The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday, October 20, 2008 will be:

(Meeting time: 10:30 am Pacific Time)

1. Announcements

2. Programmatic (Marx)

End-of-September Financial Status Review (Lindquist)

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

No open change request

Site and other Business Issues:

Calendar of future Executive Commitee Meetings

Special Announcements:

We have received the funding for the first half of the year for LIGO Operations from the NSF.

LSC Issues (Reitze)

The LSC and Virgo submitted a proposal to NASA for ' Target of Opportunity' observational time on the Swift satellite to follow up a limited number of gravitational-wave transient candidates identified by the LIGO-GEO-Virgo network of gravitational-wave detectors during the S6/SVR2 science run. The objective of this proposal is for Swift to record the afterglow in X-ray, ultraviolet and optical wavelengths of above threshold triggers identified through low-latency online searches.
A few of EPO group members met with Lee Skolnick Design and Leni Schwindinger Lighting in New York City to review the conceptual design for the proposed World Science Festival Exhibit.
The revised Burst group paper "Search for Gravitational Wave Bursts from Soft Gamma Repeaters" has been accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Lett.

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Lloyd)

No report.

PROPERTY ACCOUNTING (Luna)

>From: Rod Luna <rluna@ligo.caltech.edu>

Assisted D. Ingram at LHO with shipping arrangements for the LASTI Controls Quad consisting of four crates.
Assisted G. Billingsley with storing the Corning fused silica blanks (9).
Assisted P. King with packing, shipping and creating a commercial invoice for a Pre-modecleaner servo and two Eurocard cages to the Max Planck Institute, Germany.
Attended a workshop on market research presented by Procurement Services.
Continued setting up a new equipment database for LHO.
Assisted D. Ingram at LHO with shipping arrangements for the LASTI Controls Quad consisting of four crates.

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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

Continued making revisions to Incident Report.
Add more entries on the wiki for docDB.
Updated Incident Report database
Wrote procedures on how to secure a PDF document, and how to password protect an Incident Report.

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

Continued to familiarize myself with the DocDB system and provided some feedback to Melody.

FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Funaro, Oracion)

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

[the usual: For ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY DATA Press Here.]

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

Financial reports can be found at: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport (For passwords contact Karl).

SUBCONTRACTS MANAGEMENT (Jasnow, Salone)

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

Discussions continue with Praxair concerning their exceptions to the Caltech terms and conditions. Their latest version was sent to Grace Fisher-Adams Thursday for her review. The main hang up again seems to be the issue of indemnification.
We continue to seek candidates for two procurement positions, and are [almost] prepared to make an offer to fill the Subcontracts Coordinator position. [We will post the resume for the favored candidate, and we are requesting a reference letter.]

PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist)

Sent the end-of-September monthly report for LIGO Operations to the NSF on Wednesday, October 15, 2008.
We are preparing a revised estimate-at-completion for the LIGO Operations cooperative agreement that we have just completed. This information will be distributed and is scheduled for discussion during the meeting of the executive committee on Monday, October 20, 2008. We have also prepared and distributed a list of open commitments. Task managers have been requested to review and scrub the list.
We continue to work with the COGNOS people to develop reporting for the new cooperative agreement.

CHANGE CONTROL/CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT(Lindquist)

There are no open change requests.

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)

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

We held a meeting of the staffing committee on Monday, October 13, 2008. Minutes are being prepared.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

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

Ken Barat from LBNL hosted an all-hands laswer safety meeting at Caltech this week.

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 M. Landry)

The main activity this week has been the HAM6 vent in order to rework the tiptilt mode matching solution. We took the North and South doors off last Thursday, but the end (East) door stuck (all three were required off to rework the table). The end door came off readily on Friday and work on the table ensued over weekend. Doors were back on by Tuesday, we pumped down, and work continued Wednesday. Currently HAM6 is at 1.8e-6 T.
H1 was easily locked with an RF range of about 8Mpc (rough calibration), but transitioning to DC readout was newly difficult, with the IFO blowing out rapidly and seemingly disliking a DARM offset, suggesting something is mis-configured.
CDS folks visited from CIT, implementing fixes to awgstream and the test point manager, to minimize reboots and expedite commissioning. Modifications were also made to H1 SUS dcu code. The known problem of large computation times-due-to zeroed matrix elements was fixed. The ISI controller cpu was moved from out in rack to the MSR.
OMC SUS update : velocity damping, low pass filters and a 60Hz comb were implemented.
WFS work: low unity gain frequencies were increased. The input matrix will be remeasured with modified tdsresp code.
We closed out the design of the TCS secondary viewport windows, and have begun to acquire parts - two ZnSe windows are slated for rapid delivery, with more for L1 and H2 (plus one spare) coming after than. We're getting bids for the metal work, and estimate 2-3 weeks before the setup is in place on H1.
Next week we will be pursuing power up work.

