There will be no meeting of the LIGO Executive Committee on Monday, January 19, 2009 due to the holiday.

Calendar of future Executive Commitee Meetings

LSC Issues (Reitze)

Nothing to report this week.

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Lloyd)

For status of MOUs press here.

PROPERTY ACCOUNTING (Luna)

Assisted L. Wallace with receiving the IT equipment used at the LSC meeting from the University of Maryland.
Assisted G. Billingsley with storing three Heraeus fused silica blanks.
Assisted R. DeSalvo and E. Black with packing, shipping and creating a commercial invoice for four TNI Substrates to LMA, France.
Assisted G. Billingsley with making shipping arrangements and creating a commercial invoice for three Heraeus fused silica blanks from CIT to the University of Adelaide to clear a Temporary Import Bond.
Assisted J. Romie at LLO in making arrangements to clear the quad structure through US Customs.
Prepared a list of LIGO-Caltech assets that need to be inventoried for the FY09 inventory.

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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

Finally completed processing and distributing the OMC DCNs!

FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Funaro, Oracion)

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

The review of the Financial Status of LIGO Operations as of the end of December has been rescheduled for January 26th.
Completed FY2008 (PHY-0107417) LIGO Operations Report for December 2008 and posted report on the network.
Completed FY2009 (PHY-0757058) LIGO Operations Report for December 2008 and posted report on the network.
Issued monthly reports for visitors program, U.Wisconsin award, U.Milwaukee award, LSC Support, Low Noise, I2U2 and 3 discretionary awards.
Prepared FY2008 encumbrance list through 12/31/08 and posted list on the network.
Provided data/charts for FY2008 (PHY-0107417) December 2008 EAC reports.
Requested an intra-award budget realignment on LIGO Operations Cooperative Agreement (PHY-0107417) to facilitate Oracle draw down of funds.
Link to FY2009 LIGO Operations poetas: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/docuserv/FY2009_LIGO_
OPs_PTAs_v3.pdf
Link to Advanced LIGO poetas: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/docuserv/FY2009_Advanced_LIGO_
PTAs_v1.pdf
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 below.

>From: Jackie Champagnie <jchampag@caltech.edu>

See Advanced LIGO below.

>From: Steve Marroquin smarroqu@caltech.edu

Executed basic contract with IKANO (Amerion) to provide the LIGO Hanford Observatory a bundled service 10Meg Circuit from Apel to Westin Bldg Seattle.
Executed Change Order 1 with Sun Microsystems for equipment relocation services transportation costs.
See Advanced LIGO below.

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

See Advanced LIGO below.

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

See Advanced LIGO below.

PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist)

Prepared the end-of-December summary of the FY 2008 Operations financial reports and provided a web link for the task managers. Costs seem to be stable (settling) except for Advanced LIGO R&D and the beam tube repairs at Livingston (per expectations). It is time to start buying the eLIGO S6 cluster computers.
Dave Beckett prepared the monthly status report for the end of December, and it has been sent to the NSF.

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 Friday, January 16.
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

Continue working with David Nolting on the LIGO safety officer transition planning.
Worked with Mick Flanigan and Dennis Coyne to establish the appropriate QA/QC requirements to incorporate a "build-to-print" contract. There is still an unresolved issue with how to assure that contracts when "finalized", will include adequate QA/QC provisions.

ADVANCED LIGO SAFETY IS BEING REPORTED UNDER ADVANCED LIGO, BELOW

Computer Security (Singer)

Drafted statement for SCAT on external user access.
Took minutes for CompComm meeting.

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

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

Noise budget work continued, with measurements of PRC and MICH couplings. The current budget for 8W indicates MICH dominates below 60Hz, with mystery noise at 100Hz. It may be that the PRC or MICH couplings are not quite right at 100Hz.
Power up efforts yielded ~10m locks at 16W, and very brief (minute) locks at 20W. Ongoing is the effort to tame annulus TCS and allow longer and more stable high power locks. TCSx was reworked this week to give a more symmetric annulus image.
Rev B. bias modules with 15K resistors were installed on the ETMs, and later, the ITMs. No oscillations were observed under load, however the ITMs cannot fully misalign now. We'll have to add SUS bias for misalignments.
[R. Savage] With the approval of upgrades to photon calibrators for eLIGO, plans have solidified in order to have one unit per site modified and ready for S6. Syracuse graduate student Matt West will return to LHO next week for an eight month stay, to concentrate on the pcals and general calibration, among other items.

Astrowatch (P. Patel)

H2 has had a mixed week. We had a 27 hour lock stretch this week. But on the other hand, the PSL has been drifting and we have had to adjust the PMC a couple of times.
The drift out of the PSL seems to have a time scale of days and it might need more adjustment in the coming week.
Darren Smith has arrived on the 14th. Berit Behnke has taken over duties as coordinator of astrowatch from Pinkesh Patel.

Outreach (D. Ingram)

Wiley Elementary School in West Richland invited LHO outreach to present "Feel the Pressure" to the school's ~500 students on 1/9 as a word of encouragement for upcoming science fair projects. Students understood that most of the demos they witnessed were of the "don't try this at home" variety.

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

General Operations (Rusyl Wooley)

The new offices and tape robot room are framed and sheetrock is going up. The FMP work in the warehouse is progressing....They are painting the walls and installing the supports for the ceiling. The beam tube repairs are ongoing. The final count of joints to be repaired is 521. We pulled in the new fiber between the mass storage room and the communication room across the street.

