Weekly Report for Week Ending September 25, 2008

Past Weekly Reports

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LSC Issues (Reitze)

• Nothing significant to report this week.

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	x
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	x
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	x
Pennsylvania State University	DAT, OPS, OUT, Z	x
Rochester Institute of Technology	DAT, OUT, Z	x
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	x
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 Brownsville	DAT, OPS, OPT, OUT, Z	x
Trinity University	OPT, OUT, Z	x
Washington State University	DAT, OPS, Z	x
Wisconsin at Milwaukee, University of	DAT, OPS, Z

 

PROPERTY ACCOUNTING (Luna)

• Working with Property Services reviewing the FY 08 year-end report for Government Property.
• Working with the Office of Export Compliance to classify the Fused Silica Blanks ordered from Heraeus.
• Assisted H. Overmier at LLO in making shipping arrangements for one crate from LLO to Nogales AZ.
• Setting up a new equipment database for LHO.
• Assisted S. Whitcomb with requesting proper classification for a Vacuum Pump that is going to be exported to the Moscow State University.
• Adjusted property records for a forklift at LLO and notified the Property Office at NSF.
• Assisted M. Woods at MIT in making shipping arrangements for one crate from MIT to Limerick, MA.

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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

• Met with Melody and got a first hand look at the new Doc.DB system.  The plan is to get a little more acquainted with the new system and provide input/assistance in the further development over the coming weeks.
• Began processing talks from the LSC/Virgo Collaboration Meeting this week in Amsterdam.

FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Funaro, Oracion)

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

• For ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY Press Here.

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

• Continued to research, retrieve, and organize financial data to be included in NSF annual report.
• Worked with Cindy to correct various labor distribution schedules.  We also updated the Advanced LIGO/LIGO Operations labor upload template to reflect the new LIGO Operations FY2009 poetas.
• Submitted two cost transfers to project accounting: one involving the transfer of pre-award costs to Advanced LIGO, the other, a cost transfer to account for missing charges on the MIT.GRID account.
• 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>

• The contract for the HEPI actuators with Kineoptics has completed legal review and will be forwarded to the Caltech controller for signature.
• An RFP for Advanced LIGO tiltmeters has been completed and will be issued to three contractors tomorrow.
• The contract with Corning for optics is being revised in response to comments from Purchasing Services.
• The contract with Heraeus is being reviewed by the Caltech export-import compliance officer.  This is at the request of Grace Fisher-Adams of OGC.

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

• Two bids were received for the provision of liquid nitrogen for the Livingston Observatory.  The two bids were from Air Liquide and Air Products, with the incumbent, Air Liquide, submiting the low bid.
• Preparations are underway to close out all of the existing operations contracts and re-open new contracts under the new Operations Cooperative Support Agreement.  All of the new account numbers are in place, which will allow this conversion.
• Several contractor employees will be extended for short periods of time to allow for their conversion to Caltech staff after the end of the current Operations Cooperative Agreement.  These include contractors from Triad, Northrop Grumman, and Support Services.

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

• All AccuConference account numbers have been changed due to the discovery by AccuConference security of fraudulent activity on some accounts.  This is due to a teleconference that was announced on a web site in 2007 that had the moderator code listed.  In addition, it was discovered by LIGO cybersecurity that several calendars, which can be Googled, contain moderator numbers.  These calendars have been corrected.
• Two contract administrator positions and one contract support position have been posted on the Caltech job site.  Several applications have been received already.  Initial interviews will be conducted by Gina Salone, Rudy Arvizu, and Bert Cresta, with the top three candidates for each position presented to Phil Lindquist and Ed Jasnow for final interviews and selection.
• A meeting is scheduled today with Grace Fisher-Adams, of OGC, and Tina Lowenthal, Director of Purchasing Services, to discuss the final version of the Advanced LIGO terms and conditions for future contracts.  These revisions are caused by changes in the flowdown provisions of the NSF cooperative agreement.
• The review package for the clean room procurement was forwarded to Dick Seligman for submittal to the NSF via FastLane.  This submittal was required because the bids came below the threshold relative to the Procurement Plan approved by the NSF.

PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist)

• We are in the process of preparing an Annual Report for Current Operations.  Dave Beckett is preparing the main sections, and our target is to have a draft for review this week.  We are trying to put together some kind of a financial overview for the report.  COGNOS crashed hard yesterday and is still not back up.  That is delaying us a bit.
• The accounting structure for the new cooperative agreement has been provided to the Subcontracts people as well as to Cindy who sets up the account numbers for salaries.  New contracts and staff salary records are being prepared.

CHANGE REQUESTS (Lindquist)

• There are no open change requests.

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Quality/Safety (Tyler)

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

• Nothing significant to report this week.

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

Summary of Activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory
(compiled by Landry and Kawabe)

• We sent 28W into the H1 mode cleaner and the cavity locked easily.
• In preparation for this work, we inspected viewports on HAM1 and refl sites (MC, IFO). We found the HAM1 viewport to have several abrasions and thus swapped it out preemtively, necessitating another vent on Tue 16/Sep.
• Prior to bringing the power up to 28W, a plastic ring on a Newport LH series lens mount on IOT1 was found to have been damaged by the beam. The plastic ring was facing upstream towards the light source, and apparently was burnt when the mode cleaner was extremely misaligned. All the mounts with plastic rings on IOT1 and ISCT1 that potentially receive a large power were replaced with the ones with metal rings.
• In order to keep H1 alive for eLIGO commissioning, we stole h2dcuepics from H2 for a day or so.
• A new scheme for angular controls in the OMC was proposed, using the OMC length dither and a QPD on OMC reflection. See the elog here
• Two TCS optics on TCSY table was found to be damaged, but not by the laser power. Apparently one was scratched and the other was contaminated by some liquid.
• HAM6 ISI transfer functions were retaken (see e.g. here and here) and modifications will be needed to controller loops, owing to the OMC and tiptilts.
• SOS coil drivers were modified for lower noise performance.
• The OMC computer died and was replaced.
• We had a scheduled power shutdown on Wednesday morning. It took two days for H1 to get back to where it was.
• New failure mode of H1 was found where electronics oscillation at 2.3 MHz at some unknown location caused alignment problem to small optics.

Astrowatch (P. Patel)

• Miquel and Llucia from UIB Mallorca Spain are here and are undergoing training.
• Jacob Slutsky is going to give a talk on the status of Astrowatch at the upcoming LVC meeting in Amsterdam. We are helping him prepare for that by making plots etc.

Outreach (Ingram)

• LHO Outreach again participated in the annual INL Science, Safety and Engineering Expo in Idaho Falls between 9/18 and 9/20. LIGO was one of ~30 exhibitors providing hands-on science to several thousand middle schoolers and families.

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

General Operations

• Interviewed candidate for CDS electronics position.
• Pumpdown continues; studying issue of water level in end stations.
• Single HEPI valve failure and small leak repaired; we now better understand the connection between valve response (which is measured periodically, and a potential for leak.
• OMC noise studies and PSL commissioning continue.

LLO CDS Computing (Keith Thorne)

• Trained with previous CDS sys-admin (Lisa) to learn basics of CDS admin tasks (LDAP, i-log, wiki, jumpstart, etc.).
• Completed setup of slave LDAP server at LLO.
• Determined that SunFire X4600 declared 'dead-on-arrival' in August appears to now pass initial setup.

Bake Oven (Tom Evans)

• We have finished baking the aluminum Tip-Tilt SUS parts and are currently baking the stainless steel Tip-Tilt SUS parts.

Safety & Security (Rich Riesen)

• Updated and posted Laser User Authorization signage.
• Working with Erica Forsi and Keith Thorne in getting their Laser Operator Access Authorization.
• Completed an inventory of all plastic and metal lens optic mount retaining rings at LLO.  Inventory data available upon request.
• Continuing the updates to LLO procedures and manuals.
• Copies of the 35 watt laser system Users Guide now available in the Control Room, EE Lab. PSL Lab, LSO's office, and  Valera's Frolov's office.

