LSC Issues (Reitze)
- The S5 burst paper "Search for Gravitational Wave Bursts from Soft Gamma Repeaters“ was selected as a PRL Editors' Suggestion, reserved for a few papers each week with the goal of promoting reading across fields.
- A web site for the December L-V meeting has been set up: http://www.physics.umd.edu/GRE/lv2008/
LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)
STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Lloyd)
DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)
>From: Cleveland Mak <mak_c@ligo.caltech.edu>
- More DocDb testing.
- Processed/provided additional documentation for upcoming NSF Review.
- Processed attachments for Andrews University MOU.
FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Funaro, Oracion)
>From: "Funaro, Catherine" <Catherine.Funaro@caltech.edu>
>From: Karl Oracion <koracion@ligo.caltech.edu>>
SUBCONTRACTS MANAGEMENT (Arvizu, Jasnow, Salone)
>From: Rudy Arvizu <arvizu_r@ligo.caltech.edu>
>From: Gina Salone <gsalone@ligo.caltech.edu>
- Both Praxair and Air Liquide have taken exception to the Caltech indemnification clause. Both companies' attorneys are in direct contact with Grace Fisher-Adams to resolve the issue. Apparently, they are close to an acceptable compromise.
- See also Advanced LIGO.
>From: Ed Jasnow <jasnow@ligo.caltech.edu>
- Ed Jasnow and Gina participated in a peer review being conducted on the Accounts Payable and Support Services organizations of the Purchasing Services Department. The review is conducted by the heads of the corresponding organizations for Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech, and Stanford.
- A makeup Market Research workshop has been scheduled for Wednesday, November 12.
- See also Advanced LIGO.
PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist)
- We issued 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 have requested inputs by Monday, November 10.
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.
Quality/Safety (Tyler)
>From: Bill Tyler tyler@ligo.caltech.edu
- After some delays, the LIGO Laser Safety Program document (LIGO-M960001) revision H, was approved and released to the DCC. This version includes the revised LIGO Incident Report form (LIGO-F080004-00), which is intended for on-line use and submital. Our goal is to have this one form on-line for reporting all incidents
- As soon as possible, we plan to have additional LIGO safety related forms, process guides, and safety training material available on-line and connected to the safety web-page.
- Work on updates/revision of the LIGO system safety plan and the operations manual are continuing.
LIGO Hanford Observatory (LHO) and Interferometer Operations (Raab)
Summary of activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory (compiled by K. Kawabe)
eLIGO
Astrowatch (A. Mullavey)
- Despite the ongoing problems with h2awg0 and its reflected memory, H2 was up 57.7% of the time this week and was in science mode 28.2% of the time.
- When it was up its inspiral range was between 7 and 7.5 Mpc.
Outreach (D. Ingram)
- LHO hosted the annual meeting of our Local Educator Network on 10/30/08. This group of ~15 community members offers advice on public outreach. Most of the discussion on 10/30 dealt with the proposal for an outreach center at LHO (to be submitted to NSF by 11/30).
LIGO Livingston Observatory (LLO) and Interferometer Operations (Giaime)
General Operations (Rusyl Wooley)
- We are continuing to support the TCS and overall commissioning effort. We had four people attend laser training this week. The entire staff had fire extinguisher training. Our new EE, David Kinzel, started this week. I've been working with him to get him up to speed with all areas of LLO.
Enhanced LIGO Commissioning (Valera Frolov)
eLIGO Installation and Commissioning:
- The interferometer was locking in the low noise state with both RF and DC readout. The noise is still limited by the OMC beam jitter noise and the S5 input power level.
- The saturation of the laser amplitude stabilization was investigated. It was found that this AC coupled servo was oscillating at the low frequency unity gain crossing. The servo electronics was modified to improve the stability and trim the biases which affected the the bias to the AOM RF driver and the AOM diffraction efficiency limiting the overall gain. Further electronics modifications are in the works to balance the DC currents on the board and should make the servo more robust.
- The beam splitter optical lever servo was saturating due to the ground motion from the nearby temporary vacuum pump. The temporary work around was to reduce the optical lever power to prevent the saturations until the vacuum work is done.
- The OMC code was upgraded to pass the data as double instead of float. This was causing the digital noise in the OMC control and the producing an excess noise in the interferometer low noise state.
- The mode cleaner was locked with full laser power out the PSL 28 W. The MC visibility remained at 94% within the measurement error of 0.1-0.2%. There was also no significant beam drift and beam size change size observed after the double passing through the Faraday isolator within the measurement errors. The data are being analyzed to evaluate the limits on thermal effects.
- The eLIGO thermal compensation system was installed, aligned, and calibrated. The interface with the CDS still needs more work. The system is expected to be available for the ifo commissioning tomorrow when the safety interlock installation is expected to be completed and tested.
