There will be no meeting of the Executive Committee on Monday, February 16, 2009 due to the holiday.

Calendar of future Executive Commitee Meetings

LSC Issues (Reitze)

The S5 1 Year Low Mass CBC paper has been submitted to Phys. Rev. D and the updated version has been resubmitted to arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/0901.0302

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Lloyd)

For status of MOUs press here.
The revised MOU for the University of Texas at Austin was received and re-submitted to the review panel for review.

PROPERTY ACCOUNTING (Luna)

Assisted P. King with packing, shipping and creating a commercial invoice for miscellaneous electrical components to be sent to the Max Planck Institute, Germany.
Continued working on LIGO-Caltech physical inventory (Bridge and Synchrotron Lab).
Attended a meeting with Adilia Koch, C. Wilkinson and E. Jasnow regarding imports from LIGO collaborators.
Started the disposal process for LIGO equipment located at JPL.

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Turner, Mak)

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

Worked on the DCC Wiki Page.
Began the process of entering all links on the internal bulletin board into the new DCC as individual documents.

FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Funaro, Oracion)

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

Completed FY2008 (PHY-0107417) LIGO Operations Report for January 2009 and posted report on the network.
Completed FY2009(PHY-0757058) LIGO Operations Report for January 2009 and posted report on the network
Issued monthly reports for Visitor's program, U.Wisconsin award, U.Milwaukee award, LSC Support, Low Noise, Outreach, I2U2, MIT "twonk" report and 3 discretionary awards.
Updated the list of encumbrances to be closed out under the old (PHY-0107417) LIGO Operations Agreement.
Provided data/charts for FY2008(PHY-0107417) January 2009 EAC reports.
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, Champagnie,
Jasnow, Marroquin, 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>

Closeout activities for commitments for the old Operations accounts
See Advanced LIGO below.

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

See Advanced LIGO below.

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

Reviewed closeout status of the contracts and commitments on the old Operations Cooperative Agreement.
See Advanced LIGO below.

PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist, Beckett)

Dave Beckett is preparing the monthly Operations report for the end of January. It should be ready to go shortly.

CHANGE REQUESTS (Lindquist)

Change Request CR-090001 establishing a baseline for the FY 2009 Operations budget has been distributed.

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)

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

No report.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

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

After review and discussion, the Safety Steering Committee has again recommended that lasers used and operated by LIGO should retain (operate with) the manufacturer's installed safety interlocks and laser covers/housings. Presently, there are some LIGO lasers which have had these items removed/bypassed without review and approval by the Steering Committee and the cognizant LSO. The LIGO Safety Officer has requested that these lasers should be restored to their manufacturer's "as-delivered" configuration pending Committee action on a "Waiver" request to permit continued operation without interlocks and manufacturer's installed laser covers.
The LIGO Safety Officer also distributed a list of essential items to be addressed as justification for approving the waiver.

ADVANCED LIGO SAFETY IS BEING REPORTED UNDER ADVANCED LIGO, BELOW

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

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

Last weekend, the M10 mini-run ran on Friday/Saturday. Envisioned as a DMT shakedown and an online h(t) production test, commissioning continued late into Friday and thus decent locking was not re-established until early Saturday morning. The run met several of its goals, including the online production of h(t), and follow-up and more ambitious engineering runs are being contemplated. A closer look at calibration during the run indicated our noise performance at H1 high frequencies is not quite as good as believed. This week we installed a 95/5 splitter in HAM4, sending twice the amount of light to the OMC in HAM6, which will yield lower noise at high frequencies in the short term.

SEI ISI (C. Gray)

Have implemented Brian's new Blend Filters for RX & RY. RX looks good, and now working on checking out RY. Once RX & RY look good, will implement the RZ Blend Filter and take a transfer function to check it out as well
On the Watchdog front, have been working on implementing the latest changes Jeff's made. Last week, this involved some new "checker" features, "straight-through" electronic measurement capabilities, and WD threshold work. Most of this is done, but we still need to get the scripting to work (which involves finding a home where these scripts can run), and Dave B. has been working with this
Additionally, have also started work on allowing the Watchdog to look at the Coil Driver (this is mostly done except for some remaining medm work)

Outreach (D. Ingram)

Southridge High (Kennewick) art students under the instruction of Anne Wendt visited LHO in 12/08 in preparation for a third year of LIGO-inspired artwork. The Kennewick School District recently aired a 90-second spot on this collaboration on local TV (scroll down to "Inside Kennewick Schools - TV Episodes").

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

General Operations (Rusyl Wooley)

Jeremy has completed the check out of all the temperature and humidity sensors in the corner station and both end stations. He is in the process of generating a punch list of work required to repair the broken/damaged sensors. The facilities modifications for aLIGO are moving along. The warehouse needs to have the floor sealed, install baseboards & hang the soft wall curtains and it will be complete.
The new offices in the staging building are nearing completion. They lack some electrical work and doors. We should be able to move the LDAS tape robot any time after March 1.
This week we vented HAM6 for some OMC work. The vacuum system is now pumped down and the large gate valves are open again.
The beam tube enclosure joint repairs are close to completion. Associated Waterproofing has completed 459 of 521 joints. With only 62 to go and the current rate of ~20/day I expect the work to be complete early next week.