LLO Outreach (Kathy Holt)

• Worked on program development for teacher training for fall schedule.
• Exhibit maintenance - Doppler - Mike Fyffe replaced power supply
• Contacted groups for tours Docent training evaluation sent to Docents cohort 2.
• Prepared programs for 4 school visits and 1 Friday tour.
• Scheduled Teacher Training.
• Scheduled School Field trip and School visit request.
• Conducted 3 group visits.
• Scheduled Public tours for fall with commitments from LIGO staff.
• Made arrangements with Video/recording studio to produce HD interviews with staff.
• Confirmed BREC "Mars Van" on Oct. 17th from 6-9:00.
• Contacted Docents Cohort 1 for participation with this weeks school groups.

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)

• Rob optimized the output matrix for the short degrees of freedom (PRC, SRC, MICH) to make the lock of DRM+2ARMS quick and robust. The arm offset is  reduced down to zero yet. The DRM is locked in the anti-spring configuration still. The MICH->PRC matrix coefficient is 3 times smaller than it should be. There might be something wrong with the PRM actuation or sensing.
• The PMC loop bandwidth is found to be now limited by a body reasonance at 18kHz. We will add a notch at this frequency too.
• Alberto is working on the TEM01/10 mode split measurement of the X-arm. Currently the arm lock to 10 mode is not stable enough to do the measurement.
• The new RF oscillator for the FSS was packed into a box and installed. It is working fine so far. Noise measurements of the oscillator are planned.
• The GPIB to ethernet converter arrived. It was configured to connect to the 40m network through an ethernet to wireless bridge. We can now communicate with a GPIB instrument connected to the converter using telnet. A python script to automatically download data from any network connected spectrum analyzer (SR785 or Agilent 4395A) was written. We will order more of those GPIB controllers.
• The FSS error signal was calibrated by sweeping the laser frequency and measuring the PDH signal slope. The result was consistent with the previous calibration using closed loop transfer functions.

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Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

• Nothing significant to report this week, due to the Amsterdam meeting and next week's start of classes.

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LASTI (Mittleman)

CIT Science Group (Weinstein)

__________________

Kipp Cannon:

• Continuing development work on low-latency inspiral analysis techniques.

__________________

Cristina Valeria Torres:

• Continue to work on CBC follow up document, working cooperatively with Romain Gouaty.
• Continue to investigate a pending data quality issue with WFS glitches showing in DARM_ERR for LLO.

__________________

Amber L. Stuver:

• I spent the better part of this week preparing for the presentation of my burst MDC investigation results on the burst telecon next week. This is mostly composed of collecting supporting evidence for my claims.  The web page is still under construction and I will include the link to the finished product in next week's update (along with a list of my results).
• Gave control room tours to ~25 4th grade students and ~75 high school seniors.
• I have been in contact with Gabe Popkin of the APS education office in regards to the educational document on gravitational waves and LIGO that I have been working on.  The original intent of the document was to be a brochure geared to educators and policy makers on LIGO science but they have expressed interest in expanding the depth of the content and have volunteered their media services to draft new graphics and to possibly produce new LIGO posters.  Again, this is an ongoing process but I am pleased with possible reach of the document and the support it is receiving.

__________________

Antony Searle:

• Preparing code for position reconstruction challenge.
• Assisted with Omega S5Y2VSR1 analysis.
• Reviewed draft SURF report.
• Submitted abstract to AAS

__________________

Joseph Betzwieser:

• Helping with CW resampling code and working on developing a pipeline to use it for wide parameter searches.

__________________

Becky Tucker:

• Debugged the continuous chi-squared test changes that Chad and I made last week.

__________________

Anand, Diego, Alan are in Amsterdam for the f2f and LV.

