Weekly Report for Week Ending October 30, 2008

Past Weekly Reports

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LSC Issues (Reitze)

• A final version of the 2008-2009 LSC Data Analysis and Detector Characterization White Paper has been posted on www.ligo.org and is available from the DCC at http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/docs/T/T080278-00.pdf

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Lloyd)

• For status of MOUs press here.

PROPERTY ACCOUNTING (Luna)

• No report.

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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

• Assisted with the FY 2008 LIGO Publication Citation list for the upcoming NSF Review.  Also assisted with providing other support documentation for this upcoming review.
• Tested and reviewed the DocDB User's Manual Wiki page.

FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Funaro, Oracion)

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

• For ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY Press Here.

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

• Submitted a request to the Office of Sponsored Research to set up 11 new tasks for Advanced LIGO DAQ accounts.
• Sent out a fabrication request form (suspension glass) to Property Services for review and approval.
• Completed closeout of MIT.GRID account. Project Accounting has confirmed closure of the account.
• Prepared budget upload form to allocate 1st half of FY2009 LIGO Operations funds. I sent the completed form to IMSS so that they could test if the upload will go through the Oracle financial system properly.
• Requested an "at-risk" extension to UWMIL.LIGO account pending receipt of funds.
• Currently working on various financial reports for FY2008 and FY2009.
• Link to new FY2009 LIGO Operations PYA numbers has been posted on the LIGO Labratory internal bulletin board: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/ . Please contact for the full URL.Karl
• Link to Advanced LIGO PTA numbers has also been posted on the LIGO Laboratory internal bulletin board: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/ . Please Karl contact for the full URL.
• Financial reports can be found at: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport. (For passwords contact Karl)

SUBCONTRACTS MANAGEMENT (Arvizu, Jasnow, Salone)

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

• See Advanced LIGO.

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

• A modification is being prepared to the contract with the Exploratorium to cover additional support training on the exhibits and will extend the contract to match the end date of the LLO Outreach Grant, March 31, 2009.
• Negotiations between Caltech legal office and vendor are nearly concluded for the contract to provide LN2 to LHO.
• Agreement has been reached to have the MIT Operations contract follow the same format as their Advanced LIGO contract.  This new contract should be issued early next week.

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

• Derek Anderson has accepted the offer from Caltech to fill the position formerly occupied by Guy Fish.  He will start his position this coming Monday, November 3.
• See also Advanced LIGO.

PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist)

• Tomorrow we will be issuing a request for contributions for the end-of-October Monthly LIGO Operations Report.  This report is due to the NSF on November 15th, which is a Saturday this time.  I will request inputs by Monday, November 10.  (Thanks in advance!)

CHANGE REQUESTS (Lindquist)

• There are no open change requests.

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)

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

• The next Staffing Committee meeting is scheduled for Monday, November 11, 2008.
• All files for the Staffing Committee are up-to-date and posted on the SC web page.

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Quality/Safety (Tyler)

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

• Assisted by providingsafety information and draft slides for the upcoming NSF review.  Supported Advanced LIGO design review and Advanced LIGO FMEA implementation discussions.  Working to get LIGO safety forms on line with improved reporting format.

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

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

• Some great strides were taken on the DC readout this week. Having resumed stable handoffs last week from RF to DC locking, investigations ensued into the source of the excess dither noise (recall that tip-tilt dithers have been seen to introduce noise at 100Hz). The problem was in part tracked to the OMC multi-processor communications, in which data are passed via a shared memory, casted to floats as part of the transfer. Once doubles were used instead of floats, the 100Hz noise was largely mitigated. DAC noise is next in line for attention, in the form of whitening filters. Rapid CDS coding help from CIT was key in this work.
• A new OMC autolocker was written in perl. The script can actuate on one or both OMC inputs (thermal and PZT), and has been tested in conjunction with the LSC code.
• Upconversion studies show the LVEA arm baffles installed in a recent vent are working, while structures on end station tables are still scatter sources. We expect to install end baffles in December.
• SEI (C. Gray)
  • With the recent move of the OMC, ran a new set of broad-frequency transfer functions on the the HAM6 ISI
  • With these new data, have made adjustments to the RX & RY Isolation Loops (we tackle these two loops first to get rid of tilts on the system, and then we move onto the loops of the other degrees of freedom); will implement the new RX & RY loops today
  • This work was made with the help of J. Kissel

Astrowatch (A. Mullavey)

• H2 had an uptime of 47.9% and a science time of 17.5%. These values are down on the past few weeks. The main reason being that the h2awg0 computer was still causing us problems up until Sunday. However Dave Barker worked tirelessly on it over the weekend, and he seems to have fixed whatever the problem was.
• On Monday the TCS laser power into the Y arm AOM was increased from 0.33 to 0.42. This change has increased the optimal range from 7Mpc to 7.5Mpc.
• The Astrowatch journal club is going well, with all current members and some of the new operators learning something new about the operation of the IFO every week.

