The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday, June 1, 2009 will be:

(Meeting time: 10:30 am Pacific Time)

1. Announcements

2. LSC - Reitze

3. Focus Topics

Laboratory work alone policy (D. Nolting)
Copyright materials policy (A. Singer)

4. Change Control Actions

5. Advanced LIGO

Overall - Shoemaker
Project Management - Wilkinson

6. Enhanced LIGO - Adhikari / Zucker

S6 Preparation - Whitcomb

7. Sites

Hanford - Raab
Livingston - Giaime
MIT - Shoemaker / Fritschel

8. Caltech

Administration - Lindquist
Engineering
Optical and Mechanical - Coyne
Control and Data Systems - Bork
Lab Computing - Anderson
Instrument Science - Gustafson
Data Analysis and 40M - Weinstein

Calendar of future Executive Commitee Meetings

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights:

LSC Issues (Reitze)

The CBC group paper "Search for Gravitational Waves from Low Mass Compact Binary Coalescence in 186 Days of LIGO's fifth Science Run". has been posted on the arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.3710. The paper is intended for Phys. Rev. D Brief Reports.
A proposal to change the way scientific monitoring (scimon) shifts are conducted was circulated to the LSC last week. There are several modifications to the scimon program compared with how it was conducted in S5; including:
- A minimum stay of 2 weeks for each scimon, with not more than five contiguous daily shifts.
- The ability to conduct off-site detector characterization (shift) work for each LSC group as part of their scimon service obligations. The proposal will be discussed at a special upcoming LSC Council meeting, followed by a Council vote.

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

STATUS OF LSC MOUs (Lloyd)

For status of MOUs press here.

PROPERTY ACCOUNTING (Luna)

>From: Rod Luna <rluna@ligo.caltech.edu>

Reviewed equipment purchases for March, April and May 2009.
Continued working with Ernest Ngalula and Tracy Fraser from Property Services in closing 51 Fabrication Accounts (Old Operations Cooperative Agreement).
Created property records for two computer clusters one for LLO and one for LHO.

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Mak)

>From Cleveland Mak <mak@ligo.caltech.edu>

Began working on getting the current status of electronic file availability for all documents in the old DCC. Need to determine which documents have been scanned, what needs to be scanned, estimated time frame to scan the remaining docs, etc. This data is being gathered to assist with the decision making process of the feasibility or necessity to have every document in the old DCC electronically available prior to the migration over to the new DCC.
DCC user support (document requests, misc.)

FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Lindquist, Oracion)

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

Currently preparing another budget upload requested by project accounting to facilitate billing in Oracle for cooperative agreement PHY-0107417.
Submitted two intra-award cost transfers and provided justification for two labor distribution adjustments under cooperative agreement PHY-0757058.
Continuing to coordinate closeout of LIGO Cooperative Agreement PHY-0107417 for LIGO Operations FY 2002-8; monitoring final costs and encumbrances. MIT PO has been closed.
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>

Assisted Steve with the close out of old ARES Contract 1073821 & 1073822.
Dynamic Systems 75-S071333 for Stuart Anderson, FY09ON.
See Advanced LIGO Report Below.

>From: Jacqueline Champagnie and Gina Salone

See Advanced LIGO Report Below.

>From: Steve Marroquin smarroqu@caltech.edu

Executed Change Order No. 1 for the release of funds to the Praxair Inc. purchase order. This allocates funding for the second half of FY09 from 4/1/09 to 9/30/09 for LHO Liq. Nit. (Kyle Ryan)
Continuing close out activities for the remaining contracts under the old Operations Cooperative Agreement. In particular, a Contractor’s Release of Claims was received from Ares Ops. Contract and officially closed out in Oracle. See Advanced LIGO Report Below.

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

See Advanced LIGO Report Below.

PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist, Beckett)

Phil will be preparing the monthly status report for LIGO Operations for the month ending tomorrow. I will be requesting contributions by Friday, June 5. I will send out a reminder tomorrow.
Contributions for the Final Report for the old Operations Cooperative Agreement are due next Friday also.

CHANGE REQUESTS (Lindquist)

LIGO-M0900124, version 4 - Change Request CR-090001 Rev 4, which formally establishes baseline budgets for FY 2009 LIGO Operations, was approved by the Change Board. The minutes have been distributed electronically for approval signatures, but the document is stuck in the system (Rolf?)
LIGO-M0900125, version 1 - Change Request CR-090003, requests budget for FY 2009 LIGO Operations fabrication accounts, was submitted by Dennis Coyne, but was tabled until Dennis is available to walk us through it (Monday?)

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)

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

No report.