CDS Computing (Keith Thorne)
Sys-Admin:
- Sorted out MATLAB licenses.
- Restored operation of DMT machine (pickerel) that was AWOL since Sept 1 power outage Got work permit for upcoming frame-builder upgrade.
Commissioning Support:
Upgrades:
- Issue #124 - Got new RAID on llo1 hot-swap machine configured. Purchase of Linux workstations progressing (vendor contacted by purchasing) Got CentOS workstation setup with LDAP authentication.
- Issue # 158 Worked with Dave Barker, etc. to identify needed backups, parts needed for frame-builder install this next week.
Livingston Outreach (Kathy Holt)
- We conducted our 2nd Saturday Public tour with 12 total visitors, Tom conducted the tour.
- Exhibit maintenance on Suspense and Hot Light by Carl.
- Conducted docent training cohort 2 at Southern University.
- Met with Cristina Torres to make changes on the Sally Ride Program.
- Attended LATM conference in Baton Rouge (Louisiana Association of Math Teachers).
- Assisted Amber in her presentation at the LATM conference.
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
Riccardo DeSalvo
- Finalized (with Rudy Arvizu) the RFP and ordered the tiltmeter prototype.
- Writing paper on hysteresis with Arianna DiCintio.
- Preparing tests for multiple pendulum blades.
- Sent GAS filters to Brownsville for hysteresis measurement collaboration (Malik Ramakhov).
- Sent GAS filters to Virgo for cryogenics test collaboration (Roberto Passaquieti)
- Sent flats to DUSEL for new accelerometer installation
Controls and Data Systems (Bork)
See Advanced LIGO
40-Meter Interferometer (Adhikari)
No report.
Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)
- This week, for the photothermal experiment, Greg tried running the pump laser at full power to see if that would reduce the amplitude noise. Unfortunately, the existing cooling proved insufficient, and the laser overheated. Mounting new fans added significant acoustic noise, and he is now in the process of installing water cooling.
LASTI (Mittleman)
BSC-ISI
- A new CDS file server was installed over the weekend, that is now working, but it took a couple of days to recover fully.
- Fabrice has been working on a method to do the ISI/Quad structure modal measurements. He did some tests on a proto-type quad sleeve and that seems to have worked out pretty well. So we should be ready as soon as we decide to open up the chamber.
- We have resumed work on the low blend filters and are currently working to find out why we can not run all twelve at once (stage 1 rX and rY will not run at the same time as stage 2 Z).
Quad Prototype
- Alastair is visiting MIT from Caltech for the rest of the month. He will be working on butt welding techniques and characterizing the welds using polarimetry.
SEI
- Still waiting on the bolts to start the HAM support beam assembly.
CIT Science Group (Weinstein)
________________________
Drew Keppel:
- Review items for the S5 First Year Low Mass CBC Search.
________________________
Peter Kalmus:
- Returned proofs for S5y1 SGR search to PRL. Estimated online publication date is Nov. 12, for inclusion in Nov. 14 issue.
- Continued development of multiple SGR search pipeline (Stack-a-flare).
- Continued preparations for SGR 0501 A5 search.
________________________
Antony Searle:
- With Chad Hanna, debugging Bayesian source localization in CBC followup pipeline.
- Extended LAL skymap library.
- Switched Bayesian skymap code to use standard Omega pipeline trigger infrastructure.
- Extended Bayesian skymap code to hypothesis that signal is clusters of sine-Gaussians.
- Worked on Bursts presentation to NSF review
________________________
Gregory Mendell:
- I have started work on slides for upcoming presentations on work by the CW group, and Fscan work I plan to get started on soon.
________________________
Becky Tucker:
- Worked on finishing galaxy completion catalog, including plots of output.
________________________
Diego Fazi:
- Found the issue with bank simulations that causes all zeros to appear in the sngl_inspiral tables.
- Resubmitted the bank-simulation jobs with spinning injections.
- Started working on implementing the chi-square veto for PTF
________________________
Kent Blackburn for the GRID Computing R&D team:
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 Area Coordinator meeting (11-06).
- Update DASWG pages.
EINSTEIN AT HOME ON THE GRID ACTIVITIES
- Shifted all E@H jobs running on the OSG to a separate user account to remove the ambiguity of how many jobs are running on the OSG version running on the DGRID. Previously these were all lumped together under one user. This will allow us to report to the OSG the number of science driven credits the OSG is contributing relative to the CPU hours being used there.
BINARY INSPIRAL APPLICAITON ON THE GRID ACTIVITIES
- Reviewed changes to the CVS repository to track down date and changes (and person making the changes) to help debug issue with the head of the repository that were preventing the CBC code from building workflows.
- Troubleshooting lalapps-ihope error ( bug in pipeline.py).