CDS (Keith Thorne)

Commissioning Support:

Setup DMT partition accessible to LDAS for M10 run.
Worked with Josh Smith on MATLAB setup for ligoDV, mDV.
Fixed channel list error in conlogger software (M10).
Addressed issues in Linux workstation setup.

Upgrades:

Migrated frame-builder from local to upgraded QFS file system.
Reconfigured networking of frame-builders to minimize interrupts in frame-writing.
Installed fix to Linux Data Viewer software.
Installed new fiber for ldasgw1 <-> LDAS link.

Sys-Admin:

Handled frame-builder reconfig during LDAS power outages.
Worked on installing EPICS upgrades to resolve conlogger, autoburt issues.

Safety & Security (Rich Riesen)

Checked all emergency lights for proper operation. All units working properly.
Inspected all fire extinguishers for proper pressure and physical integrity. All units are in spec. Dated and initialed monthly LLO inspection tags.
Inspected all site laser safety eye wear and found 14 that had scratched lens or frames that were damaged beyond repair, these units were taken out of service.
Initialized and set-up new AED in the SEC class room. It will be wall mounted in it's permanent location when time permits.
Supplied properly labeled secondary containment vessel for cleaning chemicals (Alcohol, Methanol, and Acetone) in the High Power Laser Facility. Chemical resistance safety eye wear and gloves has also been provided.
Before the High Power Laser Facility was brought on-line, a complete laser shut-down and interlock performance check-out was conducted. All systems are functioning properly. A laser safety briefing was conducted prior to start-up, participants were David Reitze, David Feldbaum, and Antonio Lucianetti, given by Rich Riesen LLO LSO.
New emergency laser shut down location signs have been ordered to replace the older paper version.
The factory aluminum cover for the 35 Watt PSL laser has been reinstalled replacing the see through Polycarbonate cover, the cover safety interlock continues to be active.

LLO Outreach

(Kathy Holt)

Attended Inquiry workshop in San Francisco.
Participated with Exploratorium docents explaining exhibits.
Meet with Lori and Paul to finalize agenda and program for next week.
Ordered supplies for Sat. Teacher workshop.
Worked on program and agenda for Sat. teacher workshop on sound.
Collected and compiled materials for Sat. teacher workshop.
Participated in the Docent Recognition Ceremony 16 Docents received certificates: 2 school groups 100 students; 30 elementary students; 70 middle school students.
Continuing to collect and analysis data for student visits, teacher training, and public outreach.
Created a Shared Docent calendar for scheduling and training days that will allow docents to check school visit times and days.

(Amber Stuver)

Completed the Exploratorium workshop "Fundamentals of Inquiry" and traveled back from San Francisco.
Gave control room tours to ~100 students.

LIGO computing and network security (Roddy)

Reported under General Computing, see below

General computing and LDAS admin (Giardina)

Reported under General Computing, see below

Reported under LDAS System Administration, see below

Data analysis & computing (Yakushin)

Storage/Condor/LDAS admin:

Reported under LDAS System Administration, see below

Data analysis:

Reported under Data Analysis activities, see below

Mechanical and Optical Systems (Coyne)

Controls and Data Systems (Bork)

See Advanced LIGO

40-Meter Interferometer (Adhikari)

After the MOPA power was recovered, the ISS became unstable at the lower UGF.
We discovered that since the MOPA is operating with only 2.7 W output (after years of degradation), the mode matching within the rods is probably not good. Since there is no apparent problem with the electronics, we conclude that the PA current is modulating not only the 808 nm pump power, but also the mode matching within the amplifier.
So the low frequency (~0.1 - 10 Hz) change in the current shunt transfer function is mainly due to the degraded pump diodes in this laser (the original H2 MOPA).
A scan of the pumping current spanning 2A around the nominal pump current showed that we were in fact in a region where the output power decreases as the current goes up. Moving the nominal operation current of PA down by about 0.5A made the ISS a lot more stable.
We will remove this bad idea from the 40m during this summer's upgrade and will replace it with an AOM as we have in Enhanced LIGO.
After the ISS was fixed, we resumed night shifts for lock acquisition of the full DRFPMI.
As the seismic noise from the construction of the nearby IT building has decreased, the installation of the large water flume on the other side of the wall from the 40m (in the old CES highbay) has begun. This is a new geology lab that will run mostly in the daytime - so far the contractor has been willing to cooperate with us so that the construction noise will start at 4 AM after interferometer work stops and will stop ~noon when the interferometer people straggle back into the lab.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

This week Akira and Greg restored the vacuum chamber bell jar to its original place inside the clean room, to free up some room in the MOSFIRE area and to facilitate access to the breaker panel on the back wall. Akira also took delivery of some new power strips, some of which will go to the photothermal lab.

LASTI (Mittleman)

BSC ISI

Mostly we are waiting on the silver plated hardware that we need to install the actuators. This is due to a mix up on the material of the helicoil inserts which is stainless steel instead of Nitronic-60.

Quad Prototype

After the Quad was reinserted into the vacuum chamber last week one of the ESD tabs broke off of the mask (at the indium weld). This was not one of the connections that had been repaired last week. At the same time we found that the same cable had developed a short that was probably caused by the clamp on one of the intermediate masses. We have decided to continue with the installation and reevaluate the indium bonding/ESD cable issue.

SEI

Andy and Fabrice have been doing modal analysis of the new HEPI cross beams.