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

General Operations (Rusyl Wooley)

• We completed the wiring for the TCS upgrade.  We closed and opened GV3 & GV5 to allow for TCS alignment.  Submitted paperwork in order to start the repairs of the BTE joints.  Received drawings for new office construction across the street.

Enhanced LIGO Commissioning (Valera Frolov)

• The high power EOM was installed. The maximum power available from the PSL is 28 W. The power into the locked mode cleaner is limited to 10 W by setting the threshold on the mode cleaner safety shutter so that the power into the RM can not exceed 10 W.
• The thermal compensation system upgrade has started last week. The old lasers were removed. The new lasers were installed and optical tables were rebuild. The laser alignment is in progress.
• The interferometer was re-locked after the EOM upgrade. The modulation indices and RF phases were adjusted using the free swinging Michelson and full interferometers.
• The excess frequency noise issue was resolved by replacing the reflected port photodetector. But the cause of the noise is believed to be the increased beam size on the photodetector due to the movement of the MMT2 during the last vent. The beam profile will be remeasured once the interferometer low noise is reestablished. Currently the excess AM laser noise is preventing us from getting the low noise. The laser AM stabilization has not been working properly since Wednesday morning and is being investigated at the moment
• The HAM6 ISI isolation loops have been implemented.

CDS Computing (Keith Thorne)

Sys-Admin:

• Rebooted ADCU, AWG systems as needed.
• Tracked down systems with failed autoburt since Sept 1 (Gustav power outage).
• Recovered DAQ from lockup due to OMC FE updates.

Commissioning Support:

• Setup MATLAB awgstream interface (for Jeff Kissel).
• Rebuilt BCServo code to use MMT3 (for Valera Frolov).
• Helped understand OMC FE update problem (for Tobin Fricke).

Upgrades:

• Found missing Infiniband equipment for DAQ upgrades.
• Non-compete Form for Linux workstation purchase.
• Configured raid for LLO1 hot backup.

LLO Outreach (Kathy Holt)

• Conducted 2 school visits - 88 total students.
• Conducted Docent Training for Cohort 2 LIGO exhibits on wave properties
• Finalized activities for the Sally Ride Science Festival program for 5th-8th grade girls in Nov.
• Update stats, information and photos for Dale at LHO.
• Worked on tables for proposal.
• Continued to work with scheduling and programs for future visits.
• Confirmed public tour visitors for Sat. tour.

Safety & Security (Rich Riesen)

• Both TCS X & Y  safety shutdown interlock systems are now fully operational.

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 also Advanced LIGO

Controls and Data Systems (Bork)

See Advanced LIGO

40-Meter Interferometer (Adhikari)

• Alberto found that the reason why he could not measure TEM01 mode with his absolute length measurement setup -- there was too much clipping of the beam by a knife edge. After adjusting it, he was able to measure the split of TEM01/10 mode resonances. The measured ROCs are, R_horizontal = 56.26 ± 0.01 m, R_vertical= 56.63 ± 0.01 m, where the design ROC is 57.57m. The astigmatism is about 0.37m.
• Calculation of the location of higher order mode sideband resonances with respect to the main resonance was done based on the measured g-factors. There is no accidental coincidence of HOMs with the main resonance found.
• Caryn and Alberto made and installed a temperature sensor on the MC chamber for the MC1 and MC3 mirrors.
• Janne measured the noise of the Guralp seismometer box. Below 3Hz, the noise goes up quickly. The velocity equivalent noise at 1Hz is 1e-9 (m/s)/sqrt(Hz). She will compare the noise with the normal ground motion level of the 40m lab to see if the noise level is acceptable.
• Peter calibrated the FSS LO level monitor and now the EPICS channel shows the LO level in dBm.
• Steve installed lexan plates for all the view ports facing upwards to protect them from accidentally dropping something on it.

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Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

• Greg is back and has been looking at the shot-to-shot variation in single-frequency measurements in the photothermal experiment. He finds a wide variation that seems to be due to power fluctuations in the CO2 (pump) laser. That laser is being operated at low power, and the next thing to try is turning it up to full power and then attenuating it "downstream." This certainly helps stabilize an NPRO, and we will see if it helps with this rather different CO2 laser. I suppose we could look this up, but it is more fun (and often quicker) just to do it in the lab and see what happens.
• We are also preparing for safety inspections at the TNI, the photothermal lab, the optical-levers lab (Tara), and the Senior Lab (Eric). Riccardo Paniagua reports that the vacuum viewport covers are now finished in the shop, and he asked if we wanted them anodized. We decided not to, since that would entail sending them out to an anodizing shop, and they are already late as it is.
• Akira is making good progress on the optimized-coating paper, but he doesn't have a finished draft yet.

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LASTI (Mittleman)

BSC-ISI

• We spent this week working on the Simulink diagram and MEDM screens, installing some increased loop control functions and additional watchdog monitors.