Laboratory Computing (Anderson)

LDAS Software Systems (Maros)

• dev nightly loop testing: Datacond reboot problem has been resolved since Monday's build. burstwrapper jobs have been completing ok. Job rate is now into 2000 jobs/hr unless the metadataAPI got stuck or core dump.
• dev system testing: Fixed regression.tcl to wake up when all tests are finished. Directed individaul regression test logs to ::TMP. Ran system test against ldas 1.9.429: reported compress test all failed and dcmean has nan value. lsyncTest also failed partly from one mount point due to a 'bit' difference. Compared compress test ilwds on tandem-iv and dev: dev gzip ilwds did not match base ilwd but tandem-iv ilwds are fine. dcmean value has been fixed since Mon then but compresstest is not.
• ldas-test running DB2 8.2.7 running under 1.9.415 built for ldas-test: Besides datacond no such symbol errors, Removed /data from diskcache as there were over 4000 logs reporting of missing mount points as /data was not mounted. Increased job time out value from default 1000 to 2000 as some jobs take slightly over 1000 secs to complete.
• (ML) regression test conversion: added pr2136.tcl, pr2221.tcl, pr2349.tcl, pr2234.tcl, pr2406.tcl, pr2530.tcl to the SystemTest list. Working on pr2133.tcl. 23 files remaining.

LDAS System Administration (Anderson)

MIT

(Fred Donovan)

• Kickstart docs done; still having some space issues with thumper; rec'd power cables; raid array data 9 degraded, working on.

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

• I have saved raw frames with the 262k FAST channel for H2 UP between Sept 5 and Sept. 12, for ETM measurements.  I have staged a small amount of raw data from Sept 2007 for Robert Schofield to do veto studies on at LHO.  I have staged a small amount of raw data from Oct. 2007 for Roberto Grosso to do "dust" studies at LHO.  I tracked down and fixed CA certificates issue at LHO after a recent VDT update.  I am continuing to manage the Special Det. Char/Timing RDS generation at CIT. And I worked with Dan Kozak and Dave Barker to manage LDAS downtime, patch LDAS servers along with some upgrades performed by Dan, and restore old raw minutes tend to the new framebuilder filesystem during this week's power outage at LHO.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT

(Fred)

• Some small issues with unscheduled power outage.
• Resuming work on ILOG.
• Nagging wireless issues with 2 users (xp).
• Hardwire network issues (stuck arp cache in switch, I believe).
• Config. auto. supply warnings for printers.
• Disk space issues on tubera.
• Some config and streaming video for optics lab.

Livingston

(Dwayne)

• Continued work on new parts management system,  UI development is well under way.  database is functional and holding a small set of real data, but may need more tweaks as I progress with UI development.
• More SEC document share strange behavior.  appears to be working OK for now.
• Received a Mac Mini to be used for the EVO conference room.  software installs and updates on this unit.
• Continued installing software on new laptops for users.
• Helped a user with some Comsol issues.
• Numerous usual/unusual user support requests.
• Cleared spam trap

Hanford

(Larry)

• Some minor assistance in recovering from the power outage.

(Mike)

• Modified mail aliases.
• Cleaned DHCP services.

Caltech

(Veronica)

• LSC:  More last-minute changes on the new ligo.org before its public announcement at the LV meeting (changes in navigation layout, which needed to be propagated down to all subpages);  additional post-release tweaking. Updates of the database of technical papers.
• LIGO:  Prepared a report for Management on the architecture and interconnection between ligo.org and ligo.caltech.edu for the purpose of planning and development of both sites.  Update of the LAAC website, other web updates /user support.

(Christian)

• Peter Kalmus - Configured and added additional memory to Peter's new PowerBook laptop.
• Barry Barish - Created full backup of Barry's laptop and fixed audio and wireless adapter.
• Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.

(Melody)

• Regression testing: Making sure DocDB works after the DNS aliasing.
• Worked on DocDB configuration.
• Created the front cover (webpage) for the new DCC.
• Since the LAAC server had to be rebuilt, I needed to update the mysql config file and made sure that the wiki is running.

(Mike [by Larry])

• Worked on multiple severs that had hardware problems. Memory was replaced on one of the engineering servers and still working on getting parts replaced on a SUN box.
• Installed new OS on a couple of servers.
• Reset one of the DCC servers. The meta-data file needed to be compacted.
• Updated the MAC addresses on the wireless APs
• Reloaded the lscweb, one of the drives went bad.
• Helped move a server over to another subnet.

(Larry)

• Still working procurement items. Now have quite list of things to get ordered. Waiting for an updated quote for changes made on one of the maintenance contracts.
• Assisted a number of people in getting files transferred and modified.  There were some different media and formats being used so normal transfer methods were not working for them.
• Setup the EVO recording for the plenary session so people at CIT could watch it during normal working hours.
• Moved equipment in the server rooms.
• General user assistance.

