI procurements SUS test stands and assembly tooling are in process. The RFQ for FMP assembly clean rooms is out for bids.
The IO team is preparing RFQ’s while waiting for the Univ. Of Florida contract approval from NSF.
CIT Financial Division has agreed to increase the procurements support to meet the work load for the project and for the operations award turnover. LIGO will be responsible for hiring two additional procurement admins/buyers using project money earmarked for CIT support.

Progress Updates

The Advanced LIGO Project Monthly Report for July is posted in the DCC http://arcturus.ligo.caltech.edu/docs/internal/M/M080319-01/

Meetings & Reviews

The next Advanced LIGO StatusUpdate Meeting is scheduled for 8:30 AM Pacific via evo conferencing. All in the LSC-Virgo communities are welcome.
The monthly progress reporting meeting will be on Thursday, September 11 at 8:30 AM PT. Subsystems leads or their designates please attend.

Advanced LIGO Systems

From: Calum Torrie <ctorrie@ligo.caltech.edu>

Barrel Sleeve:

Barrel Sleeve Concept: Two concepts for the barrel sleeve are currently being considered. These have been laid out in 2D, highlighting the coverage they offer, and passed to Dennis Coyne and Phil Willems for consideration. I am arranging a meeting with Phil to discuss further next week.

FEA using ANSYS:

Test Mass High frequency modal results: Building a converged model of the TM with a view to get the deformation data of the converged modes. The first model has no coatings -- just substrate. Flats are included. Wedges are not included. Eventually the frequency range will be from 45kHz up to 100kHz. The model will export HR surface node locations and deformation in the direction normal to the surface and barrel surface (curved & flats) node locations and deformation in all directions. My plan is as follows:
- check convergence & refine mesh if / as necessary - DONE!
- manually export data (text or excel file) for 1 to 3 modes as a test - SENT TO MATT!
- automate the export (iterate with Matt and look at ANSYS Classic and Workbench)
- export the automatically generated array for 10 modes as a further test-- send to Matt
- export the automatically generated array for 1000 + modes -- send to Matt
Once this is completed I will go back and attempt to get the modal strain energies for inhomogeneous loss of various sections of the TM. (This model currently needs a bit of work.)
Gravitational Sag: After a couple of discussions with COC and the clearing up of one or two small bugs the gravity sag data on the BS optic for advanced LIGO is now ready for export.

Other:

Other FEA work includes continuing to look at the loss in the HR coatings, barrel coatings and bond as well as looking at a harmonic analysis of a HAM seismic support system.
I have also started discussions with SUS and COC on grooves in the barrel of the optics suspended on wire loops.

PDMWorks & DOC DB:

Next week we are holding an introduction to our proposal for how to use DOC DB with PDMWorks. We will start off by going over this with a small group of engineers in order to get their feedback from the proposal.

SUS / SEI:

The proposal for how to 1) include Nickel Plating into the manufacture & testing of the cantilever blade springs for advanced LIGO and 2) re-organise the various cleaning / baking processes is still under discussion. A number of actions are still to be addressed and can be found here: - http://lhocds.ligo-wa.caltech.edu:8000/ advligo/Suspensions/CantileverBlades

Modeling and Simulation

From: Hiroaki Yamamoto hiro@ligo.caltech.edu

Static IFO Simulation (Hiro)

Implementation of the code for field propagation in substrate and documentations of the physics behind the code are still going.
The ROC dependence of the arm loss was numerically calculated to show that if ROCs of ITM and ETM are both small, the diffractive loss can be large.
The summary of the coupled cavity performance based on SIS calculation will be presented at the next COC meeting.
Arai observed astigmatism of the 40m arm field, ~1m difference. Gari made the 40m mirror data available on the web.
Using that data, the curvature of the ETM31 mirror was calculated. When using the region of small beam size of the 40m arm, a consistent result was found if a specific point of the mirror was the beam center due to long wavelength aberration.

