PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist, Beckett)

• We presented the LIGO Operations financial status for the end of March during the executive committee meeting on Monday, April 20, 2009.  I have prepared a revised budget for FY 2009 Ops and distributed copies to the task managers for comment.  The revision incorporates the staffing plan provided by the Advanced LIGO project for FY 2009 as well as comments provided Monday.  We will use this budget update for the end-of-April financial reports.

CHANGE REQUESTS (Lindquist)

• Change Request CR-090001, which formally establishes baseline budgets for FY 2009 LIGO Operations, has been distributed for consideration by the LIGO Change Board.  We will issue a revision incorporating the updated budget model for consideration by the change board.

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)

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

• No report.

Quality/Safety (Nolting)

LIGO Lab Safety

• Received the Satellite phones for LLO and in process of setting up for LLO management. As soon as LHO receives their phones, Safety will assist management in setting up their phone service as well.
• Reviewing the Transition Procedure of Laser Safe and Laser hazard Conditions.  Carl Adams (EE @ LLO) gave me a practical walk through the process to better understand the special procedural requirements.
• Working on establishing a list of OSHA required written safety and training programs for LIGO Lab.

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

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

• Having evidence of rubbing in tip-tilt mirror TT1 (and perhaps TT2), we vented HAM6 on Thursday. Inspection of these and other optics found no obvious signs of hangup, not in the TT flags/LED/PD region, nor anywhere else (TT1 was pull briefly from the chamber to get a good view). It is possible that TT1 is hanging more freely after the vent (as suggested by it's sensing spectra). Friday we will dump ghost beams on the table, make some final alignments, button up and pump down.
• E13 is slated to begin on Friday, running Fri-Mon, however startup may be delayed some by the HAM6 incursion. Scimons, detchar and DMT folks arrived at the lab midweek to help run the machines, test DMT software, etc.
• Our earthquake swarm is thankfully subsiding.

Astrowatch (D. White)

• The H2 uptime for the week was 32%.

Report on the Squeezer Experiment (D. Sigg)

• MIT (S. Dwyer): Myron helped me move the optics table into room 69. The chiller and SHG both came.
• LHO : Continued to work on the design and the prototypes of the new RF electronics. Localized a missing cable for the laser.

LHO Outreach (D. Ingram)

• Outreach activities this week included visits from 15 undergrads from Linn-Benton Community College (Albany, OR), a team of disaster mitigation specialists from Fort Lewis (Tacoma), ~20 local IEEE members (V Sandberg), 120 chem students from Hanford High, a pulsar presentation at Columbia Basin College (M Landry) and a career awareness day for mid schoolers at WSU-TC (D Ingram and A Merlin).

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

Seismic Survey (Brian O'Reilly)

• The survey has passed over most of the site. Last Saturday and Sunday were the days of closest approach to the corner station. The observed ground motion was in line with expectations and caused no apparent problems. We expect that they will complete the area near the X-end station on Saturday the 25th and be one mile or more from the site by mid-week. Today (4/23) we unlocked the ETMY test mass, the plan is to start unlocking the optics in the corner station next Tuesday.

LLO CDS  (Keith Thorne)

Electronics:

• Jeff Kissel and David Clark fixed a long-standing problem with the binary I/O on the ISI front-end by properly tightening the signal cable.
• Carl Adams completed the cable and plumbing cleanup on the TCS systems. He worked with Virginio Sannibale to commission the TCS ISS servo.  He also activated the serial port on one chiller to support commissioning of the TCS Chiller communications.
• Peter King and Mike Fyffe completed their work in the PSL and corrected some readout issues.

Software - Upgrades:

• The EPICS software for the TCS Chiller communcations front-end was successfully built and installed, with help from Cyrus Reed.  We are still working to get the serial communications loop working.
• The DMT RAID hardware was installed and connected to the designated file server.  The support software was installed.  We are still working with Dan Kozak to commission this system.
• A 64-bit EPICS installation (3.14.10) was installed and is now available on the new workstations.
• We now have all the hardware for the framebuilder x2200 upgrade.
• The new web server was successfully stood up in test mode.  This will replace the old 'london' server.

Software - Commissioning Support:

• With much help from Igor Yakushin and Dan Kozak, we have temporarily installed the LDAS raw frame RAID in the CDS racks, and have hooked the frames files in read-only mode to the FB1 framebuilder.  This was to allow retrieval of frames for the ongoing seismic survey studies.  This will also allow them to be archived by the LDAS 40TB RAID also now in the CDS racks.

Software - Sysadmin:

• The installation of the additional DMT and LDAS RAIDs resulted in a number of power trips in the CDS racks.  To remedy this, Danny Sellers and Rusyl Wooley did a long-delayed power measurement of all CDS MSR circuits.  This will be used to plan a redistribution of the loads prior to S6.

HAM-ISI Commissioning (Brian O'Reilly)

• Corey Gray is visiting this week from Hanford and Daniel Clark is in from Stanford. Together with Jeff Kissel they have been taking advantage of the shutdown to work on HAM-ISI commissioning. So far they have finished designing and closed all of the isolation loops. The system is very stable, even surviving the motion due to the seismic survey blasts.
• The next step is correcting for position sensor mis-alignment. Daniel Clark has received all the parts to make tuned-mass dampers for the ISI blade springs. We hope to have these cleaned, baked and assembled in the next two weeks.

Livingston Outreach (Amber Stuver)

• Gave control room tours to ~90 students, ~15 grad students, and 3 visitors (the visitors were from Ole Miss) in the last two weeks.
• Met with Lisa Szechter to discuss future research in the SEC and discussed applying for a grant together.
• Performed docent training on site in interference and the exhibits and classroom activities performed in the SEC that illustrate interference.  I have also created documentation to accompany this training and it is in the DCC as T0900166.
• Updated the Giant Slinky activity (T080203).
• Completed a bank of concept self awareness evaluations for use with docent training and teacher professional development (T0900176).  The evaluations cover the topics of process skills, the scientific method, the metric system, sound & waves, interference, optics, kinematics, gravity & relativity, and astronomy.
• Created an index cross referencing exhibits in the SEC exhibit hall and documents in the DCC that reference them (L0900072).
• Communicated with my contact in the APS regarding the education poster on gravitational waves and LIGO that they are designing around text I created.  Originally, this poster was to be first distributed at the upcoming April APS Meeting but there have been some technical delays and the poster will not be released at the AAPT Summer Meeting in July.