Quad Prototype

• No news

SEI

• The second gullwing on the X-end HAM has been removed along this the HEPI boots, which have been sent off for remachining. We are waiting for some final clamp parts that attach the new support beam (external support) to the support tubes (In vacuum). When they arrive we will begin reassembling the HAM with the new support beams.

CIT Science Group (Weinstein)

________________________

Antony Searle

• Presented PRC results [http://ldas-jobs.ligo.caltech.edu/~acsearle/prc/prc.html] at PRC and S6 ETG down-selection teleconferences.
• With Chad Hanna, debugging Bayesian source localization in CBC followup pipeline.

________________________

Kipp Cannon

• Worked with Scott Koranda, Britta Daubert, and Karan Vahi to show the  Pegasus people how to prepare RPM packages of Pegasus.
• Reviewed a paper for CQG.
• Telecons:  s4 string cusp review, inspiral code, daswg.
• More work with Chad Hanna on low-latency inspiral search techniques.
• Abstract accepted for the Texas Symposium.

________________________

Amber L. Stuver

• Continued refining my simple source location codes (using detection delays only) to account for timing uncertainties.  Once this is done, the  codes should be ready to use and I will put together a technical note documenting them.
• Started preparing for the Burst MDC review that will be taking over in December.
• Gave control room tours to ~90 students.
• Guided docents through the Giant Slinky activity I developed (for teacher professional development and moderately advanced students) and related wave phenomena exhibits.
• Finished lecture notes for the Westinghouse talk I'm giving on 22 Nov.
• Refined student activity deriving time dilation that I will be presenting at the LATM conference next week.
• Collected and shipped outreach materials (Einstein's Messengers DVDs, LIGO pens, mugs, brochures, etc.) for the LIGO booth the EPO is manning at the SPS Congress at Fermilab.

________________________

Cristina Valeria Torres:

• Continued working on the CBC group follow up document with Sarah Caudill and Romain Gouaty.
• Return from spending a week working at UTB with Soma Mukherjee on implementation of an on-line glitch classification scheme for S6 detector characterization.
• Gave an invited talk for the Space Odyssey 2008 event (Brownsville, TX) entitled "From Galileo to Gravitational Waves"  which celebrated art(inspired by science) and astronomy sponsored jointly by UTB and municipal art gallery. (25th Oct).

________________________

Diego Fazi

• Continued working on template bank simulations with spinning injections and tried to track down a bug in the code that yields all zeros in the sngl_inspiral tables.

________________________

Kent Blackburn for the grid computing group

GRID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

• Write agenda and lead LIGO-Pegasus and OSG-VO-Group telecons.
• Write minutes for LIGO-Pegasus telecon.
• Attend Inspiral, DASWG, OSG-Production and  OSG-VO-Group telecons,
• Attend OSG Release Planning telecon (10-29).

EINSTEIN@OSG ACTIVITIES

• UCSDT2 troubleshooting: some perl modules not installed correctly.
• NWICG_NotreDame: GOC ticket closed but  negotiations to open E@H needed ports.
• UNL troubleshooting: CPU vs Wallclock: superlink@technion running another boinc incident.
• CIT_CMS_T2 running again after change of USE_TMP in config file.
• Update DASWG pages.

INSPIRAL ACTIVITIES

• Let newest pegasus nightly build 10-27.
• Test pegasus file cleanup -->ok.
• Test SPEW on ldg with new site schema: cit, lho, uwm  success, llo fail.
• Test ihope on ldg (10000 secs) with new site schema --> success at cit submitted from dev1, fail from bosco.

OSG INTEGRATION & VALIDATION TESTBED

• Robert Engel is expected to arrive on Sunday and will be in on  Monday, though he will be focusing on Caltech orientations for  new employees.

GRID ADMINISTRATION

• Held kick-off meeting for the Program Committee for the OSG All-Hands Meeting to be held at LLO. Discussed a straw-man agenda and forwarded  this to the OSG Council and OSG Executive Board for their review and  inputs.
• Provided materials (pointers to LIGO websites and clarification on  a few facts) for an article to appear in iSGTW on grid computing  as a follow on to previous articles spanning large communities using  grid computing.
• Reviewed reports from OSG on LIGO usage. These reports were clearly  in error and several teams within the OSG have been brought together  to resolve this accounting issue.  Discussed some modifications to the Caltech Statement of Work for  year three involving the use of storage resources in LIGO workflows. Contacted OSG Executive Team regarding this and am awaiting a follow  up.
• Discussed pros and cons of using self signed service certificates in  weekly SCAT and weekly CompComm meetings. This will require additional  review with a recommendation to follow.
• The Globus team at ANL have contacted LIGO about using Einstein@Home  running on the grid as a "user success story" in one of their Globus  documents. This is primarily focused on using ws-gram. They have  presented a sketch which Britta and I are reviewing and making editorial suggestions for accuracy.