Safety & Security (Rich Riesen)

Took a site wide " in-chamber" clean room appeal inventory. The concern was if we had enough clean room garb for up coming A-ligo activities. We have sufficient quantities on hand.
Performed an operational check on the two Entrapass controllers and swipe card units that were used for the old LDAS room. This was done prior to disconnecting power and removing the swipe card units. The units checked out good and will be used as spares. All site overhead cranes ( 8 ea.) were given their annual inspections by " Gaffey/All-Cranes Corp." All cranes are certified operational.
Scheduled all site torque wrenchs for their annual calibrations.
Collecting all surplus computer equipment for a recycling drop off.
Gave David Feldbaum (new from U of F) his initial safety orientation, scheduled an entrance laser base line eye exam (requested by him) and starting LLO laser safety training for his future "laser operator" access status.

LLO Outreach

(Kathy Holt)

Prepared program and conducted 3 school visits for a total of 110 students.
Prepared program and conducted classroom activities for 5 Kindergarten classes at Amite Elementary School for a total of 120 students.
Conducted 2 public tours for a total of 18 visitors.
Designed and submitted Program Agenda for teacher training DREAM MSP from Monroe, LA.
Working on new activities (science and math connections) for teacher workshops.

(Amber Stuver)

Gave control room tours to ~80 students.
Gave a presentation on the mirror suspension and an explanation of the "Gravity Blanket" activity.

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)

We decided to resume the 3f locking effort in parallel with the current lock acquisition scheme. For the upgraded 40m, 3f locking is probably necessary. For the current IFO configuration, the benefits of 3f compared to DD is not clear at this moment. Alberto is running simulations to check this.
Kakeru made an auto-updated webpage showing recent screen shots of important MEDM screens.
We re-optimized the demodulation phases of the DD signals for the hand-off from single demod. signals. This was necessary because we restarted the DD oscillators after the power failure.
Recently (past few days), the MC has been kicked out of lock occasionally (twice a day or so) without any apparent seismic activity. Also the single arm lock has also been unstable these days. These two problems may be correlated as the arm instability seems to be caused by increased frequency noise. We are trying to track down the source of the problems.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

The sides of the CO₂-laser enclosure are now finished, and Greg is now assembling it and setting up the laser inside it.
We had a meeting with Gregg Harry, Peter Fritschel, and Innocenzo Pinto about the advLIGO doped-optimized coating and how it should be adapted to the TNI for testing. The advLIGO ETM specs call for 5ppm of transmission or less at 1064nm, but the TNI requires its input and output mirrors to be matched at 300ppm transmission. The advLIGO design produced by Innocenzo and his group, it turns out, can be adapted to the TNI by keeping the layer-pair geometry the same as that for advLIGO and just reducing the total number of layers. Peter agreed that this was the right approach, and Innocenzo will submit the order to LMA for fabrication.
The mirror blanks for the TNI doped-optimized measurement arrived safely in Lyon.

LASTI (Mittleman)

BSC-ISI

Fabrice has been investigating the inductance and transfer function of the ISI actuators, it seems that our earlier measurements weren’t correct and that we have a pole around 20Hz from due to the actuators.

Quad Prototype

We have a lot of visitors here this week working on replacing the prototype quadruple pendulum bottom metal masses with glass masses. Bob Taylor (Caltech) has wired up the ESD on the compensator plate. Ken Mailand(Caltech) has installed the conveyor. A team of Russell Jones (Glasgow), Joe O’Dell(RAL) , Mark Barton(Wandering), Janeen Romie(LLO),Brett Shapiro(MIT), Myron McInnis(MIT) , Bob and Ken have gotten the bottom section of the suspension out into a work space on the floor. The reaction chain has been dismantled and is ready to have the compensator plate installed.
There are some entries on the Lasti ilog: http://www.ligo.mit.edu/ilog/ (Lasti Group Log).

CIT Science Group (Weinstein)

__________

Antony Searle:

Preparing two talks for GWDAW.
Remotely participating in X pipeline review summit at UWM.
Refereeing a paper for CQG.

__________

Chad Hanna:

Working on the high mass search.
Working with Kipp a bit on source localization.

__________

Peter Kalmus:

Finished first draft of Stack-a-flare methods paper.
Had first review call for Stack-a-flare project.
Finished vetting installation/compilation/reproduction instructions for Stack-a-flare and walked through them with reviewer.
Made and circulated GWDAW13 Stack-a-flare methods talk.

__________

Cristina Valeria Torres:

Continue work on follow-up how to documentation for training additional follow up team members.
Work with LIGO SEC(Kathy Holt, Amber Stuver, Cristina V. Torres) on:
- A Saturday outreach activity "ExxonMobil Bernard Harris Project"
- Group tour "Isidore Newman Elementary" (59 students) 5th grade
On behalf of LIGO SEC (Kathy Hold, Cristina V. Torres) travel to Amite elementary school for outreach activity.
Work on poster for the upcoming GWDAW-13.
Continue working with Sarah Caudill on integrating the follow up web page reporting into the ihope results web page results.

__________

Jing Luan:

Working on interpolation of segments to reduce number of templates, and IIR time-domain filtering.