Astrowatch (A. Mullavey)

The sudden variations in temperature have caused us a few problems this week, but other than these H2 has behaved with 55.8% uptime and 23.8% science time. Our typical range has been around 7Mpc.
H2 was randomly dropping in range to ~4Mpc. A big peak at 7137Hz was discovered, and it turns out this was an ETMY drumhead mode at 9.2kHz being aliased down. The band pass stop between 7133 and 7137Hz in the ETMY LSC filter was moved to 7135 and and 7139Hz, which resolved the problem. We are blaming the recent cold weather for this mode shift.
The H2 TCS Yarm laser power was a little unstable over the last week. Firstly on friday, it dropped from 3.2W to 2.9W, which was most likely due to the sudden drop in temperature in Hanford. We increased the chiller temperature by 0.1 degrees to remedy this. Then on monday, after the LVEA heaters were turned on, the power dropped to 2.3W. We decreased the chiller temperature by 0.5 degrees and the power stabilized again.

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

Enhanced LIGO Commissioning (Valera Frolov)

The interferometer locking was restored after the long vacuum incursion. The low noise state on both RF and DC readouts was attained. The range is 4-5 Mpc in both cases. There is excess DARM noise which is more prominent in RF readout. The noise seem to be the sensing noise in the frequency stabilization loop as it appears in all interferometer degrees of freedom. The back scattering and clipping on the optical tables and electronics noise are being investigated but so far the culprit has not been identified.
The interferometer mode matching has improved from 14% before the vent (and 16% during S5) to 7% from the 7 mm movement of the MMT2 during the last vent. The ETM beam cage and reflected port OSA measurement were repeated. The data are being analyzed to determined if further movement of the MMT2 can improve the mode matching.
The excess laser amplitude noise was found to be coming from the gain peaking in the PSL frequency stabilization loop. The FSS oscillations at 100 kHz also affected the common mode loop. After the gain of the FSS loop was increased from 200 kHz to 450 kHz the oscillation amplitude went down by 30 dB. The AM noise with a single ITM bounce beam at the OMC is now back to the nominal level.
The OMC SUS characterization and ISI system identification continued this week.

CDS Computing (Keith Thorne)

Upgrade Work:

Got quote, started purchase process for 8 Linux control stations.
Investigated DVI extender options for control stations.

Sys-Admin:

Entered pending LLO CDS tasks into CDS ticket system (Bugzilla).
Managed framebuilder changes during LDAS file work.
Met with LIGO Cyber-Security team for LLO CDS overview.

Commissioning Support:

Entered Rana's requests into CDS ticket system.
Corrected setup on control1 workstation.
Developed list of channels to add to framebuilders next week.

Safety & Security (Rich Riesen)

Qualified Ericka Forsi, Keith Thorne, and Carl Adams for NHZ access. Scheduling same staff personnel for Laser Eye Exams and CPR/AED. Wrote new SOP for Laser Hazard Transitioning. Awaiting approval before distribution.
Added an amendment to our LLO Laser Safety Plan concerning TCS post maintenence readiness inspections. Awaiting approval before distribution. Completed the latest Incident Report concerning TCS work.. Awaiting approval before distribution.

Livingston Outreach (Kathy Holt)

Conducted teacher workshop for 21 Jefferson Parish elementary teachers.
Hosted Tulane University students for tour on Sat.
Purchased materials for teacher workshop.
Designed program and prepared activities for this weekends teacher workshop.
Spoke with BREC Observatory - they will donate Star finders for teacher workshop.
Worked to two SUBR Docents this week - they collected data and worked on activities.
Prepared materials for teacher workshop.
Contacted and scheduled school visits and public tours.
Applied for Amber and I to attend Inquiry workshop in Feb. at the Exploratorium.
Correlated GLEs with activities for teacher workshop

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)

Controls and Data Systems (Bork)

See Advanced LIGO

40-Meter Interferometer (Adhikari)
-----------------------------------------------------------
After tuning the gains and phases of the control loops, the stability of the DRM lock to +f2 side band improved a bit. But it is not stable enough. Will try direct locking by the double-demod signals.

The correlation between the EMI around the master oscillator of the MOPA and the FSS error signal was measured by picking up the EMI by a handmade loop antenna. There is strong correlation between the two signals at the harmonics of 78.1kHz and many other lines.