________________________

Peter Kalmus

• Continued development of stack-a-flare SGR search.
• Continued work on stack-a-flare methods paper and documentation.
• Continued preparations for A5 SGR 0501+4516 search,

________________________

Chad Hanna

• We discussed the remaining steps for the high mass search.
• We hashed out the IMR group MDC sets.
• I worked on the low latency pipeline wtih Kipp.
• I worked on source localization for inspirals with Antony.

________________________

Joseph Betzwieser

• I've been working on a pipeline to setup known pulsar wide parameter searches as well as working out the parameter space for the 2nd half of S5 wide parameter crab search.
• Continuing to help debug Pinkesh's resampling code.

________________________

Anand Sengupta

• Summary of h(t) and h(f) calibration by analyzing inspiral HW injections can be now accessed from <https://ldas-jobs.ligo.caltech.edu/~anandss/s5HWInj/InspiralHWComparison.html> * Looking into checksum failures of all DARM frame files.
• Wrote scripts to automate the HW injection analysis including generating plots,

________________________

Drew Keppel

• Review items for the S5 1st year low mass cbc search.
• Fixing a bug in the upper limit calculation for cbc searches.
• Responding to comments on the S5 1st year low mass cbc search paper.

Laboratory Computing (Anderson)

LDAS Software Systems (Maros)

• Efforts this week focused on the deployment of version 1.10.0 of LDAS. Each of the sites CIT, LHO, LLO, and MIT have the new software. Minor issues have been discovered and are being addressed. The most significant of these is the discovery that the createRDS command does not generate a proper md5sum. This will be addressed by the end of the week and a new release (1.10.1) will be generated and deployed to the sites.
• In preparation for the departure of a key developer, transfer of knowledge has been occurring throughout the week.
• A newer version of DB2 is being deployed on ldas-suntest1 (a Solaris 10 system running on an 64-bit opteron processor).

LDAS System Administration (Anderson)

Caltech

(Dan Kozak

• Weekly check of frame files in CIT cluster showed no new bad frames.
• Flagged problem with new LDAS version writing same md5sum for all output files, sent example to Ed Maros.
• Put T10KB drives into production (connected via 4Gb FC) at CIT.
• Upgraded SAM-QFS to 4.6.65 on ldas-cit/opterondata-cit.
• Upgraded 6140 firmware at CIT.
• Relabelled blank T10K tapes to T10KB density.
• Started archiving to T10KB drives.
• Started setting up for astrowatch data migration (from T10KA to T10KB).
• Showed Rod Luna the physical location of our T10K drives.
• Moved 3510-5 to 6th floor.
• Gave Alan some rsync advice for the 40m backups.
• Hooked up Synchrotron and Bridge legs of dedicated GigE fibre connection to Syracuse.
• Set up ngateway to mount /archive.

(Phil Ehrens)

• Created framework for delivering Kerberos keytabs securely.
• Updated ldas-cit datacon and metaserver machines to CentOS 5.2.
• Supported updates of other sites LDAS Linux machines to CentOS 5.2.
• Various GRID cert related tasks.
• "Kerberized" the ldas-jobs user pages access model and supported other "Kerberization" tasks at Tier 2 labs.
• Replaced dimms associated with CPU 2 on node 323, ending the long-running production of large numbers of MCE's on that node.
• Exchanged node126 with node500 after node126 died. Node500 is currently dead.

MIT

(Fred Donovan)

• Metaserver and datacon linux reinstalls.
• Some changes to pxe boot ks and menus.

Livingston

(Igor Yakushin)

• Propagated my RLS monitor to CIT and LHO.
• Installed DB2 after upgrading metaserver to CentOS 5.2.
• On Friday afternoon LDAS network connection to the outside world began deteriorating and completely disappeared during the weekend. On Monday Shannon reseated fibers on patch panels and the connection is working again; the exact cause of the outage is not known: perhaps, some flaky fiber.
• Installed atlas and lapack on the cluster servers and nodes per user request.

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

• I have verified that trend data up-to-date in the LDAS archive at LHO, LLO, and CIT, and that the astrowatch data are up-to-date in the LDAS archive at LHO and CIT, as of Oct. 29, 2008.
• All LDAS services are running at LHO again, after last weeks LDAS upgrade to version 1.10.0.
• I am planning the move of the LDAS tape library/storage units to there new location to make room for additional tape cabinets for S6.
• I am meeting with Abe Singer, Shannon Roddy, and Kent Blackburn this week to discuss cybersecurity issues.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT

(Fred)

• Setting up new cds file server.
• Finishing up ilog.
• Firefox and yum fixes for Brennan (FC5).
• Setting up dtt/dataviewer/medm on computer in visitor office.
• Changed xp backup's to differential from incremental.
• Looked at/purchased usb video dock for Gregg's dell.
• Control room computer boot issue (fixed).

Livingston

(Dwayne)

• Continued development of parts management UI and testing.
• Received quote for an additional Matlab toolbox.
• Applied the latest batch of Microsoft patches to Windows desktops, laptops and servers.
• Restarted remote access software on PQNode PC.
• Helped a user track down missing files.
• Helped a couple users with outgoing mail issues.
• Numerous usual/unusual user support requests.
• Cleared spam trap daily.