__________

Amber L. Stuver:

Collaborated with Jonah Kanner (at UMD) on the automated logic for the LOOC-UP project. I am currently working on the codes needed to select a scope to use a Target-of-Opportunity for rapid EM follow-up observations of online candidate gravitational wave events.

__________

Joseph Betzwieser:

Finished talk for GWDAW and helped with Pinkesh's poster.
Worked on basic multi-template search for Crab using 2nd year S5 data.

__________

Diego Fazi:

Modified the PTF bank generation code to add functionality and committed it to LAL.
Worked on implementing the chi-square veto for PTF.

__________

Drew Keppel:

Submitting an abstract for the APS April meeting for the S5 CBC searches.

__________

Igor Yakushin:

Preparing the web page with all the information needed for the review of coherent WaveBurst low frequency analysis of the second year of S5: https://ldas-jobs.ligo.caltech.edu/~igor/S5_second_year.
Testing S6 cWB online code with Shourov's h(t) frames.

__________

Kent Blackburn for the Grid Computing R&D Team:

GRID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

Attended LIGO-Pegasus, OSG-Production, OSG-VO-Group and High Mass telecons.
Wrote agenda and led LIGO-Pegasus, OSG-VO-Group telecon.
Wrote minutes for LIGO-Pegasus telecon.
Open GOC tickets: can't create voms proxy, Can't run ws-gram job at OCI-NSF.
Closed GOC ticket: $WNTMP at UFlorida_HPC not listed in VORS; (issue unresolved).
Open ticket with LONI support: Can't run at LONI: LONI OSG machine.
Updated DASWG page: OSG-LIGO.

EINSTEIN AT HOME ON THE GRID ACTIVITIES

Effort is underway to upgrade the job submission management software to support both WS-GRAM and pre-WS-GRAM.
Current status:
- Code deployment at 10 sites successful
- Test runs at 10 sites performed. For results, please see https://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/daswg/projects/OSG-LIGO.html
Maintain GT4 activity on 7 OSG sites:
- Recent Average Credit (RAC): 61,491.82780
- E@H rank based on RAC: 14
- E@H rank based on accumulated Credits: 90 (+ 14 from last week)
Daily manual cleanup.
Troubleshooting: high failure rates at RCAC, CIT_CMS_T2, SPRACE.

Robert:

Fixed minor errors in new MySQL schema GEO600.
Separated administrator role and user role in MySQL.
In the process of updating code from the old schema to the new schema in database.pm.
Wrote user management tool griduser.pl which allows the administrator to add,remove,update grid users in the database.

BINARY INSPIRAL APPLICAITON ON THE GRID ACTIVITIES

In preparation for the S6 science run, injection (only) work-flows using one weeks worth of data for the highmass search are run on several OSG sites. The aim is to determine suitable OSG sites to run the analysis on within the time frame of a week and without any failures. Current status:
- Attempts to submit test work-flows have been made at 7 OSG sites
- OSG_LIGO_MIT, MIT_CMS - running without any failures so far
- Purdue_RCAC, UCSDT2 -- 1 job failed
- BNL_ATLAS_1 : pegasus-plan error
- UFlorida_HPC: can't run there due to $WNTMP being later binding = not listed in VORS

OSG INTEGRATION AND VALIDATION TESTBED

Update all packages on all servers / clients to latest versions.
Installer clusterssh to make it a little easier.
Installed cluster management tool ricci on all clients.
Installed cluster admin tool luci on osg-itb (which used to be on osg-vtb, where it wouldn't work).
Setup account for Britta Daudert and Condor.
Tracked various network problems that prevented the Redhat Cluster Suite from operating properly, such as firewall settings on internal nodes, resolving of internal node names.
1st problem with cluster suite (GFS) was, that all nodes _must_ have a domain: changed internal hostnames from domX -> domX.buran.
2nd problem with cluster suite (GFS) was, that due to mirroring all SSL hostcerts in /var/lib/ricci were identical (fixed!).
I am in the process to get the Cluster Suite running which is mandatory for GFS to work. Once the cluster suite is operating it should be very easy to get GFS going (at least that is what the documentation says).

GRID MANAGEMENT

Attended dry run for OSG Review.
Reviewed and made recommendations to several of the revised talks after the dry run.
Attended the OSG Review in Washington DC.

__________

Kipp Cannon:

S4 string cusp review work.
Stack-a-flare review work.
A bit of work on low-latency inspiral analysis techniques.
Some work on inspiral source localization techniques.
Telecons: inspiral, inspiral high mass, string cusp review, flare review.

Laboratory Computing (Anderson)

LDAS Software Systems (Maros)

This week has been focused on addressing several issues with the frameCPP library. The utility program framecpp_dump_objects has been extended to dump the contents of array elements. With this modification, the latest test frame from Virgo has been validated. Using the same tool, several errors with version 8 frame generated by frameCPP have been identified and should be fixed by Friday, January 16, 2009.
In an effort to support Debian Lenny, the use of hash_map has been superseded by unordered_map. This also brings the code closer to the upcoming revised C++ stl standard.
The utility program framecpp_compressor has been extended to support allocation of an io buffer and to utilize memory mapped io. With these options, performance can tuned to the native file system.