Peter measured the optimal demodulation phase for the FSS and made a cable to realize the necessary phase delay.

Alberto started to port the GPIB program for the absolute arm length measurement written by Koji in LabView to a python script with an interface from EPICS.

A new control room computer running 64bit CentOS was installed. We figured ways to run control room tools (dataviewer, dtt, medm, etc) on 64bit linux.Our another 64bit linux machine, which could not run control room tools, is now capable of running those tools too.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

Last week we welcomed Innocenzo Pinto to Caltech for a short visit. While he was here he, Akira, Riccardo, and Eric finished the analysis of the undoped, optimized coating, and we discussed plans for the doped, optimized coating to be measured next.
Greg continues to debug the photothermal apparatus and has now included an elliptical filter to suppress pzt resonances.

LASTI (Mittleman)

BSC-ISI

We have continued our work on the stage one low blend filters. There are results from the X direction filter posted on the Lasti and SEI ilogs.
We are currently installing the other 5 low blend filters. The most time consuming of our problems has been the stage one tilt decoupling. It turns out that initial tilt decoupling wasn’t very good and in order to improve it we had to improve the low frequency transfer functions (down to ~2mhz). We are thinking about ways to make this go faster.

Quad Prototype

Alastair (Caltech), Russell (Glascow) and Mark B. (Caltech) have been visiting this week working towards a hanging the metal dummy masses from glass fibers.

SEI

We are working towards removing the second gullwing on the X-end HAM.

CIT Science Group (Weinstein)

_____________________

Antony Searle:

Moved Bayesian localization C library into LAL.
Replaced some infrastructure functions with LAL equivalents for easier reviewing.
Wrote scripts to compare PRC results files from different pipelines.
Rerunning Omega PRC to recover some segments that prematurely exited due to a post-processing bug.
Reviewed a paper for CQG.
Revising major Bayesian paper for resubmission

_____________________

Chad Hanna:

I have been exploring the effectiveness of the bank veto on the high mass search as a way to reduced the cost of the search by skipping the second half of the current pipeline.
Kipp and I presented our low-latency ideas in the code call and have the go ahead to prototype it during S6.

_____________________

Kipp Cannon:

Maintenance work on inspiral coincidence tool "thinca".
Maintenance work on inspiral veto tool "inspiral_veto_calculator".
Continuing work on low-latency inspiral analysis techniques.
Telecons: daswg, inspiral, inspiral code, inspiral high-mass, s4 string review.

_____________________

Diego Fazi:

Continued evaluating the backgtround rate for PTF using different SNR thresholds.
Started comparing efficiencies in recovering random spinning injections with PTF using different SNR thresholds.

_____________________

Amber L. Stuver:

Worked on streamlining the existing code for my delayRatio project [http://touro.ligo-la.caltech.edu/~stuver/research/delayRatio/] (physical likelihood GW estimator given observed detection delays and SNRs) and writing a wrapper function for this code to allow for timing errors and SNR uncertainty. As part of this, I have also spent two days at LSU working with several people discussing application of the project to follow-up pipelines as well as other uses.
Gave control room tours to 2 different teacher professional development groups totaling ~50 teachers.
Gave a control room and LVEA tour to a physics class (~25 students) from Tulane.
Gave a control room tour to ~30 5th grade students.

_____________________

Cristina Valeria Torres:

Continue to work on CBC follow up document, working cooperatively with Romain Gouaty and Sarah Caudill.
Assisted with LLO SEC teacher workshop.
Continue to work on tracksearch trigger database refinements for multi-dimensional glitch classification algorithm. Plan travel to UT-Brownsville for in-person discussion and work.
Upgraded tracksearch pipeline to intelligently spawn pipeline components in an optimized fashion and avoid overwhelming cluster resources.

_____________________

Peter Kalmus:

S5y1 SGR paper accepted by PRL.
Brief presentation for exttrig telecon on activity of newly-discovered and nearby SGR 0501 and a possible A5 search.
Continued development of stack-a-flare SGR search

_____________________

Anand Sengupta:

Incorporated the changes required to read in new frequency calibration files. Some preliminary runs on hardware injections have been done.
Reading paper on "Gravitational Wave Burst Source Direction Estimation using Time and Amplitude Information" ( arXiv:0810.2264 ).
Continue to review the paper for CQG.