LIGO computing and network security (Roddy)

Reported under General Computing, see below

General computing and LDAS admin (Giardina)

Reported under General Computing, see below

Reported under LDAS System Administration, see below

Data analysis & computing (Yakushin)

Storage/Condor/LDAS admin:

Reported under LDAS System Administration, see below

Data analysis:

Reported under Data Analysis activities, see below

Mechanical and Optical Systems (Coyne)

See also Advanced LIGO

• Submitted  a change request to the CCB for allocation of funds for R&D in support of Adv. LIGO.

Controls and Data Systems (Bork)

See Advanced LIGO

40-Meter Interferometer (Adhikari)

• Lock acquisition effort continues. The AutoDTT script from LHO was modified to suit the 40m environment. It indicates that DARM becomes unstable at around arm power = 30. The phase bubble of the DARM shrinks at this power level. We are adjusting the filters to compensate for this.
• Jenne replaced the mixer for the PMC demodulator because it was level 23 and our current LO level is 16dBm. This is the same problem seen at LLO and LHO. The guess is that the ERA-5 in the PMC Frequency Reference card is dead. The new mixer is level 13 which is easily sufficient and the PMC locks fine with the new mixer.
• The main turbo pump failed on Wednesday. It did an emergency landing on the dry bearing. With this incident, the number of the emergency landing exceeded the allowed limit (5 times maximum). We have to replace the bearing but it is hard to find a replacement because the pump is more than 15 years old. We will have to replace the old turbo with the spare one. Since the spare pump is newer model, the EPICS interface and the interlock wiring must be updated. We are preparing for this. Meanwhile, the vacuum is maintained by the cryopump.
• Joe and Peter made a skeleton model of a suspension controller with the advanced LIGO style realtime code generator. The idea is to make highly advanced screen / FE so that this can be used as a template from which to copy from for the triples and quads. This will also be the control for the 40m upgrade SOSs and MOSs.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

• This week, Akira reanalyzed the data from the undoped/optimized coating. In the first analysis, there had been some deviation from Gaussianity in the wings of the amplitude histogram of the FFT. The first analysis simply took the difference between the data and the theoretical fit, and the histogram appears to have been slightly skewed by the fact that the experimental uncertainties scale with the amplitude of the fft coefficients (amplitude vs. frequency). Taking the difference between the logs of the fit and the data produces a histogram that appears to be completely Gaussian, removing the slight bias toward higher amplitudes seen in the first analysis. At this time, we are not entirely sure why the uncertainties should be proportional to the amplitude of the power spectral density, and we are looking into the reasons for this scaling.
• Greg reoriented his pump laser to better avoid the beamsplitter, and by focusing the beam on the test mirror, he was able to eliminate the iris from his setup. Data from the sample with the BK7 substrate is now very clean, with no observable resonances up to 100 kHz, but with no cancellation notch, either. He is now in the process of calibrating his measurement to see how close this signal is to his theoretical prediction, with the idea that some of the pump light could be leaking through the chromium layer (between the dielectric coating and the substrate), artificially boosting the substrate contribution and pushing the cancellation notch to higher frequencies.

LASTI (Mittleman)

BSC ISI

• The ISI is ready to return to vacuum. The ballast mass on both stages has been redistributed to try to minimize local resonances with the result that the lowest (non rigid) mode on both stages have moved up considerably (charts, graphs and actual numbers will appear after we pump down). The top of the BSC has been replaced; we will seal up and pump down when the Quad is fully running.

Quad Prototype

• The Quad has been aligned to the triple (in the X-Ham chamber) and is balanced, aligned with damping running. During the final checking procedure an ESD cable failed so we are currently waiting for a replacement to be manufactured and cleaned.

CIT Science Group (Weinstein)

__________

Antony Searle:

• Completed revisions and resubmitted Bayesian bursts paper.
• Began position reconstruction runs.
• Unacceptable rate of job failures prompting...
• Began effort to change Omega build process to true compilation.

__________

Ajith Parameswaran:

• Investigated the observed bias in the recovered Pheom. injections using EOBNR templates (CBC high-mass search).
• Continuing the work on spinning IMR templates.

__________

Gregory Mendell:

• I am continuing to work with Colin Gill on fscans, in particular working out plans to produce a limited number of fscans for E13.

__________

Chad Hanna:

• Helping Romain Cariou get set up to work on inspiral pipelines.
• Working on high mass post processing.

__________

Cristina Valeria Torres:

• Gave an invited colloquium talk at the University of Mississippi.
• Edit my GWDAW-13 proceeding paper in preparation to submit it.
• Revise some core elements in AUTOTRACK, revising the trigger characteristics used to create glitch groupings.
• Attend Gulf Coast Gravity Meeting(at LSU) and gave a talk on the current status of the CBC follow up efforts.  (DCC LIGO-G0900365).

__________

Amber L. Stuver:

• Presented a talk at the 5th Gulf Coast Gravity Meeting on the LOOC-UP project.
• Worked with Cristina Torres to incorporate my delayRatio module into the CBC follow-up pipeline.
• Started planning for the EM transient post-processing module of LUMIN.  I will be contacting select WFO observatories to begin the conversation and start making plans for what the LOOC-UP will need to do independently.