LDAS System Administration (Anderson)

Caltech

(Dan Kozak)

With Phil's help, moved the loaner STK10000A drives over to shipping and receiving so UPS can pick them up for Sun.
Continued work on rearchiving data to T10KB format tapes.
Started getting all of /backup to be covered by ssum -g -u.
Working with Sun to get CAM working at LLO (ongoing).
Did a few tape drive performance tests (LTO4 mostly).
Got Sun to replaced bad 3510 disk.
Attended meeting with Sun re: future storage plans.
No new bad frames in cluster storage.

(Phil Ehrens)

Finished coding new online TAR forms. Demonstrated new forms to Albert Lazzarini.
Wrote web-scraping script for collecting statistical data about usage of the new dcc.
Configured three evaluation 1U rackmount systems for benchmarking as compute nodes.
Various user support tasks.
Various certificate issuance and installation tasks.

MIT

(Fred Donovan)

Yum amd condor upgrades done.

Livingston

(Igor Yakushin)

Condor was upgraded to version 7.2.0, *dag* binaries were upgraded to 7.2.1-prerelease-2009-01-08.
Omega crashed node210 again.
Testing coherent WaveBurst on ldasdata5.

(Doug Lormand)

Nodes 210 and 138 were down. I brought both back up with a reboot.
Node 210 had a kernel panic error message, out of memory and too many processes.
Node 138 had a disk error which the fsck in the boot up fixed.

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

I have been working with Sun to reschedule the move of the LDAS L700 tape library system.
Investigated how LDAS handled the Leap Second change on Dec 31, 2008.
I am tracking down a few missing files that failed to transfer due to last week's power failure at LHO.

(Dan Moraru)

Continued working on bringing the cluster back to full operation. Finished repairing the last of the nodes and started updating the kickstart configuration for installing CentOS 5.2.
Cleared the backlog of Grid user account requests.
Upgraded Condor and LSCSOFT.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT

(Fred)

Setting up Ken/Stephany's new computers (32 and 64 bit xp versions).
Transfered files.
Some cds matlab issues.
Flaky wireless (should replace linksys).
Updated altium license.
Some genstor issues.
Opteron rma'd.

Livingston

(Dwayne)

Continued development of parts management UI and testing.
Installed ipsCA issued SSL cert on ICS server. Moved JIRA standalone install to be served from behind Apache/SSL with LIGO.ORG auth. after receiving the correct JAR file from outside sources, the kerberos authenticated user is now being passed to JIRA.
Attended JIRA demo led by Mick Flannigan.
Installed Office 2007 on a PC.
Deactivated a couple kantech controllers in the SB. Verified to be in working order, and saved for spare parts.
Moved several old GC items to surplus.
Configured LLO SB Conf Room for video transmit over EVO. Tested setup, and made it available for the VIRGO+ seminar on Monday. all worked well.
Created a couple mail accounts for new users.
Tracked down a couple network ports and moved to new network.
Worked a couple minor procurement items -Numerous usual/unusual user support requests.
Cleared spam trap daily.

Hanford

(Jonathan)

Site specific orientation.
User support Doug Cook (investigating a blue screen, system clean up), Mark Lubinski (driver problems), Carol Wilkinson (connectivity issues), Dale Ingram (mail client problems).
Power estimate for the server room for Richard McCarthy.
Enabled video support on the evo box at LHO.
Investigating problems with Rainier2 (it appears that the boot disk died).
Checked GC servers for rootkits after Abe's recommendation regarding the hacked outreach server.
Initial inventory of workstations - this is an ongoing process as several people were either off-site or have not been at their desks I am inventorying MAC addresses, basic system configuration, tag numbers, typical location, number & type of OS.
Concurrent with the inventory I am checking all UNIX like workstations for rootkits.
Beginning the configuration for a new mail server.

Caltech

(Mike)

Loaded a new Engineering workstation for a user that was having problems with his original computer when running SolidWorks.
Installed additional engineering software for users.
Working on a X4600 Sun server that is having some memory issues.
Set up new accounts for both general computing and Primavera.
Other onsite user/phone support, and sysadmin tasks.

(Veronica)

LV March meeting: Reworked the layout for the meetings website template; the new template is css-driven with faster load, is easier to maintain, and has a better appearance. Got positive feedback from Dave Reitze, who recommends adopting it from now on. Working on an online registration tool. Working with Caltech Treasury on an ecommerce account for online payment processing.
WebComm: Met with Dave Reitze, Patrick Brady, and Lynn Cominsky to discuss the issues of redevelopment/updates of the LIGO web presence. The focus of the meeting was the education/outreach aspect. The committee contended that LIGO Lab web pages are beyond the committee's expertise, and that modifications to the Lab website would require additional input from the Lab Management.
PAC meeting web support.
Miscellaneous updates of the Lab and LSC websites.
User support: Assistance with troubleshooting the Safety webpage, prior to moving it to a permanent location.
CaJAGWR: Taped the presentation on 1/12 and processed it for streaming; website updates.

(Christian)

Steve Marroquin - Installed Oracle J-Initiator and configured export extension in Oracle to Excel.
Re-imaged laptop that were returned to the loaner pull this week.
Setup workstation and Clearone system for the PAC meeting this week.
Jackie Champagnie - moved Jackie's workstation and monitor to new cubicle.
Carol Wilkinson - Bad sectors on laptop drive. working on retrieving all of Carol's data from drive.
Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.