- Got newest pegasus nightly build 11-06 and now testing.
- Testing new pegasus-get-sites.
- Testing Adam Mercer's patch to the LAL / LALapps build
OSG INTEGRATION/VALIDATION TESTBED
- Robert Engel has now arrived.
- Discovered that the new server rails are not compatible with the vertical rails in the racks in the computer room. Stuart ordered replacement vertical rails which have arrived and will be picked up today for installation.
- Measured the power consumption of the new servers as a function of the number of cores being used:
- idle : 210W
- 1 core: 220W
- 2 core: 230W
- 4 core: 250W
- 8 core: 280W
- Moved a couple of servers over to the 6th floor computer room for testing software and configuration.
GRID MANAGEMENT
- Worked with OSG to understand their concerns over the equality of using OSG computing cycles and scientific credits to the Einstein@Home application running on the OSG. Made several decisions to address this:
- Asked OSG staff at Caltech to establish a separate user account to provide credit accounting unique to the OSG.
- Agreed to a weekly meeting on Monday's to provided input to the OSG Project Manager prior to the weekly OSG Facilities Meeting on Tuesdays where most of these questions/concerns are being raised.
- Worked with OSG Project Manager and OSG Executive Director to make changes to the Caltech Statement of Work to assure traceability of improvements to both E@H and CBC activities on the OSG
- Met with OSG Staff to layout a roadmap for the design and usage of the new cluster which will address common OSG and LIGO goals for the next year. This included items of
- Storage Resource Management
- Better reliability of E@H jobs on the OSG
- Possible exploration for E@H backfill on OSG technologies
- Exploration of dcache and possibly other distributed file sharing technologies useful in clusters.
- Improvement in job submission host environments
- Improvements in Pegasus
- Planned a face to face meeting with the Pegasus Developers in early December to go over focus areas for the next year in alignment with the OSG Statement of Work o Updated the OSG Council web pages for the next year.
- Continued to work on the planning for the next OSG All-Hands-Mtg at LLO, particularly the topic of the agenda.
- Visited LHO to discuss Cyber Security needs for the future.
- Reviewed and gave feedback to the OSG Security Team on the modified Incident Response Plan - shared with LIGO's new cybersecurity officer and CSC.
- Read through a recently released user survey published by the Globus CDIGS team.
- Reviewed a letter of intent to collaborate between the OSG and the EGI.
- Began reviewing a Computer Resources Scrutiny Group on computing requests from the 4 LHC experiments for 2008
________________________
Anand Sengupta:
- Re-ran hardware injection times with a single (identical) template bank across the IFOS to understand the difference between h(t) and freq calibrated DARM data.
- The results are being compiled and some plots are available at <https://ldas-jobs.ligo.caltech.edu/~anandss/s5HWInj/ONEBANK/>.
- Started looking at the overlap of spinning injections with EOBNR templates.
________________________
Joseph Betzwieser:
- Helping debug Pinkesh's resampling code, specifically the effects of smaller bands. Also setting up for the 2nd half of S5 Crab search.
________________________
Kipp Cannon:
- Continued working with Chad Hanna on low-latency inspiral analysis techniques, developing a "\Chi^{2}" statistic based on a singular-value decomposition of an inspiral template bank.
- Did some maintenance work on libmetaio in preparation for LSC-wide upgrade to new release.
- Continued with S4 cosmic string cusp review.
- Worked with Collin Capano and Duncan Brown on inspiral false-alarm rate tool "corse".
- Telecons: inspiral, inspiral-code, daswg, s4 string cusp review.
________________________
Cristina Valeria Torres:
- Continue to work on CBC follow up document, working cooperatively with Romain Gouaty and Sarah Caudill.
- Prepare for SEC sponsored workshop presentations to be given as part of the upcoming Sally Ride Science Festival in Baton Rouge (K. Holt, S. Caudill & myself).
- Continue to work on tracksearch trigger database refinements for multi-dimensional glitch classification algorithm as S6 on-line detchar tool.
- Begin drafting tracksearch configurations and infrastructure to monitor oplev PEMs during S6 to identify problems, with low latency to prevent problems like the month long BS oscillation problems that happened at the end of S5.
- Upgrading tracksearch pipeline to intelligently spawn pipeline components in an optimized fashion so running under Onaysis or some similar infrastructure will run at real-time.
________________________
Chad Hanna:
- I worked with Antony on source localization for inspirals. We are still trying to track down differences between the burst versions and the inspiral versions.
- I have been working on a low-latency wrapping for thinca (inspiral coincidence) that uses databases.
- I held the high mass search call this week.
- We are currently running the test month and anticipate that it will be done in about 5 days.