_____________________

Kent Blackburn for the Grid R&D team:

GRID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

Write agenda and lead LIGO-Pegasus and OSG-VO-Group telecons.
Write minutes for LIGO-Pegasus telecon * Attend OSG-VO-Group telecons.
Two telecons with Patrick and Kent concerning LIGO-OSG milestones for year 3.

E@OSG Activity:

Attend telecon concerning wider deployment of E@H onto OSG (10/13 ).
Contact site admins for WS-GRAM config change.
Contact site admins: RCAC, CIT_CMS_T2, NWICG_NotreDame.
Accounting summary ppt presentation: Gratia vs E@H vs DGrid.
Edit DASWG pages.
Perform ReSS query to find suitable sites for E@H as backfill, start compile spread sheet.

Inspiral Activity:

1 hr phonecall with Karan discussing new priorities and future approaches.
Test old site schema converter client.
Test SPEW on ldas-grid (dev1) with new site schema.

BOSCO as Submit Host:

Anand: different gridftp instances running.
Phil re-installed gridftp server, still end of file error.
Phil made some other changes, SPEW runs successfully on Bosco!!! (10-14).

OSG VO Group Activity:

Talk with Abhishek concerning agenda items and general updates and strategies.

Other:

Read material : Glidein -WMS

OSG INTEGRATION AND VALIDATION TESTBED

Nothing to report.

GRID MANAGEMENT

Worked with OSG Project Manager to develop a Statement of Work for Year 3 funding.
Passed the SOW by both Alan and Albert for there review and discussion.
Made a few corrections and signed the SOW as the institutional PI and passed it back to OSG Project Manager for review by the OSG Executive Team.
Held a teleconference with Ruth Pordes to discuss planning for the OSG All Hands Meeting at LLO March 2nd through 5th.
Discussed having a half day on LIGO and some basics such as formulation of a program committee.
Met with Bonnie at LLO to discuss strategies for the OSG All Hands meeting at LLO.
Discussed the local arrangements, rooms, services, food and beverage, hotels, transportation, websites and registration needs. Have a good first start on preparing for meeting.

_____________________

Pinkesh Patel:

Worked with Berit and Joe to validate resampling. I found that there are some issues with extremely small frequency bands, which could explain why the results dont match with the crab search. Joe helped me by generating some larger band sizes and I am running resampling on that right now.
Worked on the PZT calibration of the OMC. We see some sort of frequency dependence of the calibration and Sam/Nic and I suspect that this is due to the Anti-Aliasing filter. Work was stopped midway for OMC displacement in HAM6. Will resume as soon as possible.
Stepped down as astrowatch head. Adam Mullavey will take over. Phasing out of Astrowatch and will concentrate more on e-ligo.

Laboratory Computing (Anderson)

LDAS Software Systems (Maros)

The issue involving the metadataAPI getting stuck in futex locks and/or core dumping has been resolved by overwriting the use of the thread unsafe function fgets_unlocked with a thread safe version.
The list of open problem reports was reviewed in preparation for a release of the LDAS software base. Nearly all of the ones identified to be addressed in this release of LDAS, have been addressed. Of the three that remain, none are critical to the release.
Several more of the regression tests have been converted to be part of the System Test Framework. These include pr2017.tcl, pr2008.tcl, pr1999.tcl and pr1997.tcl. There remain 11 regression tests to convert.

LDAS System Administration (Anderson)

Caltech

(Dan Kozak)

Offically started work as a CIT employee, attended benefits seminar.
Weekly check of frame files in CIT cluster showed no new bad frames.
Cleanup of dataserver:/var/sam/dumps at LLO.
Did LLO x4600 firmware upgrades (ngateway's LSI firmware remains to be done, hopefully it will just work if done locally).
LLO Solaris patching (SAM-QFS upgrade, other Solaris patches).
LLO FC switch firmware upgrade, set up FC zoning.
Discovered CIT node121 down, reported to Phil.
Helped Ed Maros with test to verify that LDAS correctly uses the stage command.
Worked with Sun to investigate zpool cksum errors on CIT's thumper1. While another scrub is running, Sun doesn't think the problem warrants disk replacement
Wrote up 351x cache viewing/setting instructions.

(Phil Ehrens)

Supported Melody Araya with configuration of the graffias/dcc server.
Attended Caltech new employee orientation.
Installed CentOS 5.2 on machine Verruca.
Installed CentOS 5.2 on backup dcc machine. Dual 500Gb HD's were configured Raid 1 via Linux mdadm.
Supported cds group with minor Subversion issues.
Supported Adv LIGO group with minor wiki issues.
Various GRID related tasks.
Configured bosco to be a submit host. Required steps (excluding firewall, which is still in process) are captured in the sysadmin wiki.
No cluster node fan replacements were required this week.