(Melody)

Imported all users from ligo.org (including all VIRGO and LSC) users into the DocDB user tables.
Provided user support for the new DCC's availability to all of LIGO Lab.

(Larry)

Resolved a number of different procurement items for different people. Purchased new notebooks for CIT and LHO. Working on the purchase of a few more SUN boxes to be used as servers. Received quote for network equipment and need to get a few more quotes for similar equipment. Working with Mike and others on a new engineering workstation configuration to be purchased for the Solid Works users. Working with Christian on some A/V related equipment to augment the conferencing systems. Misc. computer support purchases for different people.
Worked with Christian on the setup and take down of equipment for the PAC meeting. Setup the EVO and network items for the meeting.
Setup a couple of new accounts.
Modified a number of mail aliases, still have a list of new alias requests that need to be taken care of.
Assisted PSU on a new test web setup they are using for ligo.org.
Cleared up a number of file issues for different people. Fixed the plotter for a new user however, there is a part missing on the roll feeder and will have to order a replacement for it.
Working on logistics for the LSC meeting in March. Some EVO assistance to different people in PMA in preparation for a meeting they have coming up in a few weeks.
Regular user assistance.

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Advanced LIGO Management

From Carol Wilkinson

Project Controls (includes progress since December 12, 2008)

Three Advanced LIGO Change Requests (ACRs) were approved in December:

ACR-080009 covers new scope in SUS for optical tables needed for assembly, at an additional cost drawn from contingency. There was no impact to schedule.
ACR-080010 adjusts the scheduled starts dates for several non-time-critical activities in Facilities Modifications and Preparations (FMP) from earliest dates to most probable dates as part of the re-planning to improve the utility of variance reporting. There was no budget impact and no major project or subsystem milestones were affected.
Change order ACR-080011 transferred budget and activities from ISC to SEI for three additional HEPI isolation units. The SEI HEPI portion of the schedule was modified to include the additional units as well as to take into account the latest procurement and assembly processes and actual delivery dates. The SEI HEPI schedule revisions result in earlier HEPI completion dates, even with the additional units. There are no impacts to the ISC schedule. There is no impact to Project Budget, Critical path or NSF Reporting Milestones.

Two ACRs are in progress and are expected to be approved and implemented in January:

The ACR for delay in PSL delivery schedule of 200 W lasers by 6 months will be processed and implemented in January. Uses schedule float and does not impact project schedule for installed units. Spares will be delivered after the install date.
ACR to consolidate the clean and bake activities in the assembly staging activity in Facility Mods. and Prep is in preparation. Labor in the individual subsystems will be collected and moved to FM. Expectation that more labor hours will be needed.

Staffing

Two new procurement subcontracts managers reported to work on Advanced LIGO. Jacqueline Champagnie, formerly from UCLA, reported on Monday, December 8, and Steve Marroquin, transferring from JPL, reported on Monday, December 22. Both have been through orientation and training on Techmart and PCard and have started doing actual procurements, monitored by Gina Salone and Rudy Arvizu.
Three draftspersons, one at LLO and two at CIT have been hired help with AOS and SUS drawings. Ads/Statements of work are out for an additional draftsperson at MIT to help with SEI drawings. These are temporary contractor workers. Ads are also out for an optical technician. Both contract and term CIT employee options are being explored.
Guillermo Ramirez will be replacing Cathy Funaro as LIGO's dedicated Accounts Payable representative, effective Monday, January 12. Guillermo will remain located in the Accounts Payable offices on the first floor of the Spaulding Building. His phone number is 2954
Negotiations are in progress to hire a contract optical scientist to replace a departing contractor.

Procurements (summarized version including activities from previous weeks since December 12, 2008)

For Bert:

Working on procurement tracking system.
Participated in negotiations on the GS-13 seismometers for the internal seismic isolation, specifically the issue of warranty coverage on GeoTech's modified standard product. The contractor agreed to provide normal warranty coverage on the modified product.

For Ed:

As a result of discussions with Betsy Bland, Ed Jasnow contacted representatives of Mid-Columbia Engineering to urge them to accelerate deliveries of the test stands scheduled for delivery to LLO. Because of heavy workloads at the four machine shops available to do the precision machining of these stands, Mid-Columbia stated that they would not be able to deliver the stands until the end of January. That would severely impact the plans of several people scheduled to participate in the tests. After discussion, Mid-Columbia agreed to have the first test stand, unpainted, to LLO by January 22. This would be within the schedule window.
Details on the MOU between LIGO and the Caltech Purchasing Services Department are still being worked out. Issues remaining open are payment for FTE's and signature thresholds for their subcontract administrators.
Worked with Dennis Coyne on the details of getting Rand Dannenberg, optical coatings scientist, on board as a contract employee with Think Resources, Inc.
Submitted the contract with the Limerick Company for HEPI small machined parts to the NSF for review. Responded to Ann Miller's comments on the contract, which were very minor.
Participated in negotiations on the GS-13 seismometers, specifically the issue of warranty coverage on GeoTech's modified standard product. The contractor agreed to provide normal warranty coverage on the modified product.

For Gina:

Certifications have been received from Cangelosi Ward for the warehouse improvement project at LLO. This completes all the requirements for the contract execution.
Trained and monitored Jackie Champagnie in LIGO contract administration.