Hanford

(Larry)

• Built and rebuilt more computers at the Observatory.
• Helped troubleshoot a couple of Mac units. Having at least 3GB of ram does help on these units. Fortunately, we had a spare unit for a user while their computer is at the shop being repaired.
• Reworked the server rack in order to install a couple of new servers. The units have been powered up and some hardware testing the but the OS needs to be re-installed for the unit. Thanks to Richard for getting the power installed and correct recepticals setup.
• Installed another network edge-switch.
• Worked on a number of machines needing patches and updates.
• Set up a new calendar for the Advligo group.
• Thanks to Dave for giving a site tour to a interviewee and spending time explaining things to him. Also, a thanks to all those that spent time in the interview process.
• Reworked some of the mail filters which did help but still more updating needs to be done.
• Minor work on printers and other misc. items.
• Worked some procurement issues and still need to make a few more purchases.

(Mike)

• Setup new user accounts
• Looked into some licensing issues with Terminal server. This took a call to Microsoft to get things corrected. Very time consuming.
• Working the dhcp server freeing up expired IP numbers.
• Clearing out trapped spam on their mail server.

Caltech

(Veronica)

• A website for the next NSF Review.
• EVO support for LIGO and CaJAGWR seminars.
• Updates of the various LIGO- and LSC-related websites and backend applications.
• Taped and processed a video of a CaJAGWR presentation.  Working with the campus on the taping of a LIGO-themed public event this evening.

(Mike)

• Setup a few new user accounts.
• Trouble shot some printer issues.
• Continued work on ADVLIGO server.
• Spent time ordering peripherals for users this week.
• Worked on getting a quote for an upgraded version of Solid Works "Premium edition".
• More than usual user support, and other sysadmin tasks which include working dhcp & mail servers. There was also a few samba issues that had to be worked on.

(Christian)

• Jay Marx - Created encrypted partition on Jay's Macbook pro and created new PGP key.
• Installed new network license key on Ansys server.
• Deployed new MS security patches to Ligo users.
• Toner cartridge replacement - 6 floor Millikan.
• Alastair Heptonstall - Called Dell support to have Alastair's hard-drive replaced.
• Re-imaged laptop that was returned to the loaner pull this week.
• Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.

(Melody)

• Uploaded the institutions and names in the LIGO.org roster into DocDB.   The initial rollout will not include the VIRGO collaboration (but will be included in the subsequent releases).  Wrote a script to automatically assign the user group.
• Modified the topics (document categories) and group hierarchy based on the committee's list.
• Code modifications to use kerberos with DocDB.

(Larry)

• More license updates taken care of.
• Resolved some purchasing issues.
• Worked on the mail filters.
• Some documentation items finally were wrapped up but still more to go.
• Worked with others in the group on a variety of items including logistical issues for upcoming meetings and presentations.

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Advanced LIGO Management

• The NSF pre-approved most (11 out of 13) requests for permission to procure significant elements for Advanced LIGO in the first half of FY09. Great news!  
  -- David

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

• BS/FM suspension mechanical/subsystem Final Design and Fabrication Readiness Review (FDR/FRR) draft report is being prepared.
• COC Final Design Review (FDR) committee interim report regarding polishing is being prepared.
• SEI HAM-ISI FDR committee draft report has been issued.

Procurement Reviews:

• HEPI pier RFQ review has been completed.

Technical Review Board (TRB): see the TRB log

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

• Continuing to check the beta release of docDB. We continue to populate and prepare the wiki at: - https://dcc.ligo.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Design:

• Thermal Noise Studies in the Advanced LIGO Test Mass: Liam Cunningham (Glasgow group) and Calum have a report on FEA on the bond loss (into the DCC tomorrow). They also have a draft report on the face and barrel coating loss calculations and will put together a couple of summary slides.
• CAD Training: Calum is arranging two sets of training for all of the Advanced LIGO CAD (SolidWorks and PDMWorks) users. The training will consist of 2 consecutive days at Go Engineer for a PDMWorks Introduction Class and a SW 2009 what's new and refresher course. We will then follow up with a broadcast seminars on using PDMWorks, SolidWorks in LIGO and PDMWorks with DOC DB. All of the folks at the various LIGO Lab locations will be invited.
• PI Dampers - available clearance: Calum is working on a layout of the advanced LIGO optic including the PI Dampers, Ring Heater, Gold Barrel Sleeve etc. 
• Gold Barrel Sleeve for the Test Mass: Based on input from Phil Willems, Calum is looking at the possibility of extending the proposed thermal shield to the region behind the fibres.
• SUS Resonance testing of small triple structure (formerly RM): Calum helped SUS with their resonance testing of the HAM Small Triple Suspension (HSTS) structure (formerly known as RM), as well as correlation to Ansys FEA results.
• Lower Structure Quad for assembly and fit tests: Calum talked to RAL and SUS about the possibility of using the "training quad" for assembly and fit tests. The training quad is available for such work after the initial training is carried out. This training quad will arrive in the US towards the end of the year.
• FEA of commercial pneumatic isolation system: After discussion with Dennis, Calum revised his analysis and report on the performance of a commercial pneumatic isolation system for the ISC Output Chambers. The associated FEA has been updated to include a closer representation of the system and to correct an error in the horizontal isolation frequency. Once the report is completed it will be released to the DCC.