CIT Science Group (Weinstein)

____________

Antony Searle:

Development work on Bayesian clustering for Omega pipeline.

____________

Ajith Parameswaran:

Working on producing (non-precessing) spinning IMR waveforms.

____________

Kipp Cannon:

S4 string cusp reviewee work.
Stack-a-flare reviewer work.
Some work on low-latency inspiral search techniques.
Telecons: inspiral, inspiral-code, s4 string review, stack-a-flare review.
Did some work on S6 segments infrastructure readiness.
Some work on inspiral pipeline infrastructure.

____________

Peter Kalmus:

Stack-a-flare code review.
Stack-a-flare methods paper revisions.

____________

Kent Blackburn for the Grid Computing Research Team:

GRID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

GENERAL:

Working on second draft of poster for OSG All Hands meeting.
Attended LIGO-Pegasus, DASWG, OSG-VO-Group, High Mass telecons.
Wrote agenda and led LIGO-Pegasus and OSG-VO-Group telecons.
Open GOC tickets: Can't run ws-gram job at OCI-NSF, RSV wish list, voms-proxy issue.
Updated DASWG page: OSG-LIGO.
Fixed issues with my DN registration on the OSG and LDG.
Made travel arrangements to attend the OSG All Hands Meeting.

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:
- Robert cut stable version GEO600-1.2.x (01/27), fixed bug 02/07.
- Attempt to deploy code on osg-job.ligo.caltech.edu: (02/06) -- osg-job down until next week.
- 02/09 (head node) Deployment successful at: Purdue-RCAC, NEMO, SPRACE, BNL_ATLAS_1, CIT_CMS_T2, AGLT2, OUHEP_OSG, STAR_BNL.
- Test runs + troubleshooting 02/10, 02/11: Nebraska test runs fail: need WN deploy (can't find certain perl modules due to architecture difference of head node and WNs) WN deploy at Nebraska fails: can't find $GLOBUS_USER_HOME/deployment directory.
- OUHEP_OSG ~20 successful jobs --> GT2 STAR_BNL (GT2)(http proxy issue) NEMO (GT2)(http proxy issue) CIT_CMS_T2 (GT2/GT4) SPRACE (GT4, GT2) fail.
- Re-deploy after additional code fixes - 02/11 ++.
Maintain GT4 activity on 7 OSG sites with old code:
- Recent Average Credit (RAC): 52,183.45522 (down 9000).
- E@H rank based on RAC: 12 (+1).
- E@H rank based on accumulated Credits: 60 (+6).
- Daily manual cleanup.
- High failures at SPRACE, RCAC, CIT_CM_T2, ANTAEUS down (02/06 ++).
- No activity on Nebraska.
As part of the deployment of version 1.2.x of the software:
- Fixed a bug in the deployment code which prevented perl modules to be installed in the correct place.
- Add support to install E@OSG software during execution of the grid job on internal compute nodes (check.pl).
- This makes worker node deployments unnecessary and, prevents grid jobs from aborting, if worker node software and frontend software differ.
- Created a new program (discover.pl) to discover the availability of grid services (GT2/jobmanager?, GT4/factory type?) on remote resources.
- Fixed all inconsistencies in Britta's grid deployment configuration files and committed them to svn for easier maintenance.
- Used Britta's configuration files to deploy the E@OSG software on 18 grid resources using GT2 as well as GT4.
- A total of 9 resources could only be utilized by using the new GT2 interface of the E@OSG software.

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:
- GUC of pegasus tar ball fails at some sites (contacted Karan 02/02, contacted Xin at BNL_ATLES_1 02/10).
- Test runs at LDG/OSG without pegasus stage-in, data pinned to disk at Caltech (02/02): UCSDT2, lsu: tmpltbank fail: can't glob frame files, checked files in remote dir ok, Looking into LIGO software bug
- llo (61 hr), NEMO (28 hr).
- CIT_CMS hangs at data transfer.
- BNL_ATALS_1, lho running.

TEST OF PEGASUS RPMS:

Testing underway on my workstation (spud).
Got highmass code onto spud:(02/06) 32 bit code.
- Test ihope run on LIGO-UWM_NEMO, cit from spud; condor problem on spud, Phil contacted Jamie Frey, and awaiting response

OSG INTEGRATION & VALIDATION TESTBED

STORAGE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT:

The devision of the cluster into two separate networks made it impossible to mount GFS volumes across all nodes and frontends.
Two dual port ethernet interfaces where bought by Stuart Anderson and installed into the two physical frontends (osg-itb, osg-vtb).
Two interfaces on each resource where combined into a multi-channel network interface (bond0) which offers greater bandwidth.
The 10.10.1.0/24 network (iptables/route/dhcpd/xen) was newly setup on top of the newly created multi-channel interfaces.
Network bandwidth increased from ~900MBit/s to ~1.8GBit/s between all nodes and frontends (benchmarked over tcp with nuttcp).
The new topology is easier to maintain and offers greater performance.
RedHat Cluster Suite was reconfigured to utilize the new network.
In the process to mount the 24TB GFS Volume and a smaller GFS Volume for $OSG_DATA, $OSG_APP and $HOME.