For Rudy:

Circulated a draft specimen contract for the COC polishing to procurements and legal in advance of the actual selection and specific contract in an effort to reduce the time required for approval. The date for receipt of proposals for the COC polishing has been moved to January 20, 2009. This was requested by two of the RFP recipients. Additionally, the Evaluation Committee for this procurement has been named.
The Evaluation Committee for the COC polishing procurement was polled regarding CSIRO's request to submit their proposal in AUS$ instead of US$. CSIRO will be informed of the decision, which stated a preference for $US and indicated that CIT may not be able to negotiate a contract in foreign currency.
Trained and monitored Steve Marroquin in LIGO contract administration.

For Jackie:

The contract for the HEPI small machined parts with Limerick, Inc., has been approved by Purchasing Services and will be sent to the NSF via FastLane for their review. This review is required because two procurements were combined. Since this combination was not planned in advance, it did not appear in the Acquisition Plan approved by the NSF.

For Steve:

Executed Change Order No. 1 to Limerick for the replacement of parts made from wrong model as directed by Caltech.
Executed and awarded contract with Hiline Engineering and Fabrication, Inc., for the HEPI pump station control panels.
Executed Changer Order 1 with Lavallee Machinery, Inc., for custom nozzle (Parker DYP-25 Valve).
Executed and awarded contract with Newport, Inc., for purchase of SUS optical tables.

NSF Acquisition Approvals

A contract with the Limerick Company for HEPI small machined parts was sent to the NSF for review via FastLane on Jan 14. Ann Miller has done a preliminary review and has returned comments and requested some minor revisions.

Progress Updates

The Monthly Status report for December was sent to NSF on December 15.
Time verification reports for the current pay period are due by Friday, January 16.
Progress reports for January are due on Wednesday January 28.
The Annual Report for the Advanced LIGO project is being prepared, with a submission goal of January 30.

Meetings & Reviews

The next Monthly Progress Reporting Meeting was held on Thursday, January 12 at 8:30 AM PT.

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

Procurement Reviews:

Posted templates for RFPs (instructions and specimen contract) on the secure procurement wiki
GS-13 seismometer PO reviewed & approved
LHO Warehouse Modifications RFP reviewed & approved

Technical Review Board (TRB): see the TRB log

Vacuum Review Board (VRB): see the VRB log

Submitted request to the VRB to define the conditions for which SmCo is an acceptable UHV material (L0900002-v1)
Revised the VRB direction prohibiting 303 and 303Se stainless steel to not include small hardware (e.g. fasteners) (L080044-v1)
Submitted a request to the VRB to provide guidance on the acceptability of the use of epoxy to seal an in-vacuum enclosure (for the violin mode sensor) (L0810022-v1)

Configuration Control & Documentation:

Conducted several training sessions in the last month on the use of the new DCC (DocDB), especially as it relates to the PDMWorks archive (check-in/out & configuration control for SolidWorks) for mechanical models/drawings
Started an optomechanics bi-weekly meeting to share experience among the optomechanical designers across the project, on use of the design tools, common design/analysis problems, etc.

Design:

Projected Sensitivity Curves: projections of the Adv. LIGO projected system performance have been posted on the wiki in plots and in text data files.
Coating FEA: Liam Cunningham and Calum have completed a series of 2 layer coating FEA thermal noise analyses. The FEA thermal noise is ~20% lower than the approximate analytical results.
Test Mass Interfaces: held discussions on the equipment which interfaces to the test mass and on the assembly and operational procedures in the vicintiy of the test mass to coordinate and prevent conflicts (see T0900010-v1)

Interfaces:

See the RODA status pag e and the Interface Control page.

Modeling and Simulation

From: Hiroaki Yamamoto hiro@ligo.caltech.edu

Static IFO Simulation (Hiro, Melody)

Melody has stated to program the SIS code to improve the user front end. The first task is to support multiple loops.
Hiro is preparing to develop the simulation setup of the full advLIGO configuration.

COC Design (Hiro)

Hiro worked on the effect of the baffle to suppress the imbalance of the BS geometrical effect.
The result is summarized in G0810029-v3, and was presented at the COC weekly meeting.
The imbalance of the CR power in the X and Y arms and the imbalance of the signal SB in the signal recycling cavity were improved dramatically, as well as the contrast defect. The baffle size used is 26cm x 21cm. More optimization is being tried to improve the loss due to this baffle. (CR power drops by 1% and the signal SB by 0.1%. Not much, but yet not quite optimal)
The requirement of the accuracy of the placement of the baffle is being studied.

Safety

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

Continuing to monitor the construction activities at LLO. No safety related issues to report. Contractors seem to be following safe work practices.
Developing Transition plan for LIGO Safety Officer position and will review with Bill Tyler and Albert Lazzarini during visit to CIT next week.
Continue to work on updates to support documents for AdL.

Quality Assurance

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

This week training was delivered to both LLO and LHO for the new JIRA system with very good feedback from both sites on features, enhancements, and potential problems. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk to the sites and look forward to the development of the platform to work better for the teams.
Dwayne is working very hard on the authentication and plugins for Jira, and we have seen significant progress this week. The database is now behind secure server and is using ligo.org authentication, however we still have some work to make it seamless.
We prepared parts lists for the training quad and loaded into the inventory system, and is ready for modification as the parts arrive at the sites. Dwayne will be working with the suspension teams over the next few weeks to get the bugs ironed out of the clean and bake process.