__________

Anand Sengupta:

• The CAT X vetoes and ihope page of the 4 month S5 high mass run https://ldas-jobs.ligo.caltech.edu/
  ~anandss/ihope/runs/s5_high_mass/820555271-831355391/ * Summary page for the 4 month run https://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/ligovirgo/cbcnote/JointS5/090417132950S5HiCBCMonth3-6_Summary_Page * Following up missed injections https://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/ligovirgo/
  cbcnote/JointS5/090416092707S5HiCBCInjections_missed_in_first_coincidence.

__________

Joseph Betzwieser:

• Worked with Vladimir on coherent followup pipeline for Powerflux outliers.  Began testing the pipeline on S5 hardware injected pulsars.

__________

Peter Kalmus:

• SGR stack results paper approved by ExComm.
• Revised SGR stack methods paper.
• Circulated SGR stack methods paper to LSC.
• Ongoing work on S5y2.
• A5 SGR search.
• Submitted Amaldi abstract on SGR GW searches.
• Wrote APS talk on SGR stack search.
• Preparations for APS meeting and other summer conference travel.

__________

Kipp Cannon:

• Last minute stack-a-flare review sign-offs.
• Prepared and made review presentation for stack-a-flare pipeline for LSC  executive committee meeting.
• Final read-through of ring-down paper, sent comments to Lisa.
• Made final plots requested by uber burst review committee for sign-off of string cusp search for LSC executive committee meeting.
• Taped posters to wall.
• Reviewed paper for CQG.
• Reviewed GPU paper for Lin Qing and Shin Kee.
• Worked on high-mass upper limit procedure with Chad Hanna.

Laboratory Computing (Anderson)

LDAS Software Systems (Maros)

• Again, efforts have focused on the diskcacheAPI this week. Support for multiple extensions continues. There is now a single routine which queries the file cache and generates various reports based on the type of results requested by the caller. These features have been incorporated into the standalone application called 'diskcache'.
• The latest version of FrameL has been installed on ldas-dev for Solaris using the pkgbuilder rules.

LDAS System Administration (Anderson)

Caltech

(Dan Kozak)

• Still rearchiving the A5 frames that were on T10KB format tapes but didn't have ssum set.
• Worked with Keith Thorne & Igor at LLO to get /frames set up in the CDS machine room after the LDAS shutdown.
• Delved more into our problems running CAM, discovered that the problem at LLO was probably not the same as the problem at LHO or CIT.  Did discover that a completely fresh installation on a machine that's never run CAM before seems to work at CIT.
• Configured CDS machine ldasgw1 and nldas (ngateway) to use the rebuilt filesystem bkup_frames (/msr_frames).
• Made list of tapes for shelf storage at LHO.
• Helped Keith Thorne with first steps to get the new DMT RAID unit set up at LLO.
• Cleared out prestager.log after it filled up opterondata-lho:/usr1.
• Used clusterstage.pl to repopulate node170:/usr1/frames.
• Set up LDR access for Australian collegues.

(Phil Ehrens)

• Ongoing work implementing additional features and functionalty in TAR website per requests by Albert, Dennis, and Marilyn.
• Installed ldg locally on menkar under /opt.
• Various user support tasks.

(Josh Abadie)

No report.

MIT

(Fred Donovan)

• Condor updated to 7.2.2; visited Bates tested racks, nodes mount ok.

Livingston

(Igor Yakushin)

• Old LLO cluster is gone to MIT; all the equipment is removed from the LDAS room.
• Ffour 3511s, one 3510, fiber channel switch and 4540 are moved to MSR to support raw frame archiving of data during the explosions.
• Fire suppression system work is in progress in the LDAS room.
• Set up h(t) and DQ XML file replication from LHO to CIT for low latency online analysis:
  • All the replication scripts are now in CVS: http://www.gravity.phys.uwm.edu/cgi-bin/cvs/viewcvs.cgi/
    lsware/data-replication/push/?cvsroot=lscsoft.
  • Added an entry into the wiki: https://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/daswg/wiki/S6OnlineGroup/
    DataAggregation.
  • Wrote monitoring scripts that update the latency web page once per minute: http://ldas-cit.ligo.caltech.edu/ldas_outgoing/archiver/hot_DQ/index.html.
  • At the moment, H1 and H2 h(t) frames appear at LHO about 40 seconds after the end time of a frame interval and at CIT about 10-20 seconds later.
• For LHO's DQ XML files the corresponding latencies are 50 and 70 seconds; the reason XML files take longer to transfer is because DMT is writing them directly instead of first writing to a temporary file and then moving it to the final location once it is complete.
• As a result to avoid rsyncing of incomplete files the script waits for 32 seconds before attempting to rsync a file.
• Once John fixes DMT, the XML transfer latencies can be reduced by 30-40 seconds.
• Working to compile the new v8.00 frame library on sparc and x86_64 Solaris.

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

• I am working with everyone to set up for E13.  In particular, working with LDAS and CDS, the "secondary" framebuilder's new filesystem is now up, and DMT data is once again visible to ldas. New servers have been set for the segment database, for running the omega pipeline, and building code to link against the version 8 frame library under CentOS 5. I will be setting up Disk2Disk and RDS generation for E13 today.

(Dan Moraru)

• Finished installing 1TB drives in nodes being shipped to MIT.
• Attended Condor Week 2009 at UW-Madison.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT

(Fred)

• Replaced mainboard Ken's computer (bad onboard nic).
• Some web stuff.
• Some ilog work.
• Mostly routine issues (printing, outlook, etc).

Livingston

(Dwayne)

• PC setup/patch for Mech Engineer.
• Kantech server updates and reboot.
• Installed RHEL 5.2 on new hardware for ICS/JIRA.
• Configured server for Apache/SSL, installed JIRA standalone, patched with updates/config changes from Appfire.
• Running into troubles configuring new ICS for LIGO.ORG authentication. The first time was very smooth, so this is puzzling.
• Assisted with HPLF computing issues
• Resolved power supply issues in a workstation for a Mech Engineer .
• Restarted arkeia on cleveland and ran a full backup.
• Ran updates on a couple other Windows machines and one Mac.
• Attended a few meetings.
• Worked a couple small procurement items.
• Numerous usual/unusual user support requests.
• Cleared spam trap daily.