GRID MANAGEMENT

After weeks of working with invited speakers for the plenary session of the OSG All Hands Meeting, I have now confirmed speakers for the full day.
Finalized arrangements for the group photo shoot at the OSG All Hands Meeting with the Baton Rouge photographer.
Tested out new LAMS application server after it moved to UWM. It is now in production and working just fine. A few enhancements are being looked at and will be on the table at this weeks SCAT telecon for discussion.
Organized and lead monthly OSG Council Telecon as co-Chair.
Interviewed another candidate for the OSG Production Coordinator position and discussed candidates and how best to move on filling this position with the OSG Executive Director.
Worked on agenda website with staff at Fermilab.
Reviewed pre-proposal processed used by OSG before original proposal was submitted to identify areas of work and interest in collaboration.
Attended telecon to discuss progress of at-large VOs under the OSG as part of the Council's activities to advance these groups.
Finally got caught up on all the pending certificate and account requests that came through over the past month.

____________

Chad Hanna:

Working on an IMR template bank for Craig to use in an experimental high mass search up to 350 Msun.
Working on the low-latency pipeline (code name LLOID).
Following up some events in my high mass search open box.

____________

Becky Tucker:

Submitted one month highmass dag to CIT.

____________

Cristina Valeria Torres:

Revised draft of follow up document that will be used as a training reference for all future follow up investigators.
Run AUTOTRACK by hand on BS_OPLEV oscillation DQ flag times as case study.
Help out with LLO SEC middle school tour to site.
Finish integrating quick (sqlite based) DQ query module for automatic follow up checklist integration, could be used by others in collaboration, module available via pylal in fu_utils.py and DQ available at https://ldas-jobs.ligo.caltech.edu/~ctorres/DQstuff/followupDQ.sqlit.
Get DQ information tables into checklist generation scripts, completed pending commit to CVS see sample at https://ldas-jobs.ligo.caltech.edu/~ctorres/sandbox/H2L1inH2L1/CHECKLIST/H2L1-makeChecklist_H2L1_860326651000000004_H2L1-unspecified-gpstime.html.
Redesigned and implemented automatic tracking of contrast in tracksearch pipeline to minimize bad data epoch causing underestimate of TF image contrasts.

____________

Joseph Betzwieser:

Internally reviewing the E@H S5R1 paper.
40m: Finished the new RGA interface running for the SRS 200 RGA. Working on getting the python camera code working on the 64 bit CentOS 5 machines, which has involved a lot installing non-standard packages and libraries, plus debugging.

____________

Igor Yakushin:

Tested coherent WaveBurst online analysis and h(t) data transfer to the central location during M10: https://ldas-jobs.ligo.caltech.edu/~igor/M10_ONLINE/ The results are summarized in "Investigation" section of the page.
- cWB was running without a single failure on L1H1H2 UP times at ldas-pcdev1.ligo.caltech.edu.
- Almost all loud L1H1H2 coincidence triggers were caused by a long duration glitches at LLO at about 400 Hz; notified the detector characterization team at LLO about these glitches on Saturday morning; according to Josh and Jake these glitches are most likely caused by a vibrational resonance associated with the new DC readout hardware.
- Used rsync to transfer data from all three interferometers to CIT; h(t) frames from LLO appeared at CIT about 50-60 seconds behind the time raw data was collected: the frame appeared on fb0_frames@LLO about 40 seconds after the end of the time interval covered by a 16-second frame, another 10-20 seconds were needed to transfer it to CIT. At LHO several bottlenecks were found which resulted in much larger latencies: 130 + (200-300) seconds. The planned CDS/LDAS upgrades at LHO should be able to reduce the latency to the LLO's level.
- It takes cWB about 2-3 minutes (after the necessary h(t) frames appear at CIT) to produce the final result, including sky coordinates, ready to be submitted to external collaborations. Therefore provided that LHO's and Virgo latencies during S6 are the same as LLO's during M10 (which is very likely given the upcoming upgrades at LHO and preliminary tests in data transfer from Virgo to CIT), it is realistic to expect that during S6 cWB triggers can be submitted to external collaborations ~4-5 minutes after the raw data is collected at sites.
- Found and fixed a bug in cWB online scheduling procedure that resulted in discarding of ~13% of data that can otherwise be analyzed.
- When comparing UP segments from h(t) state vector and H1 conlog discovered a bug in the conlog which was promptly fixed by Peter Shawhan.

____________

Jing Luan:

Working on noise simulation in order to test the efficiency of our convex hull method for localization.
Also I calculated the leakage of IIR filters to get a better understanding how well IIR filters can work.

____________

Drew Keppel:

The S5 1 Year Low Mass CBC paper has been submitted to PRD and the updated version has been resubmitted to arXiv. The version submitted can be found at: <https://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/
ligovirgo/cbc/protected/papers/s5-1yr-lowcbc/s5-1yr-lowcbc.pdf>.

Laboratory Computing (Anderson)

LDAS Software Systems (Maros)

This week sees the generation of version 8 frames in LDAS on ldas-dev. Several minor issues were corrected which enabled this functionality.
An error in the zero suppress compression for complex data was corrected and tested.
The diskcacheAPI was also modified to eliminate a deadlock situation that was observed on ldas-dev.
The release of ldas-1.12.0 has been scheduled for Monday, February 23, 2009.