Facilities Modifications and Preparations

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

No report this week.

Seismic Isolation

From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

HAM ISI Design and Documentation:

Final drawings are nearly complete for the single stage HAM. ---Andy

HEPI Procurement:

Pump Stations - Reassembling supply/control valves after modifications. Caltech issues PO for Electronics Controller. First Manifold nearing completion--few weeks still for remaining units.
Counter wound Springs - LHO received first units; LLO should have 16. No more until late February.
Hydraulic Housing - First Ship date mid February.
Crossbeam Foot - First Units to painting shortly.
Actuator - No real changes--parts being machined. ---Hugh

We are still waiting for NSF approval for the Miscellaneous Machined Parts order. We met with the shop who was the low bidder and they are promising a better delivery so that are schedule is not affected too badly.

SEI Activities and Progress at LLO:

We had a review of the HAM-ISI watchdog chaired by M. Zucker. Thanks to hard work by Jeff Kissel, Tobin Fricke and others this went very well and we are cleared to continue studies of the HAM-ISI. Jeff has been attempting to diagnose problems with the isolation loops, we are puzzled by a loss of 10-15 degrees of phase near our unity gain frequency. ---Brian O

HAM ISI Procurement:

We have finalized the list of approved procurements for the HAM ISI so as soon as we have our final fabrication readiness review SEI is clear to start the purchase process with the procurement department.
We have received a quote for the GS-13 seismometers and are working with procurement to prepare a PO.

BSC ISI Design Changes:

The larger gap large actuators for the BSC ISI at LASTI will be installed and tested within the next two weeks. We should be able to complete this installation while the ISI Chamber is open for Suspension work. Currently all parts are either ready or finishing their bake and scan cycle. ---Stephany
Sam Barnum will start next Tuesday to help the SEI group with BSC ISI design and documentation.
Stephany and Andy will be attending the PDMworks training next week in Woodland Hills CA.

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:

RGA results for the nickel plated blades were positive. Nickel plating will be added to the maraging steel blade process specification. A meeting this week will finalize the small details of the specification. This spec is needed for the RFQ for the remaining prototype blades.
We have been discussing quotes received for procurement of prototype sapphire prisms with laser ablated grooves of the sizes needed for the small and large triple suspension break-offs. We will go out for procurement shortly
Work is ongoing on the OMC SUS characterization and large triple mechanical prototype documentation.
The lower section of the noise prototype quad has been removed from the chamber at LASTI, in preparation for the wire-hang of the ITM, compensator plate optic, and the glass penultimate mass. The ring heaters will be installed as well. Copious pictures, movies and notes are being taken. The assembly and installation documents will be updated. It is planned that the lower section will be re-installed next week.

Project-Funded Activities

Our shipping manager has said that the quad parts are being trucked to LLO tomorrow morning. A crew from LHO and LLO are working this week and next to prepare the parts for the quad assembly/alignment training session at LLO starting week 26 Jan. Work is ongoing to make sure that personnel, parts, facilities and procedures are in place for this to be ready when needed. Plans for the ergo arm and some tooling to be shipped from LASTI to LLO next week are in place.
The test stand upon which the quad is mounted is due for arrival at LLO on Thursday, 22 Jan for immediate assembly and alignment. Mounting hardware in the concrete floor is being laid out and installed this week.
We are working on sorting out the situation regarding tooling for quad suspensions (the division of responsibility for procurement between the UK and US needs clarification). We are also looking at the budget for the LIGO 1 OSEMs with a view to pulling them out as a separate account. Currently they are costed within the various suspension types.

Prestabilized Laser

From: Peter King pking@ligo.caltech.edu

Operations

A problem with the 10-W laser chiller electronics was tracked down to there not being a transmit line in the RS-232 connections. The RS-232 driver chip, a MAX233CPP, is suspected. Ordinarily both the data transmit and ready to send lines are active from the chiller.
The 10-W laser is now on in the PSL Lab.

Project

Benno and I have discussed some changes to be made the schedule. This will update the tasks in the schedule, which was created some time ago.

Input Optics

From: David tanner@phys.ufl.edu

AdvLIGO R&D

The adaptive mode matching element has been tested in vacuum. The results are very good and meet expectations. We were able to create an astigmatic lens of 25 m (0.5 mm beam size) in the tangential and the sagittal planes separately as well as a symmetric lens in both directions by controlling the four segmented heaters located around the boundary of a fused-silica plate. (Muzammil)
Work continues on the on AdvLIGO parallel modulation MZ experiment. (Volker)
Work has begun on AdvLIGO IO (Pre-)auto-alignment document. (Volker)
Work continues on data acquisition for the damage testing experiment for AdvLIGO coatings. (Rodica)

eLIGO Commissioning

The WFS noise contribution to DARM for LLO was measured. DARM limited by WFS1 and WFS2a noise at 40 Hz; at least factor of 10 below DARM elsewhere in bucket region. We are presently working on optimizing TCS at LHO. (Kate)

Core Optics

From: GariLynn Billingsley Billingsley_G@ligo.caltech.edu

We have received the first of the expected proposals for Advanced LIGO polishing. An evaluation committee has been established and has been provided with evaluation instructions. The remaining two proposals are expected by January 20th.