Laboratory Computing (Anderson)
LDAS Software Systems (Maros)
- There was a patch release to 1.10.0 this week to address several issues related to the diskcacheAPI. This version (1.10.1) is now running at all of the sites.
- Another patch to the 1.10 release branch is being prepared to support building and releasing of lsync as an RPM in the lscsoft repository.
- On the development branch of the LDAS software, generation of version 7 frames has been set as the default and is currently running on ldas-dev, while work begins on version 8 support.
LDAS System Administration (Anderson)
Caltech
(Phil Ehrens)
- Dumped 40m elogs and delivered the dump to the 40m. They will be running elog on their local gateway, nodus.
- Copied the existing seismic subversion repository from betelgeuse to vcs and encouraged the users of that repo to migrate to the vcs version to take advantage of the web interface.
- Various certificate related tasks.
- Replaced drive p3 on node185.
- Replaced fans #1 and #4 on node204 and rebuilt RAID array which had degraded to to fan vibration.
- Wrote web-scraping script for Melody Araya to use to generate Virgo user list for docdb.
- Added crontab entry on betelgeuse and vcs to rsync the active parts of the filesystem to an nfs mounted archive location (/ldas-cit_backup). Tested and verified.
MIT
(Fred Donovan)
- Removed disk from dataserver; cleaned up some mount points.
Hanford
(Greg Mendell)
- Fiber and and and FC switch have been ordered for the LDAS tape library move. I am getting a quote from Sun for the move.
- The 3511 in the Mass Storage Room with a bad LOOP ID switch has now been fixed, and working with Dave Barker and LDAS is now been added to the backup framebuilders filesystem.
- I am working to diagnose and fix recent crashes of ldas-grid.
General Computing (Wallace)
MIT
(Fred)
- Some home directories on file server (fs full).
- Reinstall os/set put cds file server online.
- Free up space mail spool fs on ligo.
- Imap zombies cleaned up.
- Some data restores.
Livingston
(Dwayne)
- Continued development of parts management UI and testing.
- Purchased the Matlab Symbolic Math toolbox.
- More issues with site gate. not sure exactly what I did this time that fixed it, but it is working again (for now).
- Numerous usual/unusual user support requests.
- Cleared spam trap daily.
Hanford
(Larry)
- Ordered a new laptop and a few other minor items for the facility.
- Some minor work on the e-mail server.
- Cleanup of a few accounts.
- Home account backups for the GC side were done.
(Mike)
- Working the dhcp server freeing up expired IP numbers.
- Clearing out trapped spam on their mail server.
Caltech
(Mike)
- Continued work on 64bit Primavera server. I'm having problems running the mssql server on a 64bit OS connecting to a 32 bit application. I put in a call to Primavera tech support which they gave me a few options to try. One option failed, now I'm currently working on the other option.
- Ran end of month backups on all critical NTSRV's.
- Compacted DCC database, and trouble shot a problem on the DCC nightly process workstation.
- Took care of some printer issues on W/B 3rd floor.
- Worked with our group on testing the new EVO system on the 3rd floor of West Bridge.
- Worked with Larry upgrading part of the network on West Bridge 3rd floor. This is to accommodate the SCR for the EVO system, plus other computer services that will be hosted in SCR.
- Other onsite and phone user support, plus other sysadmin tasks.
(Christian)
- Syd Meshkov - Created image backup of Syd's Macbook pro laptop.
- Derek Anderson - Installed and configured new workstation for Derek.
- Alastair Heptonstall - Replaced hard-drive on Alastair laptop.
- Installed a new speaker phone system in the SCR room.
- Working on replacing Riccardo's old lab workstation.
- Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.
(Veronica)
- Ongoing support of the NSF review. Installed a web app for registration and a website for dry run.
- Updates of LSC-related web applications.
- Taped and compressed a LIGO-themed public event. Addressed a policy issue of ownership/ distribution of the taped material. More work to be done on intergrating the footage with the soundtrack. Posted a video stream of the lecture part of the event.
- Various web-related updates of the LIGO and LSC websites.
(Larry)
- Working a number of procurement items. License renewals and some equipment tracking are the top items. Received a number of items and have distributed them.
- Worked on new edge-switch installation with Mike. It has helped in the SCR as far as network performance.
- Worked with Christian and Mike in setting up a new system for the EVO and phone connection in the SCR. So far it has worked out well but there are some changes to be made over the next few months.
- Assisted in working on the logistics in preparation for the NSF review.
- Monthly backup of GC home user accounts.
- Setup new accounts for new users. -Some assistance with both the new and old DCC systems.
(Melody)
- Uploaded the ligo.org users into DocDB. Added code in DocDB for users to authenticate using their LIGO.org accounts instead of the common LVC username/password.
- Changed the DocDB interface per Linda/Calum/Dennis' suggestions.