Hanford

(Jonathan)

• Routing on the .209.xxx network.
• Updates to the firewall, DNS, DHCP for .209 network.
• DNS updates for LDAS.
• General preparation for NSF review.
• Backed-up and re-imaged a guest computer for use as a print station during the NSF review.
• Fixed printing problems on optics lab computer.
• Configured a new laptop for Doug Cook.
• User support Fred Raab, Gerardo Moreno, Doug Cook.
• Routine spam and dhcp work.

Caltech

(Mike)

• Loaded another new Engineering workstation to replace a corrupted Workstation.
• Started loading another new Engineering workstation.
• Working on setting up a server to load a linux webserver.
• Ordered GC equipment for conferencing, and other misc. items for users.
• Swapped out a some computer equipment for a new user.
• Setup new user accounts.
• Some work on the mail servers adding to whitelist per users requests.
• Worked on some of the printers swapping out supplies.
• Other misc. onsite/phone user support, and sysadmin tasks.

(Veronica)

• Installed a link to the news blog at the homepages; the blog received a positive feedback from Jay and others.
• WebComm: Built a draft website. It is ready to be populated with content. Tested an alternative setup for an image gallery. The Committee and the EPO group are working on generating the content. For many Commitee members, the end of term is a considerable diversion of time and attention. In the meantime, meeting the deadline is becoming a critical issue; I offered a couple of backup solutions in case time runs out.
• User suppot: Sydney / Dorothy -- the e-commerce account for GWADW; Dorothy with the MOU website maintenance.
• Updates of various LIGO and LSC web applications.

(Melody)

• DCC User support (removing wrong files and versions, allowing access).
• Updated the DCC database to store long usernames.
• Worked on author groups and authorship permissions.

(Christian)

• Albert Lazzarini - Installed new local HP printer and called Kar from IMSS to repair built-in isight camera.
• Arianna Di Cinto - Computer keeps crashing after running Labview. Updated network and Nvidia drivers on workstation.
• Rolf Bork - Configured new MacBook pro for Rolf.
• Kari Hodge - Configured Hiro's old MacBook pro for Kari.
• Steve Privitera - Installed and configured new MacBook Pro.
• Continued working on updating unattended Windows XP dvd.
• Working on Garilynn's new MacBook pro with XP Virtual Box.
• Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.

(Larry)

• Numerous procurement related items. Purchased a number of new notebook computers for different people. Still a number to go. Received UPS units. Worked on a couple of maintenance contracts. Resolved a number of purchase items and cleaned up paperwork on P-card items. In the process of ordering more PC and Sun workstations.
• Took care of a couple of DNS and mail alias issues.
• Worked some logistical issues for the NSF review.
• General user assistance.
• Couple of rebuilds on PC and SUN boxes.

Distributed (Grid) Computing R&D (Blackburn)

Grid Application Development

Einstein@Home on the OSG:

• Utilization of OSG this week consistent with last week's, still running on 18 OSG sites.
• Current OSG ranking statistics: Recent Average Credits (RAC) for past week = 65,185.43295; E@H ranking based on RAC = 9 (up one from last week); E@H ranking based on accumulated credits = 39 (same as last week).
• Discussed a performance bottlenecks in E@H project's web server at AEI for OSG jobs with Bernd Machenschalk (at AEI). He has implemented a workaround for accounts used for OSG jobs by our group.

Binary Inspiral Application on Grids:

• Successfully demonstrated the ability to populate the RLS server at USC-ISI using the pegasus rc-client tool with gravitational wave files. Will need to automate this in order to build up catalogs for gravitational wave files that have been pre-staged to OSG storage elements in order to use Pegasus to plan large workflows for binary inspiral analysis on OSG facilities with storage elements. This will be demonstrated first on the Caltech Integration Testbed in the near future.
• Working with Scott Koranda and IT staff at LSU, identified several challenges to pre-staging data to LSU for use in binary workflows generated with Pegasus. This will also leverage the RLS service at USC-ISI once the data is pre-staged. A trouble ticket has been filed with LONI by LSU IT staff to resolve challenges.
• Currently running workflows on LONI that do the data movement internal to the workflow until pre-staged data is available.

  Open Science Grid Integration & Validation Testbed

• While testing the SRM (Storage Resource Manager) on the Testbed, discovered  that there are several different clients, each with varying behavior and preset default behavior that made test results challenging to generate. Have now successfully tested the SRM and made recommendations for improvements to   the Integration Testbed (ITB) Twiki documentation. Wrote a small howto for users of SRM based on what was distilled from the testing challenges.
• Found single small file transfers with SRM (LIGO Frame File sizes) to be very slow and have contacted the developer in an attempt to identify ways to boost the performance when transferring LIGO Data to OSG storage elements.
• Began final tests for update procedures to OSG 1.0.1 software stack this week. The results of these tests will be discussed in this week's Thursday afternoon ITB teleconference.
• Evaluated the VTB update using the new updater script. Problems with the software cache have prevented progress on this as of yet.
• Documented the technical layout of the Caltech Testbed and distributed to the Integration Area Coordinator (Rob Gardner) and Kent.
• Added our storage element to the validation tables for the ITB on the web.
• Installed important patch for CentOS 5.3 to the cluster based on communications with Kent.