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Advanced LIGO Management

No report.

Advanced LIGO Systems

Dennis Coyne <coyne@ligo.caltech.edu>, Peter Fritschel <pf@ligo.mit.edu>, Calum Torrie<ctorrie@ligo.caltech.edu>, Matt Evans <mevans@ligo.mit.edu>

AdL Project-Funded Activities

Design Reviews: For a list of reviews, see the main AdL wiki page

• The committee and design team for the BS/FM suspension mechanical/subsystem Final Design and Fabrication Readiness Review (FDR/FRR) met last Friday to discuss answers to the committee's questions. There do not appear to be any significant problems. A report will be issued soon.
• The PSL Preliminary Design Review (PDR) held a face-to-face meeting with the design team in parallel with the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration meeting.
• The COC Final Design Review (FDR) committee has been formed and meeting dats are being established. Review documents should be available on or about 9/26. The first committee meeting will be on or about 10/10 and the final committee meeting shoudl be on or about 10/17, with a report out by 10/24.
• Release of the documents for the HAM-ISI FDR is imminent.  The review will be held the latter part of the week of 10/6.

Procurement Reviews:

• Reviewed the HEPI Machined Parts RFQ. Some drawings changes are pending before release to the contracts group.

Technical Review Board (TRB): see the TRB log

Vacuum Review Board (VRB): see the VRB log Configuration Control:

Configuration Control:

• Nothing to report.  

Design:

• Optical Layout: Mike Smith has looked at accommodating the small (maximum 0.6 mrad) angles, with respect to local horizontal, associated with transformation from the global coordinate system to the observatory's local vertical coordinate system. One can still maintain the surface normals of PR3, PR2, SR3 and SR2 to be horizontal and fit the suspensions on the table given chamber headroom clearances.
• Parametric Instability (PI): Calum has made progress in 'crunching out' modal calculations (thousands of modes) for use in Matt's code which determines good locations for passive dynamic absorbers to mitigate parametric instability. Problems with the compute server has delayed progress.
• HAM1 (ISC output chamber) Isolation: Calum, Dennis & Peter reviewed results from a quasi-rigid body model which includes commercial hydraulic isolators and the directional stiffnesses of the bellows (which tend to short the isolators). Amplification at resonance appears to be too high. We have made a tentative decision to employ HEPI isolation on the HAM1/7 ISC optics tables. Design of an internal passive mass/spring/damper system to complement  HEPI low frequency isolation is pending. A technical report is being prepared. An Adv. LIGO Change Request (ACR) will also be prepared. The costs are expected to be affordable between SEI and ISC.
• docDB for the Document Control Center (DCC) [Calum]:
  • Submitted to Phil Linquist a list of potential DCC team admin tasks.
  • Synchronizing PDMWorks with DocDB: With Mike Meyer working with PDMWorks to test ideas. We are planning on getting support / training from GO Engineer to update this existing system.
  • Organization of DocDB (so that one can find drawings by a hierarchical search - I am creating actual examples in DOC DB to test the ideas.
• Process Guidance Documents: Calum is working on documents for bid packages of both the welded structures and cantilever springs for Advanced LIGO. These are currently being hosted / updated on the wiki: welding and blade springs
• Beam Splitter Suspension Wire Interface: Calum has been working on incorporating the double prism (glass then smaller metal) concept into the BS suspension (and possible others). This concept was developed by Weiss et al on an initial LIGO suspension. As part of this effort I am also looking at a trade off about whether or not we should include grooves in the barrel.
• BS Gravitational Sag: Issued T080233-01.
• BS Blades:  As a follow up to the BS/FM FDR Calum worked on improving the isolation performance by modifying the cantilever blade design. Norna Robertson is reviewing the design modification.

Interfaces:

• See the RODA status page and the Interface Control page.

Modeling and Simulation

From: Hiroaki Yamamoto hiro@ligo.caltech.edu

• There is nothing special to report this week.