LDAS System Administration (Anderson)

Caltech

(Phil Ehrens)

Various certificate related duties.
Arranged for repairs to Lieberts in Synchrotron 215A.
Worked on moving and refactoring of LIGO Internal Bulletin Board webpage.
Created Kerberized CIT logo for wiki authentication.
Replaced Drew Keppel's desktop machine, Deimos, with a different machine because of chronic hardware problems.
Debugged and reported on some Pegasus related issues in support of the OSG efforts of Britta Daudert.

MIT

(Fred Donovan)

Received 3510 and installing.

Livingston

(Igor Yakushin)

Shut down/restored LDAS services before/after last Friday power outage at LLO.
Couple hours before M10 noticed that DMT was writing frames not to /fb0_frames, which is visible to LDAS and online pipelines, but to local disk which is not visible outside the control room; that was done to reduce the interruption in the control room during fb0 upgrade; notified Keith on Friday night and he promptly switched DMT to writing to /fb0_frames so that online analysis that use DMT h(t) frames could proceed.
Created /online/frames directories on the cluster to mount the the directories with DMT h(t) frames.
On Staturday morning restarted node210 that was crashed by Omega pipeline on Friday night.
Tested h(t) transfer from LLO and LHO to CIT during M10; for details see my weekly report in the Science section.

(Doug Lormand)

Nodes 17, 128, and 138 were down since the power interruption on Friday. Nodes 17 and 128 only required a reboot to bring online. Node 138 had a memory stick failure and came online once the stick was replaced.
Node 138 Went down again Monday evening. It looked like a memory stick failure but it came back online when I tried a reboot.
Node 201 went down Wednesday afternoon, it had a disk read error. It came back online after a reboot.
Node 201 is down again, I'll check it tomorrow when I get in.

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

Worked with LDAS to successfully copy raw data and generate reduced data sets for all of M10 at LHO and LLO. This data has also successfully been published into LDR and transferred to CIT.

(Dan Moraru)

Replaced main LDAS border switch and upgraded GC connection from 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps (with help from Jonathan).
Installed new UPS for Sun 3511 array.
Setup new gridmon server, running CentOS 5.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT

(Fred)

sql logging xp backups and smartdata.
nfs issues cds.
Autodesk install.
Various xp desktop isuses.
Lastest demo ilog running on nepal.mit.edu:/fjd/index.cgi.
Dumped ilog data to elog (nepal.mit.edu:8080) proof-of-concept.

Livingston

(Dwayne)

Continued development of parts management UI and testing.
Imported all LIGO.ORG users into JIRA.
Assisted Rupal with Comsol issues, he rebuilt workstation with XP 64 bit and did Comsol / Matlab installs.
Moved /apps and /mirrors to a new array.
Replaced disks in old /apps and /mirrors array with 8 - 1.5 TB disks, to become ZFS tank3.
Adjusted the vfstab entries on the machines that were mounting /apps and/or /mirrors.
Ordered a new x2200m2 for production parts DB server. Still trying to have my Sun Account associated with .edu program and any of our contracts.
Decommissioned baronne, old dhcp server, old router, old syslog server, and old support.
Stole memory from old syslog, and added to chestnut which is soon to be rebuilt.
Ordered replacement memory for an x2100.
Attended a few meetings.
Worked a couple additional procurement items.
Numerous usual/unusual user support requests.
Cleared spam trap daily

Hanford

(Jonathan)

Warranty repairs on two computers.
Returned a LDAS box for testing with Debian.
Connected LDAS to gigabit switch.
Installation, testing, and tuning of CanIT Pro mail appliance (on-going).
Added SPF entry to the DNS.
Updated bind to 9.6 and applied system patches to all GC dns servers.
Found software that will talk to our UPS.
Added an additional access point to the control room to improve wireless access. These access points are fairly decent and I am investigating how useful they will be to partition the wireless access between a visitor and private network.
Kept DHCP addresses available for mini-run 6-7 Feb.
Fixed network utilization report -Minor user support.
Resolving paperwork questions over an item mistakenly shipped to us.

Caltech

(Mike)

Worked this week at LHO loading a new server, and updating the ADVLIGO Primavera & Prism Project Management software.
Also took care of some SolidWorks issues, and added a few more accounts to grant access to the Vault.
Other on-site user support, and sysadmin tasks.

(Veronica)

Ongoing support of the L-V meeting.
Published the GWADW09 website. The registration app is in live mode. Working on an online payment gateway.
Updates of the Open Data Review website.
CaJAGWR: Taped a presentation and processed it for streaming, updated the website.
LIGO/LSC website updates/ user support.

(Melody)

Continued working on the allowing Public access to the new DCC.
Supported user requests (removing wrong files, allowing access).

(Christian)

Julie Hiroto - Replaced 8-port switch in Julie's office.
Re-imaged two laptops that were returned to the loaner pull this week.
Toner cartridge replacement - 3flr W/Bridge.
Tested the latest Microsoft security patches this week.
Stocked printer cartridges that were delivered to LIGO this week.
Surplus more old monitors and cpus this week.
Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.