MIT

(Fred Donovan)

Thumper up; home directories transferred; frame data from data2 transfered - using thumper for these. Finally fixed data6 pc-raid; configuring data2 to be 16 disk raid6 1 host spare software (to check stability); tested 2 sata 3GBS drives on a cluster node, very stable -- see bios doc in ldas wiki (required bios update); set up pxe boot menu (rather than command line) for cluster.

Livingston

(Igor Yakushin)

Condor upgraded to 7.0.5.
Gateway, opterondata-llo are patched.
BIOS/firmware upgraded on opterondata-llo.
FC switch firmware upgraded, FC switch reconfigured.

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

Upgraded Condor on the LHO cluster to version 7.0.5.
I sent diagnostic information to Sun, continuing with a service request repair of a failed Loop ID switch on a 3511 raid box.
These channels have been removed from the astrowatch Level 1 RDS frames, starting from Oct 12 2008 22:30:26 PDT: H2:LSC-AS_Q_1FSR H2:LSC-AS_Q_0FSR.
I am continuing my usual checks to make sure that archiving of trend, and raw and RDS astrowatch data is up-to-date, and I am following up on some gaps in this data due to recent down time of publishing this data into LDR.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT

(Fred)

Quad xp install, & some ram issues (4GB) for visitor (resolved, /3gb /pae issues) .
Penguin server backed up & returned for service (new mainboard didn't fix problem).
Diagnosing h/w problems genstor (opteron burst group).
a/v setup for thread pulling lab (camera,audio: netmeeting, evo etc.)

Livingston

(Dwayne)

Parts DB redesign and review with Mick Flanigan, UI redesign and review also, with coding to resume shortly.
Issues with new Comsol License server, I will continue testing.
New Matlab license server appears to be fine.
With Shannon and Charter techs, more troubleshooting of backup network connection. Problem appears to have been solved by replacing SFPs and jumper fibers on Charter's end.
Ran memtest on HEPI valve check PC in staging building high-bay. a couple hundred passes with no errors, but application still behaving badly. investigation to continue.
Replaced tapes in GC library.
Looking into LabView upgrade.
Optics lab beam scan PC would not boot, used BartPE to run chkdsk, fixed a couple problems and now is fine.
Transferred network ports in an office to VLAN 13.
Ordered USB floppy drive for use by scientists. some instruments only save data to floppy disk.
Assisted a user with file recovery from a problem PC.
Created new GC and mail accounts for two new users.
Attended a mandatory procurement workshop.
Numerous usual/unusual user support requests.
Cleared spam trap daily.

Hanford

(Larry)

Cleared up a few items on mail aliases and repaired a few accounts that had some configuration issues.
Assisted a couple of users troubleshoot some network issues they were having.

(Mike)

Working the dhcp server freeing up expired IP numbers.
Clearing out trapped spam on their mail server.
Made some mail alias changes for users.

Caltech

(Christian)

Julie Hiroto - Restored missing files from old workstation.
Maria Ascione - Installed MathType 6.0 and created backup images of laptops that Maria was using during the summer.
Ed Jasnow - Mike Larry and I setup conference meeting using EVO system for Ed.
Gina Salone - working on transferring all of Gina's software and data files to new workstation.
Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.

(Veronica)

Videotaped and processed for streaming a presentation on LIGO market research for non-competitive procurement.
Minor changes to the new ligo.org.
Updates of the database of technical papers, seminars, SURF website, other ongoing web-related updates.

(Melody)

Worked on installing Bugzilla for the DCC trouble ticketing system.
Worked on fixing a hostname mismatch error in the certificates when using SSL on a DNS alias.

(Mike)

Downloaded SolidWorks 2009, and PDMWorks software. I had the beta version of SW2009 which I came across many problems. The version I have now is the first official release of SW2009. This is a on going project.
Worked with GC group on setting up the Market meeting for Ed Jasnow.
Some user support and other misc. sysadmin work.

(Larry)

Working more procurement items. Having difficulty getting quotes back from some of the vendors. Working on license renewals for ansys and mathtype. P-card paperwork still going on. Worked on LDAS SUN maint. contract. Dynamic Systems should now have the right people and information for it.
Worked a little with Melody on an item she was troubleshooting on the DCC.
Setup the new printer for the 40M. Still a couple of h/w items to be installed but it is up and running.
Built a new notebook computer for a end-user. The unit he had was not working properly and would not run the s/w he was using and needed a unit for his trip. This is the second emergency/last minute build needed in the past week.
Some minor work with Phil.
Regular user assistance.
More work on documentation and conference setups.