Interfaces:

• See the RODA status page and the Interface Control page.
• Draft RODA M080374-00, "HAM Triple Suspensions to have provision for mounting damping struts to the tops of their structures", is under review.

Modeling and Simulation

From: Hiroaki Yamamoto hiro@ligo.caltech.edu

Optics  (Hiro)

• Studying the advLIGO test mass surface specification.
• The loss contribution from different spatial wavelength bands for optics polished by different vendors was analyzed and compared. Previous calculations had some issues. One is that the SIS did not handle the case properly when the optic data aperture is smaller than the test mass aperture. Because of that, sometimes, the loss was calculated using the optic data aperture as the test mass aperture. The low pass filtering used for the down sampling have little effect, but the adaptive grid (large grid size on the test mass, small grid size at the waist) has up to 10% effect.

• A weighting function is being derived. Once calculated, the total loss can be estimated by the integration of the weighted PSD (measured PSD times weight function reflecting the variation of the loss as a function of the spatiwavelength).

Mechanical Simulation for Advanced LIGO (Sany and SLU team)

• We finally managed the frequency/length control servo of our AdvLIGO Input Mode Cleaner (IMC) model to work satisfactorily. The frequency noise on the IMC’s transmitted light now meets the requirement (based on LIGO T020020) in the entire frequency range of analysis (0.1 – 1000 Hz).  

Safety

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

• Advanced LIGO Safety is concentrating on developing documentation to assist the AdL assembly and installation teams with best practice safety procedures.
• The construction activities for both LLO and LHO include renovations of existing buildings and installation of equipment for Advanced LIGO.  AdL Safety will begin reviewing drawings and contractor responsibilities to ensure that safety health and environmental compliance is at the forefront of their activities.
• AdL Safety & QA are working together to present a more effective FMEA process to assist design engineers in identifying possible quality and safety problems that may exist, and to develop strategies to either eliminate or control once identified.
• The AdL Safety Wiki Page will be designed shortly and will be a place for anyone to review / retrieve documents that are intended to assist in directing safe work practices, as well as identifying mandated compliance directives.
• AdL Safety will be developing a training program to educate all AdL staff on safety, health & environmental (SH&E) compliance.  Once completed, a schedule will be arranged to ensure that all personnel who are required to attend will have the opportunity to receive the training.  This will be coordinated through operations management to determine best efficiency to accomplish this task.

Quality Assurance

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

In Vacuum Reliability:

• Worked with Vern to get a better grasp on the electronics components in vacuum. The goal is to assess the components in the vacuum that have historically been problematic, or those that could cause loss of science run time if they failed. Some of the important indicators we will be trying to gather are:
  • Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) for selected components, through industry data or our own testing and historical data.
  • Historical failure modes and the consequences of these failing (FMEA).
  • Ease of access in replacement of components, estimation of repair effort.
  • Utilize MTBF data and historical failure rates of selected components to determine procurement levels for critical spares.

Parts Database:

• LLO: Dwayne has been coding the front end this week, and next week he and I will sit down together and prep the system for prime time a couple weeks later.

HAM-ISI PDR:

• Participated in the PDR for the HAM-ISI system this week. Documentation looks really good, very thorough. Several areas of discussion came up over the Pods for the seismometers, and the seismometers themselves. Design is still ongoing but is not expected to hinder FDR.
• Also spent quite a bit of time this week reading the ELOG for the SEI team, getting up to speed on the systems. Thanks to Brian Lantz for pointing me to the pictures there as well.

FMEA:

• David Nolting and I had a few talks late last week and this week on the best approach for FMEA for AdLIGO. We will meet this week to get buy-in from senior team members on FMEA methods, team involvement, and select the first team to participate in the kickoff FMEA.

Inspections:

• Visited another machine shop this week to gain insight on capabilities in working on some of the difficult component manufacturing. results will be distributed internally, contact me with specific questions.

Polish Spec Documents for COC Team:

• Completed time critical documents for COC team this past week, and am finalizing the remaining 8 documents this week for polish specs.

Facilities Modifications and Preparations

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

• The only thing to note this week is that a job walk was held on Thursday for the LHO Staging Building modifications. Three vendors out of five showed. One of the no-shows promises to bid anyway so I am hopeful that we will get at least 3 bids. Bids are due two weeks from now.