Grid Management

• Worked with USC-ISI (Pegasus Development Team) to update their Attachment Z to reflect new members they have hired that are interested in working with LIGO. Presented these changes to their MOU to the CompComm this week.
• Discussed large software project needs and data analysis models being used in various scientific communities with Duncan Hall, the software project manager for the Square Kilometer Array.
• Discussed options for improving the performance and ease of use of Pegasus for binary inspiral workflows with Pegasus developers.
• Reviewed summary statement on LIGO's issues with discovery of ports for services used in by our job submission mechanisms that were found while testing on the pre-release OSG software stack. This statement was sent to the OSG Executive Team this week.
• Reviewed definition of "Community Grids" in the OSG that was distributed  to the Executive Board in response to a session held at the OSG All Hands Meeting at LLO in March.
• Reviewed KDC Operational Requirements document.
• Met with Philippe Galvez to discuss EVO development and infrastructure.
• Spoke with Nelson Christensen to discuss LSC Remote Participation Committee's experiences and discoveries.

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Advanced LIGO Management

• Preparing for the NSF review , in parallel with normal Project activities.

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>, Ed Chavez <chavez_j@ligo.caltech.edu>,  Bob Taylor <taylor_r@ligo.caltech.edu>,  Mike Smith <smith@ligo.caltech.edu>, Mike Zucker <mike@ligo.mit.edu>, Hiroaki Yamamoto <hiro@ligo.caltech.edu> see the Adv. LIGO Systems wiki preparing and reviewing talks for the upcoming NSF review of Advanced LIGO

AdL Project-Funded Activities

Design/Readiness Reviews: For a list of reviews, see the main AdL wiki page.

• Optical Lever Design Requirements Review & Conceptual Design Review (DRR/CDR) has begun (Mike L.).
• Review of the UK provided ETM/ITM quadruple pendulum suspension electronics continues (Jay H., Vern).

Procurement Techncial Reviews: see the procurement wiki.

Technical Review Board (TRB): see the TRB log.

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

• Small Parts Washer: (Bob Taylor) The small parts washer has arrived but has not been moved into the bake lab. I have moved some ovens around in preperation for the move-in.  It should be in the lab by Friday.
• Help on revised OSEM design: (Bob) I have been working with the OSEM redesign team, providing some ideas on cleaning and baking the new design. 
• Oven Temperature Stability: (Bob) I am running some Temperature stability tests on the ovens in the bake lab.
• Optical Contamination Cavity Testing: (Bob T., Liyuan)
  • Cavity 1: 7 production BOSEMs.
  • Cavity 2: carbon-loaded PEEK; proposed as spool for the new value engineered OSEM (nickel plated PEEK might be a fallback).
  • Cavity 3: I have not received the new pumping station or laser for the new test cavity yet. The cavity glass tube is still at the glass shop.
  • Queue:
    • Tra-Bond 2103 epoxy (a medium viscosity, low outgassing, general purpose epoxy) -- proposed replacement for Vacseal.
    • Krytox low vapor pressure lubricant (we have samples).
    • Torr-Seal (Varian adhesive -- proposed replacement for Vacseal).
    • Barrierta-IS (a German Company low vapor pressure lubricant alternative to krytox, that New Focus thought may be cleaner) (we have samples).
    • Retest ADE position sensor materials (2 Tra-Con epoxies) due to the anomalous test results (no samples in hand).
    • Copper & kapton clad fiber optic. Brian Lantz wants to test this material for use with an optics table, optical lever system. Could be used for ALS etc. Likely "inherently" vacuum compatible, but worth checking since it has a polymer.
    • Nedox solid lubricant (for potential BSC-ISI tooling use (class b) but perhaps useful in vacuum as well) (had small sample -- likely inadequate in size).
    • Tungsten carbide/carbon (WC/C) sample (for potential BSC-ISI tooling use (class b) but perhaps useful in vacuum as well) (had small sample -- likely inadequate in size probably inherently vacuum compatible).
    • Cesic sample (composite ceramic of SiC, Si and C) possibly inherently vacuum compatible application is not clear (high stiffness to weight structure) (sample size adequate?).

Configuration Control & Documentation:

• SolidWorks Drawing Templates & Bill Of Materials (BOM) (Calum & Mike Meyer): Mike has prepared a set of revised drawing templates. Calum has discussed the use of the BOM template to also generate data needed by the JIRA inventory conrol system with Mick Flanigan. To be discussed at an Optomechanical meeting this Thu 4/23.

Design/Planning:

• HLTS and HSTS on a HAM table (Calum): The FEA model I have been preparing over the last couple of weeks is now ready to run.With some help from Derek and Mike I have updated the FEA versions of the structures and modified the clamping method in the FEA model. I have also applied manual contact regions, simplified the HAM seismic table further and added all of the specific material properties. I hope to have results by tomorrow morning. I will post these at LIGO-T0900193.
• Optomechanical layout progress in SolidWorks (Ed, Calum, Luke):  Ed and I have now built versions of HAM2, HAM3, BSC5 and BSC7 that will be used for the review next week. This have been made into e-drawings and loaded to the vault. Luke Williams is visiting this week from Florida. We are spending most of the time passing on how to make changes at the various levels of our chamber and layout models so Luke can for example change location of parts, add optics. We have also been discussing the addition of the laser beam at each chamber level and the co-ordinate systems currently used. I have been working on getting Celine Ramet access to the newly created BSC chambers in the vault. Celine has also contributed to the new layout by updating our simplified version of the BSC table. Today I went over in detail the various items that interface with the table e.g. suspension, dog clamps, hockey puck masses, stiffening struts etc ... Celine is now going to familiarize herself with the various flavors of the BSC's now in the vault and we will follow up again in the next week or so. Details from Ed:
  • Reworked HAM10-H2 Top Level Assembly. Rotated Table 90°.
  • Created an e-drawing presentation from HAM2 for Dennis.
  • Created an e-drawing presentation from BSC8 for Mike S. showing the position for ACB.
  • pdated the following chambers: BSC5 & 7, HAM 2 & 8. I created eDrawings for each chamber to be used by Dennis in a presentation.
  • Created a Check List of items to be used when updating the top level assembly of a chamber, e.g. proper configuration selection, proper mass, proper coords, etc.
  • Showed Luke how a Top Level Assembly is build, how a 3D sketch works along with the design table. We also positioned an optic, adding the Reference. Tools to the appropriate level.
  • Calum, Mike S., Luke and I had a meeting to discuss the relation between the Global Coordinates System with relation to the Local (Chamber) CS for each interferometer. We came up with a plan to do this at the Overall layout level. Mike will provide new Coords in two weeks.
  • Calum, Luke and I had meeting regarding how to add Laser Beams to the Chamber level and overall layout; in progress.
• COC support (Calum): I am going to work with COC on the new "cake tins" and the ergonomic arms. So far Ed, Luke and I have discussed the cake tins and hope to discuss this further later in the week and Ed will then build a 3D model that can be modified for all of the different flavours. I will talk to Mark Barton about the ergo arm when I am at Hanford next week.
• OMC Structure FEA (re-visited) (Calum: I was asked to look again at the modes associated with the loaded OMC structure. The ANSYS model compares well with experiment. I have calculated modes uo to 500 Hz. I am in the process of writing this up in LIGO-TO70086. (At present all that I have loaded is the dsdb file form ANSYS).
• Cantilever Blade FEA (Calum): I have started to write up the recent FEA work on the Suspension Blade Spring for HSTS. I am also planning to expand the FEA to include the first 6 or so modes of this blade spring. I will also include the ANSYS dsdb file and the modeling method used so that this can be repeated for other blade springs as required.