Mechanical Simulation for Advanced LIGO (Sany and SLU team)

Continued modifying the length and frequency control servos in our e2e model of AdvLIGO Input Mode Cleaner (IMC). Due to the network problem that occurred on our campus at the end of last week and has not been solved completely yet, we did not make good progress. The best results we have obtained so far in the frequency noise on the IMC’s transmitted light is a factor of two higher than the requirement based on LIGO T020020 in the frequency range 50 – 1000 Hz.

Safety

From: David Nolting <dnolting@ligo-la.caltech.edu>

Activities over the past week involved research and review of current completed Hazard Analysis and Safety Procedure documents. I have been making reference binders with all pertinent documents for easy access and marking during note taking.
Observed maintenance operations at the LLO which included removing and replacing HAM doors, mirror alignment on HAM-1 Optic Table.
Attended the Permit Meetings to ascertain work activities at the facility and to observe discussions regarding each procedure.
Attended CPR/First Aid training at the local Red Cross facility in Baton Rouge.
Eyes examined and documented via photographs…all looked ok.
Attended my first Safety Steering Committee Meeting. Met with Rich Riesen afterwards to inquire as to the rationale for the threshold limit being set at 2mW for stray beams.
Discussion with Bill Tyler regarding electrical safety while working on and near electronic components and supply power cables. A three way phone conference with Bill, Rich Abbott and myself to discuss safety concerns and controls.

Facilities Modifications and Preparations

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

Preparing/letting contracts for site modifications.

Seismic Isolation

From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

Approval of the phase-2 HEPI acquisitions by the Procurement Readiness Review; packages in preparation
Review of bids for the hydraulic actuators underway
Continued commissioning of the BSC ISI at LASTI; development of a translated requirements curve. Some work to be done but nothing surprising, beyond the well-known and loved pier amplification

Suspensions

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

ALUK held its latest Project Management Committee on 22 August 2008 (See LIGO-M080332-00-K). A brief activity summary follows:
- RAL: BS assembly prototype is complete and hanging stably. Addition of mini-stays to BS structure FEA has had the required effect on the frequency so we are ready to go for the review. Preparation of paperwork is in hand and we are hoping for a review in mid-September.

Quad OJEU Process Status as Follows:

Machined items. Deliveries to RAL continue.
Weldments. Weld test complete; problems with strength of weld have been overcome. Many parts ready machined awaiting welding. Hoping to make up lost time.
Blade springs. Material expected imminently. Order placed for blade manufacturer.

Continuing Input to Work at LASTI:

Glasgow: Continuing to support monolithic stage at LASTI; Russell was there for a week. Working on a detailed list to ensure no tooling is overlooked. The procurement of the optics, being conducted by the US, is shortly to move forward with a formal order from Glasgow.
Birmingham/Strathclyde: OSEM manufacturing ongoing. Macor selected for sleeve material; order placed. This completes the orders for all BOSEM components. Specs for all electronics now complete and manufacture of parts has started.
Overall: Frustrating delays in FM/BS review caused by pressure of other work although providing we can stick to the September date we are still hopeful of getting parts made on time. Delay to monolithic assembly is increasing risks of late changes being required to the tooling. Continuing work on production OSEMs and pre-production electronics.

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: Minor amendments to the LHO OMC SUS drawings are almost complete to reflect the as-built configuration.
Large triple: Clamps to characterize the blades should arrive at LLO tomorrow. We will set aside two of the worst upper blades to get nickel plated, along with a number of other prototype blades identified by Norna & Calum this week. Work on finalizing the other mechanical drawings is ongoing.

BSC Suspensions for Advanced LIGO:

The RAL group are preparing documentation for the beamsplitter fabrication readiness review which is expected to take place in September. We received the metal prisms for the compensator plate. The PO for the prism mounting fixture has been placed.

Project-Funded Activities

Held a meeting this week on the initial LIGO osem value engineering and have made a number of decisions. Procurement has the mechanical test stand SOW. They've promised that the RFQ will go out by tomorrow.We need one test stand at LLO for the quad training in November, so timely response is needed. RAL is updating the top stage tooling and plan to have the drawings changed by the end of this week. They also responded to a number of questions about the drawings (for example: UK circlip = US retaining ring.)