(Larry)

Multiple purchases have taken place. Various items for the LSC-V meeting coming up have arrived and a few more items still need to be purchased for that project. A couple of notebooks have been purchased for different end-users. Still need to purchase a couple more for new users and some upgrades. Still working out configurations for the engineering workstations. Finally received the quotes for the new core switch and started on the paperwork for that purchase. Working on getting some signatures for one of the s/w license renewals.
Minor assistance given to other groups in PMA. Covering mail and network services.
Worked on getting a few more ssl certs acquired and installed.
Updated dns tables to accommodate a number of new requests for web services, both here and CIT and at a partner location.
Worked with one of our application providers and hacked in a updated license for their s/w package.
Worked on a number of logistical items for the LSC-V. There has been some good news in that the network installation for the meeting has started, at the hotel.
Some tracking down of network problems. Looks like we have a few cables needing to be replaced.
Working on a new storage area for the engineering home accounts. These will be located on the new home server and so far things are looking pretty good.
Updated a number of web pages for different people.
Regular user assistance.

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Advanced LIGO Management

From Carol Wilkinson

Project Controls

Members of the project controls team (Mary Kurts, Alan Wilkins, and Carol Wilkinson) were at CIT this week:

Attended a demonstration of the new document control center for the benefit of the procurement group.
Met with Ron Kong and Michelle Lin in IMSS on getting access to the various reports from Cognos and other financial reporting systems.
Met with Michelle Thompson and Monica Marquez in Finance for access to specialized procurement reports and to discuss methods for distributing invoices directly to subsystem leads rather than to the procurements office.
Met with Adelia Kock on how to set up package requesting duty importing for the UK contributions that may start shipments late March.
Met with Dlorah Gonzales in HR to improve the uploading of the time verification system.
Started cross training Bert, Mary, and Alan for the new division of responsibilities for the procurements coordinator, procurements tracker, and procurement integrator roles. The procurement tracker position was split out from the procurement coordinator job since the work load was more than could be accomplished by one person.
Started set-up of the procurement tracking system and transfer of data from Oracle to the PRISM data base.

Staffing

Ads are out for one optical technician at CIT and two software engineers at the sites. Both contract and term CIT employee options are being explored.
Procurement Office is processing the contract for a contract optical scientist to replace a departing contractor.
Ads have been approved for assembly support techs at both sites for March start dates. They include 1 inventory control tech, 1 clean and bake, 1 logistics coordinator, 2 SUS assembly techs, and 1 SEI assembly tech for LLO; and 1 inventory control tech, 1 clean and bake, and 1 SUS assembly tech at LHO. They are expected to be on board by April.
A candidate is being interviewed for the open ME position at LLO.

Procurements Staff

For Bert:

Working on procurement tracking system.
Starting on the Acquisition plan for the second half of FY2009. Goal is to send the plan to NSF for approval on March 2

For Ed:

Completed final review of core optics polishing contract with the chosen company and initiated submittal of package to Dick Seligman via FastLane.
Reviewed financial data on GeoTech, the contractor for the GS-13 seismometers, and authorized milestone payments which will equal one-half the contract value within 30 days ARO with initiation of orders for long lead items.
Met with Adilia Koch, Carol Wilkinson, and Rod Luna to discuss procedures for the shipping and receipt of the donated suspensions from the United Kingdom.

For Rudy:

Helped Steve with the Geotech Instruments procurement documentation.
Worked the negotiation plan and contract for Tinsley core optics polishing

For Steve:

Executed order with Teknet for a Agilent 8753E Network Analyzer.
Executed Change Order No. 1 with Associated Waterproofing Corp. to adequately waterproof and seal the existing building.
Executed order with SRI Hermetics for Custom Ultra-High Vacuum RF and DC Feedthroughs.
Executed order with General Standards Corp. for the procurement of the ADC and DAC boards and specialized adapters.
Finalizing procurement awards for the Geotech (GS-13 Seismometer) and Limerick (HEPI Machined Parts).

NSF Acquisition Approvals

We are awaiting NSF approval of the Core Optics polishing award submitted February 6.
Project members are working on the Acquisition Plan for the second half of FY2009. The plan is to submit to NSF for approval on March 2.

Progress Updates

The Monthly report for January is circulating for comments and will be submitted to NSF by February 14.
The Annual Report for the first 9 months of the Advanced LIGO project is in final draft form and will be ready to be sent to NSF during the week of February 16..

Meetings & Reviews

The next Monthly Progress Reporting Meeting will be on Thursday, March 12 at 8:30 AM PT. Subsystem leaders or their delegates need to attend.

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

Timing FDR continuing -- report pending

Procurement Techncial Reviews:

No significant action this week.

Technical Review Board (TRB): see the TRB log

UHV & Vacuum Review Board (VRB): see the VRB log

VRB request: revised approval for electroless nickel plating process, L0900013-v1, to include alternative process with the plating occurring after the age hardening
approved Dupont PI-2525 polyimide for use on the SEI actuators (based on RGA and optical contamination cavity testing; report pending)

Configuration Control & Documentation:

New DCC and procurement: Calum, Melody, Stuart and Dennis briefed the procurement team about power of the new DCC and what it could do for procurement.

Design:

Advanced LIGO layout and mass properties: Ed and Calum now have both a simplified and a detailed layout of both HAM 2 and BSC 8. The examples we have setup include options for the "tree" and the setup of the layout. They will cover actions associated with both payload and overall layout.
Suspensions: Helping with procurement of new prisms and design of curved spring
AOS: Helping with transfer of OMC style (HSTS) suspension and structure for possible use in AOS Faraday Isolator suspension

Interfaces:

See the RODA status pag e and the Interface Control page.
assisted with defintion of triple suspension electronics work scope/interface defintion between UK and US

Modeling and Simulation

From: Hiroaki Yamamoto hiro@ligo.caltech.edu

Nothing special to report this week.