Quality/Safety (Nolting)

LIGO Lab Safety

A test of the satellite phones that are stationed at both LLO and LHO was successfully conducted on Thursday. The phones are now “in service” and ready to use time of emergency situations or when normal lines of communication are incapacitated. The Motorola Iridium satellite phone numbers (considered international calls) will be included on the LIGO Laboratory telephone directory pages.
LIGO Safety is exploring the available options for facilitating the safety training agenda for this summer. The training will include initial employee training and annual refresher courses. The intent is to establish a Lab wide access, allowing workers to log in and receive the training at their leisure.

Safety Related Document Reviews

The review of safety documents that support the activities for the LIGO Laboratory is continuing and will be releasing a few documents soon for review and implementation. (Peter King)

The “Eye Examination Treatment Authorization” (paper form) is being converted to an electronic document and will be placed in the DCC once all the bugs have been worked out.

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 week we closed up and pumped down HAM6. The first few spectra after the thin (.002") wire installation showed improvements: clusters of peaks at 153, 173 and 200Hz had been largely mitigated. However a new narrow spike at 147Hz was seen, with broad shoulders/sidebands. Similar sidebands are observed on power line harmoneics. 147Hz seems not to be coupled to beam jitter in the same way as our previous peaks, so we did not anticipate going immediately back into HAM6 for TT work (suspicion falling on TT controlling electronics in combination with the new thin and compliant wires). Regardless, Thursday eve one of TT1's wires broke. This Friday 29th we plan to vent HAM6 and go to .003" wires on TT1 only.
The new eLIGO photon calibrator is installed and injecting a length-dither calibration line.
H2 was decommissioned

Astrowatch (D. White)

Final week for H2: mean inspiral range = 6.5Mpc, uptime = 24%.
We had lower uptime due to roadworks and problems at the weekend. Sunday we had trouble keeping lock, turns out ASC gains have been set too high, but I am not sure for how long. Monday morning this was fixed. Tuesday evening an Anti-Image board died, which kept us down until Wednesday.
Three GRBs, for one of which we were locked (GRB090522 at 08:15:49UTC).
Astrowatch will now be switching over to H1. Sad times.

Squeezer Update (D. Sigg)

MIT (S. Dwyer): The cleanroom is together except for electrical connections, and I started up the MOPA. Now I'm at LHO working on the fiber stabilization that Ewan and Dick have been doing to get the PSL to the end stations for advanced LIGO. The squeezer will also need a stabilized fiber. The coherence length of the NPRO we are using is less than 4 km, so we are locking the laser to a reference cavity now. We moved the cavity from one end of the table to the other, and this afternoon Rick helped us find the zero-zero mode.
LHO: A design review for the RF electronics was held last week.

Outreach (D. Ingram)

The last of four quarterly evening teacher workshops for the Southeast Washington Math Science Partnership (on which LHO collaborates) occurred on 5/21. This finishes the MSP activity for the current group of ~26 teachers. A new group of teachers will start the program in July by attending the two-week MSP summer academy (grad course) at LHO.

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

General Operations (Rusyl Wooley)

We have completed all the vacuum work at LLO. All the annulus spaces have been pumped down and are on their respective ion pumps. All mechanical pumps are now off. The electrical work for the LDAS room is complete. The new shunt trips for all power distribution panels have been installed and tested. We will tie into the newly installed FM200 system next week. This connection will shut down power to the LDAS cluster if any of the FM200 smoke detectors go off. Working on getting the test carts wired up in the HEPI hut. We have resumed normal commissioning operator shift. This gives operator coverage in the control room from 8am until 2am daily including weekends. We are also continuing to prep the staging building high bay for aLIGO fabrication. This includes drilling for the test stands and removal of all material not suitable for a clean room environment.

CDS (Keith Thorne)

Upgrades:

FB1 framebuilder now has final concentrator code, as well as 4-digit GPS-indexed directories.
FB1 disk array is back up after LDAS room work. We are now migrating to a new gateway machine before putting it back online.
Injection machines for normal and blind hardware injections are being configured.
TCS Chiller EPICS interface software is now online, but some electronics upgrades are still underway.
DMT RAID array is now up with data copied from existing location on FB0 disk array. Working with John Zwiezig to coordinate change-over.
Purchase order for additional machines for CDS admin, FOM projection, test stands has been let.
GDS tools (DMT viewer, dtt) now work on Linux when installed through DASWG's software distribution system for CentOS.

Commissioning Support:

Added to channel lists on EPICS, frames to add ADC Overflows from OMC, ISI, HEPI watchdogs.
Made corrections to scripting environment to handle use of 32-bit GDS tools on 64-bit platforms.
Stood up machine for FOM generation for detector characterization.