Interfaces

• see the RODA status page and the Interface Control page.
• In and around the test mass: (Calum) Discussions on this are continuing this week. Another couple of items have been added and will be discussed with RAL, along with the proposed actions, at a follow up meeting tomorrow. All of this will be reported here at LIGO-T0900092.

Modeling and Simulation

From: Hiroaki Yamamoto hiro@ligo.caltech.edu

Static IFO Simulation (Hiro, Sany)

• When simulating the stable Michelson cavity where a field is focused very strongly by P/SR3, FFT calculation needs to use a very large number of grid size - 2048x2048. This slows down the simulation. Sany is trying to invent a formalism to lessen this burden by removing the most strongly oscillating part analytically. Design and code development of for the full advLIGO simulation are keep going.

COC Modeling (Hiro)

• The thermal lens induced by CP in ITM was analyzed by using the thermal lens calculated by Phil, assuming gold coating. The higher order mode induced by this lens is ~0.1% and negligible. The thermal lens without gold coating is going to be calculated by Phil soon. The loss calculated using this new lens will help to decide is gold coating is crucial or not.
• Compared stable Michelson cavity designs with large (30 degree) and small gouy phase (15 degree). The small one is favored for stronger ASC signal. The imperfection, like the thermal lens in ITM, introduce more higher order mode for the small gouy phase design than the one with large gouy phase. This is analogous to the comparison between the stable and non stable cavities.
• Started to look into the TCS problems observed at LLO. Relevant docs ported to new DCC. ( G040442, T040177 ).

Safety

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

• Preparing documentation for the NSF Review at LHO next week.
• Preparing safety related documentation for LHO construction contractor performing work activities for AdL upgrades at the facility.  LIGO will indicate that the contractor follow, at a minimum, the safe work guidelines that are contained in the LIGO Operations Safety and Environmental Protection Manual.  

Quality Assurance

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

In Vacuum Reliability:

• Held a call with one of our suppliers to review their long term reliability, in order to assess the risk of these instruments in vacuum. The call went very well, we received a lot of very good, encouraging information from them on their MTBF, types of failures found and the attention to detail the put into the supplier selection, assembly and test processes, and diligence in record keeping. We will be receiving some further information from the supplier and will be providing the core team with a more thorough report.
• Along the same lines, we also have identified a system that is not performing as expected during the initial testing. We will be evaluating the results and test methods, as well as receiving some very valuable input and help from the supplier in determining if there is a problem with our test methods, or there could be a component at issue here. We are also going to be comparing some legacy instruments that tested out OK many years ago, subjecting to the same test processes as the new to see if the results are repeated, pointing to our test methods or measuring devices.

Inventory Database:

• We are currently deploying v16 on the test server tonight, and will roll out the final phase one version sometime Friday April 24th to our permanent servers at LLO. Dwayne did a fantastic job as usual setting up the servers for us.
• JIRA for ICS has been reduced to 24 remaining bugs or improvements to be worked, and most of these will be addressed overnight. We will be able to start loading in parts tomorrow, unless there is a major issue that comes out of one of the final builds, which we do not expect as the system has been thoroughly tested and run through QA/QC.
• Met with the Solidworks team today to discuss the possible output format change to the bill of materials (BOM's). Right now we are integrating the revision with the drawing as a single output, but we would like to have it output these two values independently so we can import and query on the revision only. This is going to be looked at by Mike Meyer, however it may not be a trivial task. We are also asking for "type" to be output in a spate field as well, instead of in the notes section. However this is more difficult to do, and is very rare. Almost no drawings are classified with a type marker, so it may be much effort for not much gain. We decided to punt on this and continue to handle this manually.
• SOW is out for Phase 2 of the JIRA ICS system, expect the proposals back next week for review. We wish to start Phase two immediately and conclude the scope by June 17th. Phase 2 appears to be about the same amount of work as phase 1, however we were heavily rushed, compressed in phase 1. We missed our original deadline by a few days and therefore have extended Phase 2 by a week over the original plan, to be more realistic in delivery.

Facilities Modifications and Preparations

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

• LHO warehouse progress: http://ilog.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ilog/pub/ilog.cgi?group=detector&date_to_view=
  04/23/2009&anchor_to_scroll_to=2009:04:23:15:14:41-john.
• HEPI work: http://ilog.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ilog/pub/ilog.cgi?group=detector&date_to_view=04/23/
  2009&anchor to_scroll_to=2009:04:23:15:16:11-john.
• Large ultrasonic cleaners received at both sites.