- Worked on a bug which was displaying the wrong list of authors and topics.
- Installed the apache mod ssl certificate in dcc.ligo.org which uses a different CA.
Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)
Advanced LIGO Management
Advanced LIGO Project Management
from Carol Wilkinson
Project Controls
- Advanced LIGO Change Requests (ACR) in process:
- Approved: ACR to update the DAQ schedule for a production start 2 months’ earlier than planned for coding and to accommodate just in time procurements. Work started on project activities on Oct. 13.
- The ACR for delay in PSL delivery schedule of 200 W lasers by 6 months will be processed and implemented in December. Uses schedule float and does not impact project schedule for installed units. Spares will be delivered after the install date.
- 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.
- ACR to increase staff at the various sites to help technical leads with procurement and documentation preparation is being prepared. The intention is to bring some site assembly folks on early and to hire temporary drafters at each of the four sites. Project contingency will be used where appropriate. Some of the drafters will also help with development activities paid from operations accounts.
Staffing
· Derek Anderson has accepted the offer from Caltech to fill the position in the procurement office formerly occupied by Guy Fish. He started his position on Monday, November 3.
· Ed Jasnow and Phil Lindquist have conducted interviews for the two subcontract administrator positions for Advanced LIGO. Background investigations are now being conducted by HR, and selections should be made soon.
Procurements (includes activities from previous week)
- Working on procurement plan for FY2009 and presentations for NSF Annual Review of LIGO Lab in November.
- HEPI HAM Piers, SI-106-a, RFQ package is undergoing review by Dennis Coyne before it can be processed for release to bidders.
- The documents for the Core Optics polishing RFP are being collected and prepared.
- The contract for the warehouse improvements for LLO was submitted to the NSF via FastLane two weeks ago. A glitch in the Fastlane system routed the request for approval to the wrong grants officer. It was rerouted to Ann Miller, the LIGO grants administrator, on Friday, Nov. 7.
- A very quick turnaround was accomplished on a procurement of software from Wind River Systems. They had offered a 70% discount on their software for CDS, but the order had to be placed by October 29. This was further complicated by the fact that they had refused all of our terms and conditions and replaced them with their own. Discussions with Ed Jasnow convinced them that our T's & C's would not interfere with their license agreement, so they agreed to accept ours. The purchase order was then issued. The entire process was completed in 48 hours.
- Several meetings were held with the Advanced LIGO Project Manager, Carol Wilkinson, during her visit to Caltech. Discussions were held concerning the procurement process and assignments among procurement personnel, including the new hires we're recruiting. Additionally, Carol met with members of the OGC staff to discuss the status of the terms and conditions matrix.
- A teleconference was set up to speak directly to Heraeus personnel in Germany to discuss the continuing discussion regarding terms and conditions.
- A makeup Market Research workshop has been scheduled for Wednesday, November 12.
- Due to the decision to use the HEPI design on the ISC HAM, several of the contracts for the HEPI components will have to be modified to increase the quantities. Those change orders are now being prepared.
- A change order is being issued to add eleven actuators to the Kineoptics contract to cover the requirements for the ISC HAM.
- Many small purchases for the seismic isolation system are being issued on a rapid turnaround basis.
- A modification is being prepared for the Corning contract for additional blanks.
- The contract with Heraeus was transmitted to Germany by their American representative. Discussions with Heraeus have narrowed the issues down to a 15-day acceptance period to determine if the delivered glass is acceptable. LIGO has agreed to this period and is now awaiting acceptance from Heraeus.
- The bids for the LHO Staging Building modifications are due on Tuesday, November 11.
- A final set of contract terms and conditions for future contracts has been compiled and will be reviewed by the Office of General Counsel.
NSF Acquisition Approvals
- The negotiation summary and the contract for the warehouse modifications for LLO have finally reached the approving officer via Fastlane for NSF review and approval.
- NSF has approved the Acquisition Plan for FY2009 with two exceptions for the COC polishing and coating awards, which require review packages with further information.
- NSF has responded on two of the action items related to the process for acquisition approval:
- 1) We need to wait until after vendor selection and preparation of a draft contract before submitting the ‘further information’ required. Ann Miller is willing to review based on the draft contract. This saves us time, since the approvals by NSF and the CIT procurements and OGC offices can proceed in parallel.
- 2) 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. We will update the plan for the last two quarters of FY2009 and will submit it by April 1, 2009. This update will mostly affect the SUS procurements.
- For the third action item, LIGO must submit a formal request to NSF for 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
- Time verification reports for the current pay period are due by Friday, November 7.
- Variance reports for the month of October are due by Monday, November. 10.
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 will be reporting project and development status in the NSF Annual Review of LIGO to be held at CIT this month. Presentations will be made by David Shoemaker, Carol Wilkinson, Peter Fritschel, and Dennis Coyne.