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Advanced LIGO Management

From Carol Wilkinson

Project Controls

Advanced LIGO Change Requests (ACR) in process:
- The ACR for delay in PSL delivery schedule of 200 W lasers by 6 months will be processed at the end of October and implemented in November. Uses schedule float and does not impact project schedule for installed units. Spares will be delivered after the install date.
- DAQ schedule update to accommodate just in time procurements is in preparation and should be complete this month. No significant budget impact expected; no change in major milestones.
- An ACR to add HEPI units to the output readout HAMs per request by the ISC subsystem is in preparation, pending a RODA that HEPI is the isolation of choice. Budget in ISC for seismic isolation of these chambers will be transferred from ISC to SEI HEPI. No significant change in budget or schedule milestones anticipated.
- ACR to consolidate the clean and bake activities in the assembly staging activity in Facility Mods. And Prep is in preparation, with expected implementation in November. Labor in the individual subsystems will be collected and moved to FMP. Expectation that more labor hours will be needed.

Procurements

From Carol:

The negotiation summary and the contract for the warehouse modifications are being finalized for submittal to the NSF for review and approval. This procurement is going to the NSF because it was increased in scope in a Change Request and wasn't originally estimated to be over $250,000.

From Ed:

We continue to seek candidates for two procurement positions, and are prepared to make an offer to fill Guy Fish's position.

From Rudy:

Negotiations on the terms and conditions for the contract with Heraeus continue. The latest iteration is awaiting review by Caltech General Counsel.
The Invitation for Bid for modifications to the Staging Building at LHO is scheduled to be released Friday, October 17.
The contract for the LHO test stands will be awarded Friday, October 17.
The contract with Ares will be awarded Monday, October 20.
MIT Subaward No. 1085563 for Adv LIGO support under the direction of D. Shoemaker was executed on 10/13/08.

NSF Acquisition Approvals

LIGO is waiting for NSF re-approval of the assembly clean rooms award (FMP). The award needed re-approval because of the cost savings due to a design simplification passed a cost deviation threshold limit in the cooperative agreement.
LIGO is waiting for approval of the Acquisition Plan for FY2009.
Ann Miller, our NSF Grants Administrator, has agreed that an updated acquisition plan should be submitted at six month intervals in order to prevent the need for re-approvals based on changing design requirements as development progresses.
LIGO is waiting for responses in writing from NSF on the six month submission as well as two other action items: the format and content of acquisition review packages for planned procurements that have not yet been sent out for quotes and bids; and a letter stating that recombining or breaking up procurements that have been pre-approved is allowable as long as the conditions in the cooperative agreement are still met.

Progress Updates

Progress schedule updates for the month of October are due October 23.
The Monthly Project Status Report for September has been submitted to the NSF and posted in the DCC.

Meetings & Reviews

The next Monthly Progress Reporting Meeting will be on Thursday, November 13 at 8:30 AM PT. Subsystem leaders or their delegates need to attend. Note that the monthly report is due November 14, so reports need to be in finalized format by this meeting.

Advanced LIGO Systems

Modeling and Simulation

From: Hiroaki Yamamoto hiro@ligo.caltech.edu

COC Polishing Specification (Hiro)

Worked on the revised specification of the mirror polishing requirement.
A new requirement based on higher pass filtering is being finalized. Probably, the actual procedure does not use filter, but set the upper limit of the RMS after subtracting lower order (~10-15 radial order) zernike terms.
COC Modeling section is updated to include analysis for this study. A comparison between a tinsley sample and CSIRO sample is also given.

Mechanical Simulation for Advanced LIGO (Sany and SLU team)

We made another progress in our AdvLIGO Input Mode Cleaner frequency stabilization modeling. With the modified IMC servo control filters, the frequency noise on the IMC’s transmitted light is now about the required level (based on LIGO T020020) in the analyzed frequency range of 1 – 1000 Hz.

Safety

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

Continue to work on updating document M980242-A-M - “LIGO Observatory Safety and Environmental Protection Manual”.
Visiting CIT this week to attend Laser Safety Training being conducted by Ken Barat.
Reviewing design documents.
Discussions with several engineers regarding the FMEA process.