Safety

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

Safety compliance presentation to LLO management and LSO on safety related issues that were identified during the inspection of the Staging Building on February 4, 2009. Abatement recommendations were given and strategies to maintain compliance are in development process.
Assisted Bill Tyler with revisions for the LIGO Lab System Safety Plan document. (M950046) It was noted that a few site specific safety programs still need development and will be referenced in the LIGO System Safety Plan once completed.

Quality Assurance

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

Inventory Database:

Dwayne has been working with the SUS team quite a bit to get parts in the database and trouble shoot bugs. Much progress has been made but there is quite a bit of work to do to get it to a point where it is easy to use and fully functional in managing parts through the receiving, clean, bake and assembly processes. We also did an early mock up for the receiving inspection module to reside in the Inventory DB. This will be programmed as well by Dwayne, as time permits. We will continue to develop the general statements on inspection for this module, and allow for a great deal of flexibility by the users to add custom inspection points and notes, and to accept or reject individual parts in an inspection batch.
Started to look into barcode technology today, this is a new area for me so I need to get up to speed on what our limitations are as well as the technology limitations related to the clean and bake process, in vacuum use, and if this is an easy to use system that is not cost prohibitive. I will be looking into laser etching, 1D and 2D barcode technologies, and how these perform in various materials next week when in Pasadena.

Supplier Contracts:

Assisted the SEI team writing QA terms for the purchasing contract for instrumentation.
Received the optics coating documents for review and will be developing the QA documents for that contract later this week, early next week.

Supplier Inspections:

There have been a few issues with poor communications and slipping delivery dates with a particular supplier, and will be escalating our pressure on them to respond and perform to get us the items we ordered according to contract. We may be getting to the point where procurements team will need to step in and take some actions, as it is starting to impact our work schedules. Please contact me for more details on this issue if needed.

Travel:

I will be at CIT Feb 16th-Feb 20th to work with the team there on JIRA, Inventory DB, and with the procurements team on QA sections of outgoing contracts.

Facilities Modifications and Preparations

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

LLO:

The warehouse work is essentially complete. The only items left to close out the construction contract are sealing the concrete floor, installing the base boards and installing the soft walls for the clean area. The soft walls are going to be installed on Friday 13Feb. We have one snag...they only delivered 3 of the 4 soft walls, but that will not stop us from receiving and assembling the portable clean rooms at the first of March.

LHO:

HEPI mezzanine is 99% complete. Photos here http://jupiter.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/%7Ehradkins/Images/MezzErect/

Seismic Isolation

From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

aLIGO Project Activities

HAM ISI Design:

We have received the report from the FDR committee for the HAM ISI along with authorization to proceed with all long lead components.
The Dupont PI-2525 polyimide has passed the optical contamination cavity test. Stephany has written a draft SOW for the large stage 0-1 actuators. It is being reviewed by members of the SEI team and will be uploaded to the procurement wiki within the next couple of days.
We have received a quote for the capacitive position sensors used on the HAM ISI. A new strain relief and lower noise control module is included.
Changes to the HAM ISI mechanics are near completion.
Documentation is being uploaded to the pdmworks vault and document control per the new aLIGO standards.
HAM Crossbeams: Fabrice has contributed his expertise in experimental modal analysis, to identify modal frequencies and shapes for the new Crossbeam design. Results will be made available next week. ~Andy S.

HEPI Mechanics:

Pump Station -- No changes, Manifold & Resistor washers coming along.
Crossbeam Foot -- Received first shipment of these beasts -- look good-see this.
All other orders progressing as before.
Facilities -- Mezzanine: Major construction is complete. A few final details left. See photos here. ~Hugh

R & D Activities

BSC ISI Design:

BSC ISI design -- We had the second meeting on the BSC-ISI design. We are organizing the work that must be done on the BSC-ISI design changes before the design reviews. The main objectives of this redesign is to facilitate the assembly and improve the stiffness of the structure.
Actuator test jig -- Sam Barnum has finished the first revision of the design. We are going to do the FEA. If results are good we'll edit the drawings and process the order for the machining.
BSC-ISI installation and tests -- Continuing the actuator installation. We'll start the BSC-ISI modal testing as soon as the actuators are installed. ~Fabrice

Suspensions

From Janeen Romie and Norna Robertson
(romie_j@ligo-la.caltech.edu, nroberts@ligo.caltech.edu)

Operations Work

Our three engineers (Janeen, Derek, Mike) are attending a Solidworks course in Florida this week.
We have started to look in detail at the design of the lower blades for the HAM triples which are thinner than the current baseline (more highly stressed) to obtain lower spring constant. It turns out that they are so thin that the initial deflection these blades would need to be made so that they are flat when loaded takes them beyond a simple shallow radius of curvature. Note that we are not changing other dimensions at present to minimise overall suspension design changes. Some modelling work is needed before we can prototype, and this includes considerations of possible buckling.
We had extensive discussions this week on various aspects of the ElectroStaticDrive (soldering to gold plating, design of cables, design of clamps etc) following experiences from the quad noise prototype at LASTI. A list of topics needing attention has been made and we are starting to address these.