Seismic Isolation

From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

Adv LIGO Project Activities

HEPI Procurement Status:

• Maraging Steel Springs - First 8 are being Nickel plated, will be shipped to LLO next week.
• Crossbeam Foot - Material has arrived, machining to start next week.
• Housings and Stiffeners - All stiffeners have been cut and is in welding. The side plates and bases of the housings are being plasma cut.
• Actuators - Material has been ordered and much of the programming done. Will start machining next week.
• Parker Servovalves - 50 are complete and are awaiting custom nozzles.
• Miscellaneous Machined Parts - RFQ in process.
• Piers - RFQ in Process.
• Load Cells - RFQ in process.
• Position Sensors - Additional testing being done to verify the data measured last week. We have quotes for both the Kaman and ADE sensors and will make a decision by Monday.
• Pump Stands - Currently being assembled at LHO.

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:

• Janeen and Mike Meyers spent a few days at Caltech working with Norna Mark and Calum (and remote input from Derek) on measurements of the resonant frequencies of the large triple prototype structure (welded steel, approx. 46 kg). Good results (i.e. not significantly affected by mounting method) were obtained with the structure mounted to a heavy milling machine base in CES. The frequencies were measured both in the "bare" state and with added mass (~13 kg) to simulate the non-suspended mass which would be attached to the structure when in use. Cleanest results were obtained when the added mass was laid on the structure rather than clamped. The first 3 modes (longitudinal, transverse and yaw) with added mass were at ~141, 162 and 231 Hz. The ANSYS model predicts 155, 163 and 231 Hz.  We had aimed for a design with first mode at ~150 Hz so this is a very good result.  A full report will shortly be written up.
• We continue to work on drawings for the large triple prototype and other documentation for the large and small triple PDR.  Draft preliminary design document has been circulated for comment.
• Many OMC drawings have now had DCNs signed and drawings have been sent to the DCC.

Project-Funded Activities

BSC suspensions for Advanced LIGO:

• Plans for the first test monolithic suspension of the quad noise prototype have been changed following problems experienced with welding round fibres to ears designed to take ribbons (the case for the existing LASTI prototype optic). A new ear is planned which accepts the new baseline round fibers, but this change took place after bonding ‘ribbon’ ears to the LASTI test mass. The Glasgow team are actively working on a new ear design which will be tested before we hang the LASTI test mass on silica fibres. In the meantime we are planning to hang the mass on wire loops so that we can proceed with other tests at LASTI such as cavity locking, electrostatic drive and thermal compensation system tests
• Further discussions on manpower needs have taken place.

Core Optics

From: GariLynn Billingsley Billingsley_G@ligo.caltech.edu

Development

• Cheryl is working with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in creating a program to search for the source of scatter sites using a scanning electron microscope that has a resolution of 5nm.
• Cheryl has also lead the effort in analyzing images of TM scatter taken since the end of S5 and before and after cleaning.  In summary, cleaning definitely removed some large scatter sites, but we have some new scatter sites since an incursion into the vacuum system. 
• Mike Zucker is working on quantifying our environmentally induced scatter.  All of these contributions are very much appreciated.

Project

• The last shipment from Corning, completing the shipment of Advanced LIGO end test mass substrates, has arrived in good condition.  The first shipment from Heraeus for the input test masses and beamsplitter is still on schedule for delivery at the end of November.

Auxiliary Optics

From: Phil Willems <willems@ligo.caltech.edu>

Work Under Operations Budget

SLC:

• Luke Williams reports that the combined arm cavity baffle/cylindrical baffle that hangs in front of the test masses will likely have its center of mass outside the dimensions of the HEPI Stage 0 ring from which it needs to be suspended for at least some of the BSC chambers.  Whether this is true for any of them must await a more complete design of the baffles, to provide a better mass and center of mass estimate.  Luke is working on this now.

TCS:

• Installation of the enhanced LIGO TCS upgrade at LLO is 95% complete on the Y arm and 75% complete on the X arm.  Final alignment to the ITMs is expected on Halloween.
• Mike, Janeen and Phil met to discuss the stay clear zones for the Hartmann sensor probe beams in the small triple mirror suspensions, SR2 and SR3.  At SR3 there is clearly adequate clearance.  At SR2, where the two probe beams are picked off via transmission through SR2 or a steering mirror in front and to the side of SR2, we believe there is adequate clearance; however, the layout of these mirrors is based upon beam spot sizes that are correct for the PRC and not SRC.  This may require a slight adjustment of these mirror positions, which Mike is looking into.

OpLev:

• Tara and Eric B. demonstrated 3 order of magnitude suppression of OpLev noise from 5-100 Hz by enclosing the beam paths from the transmitter and receiver to their viewport windows in black cloth.  The noise suppression is likely due to reduction of air currents or stray light or both.  They also measured ~microvolt per root Hertz noise at the quad PD output that Jay Heefner suspects can be reduced ~100x with redesign.  They are currently looking into new electronics designs.