Seismic Isolation

From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

aLIGO Project Activities

SEI  Electronics Design and Fabrication:

• We have sent the remaining 159 L4C Cable parts to Dinkar at Ticor Industries for production.
• The quick prototype run of the STS-2 Distribution chassis board has started coming in.  It should be tested shortly.
• I am mostly working on the Pump Servo now, investigating PC-104 Single Board Computers for its control processor, and to run RTLinux and epics to communicate with the rest of LIGO.
• Mohana's Coil Driver schematic is still being reviewed.  It should be final very soon. ~Ben A.

HAM ISI Design and Procurement:

• RFQ has been sent to bidders for the maraging steel blade fabrication.  RFQ for large plates should be sent out within the next couple of days.

HEPI Build Status:

• We met this week with the supplier of the HEPI position sensors. The low frequency noise (.1 - 1 HZ) was found to be higher than the sensors supplied on HEPI installed at LLO. They are planning to modify a sensor and bring it to MIT on May 12th for testing. Delivery is on hold until we can resolve this issue.
• Pump Stations -- Should have another nine more manifolds anytime now.
• LLO assembly fastener order essentially complete.
• Custom Spherical Washers for the DSCW Spring Assembly are shipping now--LLO should have theirs anytime.
• Final HEPI housing should ship to LHO next week.
• Critical need Machine Parts should ship from Limerick 8 May.
• Actuators -- 30 more units in progress at KineOptics; first nine shipping to LLO shortly. ~Hugh

SEI Activities and Progress at LLO:

• Corey Gray is visiting this week from Hanford and Daniel Clark is in from Stanford. Together with Jeff Kissel they  have been taking advantage of the shutdown to work on HAM-ISI commissioning. So far they have finished designing  and closed all of the isolation loops. The system is very stable, even surviving the motion due to the seismic survey blasts.  Daniel Clark has received all the parts to make tuned-mass  dampers for the ISI blade springs. We hope to have these  cleaned, baked and assembled in the next two weeks. 
• We continue to receive parts from HEPI and to set up the new space for the stands (valve-test, filter flushing and actuator flushing). ~Brian O

R & D Activities

BSC ISI Design:

• We have redone finite element analysis and performance estimation to evaluate the impact of a possible vertical actuator relocation. Risks and benefits have been discussed with the SEI team and presented to the folks of System and Management. We are in the process of making a decision.
• Ken is working on quotes to compare the global cost of a monolithic approach versus a bolted approach on stage0.
• Sam has made good progress on the seismometers pods design (Trillium and GS13).

BSC ISI Testing:

• We are evaluating the performance improvement we can expect from the recent progress on the BSC-ISI prototype at LASTI. On stage1, we plan to raise the unit gain frequencies from 20Hz to 30Hz.
• All the work we wanted to do  on the hardware is done. We are taking the last transfer functions to check everything is fine before to close the chamber. We'll start the control commissioning next week. ~Fabrice

Suspensions

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

Operations Work

• Fielding questions for machine shops on the blade prototype RFQ. We will get quotes on Monday and choose a vendor as soon as possible.
• OMC drawing package review found some drawings that need updating with the "no 303 stainless" note. This has been completed. The BOM is being updated to the new drawing revisions now. The BOM is needed for SOW creation for the weldments and machined parts procurement.
• Two tests were performed on the HLTS structure stainless tubing to determine if clinch nuts are installable in the current configuration. These tests appear to be successful and more clinch nuts are being procured. It is our hope that Systems Engineering accepts this configuration this week.
• Creating library of clamps for the HLTS assembly.
• Norna has prepared a talk on behalf of the suspensions team for the APS meeting in Denver and circulated to colleagues for comments.
• An updated RODA on use of magnets for suspensions has been put onto the DC ready for signatures.

Project-Funded Activities

• Worked with OMC FDR review committee on fine details of final report to support input to major acquisitions list for 2nd half of FY09 and to clarify number of units to be assembled in the near term.
• Investigating long term storage and shipping cases for suspensions with input from SEI.
• Continued holding meetings on preparation work for the OMC procurement.
• Further work on preparing NSF review presentations. Final versions have now been submitted to the DCC.
• Converging on including flexi-circuit in initial LIGO osem as part of value engineering exercise. Working with CDS on all aspects of osem electrical. Researching molding approach to PEEK head to reduce cost and increase reliability.
• Held a number of telecons with our UK colleagues on parts delivery dates and dates for training sessions.

Other

• The monthly SWG telecon was held on 17th April. Minutes have been posted to the SWG elog.

Prestabilized Laser

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

• Prepared viewgraphs for the up coming NSF Review next week.
• A problem with the chiller flow rate and pressure was seen at LLO. The spare chiller is being cleaned and prepped for substitution. The source of the problem has not been found yet, although wear and tear is likely.
• The output noise for the current intensity stabilisation photodetectors was measured for both metal film and thick film resistors when used as the transimpedance resistor. Even at a low photocurrent of 1 mA, there is a noticeable difference at low frequencies (less than 10 Hz).

Input Optics

From: David tanner@phys.ufl.edu

Advanced LIGO Design

• We have produced various designs of the recycling cavities for ASC work. Specifically, Gouy phase values of 20 degree for the PRC and 15 degree for the SRC. We have also evaluated the effect of thermal lensing for various design options. (Muzammil)
• Luke Williams is visiting Caltech this week to work on the SYS layout, learning how to use reference tools and design tables, and find a resolution to the conflict between local level and the ligo global coordinate system. (Luke)
• We are working on IO ZEMAX layout, to include the details of the Faraday and other transmissive elements. (Rodica)

Advanced LIGO R&D

• The LMA coating experiment has been started at the LLO high-power test facility and is running, incident power 90 W, focused to 45 um 1/e^2 diameter. (David F.)