Core Optics

From: GariLynn Billingsley Billingsley_G@ligo.caltech.edu

Development

Cheryl Vorvick has preliminary data on scatter at Hanford before/after vent and after drag wipe. There is clearly a difference in appearance.
Each 2K ITM movie/pdf has 3 images: 1) Post S5 2) July 08 after vent w/out cleaning 3) August 08 after cleaning (horizontal drag wipe) http://www.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/~cvorvick/2K_ITM_Aug08/.
In both ITMX and ITMY there are a significant number of large bright scattering sites (in images 1 and 2) that are now missing from the optic surface (image 3).
Cheryl's proposal to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has been successful, she is approved to use facilities to investigate the morphology of the scatter sites on LIGO optics.
The Tinsley metrology review has been delayed and is tentatively rescheduled for September 8, in Richmond, CA.
Hiro has provided a table of diffractive loss vs. change in radius of curvature of ITM/ETM.
Muzammil is studying the effects of a smaller beam size in the recycling cavity. Bill has completed a draft of the Final Design Requirements Document.

Project

We have received suggested changes to T&C from Heraeus. They continue to work on production without a signed contract.

Auxiliary Optics

From: Michael Smith smith@ligo.caltech.edu

ADLIGO

Work Under Project Budget:

OPTICAL LAYOUT:
- Luke has confirmed the ZEMAX layout in the IO section for the non-folded stable recycling cavity IFO. He also verified that the PRM, PR2 can be raised to the PR3 height in either the local coordinate system or global coordiate system. He is in the process of looking at the folded IFO layout.
- Mike re-discovered that lens surfaces cause glints. He revised the optical layout of the ITMX PO beam and replaced the collimating lens with a reflective spherical mirror telescope to eliminate the displacement noise caused by the glint from the lens.

Work Under Operations Budget:

SLC: Mike is continuing to revise the SLC conceptual design document.
OPTLEV: Zach is in the process of writing his final SURF report.

ELIGO

SLC Ken contacted the polished stainless steel baffle fabrication vendor, who is tracking down the source of the mill who supplied the mirror sheet metal that had the swirl marks. Eligo flat manifold baffle parts drawings are being correctly formatted, for the DCC and PDM works. He sent a package with the setup tooling, and detailed pictures and drawings to Gary Traylor at LLO re. their installation.

Input Optics

From: David tanner@phys.ufl.edu

eLIGO Installation and Comissioning

We measured power budget of thepre-MC optics on HAM1, discovering that the assumed bad MC injection mirror is actually good. We found a 1% loss from the AR coating of MC1. We replaced anti-refl black glass beam dump with a stainless steel vee. We moved MMT2 by 6.81 +/- 0.03 mm towards HAM1. We measured the properties of the AS port Faraday Isolator, finding that the transmission is 98.05% ± 0.28%, isolation ratio is 9.43dB ± 0.03dB. (Kate and Antonio)
We worked with Stefan B. on the new ISS for the eLIGO PSL. (Antonio)
Luke: The HAM5 baffle and the ETMy baffle were installed at LLO; working on aligo in-vac layout, verified for straight IFO that the PRC mirrors can all be set at the same height. (Luke, David, others)

Advanced LIGO R&D

We have evaluated the effect of ROC errors in the recycling cavities for the final design. The summary can be found at http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~gari/Temp/ LIGO-T080198-00-Z.pdf. We have showed that the expected ROC errors can be easily compensated by using compensation plates. (Muzammil)
We are continuing work working on the AdvLIGO in-vacuum layout. We have verified for straight IFO that the PRC mirrors can all be set at the same height. (Luke)

Advanced LIGO Acquisition

We are reviewing polishing specifications for IO Suspended Optics, calculating the amount of scratches and point defects allowed on different areas of the optics. (Rodica)

Prestabilized Laser

From: Peter King pking@ligo.caltech.edu

Operations

The graphite insert for a prototype beam dump has been received from the machine shop.
The preliminary design document was completed and submitted to the AdL wiki. The document can be found under http://ilog.ligo-wa.caltech.edu:7285/advligo/ Preliminary_Design_Review_Document.