Auxiliary Optics

From: Michael Smith smith@ligo.caltech.edu

Work Under Operations Budget

ETM TELESCOPE SUS:

Riccardo measured the damping characteristics of the ETM Telescope suspension test apparatus for various gap spacings and magnet strengths with a copper eddy current plate, which should enable us to determine the optimum gap thickness and magnetic field strength. The violin modes of the stiff suspension rods of the magnet suspension may be problematic. Ken will redesign a wire suspension version with angled suspension wires to provide comparable stiffness of the thick rod magnet suspension.

ETM TELESCOPE:

On hold.

OPTICAL LEVER:

The draft design requirements document for the Optical Lever subsystem is under review by the AOS group.

FARADAY ISOLATOR:

Riccardo provided preliminary design data, and we are planning to use four GAS suspensions to mount the four wires that suspend the Faraday Isolator to provide vertical isolation with an approximately <1 Hz vertical resonance. Niem Nguyen is working on the layout.

MANIFOLD/CRYOPUMP BAFFLE SUSPENSION:

Mike and Riccardo have a preliminary design concept for providing vertical and horizontal isolation of the suspended Manifold/cryopump baffle by using blade springs to suspend the baffle from wires.

TCS (reported by Phil):

The TCS chillers we originally received from Thermo Neslab were the incorrect model, lacking the RS232 interfaces we specified. The correct chillers have arrived at LLO and have been swapped in. The LHO chillers should just be arriving now. We are installing bleed valves into the chiller lines to let out air bubbles, which appear to be responsible for occasional chiller shutdowns.
Analysis of the FLIRcam image of the LHO TCSY annulus pattern suggests that we should not expect very good compensation from it, due to azimuthal asymmetries in the heating pattern. This may be the cause of the low levels of SPOB achieved at high interferometer power at the sites. We are not certain what is causing the asymmetry, but it seems to be consistent with a combination of CO2 laser beam ellipticity and axicon misalignment. These asymmetries were apparent during TCS commissioning, but were not as obvious on the FLIRcam video feed as they were in the FLIRcam image files when analyzing using MATLAB. It is clear we will need to improve the annular patterns soon and have some simple ideas about how to do this.

NEW ASST. PROJECT ENGINEER:

We interviewed one candidate for the position of Asst. Project Engineer to work initially with AOS. A second candidate will be interviewed shortly. The new hire is expected within a few weeks.

Control and Data Systems

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

Observatories
LHO:

ETM bias driver resistors changed to 15k ohms. ITM bias drives are to be modified in the next few days. Continuing recovery from year 2009 leap second issues.

LLO:

Upgrade of control room workstations and move to linux-based systems. Preparing for frame concentrator and frame writer upgrades.

eLIGO/Operations

Preparations for S6 continues. Note: Access to the internal CDS framebuilders will be disabled when the new NDS2 machines come online in early 2009.

AdvLIGO Systems

SEI:

Upgrading HEPI electronics with quieter amplifiers. ISI: Additing power fault protection to coil drivers to sense a single sided power fault and to insure a smooth transition to a safe state. This is accomplished with a disconnecting set of relay contacts on the main DC power supply side and disconnects both positive and negative sides. HAM-ISI Watchdog review in process.

SUS:

The UK is delivering some of the required electronics for the LLO BSC Test Stand. The deliveries continue to encounter delays. The satellite amplifiers are now expected to be delivered in late February or early March.
We have tested the UIM pre-production prototype and it appears to meet the requirements. A report should be issued by next week.
We have started testing the ESD electronics.
Some preliminary designs for the triple electronics have been sent to us by the UK. Comments and recommendations have been sent back.
The testing of the US portion of the LHO BSC Test stand is on hold for other activities.
A preliminary layout of the SUS controls for the LVEA is being drawn up.
The RM test stand is ready for test at CIT, but test are on hold for AdL CDS testing.

DAQ:

Work on the IO expansion chassis continues. We have ordered additional CPUs and backplanes for testing. Performance of the ADCs and DACs should be starting this week.
Work continued on frame compression / uncompression. NDS is now able to read and serve data from compressed frames.
We are having some problems using the latest FrameCpp to write trend frames. Alex is in contact with Ed Maros to determine where the problem is (takes too long to write minute trend frames).
Testing FrameBroadcast software, which is still needed to send data to DMT machines, on the ELigo system at LHO. If this goes well, we should be able to decommission the last initial Ligo Framebuilder at LLO next week.

Timing:

Preparing the required top level documentation for the Advanced LIGO Timing System FDR. Documents will be archived in the DCC after the team members agree on the content.
Work on the timing interface boards ("daughter cards" in the timing slave modules) has been delayed by other work, but should be resumed very shortly.

ISC:

We received a RF demodulator board SN030 from LLO for evaluation. We examined the board and found no significant anomalies. Returned board to LLO after recording a good set of data for posterity.
We are evaluating the dynamic range of the ASI input for the AdLIGO RFPD prototype. All other parameters meet the requirements for a 9 MHz readout per the ISC conceptual design document.
Submitted drawings to manufacturer for quotation and design of in-vacuum RF feedthroughs needed for the AdLIGO ASC and RF PDs.

For additional information about this report, contact Albert Lazzarini

t the requirements for a 9 MHz readout per the ISC conceptual design document.

Submitted drawings to manufacturer for quotation and design of in-vacuum RF feedthroughs needed for the AdLIGO ASC and RF PDs.