System Administration:

Ordered disks for the servers on the Purchase Order.
Cleaning up server disks filled with temporary files from seismic test studies.
Ordered spare workstation, hard drives, etc.

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)

This week has seen MOPA laser troubles. After last week's efforts with the frozen needle valve in the NPRO cooling line, we noticed condensation perilously near the NPRO circuit board. The water temperature was at 6C. We decided to leave the MOPA off over the holiday weekend, and upon return, the chiller was no longer chilling. We are searching for an available, working, spare chiller. An AC repairman thinks that we may be able to repair a flaky capacitor inside the chiller and get the compressor started again.
We also noticed that it's confusing how to hook up the water chiller lines to the MOPA, because of the labeling. Reversing the flow means the needle valve in the NPRO line is unclosable (it only works in one direction).
Work is continuing on wiring up the new molecular turbopump for a smooth transition.
Calibrating the LM34 temperature sensors has proved problematic. According to a set of commercial sensors, the LM34-based sensors were not all at the same temperature inside the "cool house." Moreover, the PEM ADCU (ICS110-B) channels are not calibrated, differing from the nominal 16384 cnts/V by as much as 2.4% in the one measured case (as measured against a pair of Flukes, spec'd accurate to ~0.09%). So the LM34 sensors will be calibrated one at a time, using the commercial sensor as a common temperature reference, and a Fluke as a common voltage reference.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

No report received.

LASTI (Mittleman)

No report received.

CIT Science Group (Weinstein)

__________

Antony Searle:

Reviewed a paper for CQG.
Tracked down a bug resulting in partial skymap output.
Continuing compiled MATLAB troubles.

__________

Ajith Parameswaran:

Continued working on spinning IMR waveforms.
Submitted an erratum to the non-spinning IMR template bank paper to PRD (minor typo).

__________

Drew Keppel:

Finalizing the corrections for the S5 1 Yr Low Mass CBC paper and emailing those to PRD.
Working on adding a median PSD estimator into the LLOID pipeline.
Discussing with Jenne and Rana how I can help with the adaptive filtering work.
Assisting Chad with writing the upper limit generation code for the CBC high mass search.

__________

Stephen Privitera:

Continued to develop calibration response sensitivity code.
Learning to install lalsuite using git.

__________

Peter Kalmus:

Burst Group whitepaper section.
S5y2+A5 individual SGR analysis.

__________

Pinkesh Patel:

Gave an update to the pulsar group on the review.
Working on the parameter space for Globular Cluster Search.
Wrote scripts which check the time series output by the resampling code to satisfy the review committee.

__________

Gregory Mendell:

I am continuing to work on multiFscanGenerator.tcl and generateMultiFscanHTML.tcl to generate fscans and an html frame view to navigate between them. Example output is here: https://ldas-jobs.ligo.caltech.edu/~gmendell/fscan/fscanNavigation.html.

__________

Kipp Cannon:

Attending the 2009 Canadian Astronomical Society's Annual General Meeting.
Presented a talk on the status of the LSC's inspiral searches.

__________

Anand Sengupta:

Testing the modifications to the hierarchical search code.
ihope runs for snr dependent ethinca changes.

__________

Joseph Betzwieser:

Continued testing the CW followup pipeline using several short Monte Carlo software injection runs. From the results of those I've determined I'm going to need to wait for the faster resampling code to be finished in order to followup on a thousand Powerflux outliers.

__________

Chad Hanna:

Travelling to Cardiff for CBC high mass search review, then on to Orsay.

Laboratory Computing (Anderson)

LDAS Software Systems (Maros)

This week the focus was on debugging issues with the diskcacheAPI. Some of the memory leak has been addressed and work is being done to ensure a clean shutdown of the API and the utilities derived from the code base. Currently a condition exists where a scan of a directory does not properly decrement the thread count upon its completion and causes the termination code to hang.

LDAS System Administration (Anderson)

MIT

(Fred Donovan)

Installed sun rails at Bates; 1/2 rack nodes. Sun ram is being shipped.

Livingston

(Igor Yakushin)

All old LDAS storage arrays and servers are up and running.
Archived all the missing data from fb1 to tape and published to LDR.
Archiving all the missing data from fb0 to tape and publishing to LDR is in progress; data is also transferred to CIT.
Installed extra 64 G of memory into the new ldas-pcdev1 and configured it with kickstart; in the process discovered several problems with UWM repositories of CentOS 5.3.
Installed CentOS on ldr box.
ldas-thumper2 is up and running but I will not touch it until all the archiving is finished since it contains another copy of data from fb1 and fb0.
Ordered disks for ldas-pcdev1:/usr1.
Ordered two FC cards.
Ordered second big UPS.
Received power panel for the server rack, some cables for the new network switches.