Quality Assurance

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

Parts DB

Dwayne and I completed the majority of the schema for the system, and Dwayne is currently reviewing. Mick needs to complete interface tables for defect integration, as well as Inspection capability.
Below is a schedule for Parts Database delivery, rev. 1:
- Backed Development:
  - Prelim design of release 1 tables, keys and fields to support parts, loads, inspections, modifications and links to defect DB (Mick) Wednesday, 15th
  - Finalize Code DB Schema, validate (Dwayne) Monday, 20th
- User Interface Development:
  - Finalize Release 1 UI look and feel (Mick and Dwayne) Oct 23rd
  - Code screens for test phase (Dwayne and subcontractor if needed to meet schedule) Oct 31st with some slip room
- Test Deployment:
  - Load DB and UI to server, enable developer testing (Dwayne) Nov 7th
  - Write test plan (Dwayne and Mick) Nov 12th
  - Perform developer testing and modifications (Mick and Dwayne) Started Nov 18th
- Prelim User Guide:
  - Write user guide and embed to UI (Mick and Dwayne) Nov 18th
- Ready for Testing:
  - Add test users to access system (Dwayne) Nov 18th
  - Setup general user test instructions (Mick and Dwayne) Nov18th
  - End test period Dec 5th
  - Review feedback (Mick and Dwayne) Dec 9th
- Incorporate minor changes, release for general use Dec 12th

Liberty Tool Inspection

Participated in inspection of Liberty Tool, with the intent on asking them to bid on some upcoming machining and welding work for advanced LIGO. Initial opinions were positive, a full report will be released Oct 17th.

Facilities Modifications and Preparations

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

Nothing to report from LHO or Allen at LLO

Dwayne reports the following:

Advanced LIGO Parts management: review and redesign of database layout by Dwayne and Mick UI design by Mick, I will be resuming actual development by first of next week.

Seismic Isolation

From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

SEI Project Activities

Members of the SEI team has meet several times to discuss the questions and comments from the HAM ISI preliminary design review. We expect to have the responses to the committee by the end of next week.
The bid package for the remaining machined parts is on hold until changes to the drawing package are made. We have started on this and expect to complete these by the end of next week.
We have reviewed the additional parts needed to add HEPI to ISC tables 1 and 7. We are contacting suppliers for quotes for the additional parts.
Gullwing Design: Receiving parts for prototype build at LASTI. Planning to begin installation of new Crossbeams in early November. ~ Andy S.
Pump Station--waiting on a few items at Machine shops (Manifold, Motor Base, Filter Bracket) Actuator--Machine shop starting job programming, Drawing Redline/Review ongoing. ~ Hugh R.
After entering HAM6 to free up the OMC (it was caught up on stops), Jeff noticed some changes in the plant which have destabilized his Rx and Ry isolation loops. We are still investigating the reasons for this. Once the loops are redesigned Jeff will work on the other degrees of freedom.
We are hoping that Rolf, Alex and Keith will propagate the fixes to awgtpman to LLO during the first week of November if not sooner. ~ Brian O.

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:

Working on large triple drawings for the small and large triple suspensions PDR. Finishing up as-built and assembly/alignment documents for output mode cleaner suspension.
A document summarising proposed design changes to the blades for increased vertical isolation in all triple pendulum designs (beamsplitter, HAM small triples and HAM large triples) has been drafted and circulated for comments.
A document is being prepared which lays out the proposed designs for the interfaces between wires and optics for those optics suspended on steel wire loops.
Test blades have been delivered to the vendor for nickel plating. Vendor is waiting for supplies before the procedure is started. As part of the test process we will ascertain how much material gets removed in the cleaning /etching process used prior to plating.
Plans are in place, and parts and equipment are being manufactured/ assembled in preparation for measuring the large triple structural resonances the last week of October at Caltech.

BSC Suspensions for Advanced LIGO:

See entry above on document summarisng proposed changes to blade designs. The document will be reviewed as part of the ongoing BS/FM review, for consideration before the UK proceed to manufacture.
Several staff from Glasgow and Caltech are currently at LASTI for this week and next week to carry out further tests and preparation leading to the monolithic assembly.

Project-Funded Activities

Mechanical test stand PO had been sent out. Delivery dates were adjusted due to delay in PO placement. Later delivery dates are still acceptable with respect to the need dates.
Personnel are at a machine shop in Indiana to do vendor QA inspection.
There is an upcoming meeting to talk about staffing needs for future SUS work.
Plans have now been made for 4 LIGO staff from LLO and LHO to go to RAL in the UK for training on assembly of the beamsplitter suspension during the first week in December.