- A ‘many-hands’ meeting for Advanced LIGO staff will be held at CIT on November 20. Topics include updates on project and development status, a tutorial on procurement processes, and updates on technical issues such as the final optical layout for the stable recycling cavity geometry.
- Several face-to-face meetings between project management and subsystem leaders are planned to take place during the week of the NSF review.
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 has been issued
- COC Final Design Review (FDR): committee report regarding polishing has been issued
Procurement Reviews:
no activity this week
Technical Review Board (TRB):
see the TRB log
Vacuum Review Board (VRB):
see the VRB log
- Riccardo DeSalvo issued revised guidance (T080148-01; submitted to DCC) on the cure process for Dupont PI-2525 polyimide (replacement for Cycom 3001 which is no longer available). This is the high temperature polyimide used for potting the windings of the in-vacuum electromagnetic actuators for ISI.
Configuration Control & Documentation:
Design:
- Two-layer coating in ANSYS: Liam Cunningham (U of Glasgow) and Calum Torrie have each run a 2 layer coating in ANSYS (representing the high and low index materials), using the input data from a recent report by Slawek Gras (UWA, ACIGA). Cunningham and Torrie use 2 techniques. The first using shell elements is similar to that used by Slawek and the second uses a new solid meshing technique available in ANSYS Workbench called CFX meshing. Full results to follow.
- Bond Thermal noise: Liam Cunningham and Calum have built another FEA model to extract the strain energy in the bond layer. The report should be in the DCC tomorrow (link will be provided next week).
- Optic drawings: Calum is preparing all of the core optics drawings for Advanced LIGO in preparation for the shaping/polishing RFQ. Drawings already created by both Russell Jones and Janeen Romie are being used as the baseline.
- FEA of commercial pneumatic isolation system: A technical memo (T080252-01) has been issued to document the analysis of the expected performance of a commercial pneumatic isolation system. A RODA (M080381-00) documenting the decision to install HEPI on the ISC readout chambers (HAM1/7) has also been issued for review & signature.
- De-bonding silicate bonds: Helena Armandula & Riccardo DeSalvo have issued a technical memo (T080322-00; submitted to the DCC) on the state of knowledge of methods for de-bonding silicate bonds. They have a recommended approach for attempting to debond the ears from the LASTI test mass in order to permit bonding on ears designs for tapered fibres (the current ears were designed for ribbons).
- TNI and Adv. LIGO Test Mass Coating Specification: Riccardo is helping the COC group (Gregg & GariLynn) by gathering and organizing requirements for the test mass coating taking into account the main beam (1064 nm), arm length stabilization interferometer (532 nm), Hartman sensor and optical levers. A perturbation of the Adv. LIGO requirements will then be developed to allow testing in the TNI interferometer. Ultimately these requirements will be discussed with LMA. The intent is to test (as close as possible) the Adv. LIGO coating in the TNI.
Interfaces:
- See the RODA status page and the Interface Control page.
- signed RODA M080374-00, "HAM Triple Suspensions to have provision for mounting damping struts to the tops of their structures"
- draft RODA (M080381-00), "Decision to install HEPI systems on the ISC HAM Chambers" issued for review & signature
Modeling and Simulation
COC (Hiro)
----------------
Polishing pathfinder surface data continue to be compared.
The details are reported in the COC Modeling Wiki (http://ilog.ligo-wa.caltech.edu:7285/advligo/COC_Modeling).
SIS is modified to study the loss mechanism more systematically using weighted PSD.
Mechanical Simulation for advanced LIGO (Sany and SLU team)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Continued analysis on our AdvLIGO Input Mode Cleaner model. Last week we found a combination of the frequency and length control servo filters that makes the frequency noise on the IMC’s transmitted light meet the requirement. This week we made analysis on this result. The spectrum of the frequency noise on the transmitted light seems reasonable; the observed noise is at the level of the PSL frequency noise incident to the IMC in the range of 1 Hz to the crossover frequency (~20 Hz), and decreases down to the required level of 3e-5 (Hz/rtHz) at 1 kHz with the same slope as the requirement. Between 1 Hz and the crossover frequency, there are two sharp peaks.
Safety
- AdL Safety, along with the LLO LSO and two engineers attended an intensive 3-day training class which was held at LLO on Laser Technology and Safety. The instructor, Dr. Richard Hughes of High-Rez Diagnostics did a very good job of addressing technology and safety issues that will be useful in attaining safety for the Adl Project going forward.
- AdL Safety & QA remains committed to assist in designing a practical FMEA process that targets the needs and unique issues affecting AdL R& D. Hopefully, one of the sub-systems will be chosen soon to begin this needed process.
- The AdL Safety Wiki Page has been created and is slowly accumulating useful information to assist in the safety efforts of Advanced LIGO. In the next few days more information will be on the site for all to review.