Project-Funded Activities

An initial draft of a RODA changing all suspension magnets from NdFeB to SmCo has been produced.
We are working with the UK team on the lessons learnt from the recent quad training exercise. Topics of discussion include documentation, shipping procedures, possibility of a full first article assembly in the UK, schedule for future training and schedule for delivery of production items. Further telecons to discuss various aspects are being scheduled.
We have prepared information for a budget ACR to cover one set of BSC tooling, storage containers for all BSC HAM and HAMA suspensions and miscellaneous BSC parts, noting that savings from a revised estimate of overall cost of LIGO 1 OSEMs and savings from other items originally in the costbook but not now needed can be put against these new scope items.

Prestabilized Laser

From: Peter King <pking@ligo.caltech.edu>

Operations

Nothing significant to report.

Project

The dark currents for all the 3mm PD3M-001-150 InGaAs photodiodes as a function of bias voltage have been measured. The worst dark current measured at a bias of +5V was over 500nA, with the best being approximately 3nA. Such a large variation was not a surprise to the manufacturer.
Some pre-selection of photodiodes will therefore be required for use with the intensity stabilisation.

Input Optics

From: David tanner@phys.ufl.edu

eLIGO Commissioning

We are setting up a permanent OSA on PSL table to enable measuring the power in each sideband. We made WFS stable at 7W in new stable/unstable basis. (Kate)

AdvLIGO Design

We have finished getting UF solidworks files synchronized with the Caltech vault, and are working on HAM2 layout. (Luke)
The beam sizes and radii of curvature values for the arm cavities and (both) recycling cavity mirrors have been calculated for both the straight and folded interferometer. These values can be found at https://dcc.ligo.org/DocDB/0000/T0900043/001/LIGO-T0900043.pdf. The document lists the values for a beam size at the vertex of 5.3 cm. Subsequent changes (if any) will be updated in new versions of this document. (Muzammil)
We are working on finishing writing a technical document on light scattering in the Faraday crystals and input mode cleaner. (Rodica)

AdvLIGO Procurement

We received the first shipment for the Advanced LIGO mirror blanks from Heraeus: 6 IMCC, 6 SM and 6 PMMT. A second shipment is expected to arrive within 2 weeks. (Rodica)

AdvLIGO R&D

Other research:

We have made progress at the HPLF in the areas of safety and equipment acquisition. The 100 W fiber laser from IPG Photonics Corp. has been sent back to LLO and tested at the HPLF. We have installed the optical components in preparation for the endurance testing of the AdvLIGO optics under 80 W incident power (Antonio, DavidF, DaveR).

Core Optics

From: GariLynn Billingsley <Billingsley_G@ligo.caltech.edu>

We are entering into negotiations with a polishing vendor for the polish of Advanced LIGO Core Optics. The contrctual terms and conditions need to be negotiated.

Auxiliary Optics

From: Michael Smith <smith@ligo.caltech.edu>

Work Under Operations Budget

ETM TELESCOPE SUS:

Virginio made preliminary transfer function and ring-down measurements of the ETM eddy current dampened suspension.

OPTICAL LEVER:

Eric is awaiting the determination of which optics will require optical levers--to be established at the optical layout meeting in FLA the week of 2/23/09.

FARADAY ISOLATOR:

Niem made a preliminary SW design for the FI suspension using the as-built suspension frame and a similar upper blade spring design of the OMC. He is implementing a concept for pitching the FI by moving a small weight with a Pico motor.
Dennis gave verbal approval for Mike to purchase a spare Faraday rotator component from EOT to be used to determine the correct payload and center of gravity for the FI suspension.

TCS:

The preliminary design review is scheduled for mid-April. Phil reported that during the coming week, the LHO TCSy CO2 laser will replaced with a spare to determine if that fixes the observed temperature drift. The Layout of the CO2 table will be modified to allow overfilling of the axicon lens, with an aperture placed to establish a sharp outer boundary for the annular heating pattern.
Phil and Aidan are having discussions with the Adelaide group to align the Australian funding pattern for the Hartmann sensor development with the ADLIGO schedule.

35 W BEAM DUMP FOR ENHANCED LIGO:

Ken is working on the beam dump.

MEZZANINE LAB:

Ken has been assisting with securing the equipment and working with the police department regarding the recent thefts of SUS equipment in the Mezzanine Lab.

RANA'S BEAM DUMP:

Ken and Mike completed a preliminary design for the out-of-vacuum 35W ELIGO beam dump, which uses a polished Si plate to catch the first bounce of the incident 1064 nm beam at Brewester's angle, followed by a polished oxidized SS cavity beam dump to dissipate the remaining 1% of the power that is not absorbed by the Si plate. The Si plate is cooled by means of a bonded free convection finned heat sink. Ken and Rana made preliminary measurements of the absorption of the Si plate at Brewester's angle with p-polarization--98% of the incident power is absorbed. Ken has on hand the finned heat sink and is in the process of building a bonded heated resistor experiment to verify the heat transfer characteristics of the finned heat sink with 35 W dissipation.

40 METER MODE-MATCHING TELESCOPES:

Mike spent time resurecting the ACAD drawings for the input and output mode-matching telescopes, so that Yoichi Aso can modify the magnifications and the focusing of the telescopes.

Control and Data Systems

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

Observatories and eLIGO Activities