Advanced LIGO Acquision

• We are working on the IO coating specifications. (Rodica)

Core Optics

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

• While characterizing two HR coated 1" mirrors with CASI is still on going, Liyuan started recovering TIS measurement on RTS for comparing scatter results measured with CASI and RTS, also for evaluating the different cleaning process which will be mostly carried out by Rand next week.
• Provided Tinsley with count and size of the crates containing COC blanks.
• Learning to use new equipment that has came in for first contact use/characterization, minor changes to the coating spec sheet.

Auxiliary Optics

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

Work Under Project Budget

OPTICAL LAYOUT:

• Luke is at CIT this week working on the SYS integrated layout, learning how to use reference tools and design tables, and helping to find a resolution to the SW layout conflict between local site coordinates and the ligo global coordinate system.

Work Under Operations Budget

OPTICAL LEVER:

• Riccardo wrote a rough draft of the Conceptual Design document. Eric B. published the Design Requirements doc in the DCC. Dennis is putting together a review committee, and the Oplev conceptual design review will be held in the near future.

OUTPUT FARADAY ISOLATOR:

• Mike received a quotation from Karl Lambrecht Corp for a set of spare glan-Brewster polarizers to be used for AdLIGO.

35 W AIR-COOLED BEAM DUMP:

• K. Mailand's completion of shop drawings is ongoing. A test of clean air bake of the mirror stainless material is complete.

ETM TELESCOPE/ TRANSMON:

• Mike determined that spherical mirrors for the 3 meter f/16 ETM telescope cause too much astigmatism in the current folded geometry. However, off-axis parabolic mirrors will produce a diffraction limited beam, and a three-mirror refractive telescope will also perform satisfactorily.
• Sam W. pointed out that setting the transmon detection QPD to form an image one Raleigh range closer than the beam waist location provides a good Guoy phase, while at the same time reduces the sensitivity to the defocus of the ETM telescope.

MIDSTATION BAFFLE:

• Mike's scattered light analysis is pending.

TCS:

• Aidan presented a preliminary optical schematic for the AdLIGO power and beam-pointing stabilized CO2 laser system.

DEVELOPMENT BUDGET:

• Mike and Riccardo are working with Dennis to determine a budget for the Faraday Isolator, and the Oplev prototype tasks to be completed this summer.

Control and Data Systems

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

"Operations": R&D, and ELIGO DAQ

LHO - Electronics:

• An oddity on H2: IFO would not lock. It apeared that mirrors FMx and FMy were not being controlled and their watchdogs were having no effect. The problem was a blown fuse on an otherwise reliable 5V supply.

LHO - Systems/Software:

• DTS test stand: Performed admin work on NFS server and user accounts. Setup a new NAT router for the test stand (OTS unit).
• CDS DAQ. Decommissioned the last of the sparc framebuilders (fb1) and built up the eLIGO fb1 system (fb1w writer and ldasgw1 QFS writer). LDAS restored the /dmt data and raw minute trends to ldasgw1. fb1w is writing frame 8 compressed frames. These frames are 50% the size of the uncompressed frame 6 frames. Renamed the frame 8 capable nds to be "nds0", which is the default. This system was recompiled to be a full nds supporting all data types.
• Reworked the MSR KVM system, reconfiguring the split between the user kvm and the admin kvm. Added more of the new DAQ computers to the KVM.

LLO - Electronics:

• Fixed a long-standing problem with the binary I/O on the ISI front-end by properly tightening the signal cable.
• Completed the cable and plumbing cleanup on the TCS systems, commissioned the TCS ISS servo.
• Activated the serial port on a TCS chiller to support commissioning of the TCS-Chiller communications.

LLO - Systems/Software:

Upgrades:

• The EPICS software for the TCS Chiller communcations front-end was successfully built and installed. We are still working to get the serial communications loop working.
• The DMT RAID hardware was installed and connected to the designated file server. The support software was installed. We are still working with DCS to commission this system.
• A 64-bit EPICS installation (3.14.10) was installed and is now available on the new workstations.
• We now have all the hardware for the framebuilder x2200 upgrade. The new web server was successfully stood up in test mode. This will replace the old 'london' server.

Software:

• Commissioning Support: With much help DCS staff, we have temporarily installed the LDAS raw frame RAID in the CDS racks and have hooked the frames files in read-only mode to the FB1 framebuilder. This was to allow retrieval of frames for the ongoing seismic survey studies. This will also allow them to be archived by the LDAS 40TB RAID also now in the CDS racks.
• Sysadmin: The installation of the additional DMT and LDAS RAIDs resulted in a number of power trips in the CDS racks. To remedy this, we performed power load measurements of all CDS MSR circuits. This will be used to plan a redistribution of the loads prior to S6.

"Project": AdvLIGO Systems

SEI:

• Sent the remaining 159 L4C Cable parts to Dinkar at Ticor Industries for production.
• The quick prototype run of the STS-2 Distribution chassis board has started coming in and will be tested.
• Focusing effort on the HEPI Pump Servo, investigating PC-104 Single Board Computers as candidate control processors, and to run RTLinux and epics to communicate with the rest of LIGO.
• Actuator Coil Driver schematic is under review.

SUS:

• Completed the testing of the Pre-Production Top Driver Unit. The test report has been written and can be found in the dcc. The document number is T0900170.
• Testing of the pre-production prototype of the penultimate driver (PUM) has been started.
• Testing of the triple low-current driver has started.

DAQ:

• Develop presentation material for NSF review.
• Document CDS DAQ timing for the front-end DAQ systems.

ISC:

• Working on a flexible circuit board solution to the Advanced LIGO OSEM head. The goal is to be able to reliably clean and mass produce these typically fussy assemblies using injection molded carbon loaded PEEK as a body, and a flexible circuit board to mount the LED and photodiode, as well as make all the required electrical connections to the micro D-sub connector.
• A signal breakout chassis has been prepared for shipment and installation at LHO. This chassis is the interface between the DC readout diodes, and secondary systems like the control room audio (via Fibox). I will put it in next week while at LHO.

For additional information about this report, contact Albert Lazzarini