Core Optics

From: GariLynn Billingsley Billingsley_G@ligo.caltech.edu

Development

>From Hiro

A few analysis of the Tinsley optic S1FINAL is shown in the web. It looks good. A comparison with CSIRO PSD is shown in the page. http://ilog.ligo-wa.caltech.edu:7285/advligo/COC_Modeling Loss with this optic as is ~10ppm we would like to be under 20ppm.

>From Cheryl

Elog of scattering images: http://ilog.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ilog/pub/ilog.cgi?group=detector&date_to_view=10/14/2008&anchor_to_scroll_to=2008:10:14:10:01:03-Vorvick There have been some new scatter sites observed since the baseline image was taken. These are circled on the second page of each document.

Project

I have inspected the Corning blanks (3 ETM, 3 FM, 3 R3) for count, damage and size. All containers were in good condition. Based on this inspection I have signed off on the invoice for these pieces.

Auxiliary Optics

From: Michael Smith smith@ligo.caltech.edu

ADLIGO

Work Under Project Budget

OPTICAL LAYOUT:

Luke completed a preliminary layout of the IO portion for the non-folded IFO. He will begin work on the layout of the folded IFO.
Mike verified that there is no interference of the FM and ITM suspensions in the folded IFO, using the current locations of the optics as listed in T080078-05.
Peter Fritschel indicated that the incidence angles on the PR and SR telescope mirrors for the folded IFO will not cause excessive loss inside the recycling cavities, and therefore we should not change the positions of the mirrors.

Work Under Operations Budget

SLC:

The damped and non-damped version of the test assembly for the elliptical baffle suspension is complete.
The support structure is in place and leveled, setup can begin imminently as soon as we locate the accelerometers and mover driver, and set up a table near the structure. Ken is working on the formal drawing and PDF / Doc DB submission package.

ETM TELESCOPE SUS:

The ETM Telescope Suspension test-prototype is being made in the CIT Aero machine shop. Chris is still completing some of the parts drawings.

ETM TELESCOPE DRD:

Mike is revising the ETM Telescope Design Requirements doc. In the process, he made a mathematical model of a pupil relay system that images the output of the ETM Telescope onto the surface of the ISC QPD. This results in maximum displacement sensitivity for the ETM transmission monitor and also enables a quantitative specification for the pitch and yaw requirement of the ETM Telescope suspension.

OPTLEV:

Riccardo and Tara completed the copper pipe vacuum beam enclosure for the optical lever QPD set up at CIT.
The modulatable red diode laser ordered from Edmund arrived. A green laser, and a fiber-coupled red diode laser are back ordered.
Eric and Tara will go to LHO next week and set up an evacuated beam enclosure and make optical lever QPD measurements for comparison with the data obtained at CIT.

Input Optics

From: David tanner@phys.ufl.edu

AdvLIGO Design of the IO

We are working on the IO in-vacuum layout. (Luke)
We are calculating ROC tolerances for the reference spheres for the cavity mirrors to try pairing up substrates for ROC calibration. (Rodica)
Work continues on analysis of frequency noise due to light scattering in the MC. (Rodica)

AdvLIGO Procurements

We received 3 bids for the mirror blanks for Advanced LIGO, and we are requesting pre-award certification from lower bidders. (Rodica)
We are preparing the bid package for polishing the IMC, PRC, and SRC mirrors. (Rodica)

e-LIGO Design

We are completing the modified design for the PSL table power-control polarizers.

e-LIGO Commissioning.

At LLO, we measured the mode mismatch in the MMT to be 7%; down from 13% since moving MMT2 by 7mm. We also measured the 25MHz sideband coupling into the PRM to be 88% at 1W with no TCS. Now, we are looking for sources of scattering into the ifo and carrying out general noise hunting and interferometer locking studies. (Kate)

Prestabilized Laser

From: Peter King pking@ligo.caltech.edu

Operations

Nothing significant to report.

Project

I had a number of discussions with Christian Veltkamp about the new laser area at LZH and the hardware for the diode boxes. Fabrication of the engineering prototype to be delivered to the AEI around May will start around the middle of January. Only minor changes to the hardware are envisaged. We are working through the interface document, adding more details as required to the signals available.

Control and Data Systems

From: Vern Sandberg sandberg@ligo-wa.caltech.edu

CDS Activities Report for the week of Oct. 8 – 15, 2008
Included are activities of a broad nature across CDS and activities specific to advanced LIGO.
LHO CDS

DC Power Distribution:

Testing for conducted and radiated RF emissions under varying loads.
Commissioning support of OMC, ISI, and new DAQ systems.

LLO CDS

Systems:

Started purchase process for 8 Linux control stations
Entered pending LLO CDS tasks into CDS Bugzilla