Facilities Modifications and Preparations
From: John Worden worden_j@ligo-wa.caltech.edu
LLO is waiting on NSF approval to start work on the warehouse.
LHO - Two more contractors came out to the site this week to view the
staging building modification plan. One bidder has dropped out. Still hoping for 3 bids.
Seismic Isolation
From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu
SEI Project Activities
We have completed our evaluation of the inductive and capacitive position sensors for the HEPI system and selected a vendor.
A purchase requisition was sent to procurement for the HEPI load cells and the additional nozzles, geophones, housings and maraging steel springs to cover the additional HEPI systems needed for ISC.
A design summit for the BSC two stage seismic isolation system is planned for 11/21 at Caltech. During these meetings we will identify potential design improvements, review performance to date, and create a plan to complete the design improvements and testing in time for the PDR scheduled in March 2009.
A group from the SEI team visited Geotech in Dallas to discuss about the GS-13 seismometer.
STS-2 Interface, 8-Channel Valve Driver and DAC Interface all finished, and put into Talitha, where Gary can get to them to turn the crank on ordering them. I am currently changing the schematic, and re-laying out the board for the Pier interface module to reflect the use of the Inductive Position Sensors. Once the Pier Interface changes are complete, all the electronics design left for HEPI is to make an Anti-Alias "personality board", and then to tackle the Pump Servo re-design. -Ben
HAM SEI HAM gullwing design
All machined parts have been received. Finishing first revisions of assembly drawings. Will begin installing new Crossbeams tomorrow. ~ Andy S.
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
Mike Meyer has circulated the draft Preliminary Frequency Analysis of the HAM Large Triple Suspension Structure, T080319, for comments. He is now working on the Update on Frequency Analysis of the HAM Small Triple Suspension Structure document for the Triples PDR. We continue to work on drawings for the large triple prototype and other documentation for the large and small Triple PDR.
We will be having a SUS-internal review of the HLTS drawings on Monday, 17 Nov. The Triple PDR reviewers are in charge of making sure the design meets the requirements. The HLTS drawing reviewers will make sure that all of the updates we want have been incorporated (for example, PFA 440HP tips for the silica stops) and make sure that all features (for example, cam adjustment for osems) and fixtures (for example, the magnet gluing fixtures) have been designed.
The HLTS/HSTS strut provision RODA was edited and signed.
We have prepared a list of items to be charged against the remaining ops budget (i.e., spent by Mar 31st 2009). This includes parts and travel for finishing the large triple prototype, and further prototyping of blades.
BSC suspensions for Advanced LIGO
The beamsplitter optic drawing was sent around for draft review.
Project-funded activities
Betsy is working on getting an updated set of quotes for the optical tables needed for production suspension assembly work. She's also working on a summary status on the initial LIGO osem value engineering effort she's spearheading.
All of the drawings for the LHO rigid spacer have been received and procurement will commence soon.
Further discussions about personnel task assignments have taken place.
Core Optics
From: GariLynn Billingsley Billingsley_G@ligo.caltech.edu
Project
Mike Smith has completed an analysis on COC ITM, CP and BS wedge angle tolerance. T080277-02. Bottom line:
The BS wedge angle is specified as 0.05 deg -0.00/+0.03. A 5 deg clocking error of the BS wedge from the horizontal plane is acceptable. The CP wedge angle is specified as 0.04 deg +/- 0.04. The ITM wedge angle is specified as 0.07 -
0.00/+0.03 deg.
Development
LMA now has the change order for coating the three substrates from different polish processes: ion beam, MRF, Teflon
Auxiliary Optics
From: Michael Smith smith@ligo.caltech.edu
ADLIGO
Work under Project Budget
OPTICAL LAYOUT
Luke is working on the optical layout for the folded IFO. He is investigating the locations of output beams onto HAM1, and considering placing some of the photodetectors for the ISC and IO output beams in vacuum on HAM2.
COC WEDGE ANGLES
Mike analyzed the tolerances for the ITM and CP wedge angles. The results are detailed here http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~smith/T080277-02_BS-CP-ITM_wedge-angle_tolerance.pdfin
Work under Operations Budget
INITIAL ALIGNMENT SYSTEM
Mike wrote a requirements document and a conceptual design document for the Initial Alignment System.
SLC
Luke has completed a conceptual design for the combined arm cavity baffle and the wide-angle scattered light baffle. It will mount from the HEPI stage 0. He is investigating a support structure that allows moving the baffle out of the way for access to the quad suspension.
TCS
Installation of the enhanced LIGO TCS upgrade at LLO and LHO is complete. Initial power through the viewport is restricted to 1W with an attenuator. The attenuator will be removed allowing the full power whenever the viewport protectors are installed. Phil will go to LLO in the near future to repair deffective controls for the shutter mechanism on the TCS bench.