Safety

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

• Continuing to participate in the document reviews for the Beam Splitter Suspension and the PSL.
• Performing a review of the LIGO Observatory Operational Safety and Environmental Protection Manual…dated 06/03/09.  Inserting changes to update regulatory requirements and best safety practice guidelines. 
• Reviewing several documents related to the AdL project to become better acquainted with all of the dynamics concerning the safety of the workers and of the system itself.

Quality Assurance

From: Mick Flanigan flanigan_m@ligo-wa.caltech.edu

• Completed last draft of QA Supplier Inspection Form, waiting for Bill Tyler to return from vacation review and publish to DCC.
• Completed final draft of standard boilerplate language for RFP/RFQ's. team is reviewing now, and will load to DCC asap. Document allows for easy insertion of QA requirements into procurement documents, with ability to easily tailor requirements to specific procurement needs.
• QA team is actively looking at solutions to data storage and access for parts, defects, travelers, calibration, and how we can tie these into a single database, with multiple portals for specific application. Trying to research ways we can eliminate duplication of data and merge applications performing the same task for different teams. This is still early in investigation and will require quite a bit more consultation with the team to understand use cases and intents of current systems.

Facilities Modifications and Preparations

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

• Bids for the LLO Warehouse modifications are due next week. Paving is substantially complete.
• The RFQ for the LHO Staging Building modifications is ready to go out to vendors.
• We are working on the RFQs for aqueous parts washers for both sites and a second large air bake oven for LHO.

Inventory Control: (from D. Giardina)

• The back-end database is substantially complete. Work is progressing on the user interface with a few functional pieces in place.

Seismic Isolation

From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

BSC Small Actuator Redesign

• The field assemblies have been shipped by PSI to Bob Taylor at Caltech for precision cleaning. This cleaning is required prior to coil wire winding.

SEI Project Activities

• Preparations are nearly complete for the HAM ISI Preliminary Design Review. All supporting documents have been uploaded to the AdvLigo wiki. This includes assembly and installation procedures, hazard analysis, electronic schematics and test plans, models, picture libraries, prior review documents, and others. The preliminary design report should be completed and uploaded on Monday 9/29.
• We have received quotes for he witness and test seismometers for HEPI and testing of the fully assembled seismic isolation systems.
• A kick-off meeting was held with Kineoptics for the hydraulic actuator. Kineoptics has been given approval to start fabrication as soon as a PO is issued.
• ISC has made a decision to use HEPI on the ISC chambers in place of commercial isolators. This will affect several procurements in process and will fit within the ISC budget for isolators.

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:

• Large triple: Charactersation of blades for large triple has now been completed.
• Preliminary results for OMC SUS at LLO have been taken, and are being studied.

BSC Suspensions for Advanced LIGO:

• BS/FM: Second review meeting held. Feedback from the BS design team on questions raised by the review committee has been posted. Work on redesign of the blades to take slightly heavier mass of BS (smaller wedge angle) and to obtain lower spring constant (and hence higher isolation) is underway.
• Quad: Alastair Heptonstall and Mark Barton (Caltech), Russell Jones (Glasgow) and Amanda Brummitt (RAL) are all at MIT this week working on finalizing techniques and tooling for silica welding prior to the monolithic assembly, and on the top stage tooling.
• LVC meeting: Janeen Romie and Norna Roberson participated in the LVC meeting in Amsterdam. Of particular relevance to suspensions were the following presentations given in the Suspensions and Isolation (SWG) plenary and parallel sessions:
  • Update on the noise prototype quadruple suspension work (Brett Shapiro)
  • Update on HAM suspensions (Janeen Romie)
  • Update on BOSEM production and development of a compact interferometric sensor (Stuart Aston)
  • Update on fused silica suspensions (Giles Hammond)
  • In addition work on thermal noise from metal ribbon suspensions as an alternative to metal wires was presented (Steve Penn)
  There was also a discussion session on low frequency noise in suspensions at which ideas for experiments which could be carried out to reduce risk in extrapolations and modeling of expected noise performance in Adv LIGO suspensions were considered.

Project-Funded Activities

• We have received responses for the RFQ for the quad tooling (except for the top stage tooling, which is currently being redesigned by RAL), which will now be reviewed.
• Comments have been provided on the draft ACR-080006 SUS BSC Schedule & Budget Revision.