Input Optics

From: David tanner@phys.ufl.edu

Advanced LIGO Design

• We are working on IO portion of the PSL table layout, with two options in consideration. (Luke)
• I have looked into ROC values for MC and have analyzed higher order mode transmission. We have a window of opportunity with R = 27 m where no higher order mode less than mode index of 10 is resonant. I have also calculated ROCs for the pre-mode matching telescope in the IOO section. We have a decent solution that is tolerant to ROC and displacement errors to within 2% of the designed values. (Muzammil)

Advanced LIGO Procurement

• We evaluated reference spheres for ROC metrology, prepared forms for purchasing of the IO mirror blanks, and updated the IO Schedule Progress for October. (Rodica)

Enhanced LIGO Commissioning

• The eLIGO EOM was installed and aligned. We had to replace the crystal in the new EOM with a spare, after which we verified that the EOM resonant frequencies were where they should have been. We also installed the thin film polarizers  for the new power control unit on the PSL table. (Volker, Antonio)
• The PMC reflected path was reconfigured. PMC losses estimated. The estimated losses were 289 ppm per mirror. This is way too high. (Antonio)

Prestabilized Laser

From: Peter King pking@ligo.caltech.edu

Operations

• I did a quick survey to see what people would like to see in a laser safety training session. Thanks to those I bugged; I have a number of useful insights as a result. To that end I have been gathering some material together.

Project

• Two in-vacuum photodetector cables were made. These will be shipped to the AEI for the intensity stabilisation testing. Thanks to Chub for teaching me how to put these beasties together.
• A photodiode test board was fabricated. It is being used to characterise the photodiodes on hand. The dark current of a number of photodiodes has been measured.  

Control and Data Systems

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

Included are activities of a broad nature across CDS ("operations") and activities specific to advanced LIGO ("project").

LHO CDS Report

Maintenance:

• Access control system upgrades and maintenance.
• Shipment of "switchable delay boards" for LLO REFL RF diode signals ready to go to Livingston.

advLIGO:

• DC-Power testing underway: AF and RF noise spectral densities under varying loads.

Software:

• DAQcontroller died, replaced and new frame builder code with its own GPS card to get time.
• awg problem identified: Too many diagui clients in the Control Room load and try to attach to awg while it was attempting to boot, which kept it from booting.  Seeing VME bus faults in awg crate and CPU failures of old hardware.
• Visit by Abe Singer, LIGO CSO, to LHO.

  LLO CDS Report

TCS:

• Added additional wiring for new electronics, final alignments for TCS on the ITMs. Preparations to close the gate valves and return to commissioning and operation.

DAQ:

• New control room computer on order (through "TechMart", delivery date unknown).
• Preparing for installation next week of the new frame-builder complex of computers.
• Configured raid for LLO1 hot backup.
• Setup MATLAB awgstream interface.
• Rebuilt BCServo code to use MMT3.
• Tracked down systems with failed autoburt since Sept 1 (Hurricane Gustav power outage).

  Sub-System Reports

DAQ:

• Timing - Rolf to confer with Szabi on readiness, fab issues, and testing.
• Maintenance and code upgrades to field deployed eLIGO systems.

OMC:

• Redesigned flexible circuit boards used to interface to the OMC QPDs have been sent to the manufacturer for building.
• Redesigned in-vacuum cable clamping system is at the machine shop for manufacture.  Kapton circuits for QPD replacements, redesign of PEK holder and replace circuit board. Sent out redesigned cable clamps.

ISC:

• Decision was made to pursue AdLIGO RFPDs with electronics located inside the vacuum vessel.  Passive in-vac as a fall back.

SUS:

• UK procurement and manufacture underway, requirements Document T080065-E-C, contains revisions to reflect the modified actuation requirements.  QUAD components for its test stand are moving slowly. UIM and Top this month. Satellite amps delayed into December.
• BS and Recycle Cavity test stands: CPUs ordered (Tec Mart) Sun computers (SunFire X4600 4-core boxes).
• Preliminary results in testing of the General Standards ADC/DAC board:  The new board appears to perform better than the older 16-bit version. (The new converters are 18-bit versions.)  We suspect the sample we are testing is limited by the front-end analog section because its noise spectrum bottoms out at 1.5 uV/rtHz, which is similar to the older card. The new card has x2 less dynamic range (+/-10V=20V). This quick look was with a thrown-together driver.  We expect that with a modification to the analog design of its front-end electronics and a better driver, we will see improved performance and realize the addition x4 in resolution.

SEI:

• SEI PDR for HAM-ISI in is question and answer dialog.  Expect an analysis on the reliability of our electronics - estimates, documentation, databases, ...
• HEPI: Final protytpes for pier interface. Position sensor decision still pending. Start production and move to pump servo work.

TCS:

• Installation in LLO. ISS controls, PD connected to preamps installed and verified.

AdvLIGO Reviews

• Close out of AdvLIGO CDS DAQ PDR and AdvLIGO Converter PDR underway.
• In-vacuum electronics information collection.

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For additional information about this report, contact Albert Lazzarini