Doug reports that the machined parts for the TCS viewport protectors for both sites are complete and he is awaiting ZnS windows and thermistors.
ETM TELESCOPE SUS
Ken is in the process of completing the design for the prototype ETM Telescope suspension test.
ELLIPTICAL BAFFLE SUS
The elliptical baffle testing has been partially completed, 4 other configurations will be
tested.
MEZZANINE LAB
Ken ordered, thru tech-mart, the tools and accelerometers for the SUS mezzanine Lab. He is creating signs, lighting, and is moving equipment to prepare the mezzanine Lab.
OPT LEV
Doug is making a light-tight vacuum enclosure for the beam path in the LHO lab optlev test set up to determine the effect of external light and air turbulence on the optical lever readout noise.
Input Optics
ELIGO Commissioning:
Modified ISCT1 for high power operation (Kate)
PSL work on the attenuation of the scattered light on the ISS PDs by installing sandblasted black panels and razor blade beam dumps. (Antonio)
Measured IO performance at high power (Faraday thermal drift, Faraday+MC thermal lensing, MC visibility)(Kate, Antonio):
a) We have locked the MC at 27.7 W into the MC.
b) We have measured the change in the beam radius on a CCD camera at a fixed position on the REFL table. The ratio of the radii of the beam (obtained from a gaussian fit) at 27.7 W and 2 W into the MC was 1.11. This was an indication of rather weak thermal effects in the MC and FI at high powers.
c) We have started to measure the performance parameters (visibility,drift) for the mode cleaner and the FI at high powers
Kate also gave a talk at SESAPS about Enhanced LIGO
ALIGO Design:
Working on aligo IO layout (Luke)
Analysis of light scattering and instabilities due to radiation pressure in the Input Mode Cleaner (Rodica)
ALIGO Acquisition:
We issued a PO for all the mirror blanks for IO optics and small recycling cavity mirrors. The entire lot will be purchased from Heraeus.
Prestabilized Laser
From: Peter King pking@ligo.caltech.edu
Project
=======
The dark current for various values of bias voltage and temperature, was
measured for a small batch of photodiodes. Of these, the 2mm G8605 InGaAs
photodiode has the lowest dark current at an applied bias of +5V.
A pair of (allegedly) non-flammable gloves will be tested with the
200-W laser to see if they afford any protection when handling optics near
the high power beam. The gloves are flexible enough to permit some
sensation of touch in the fingers.
The new large optical table for characterisation of the PSL has been
installed in the high bay area at the AEI. Work on the engineering
prototype is slated for late January in the Class 1000 cleanroom at LZH.
CDS
LHO CDS Report
- ISI Controls: Binary I/O had a bad 50-pin cable adapter. Repaired and tightened connector, and cleaned up cable plant.
- Removed the STS-2 seismometer interface from the ISI rack.
- Commissioning work continues for eLIGO.
LLO CDS Report
TCS
- New medm screens imported from LHO setup with polarization control an channel mappings updated.
DAQ
- Restored operation of DMT machine (pickerel) that was AWOL since Sept 1 power outage
- New RAID on llo1 hot-swap machine configured.
- Purchase of Linux workstations progressing (vendor contacted by purchasing)
- CentOS workstation setup with LDAP authentication
- Preparations to identify needed backups, parts needed for frame-builder install this next week
- Setup up hot-swap rsync of llo1 files
- Frame-builder upgrade to advLIGO model system
- Upgrade to new frame-builder -LDAS interface
Sub-System Reports
OMC
- Hardware shutter modified and installed at LHO on HAM6 OMC Tip-tilt steering mirrors. Tested and confirmed shutter actuates in less than 700 microseconds. LLO anfd LHO now have similar OMC Shutter hardware.
ISC
- Working on I&Q demodulator prototype layout
- Working on RFPD design issues using data extracted from Stefan's Optickle model.
SUS
- Test stands being built for BS and Recycl mirror subsystems. We have acquired the CPUs, IO Chassis, ADC/DAC cards, and the AA and AI electronics units. These are being assembled into "stand alone" racks that will be tested and then shipped to the sites.
- Issued revision of the requirements for the Triple Suspensions to define the high frequency requirements.
SEI
- Pier interface work to use inductive position sensor.
Timing
- Resolved details on timing system being built in collaboration with the Columbia University group and defined interfacing of timing slave card to "Blue Box" IO Chassis.
Reliability
- Work continues on LIGO High Reliability Electronics note. Designed some soft start circuits for limiting inrush current to avoid damage to tantalum capacitors and idenitifed some "best practices" we will try to implement for power and filtering of power.
For additional information about this report, contact Albert Lazzarini