Core Optics

From: GariLynn Billingsley Billingsley_G@ligo.caltech.edu

Development

• Calum has updated his finite element analysis of the Beamsplitter sag due to gravity.  The deformation is less than surface specification, and is mostly a tilt.
• T080245-01 is a report on gluing prisms, magnet assemblies and Earthquake stops at LASTI last week. The report has been updated with some more information from the vendor on the gold coatings. Some photographs are already accessible and by next week all photographs will be available on: http://www.physics.gla.ac.uk/igr/advligo/photos/20080916_Bonding_prisms_and_stops_
  to_CP_magnet_flags_to_PM/.
• We are requesting one of the "test run" plates that the vendor used to develop the coating, so that we can abuse it and see how much punishment the barrel coating can take.

Project

• Material Vendors report that they are on schedule.

Auxiliary Optics

From:   Michael Smith smith@ligo.caltech.edu

ADLIGO

Work Under Project Budget

• OPTICAL LAYOUT: Mike used the global to local coordinate transfer matrix for the Livingston site and determined the global tilt angles of the PR3, PR2, SR3, SR2 mirrors so that they all hang vertically in the local coordinate system. He measured the global pointing angle of the PRM and SRM in Zemax and used the inverse transfer matrix to compute the local angles. The PRM and SRM both hang with local vertical angles of approximately 0.3 mrad.

Work Under Operations Budget

• SLC: Ken completed the design for a prototype elliptical baffle suspension with elastomeric damping. The purchased parts have arrived and fabrication is in process at the CES machine shop.
• OPTLEV: Tara determined the coupling efficiencies into the arm cavity as a result of misaligning each of the power recycling and signal recycling cavity mirrors. These calculations will aid in setting the pointing requirements for those mirrors during lock acquisition. Eric used a narrow band servo design to set a requirement on the product of servo gain and voltage noise of the optical levers for the arm cavity mirrors. Cheryl made noise measurements of optical lever lasers at LHO for comparison with the noise measurements made by Giovanni et al at CIT.
• ETM SUS: The ETM Suspension test-prototype is being made in the CIT Aero machine shop.
• VIBRATION TEST FACILITY: Calum is in the process of setting up a dedicated vibration test facility in the high-bay area at Lauritsen for measuring the damping and resonances of various AOS and SUS suspensions and structures. Ken and Chris are assisting him.
• TCS: Aidan is at LHO finishing the optical alignment of the upgraded TCS CO2 laser projectors.

Input Optics

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

LSC Meeting (Dave, David, Guido, Volker and Kate)

No report.

ELIGO Commissioning (from last week)

• Measured the H1 MC visibility. It is actually a little better than previously reported, about 98% following the generally used definition. See here for details: <http://ilog.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ilog/pub/ilog.cgi?group=detector&date_to_view=09/17/2008&anchor_ to_scroll_to=2008:09:24:05:04:17-volkerq> (Volker).
• Have made a preliminary analysis of the thermal lensing in the LHO mode cleaner over the 0 - 28 W range by measuring the mode of the MC_TRANS beam on IOT1.  Quantitative numbers are pending, but the thermal lensing effect is very minor and with zero within the error bars (Muzammil).

ALIGO Design

• We finished in-vacuum DKDP segmented ring heater design (Luke).
• We have been working on DKDP ring heater for adaptive mode matching. The initial results are encouraging and show that the concept will work. We are now using DKDP in the vacuum (Muzammil)

ALIGO Acquisition

• Finished examining the polishing specifications for IO suspended optics for the straight IFO (L1 and H1). Working on updating polishing specification for the folded IFO optics. A complete draft of the newly updated specs should be available for IO internal review early next week. Updated IO Schedule Progress for September (Rodica).

Prestabilized Laser

From: Peter King pking@ligo.caltech.edu

Operations

• Nothing significant to report.

Project

• The PSL preliminary design review presentation was given on Tuesday.  At present the jury is deliberating.

Control and Data Systems

From: Rolf Bork rolf@ligo.caltech.edu

• No report this week. 

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For additional information about this report, contact Albert Lazzarini