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

The duct work installation in the LDAS room has finished at LHO. The power upgrade should be completed once we move racks into the room.
Cables and FC HBAs have been ordered for the new LDAS cluster and servers at LHO.
I am continuing to work on the next release of LDG.
I have assisted CDS with the setup of the HW injection box for E14.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT

(Fred)

Finished install brennan's thinkstation.
Network problems nw22 area resolved (arp cache in routers stuck).
Mgt/backup machine died -- rebuild using barebones.
Set up a couple of new summer students.
Working on ongoing printer issues.
Recovering some data for Ken.
Resolving some licensing issues (solidworks, matlab).

Livingston

(Dwayne)

Support ticket with Arkeia yielded a couple of possibilities. I am trying one now with favorable results so far.
Created two more email accounts for summer interns, added to mailing lists.
Replaced USBAudio* kernel extension in conference room Mac Mini due to EVO troubles with recent 10.5.7 upgrade.
Re-imaged a MacBook and shipped to new SEC Outreach hire, setup for EVO interviews of potential candidates for additional outreach hires.
Re-imaged a laptop for AdL inventory crew.
Assisted a user with VPN connectivity issues.
Investigating front gate issues in kantech server, appears to be hardware issues and not software.
Attended a few meetings.
Worked a couple small procurement items -Numerous usual/unusual user support requests.
Cleared spam trap daily.

Hanford

(Jonathan)

Helped CDS move and install a HP5550dn.
Password change for a user on marble.
Work in getting LIGO.org KDC working.
Ordering new KVM for GC server room.
Ordering more spare x2200s.
Meeting with Dave & Abe re config engine in GC & CDS.
Setup laptop for new ADL hire Jim Werner.
User support Doug Cook, replacing bad hardware and looking at more memory for SW09.
Attended COMSOL workshop.
Configured local (LHO) LDAP server.
Prepping for weekend changes to router config and backup settings.
Routine SPAM and dhcp work.

Caltech

(Melody)

DCC User support (removing wrong files and versions, allowing access).
Working on a script to figure out the LSC Author List based on the Directory Services 1 and 2.
Continuing with setting up myligo in authcore-dev.
Released a small patch (v 2.2.1) to the DCC to increase the space for Related Documents and other cosmetic changes to the Reserve a Number page.

(Mike)

Work on some backup issues I came across for ADVLIGO.
Trouble shot a linux server, that kept powering off on it's own. This turned out to be a bad power supply, and a faulty motherboard. I ended up swapping out the hard disk to another server.
Finishing up reloading a loaner laptop.
Working on loading a new Engineering workstation.
Surplus some equipment.
Some onsite/phone user support, and other sysadmin tasks.

(Christian)

Riccardo Desalvo - Computer keeps crashing after running Labview. I noticed that every time someone logged in via remote desktop, the computer would crash ten minutes later. Over the weekend, I decided to install Timbuktu (3rd party remote desktop) and so far, the computer is running better.
Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.

(Veronica)

WebComm: A deadline approaching for internal review release. Content is being worked on. Provided user support /troubleshooting as requested by the authors. Addressed a couple of cross-browser compatibility fixes. The cross-browser compatibility, as well as another critical issue of usability/accessibility standard compliance, keeps coming up as content is being added; advised the Committee members that, as authors/content providers, they need to be aware of these and how to address them. Tweaked the layout to accommodate the content demands. Looking into Google analytics.
GWADW09: More troubleshooting of the ecommerce gateway; will require a different integration method for the next event.
Updates of various LIGO /LSC pages.
CaJAGWR: Taped/processed a video of the 5/26 seminar, set up EVO broadcast, updated the group website.

(Larry)

Worked a number of license issues. Now need to follow-up on a couple of them. Need to order another solidworks license.
Setup a couple more computers for the ligo.org. Also, some clean-up on the rack the in-which the units are mounted.
Assisted a couple of different people with computer setups in their labs.
Setup a couple of meetings on EVO and setup the conference rooms for a couple of different groups. Still assisting others in their conference logistics concerning EVO and network setups.
Worked with Jonathan on monitoring the network connection between LHO and CIT. So far it is still working well.
Assisted on a couple of calendar setup and fixes.
Assisted a couple of users on mapping drives and getting to files they needed.
Some minor web assistance. Mostly, cleanup of URLs.
More DNS changes to take care of multiple requests.
Some minor patch updates were taken care of and finished another Linux OS installation.
Regular user assistance.

Distributed (Grid) Computing R&D (Blackburn)

Grid Application Development

Einstein@Home on the OSG:

The code needed to timeout globus commands seen at UMICH.EDU site has been implemented and successfully tested as part of versio n 1.3.x. Unlike the previous solution this version works on virtual machines as well by passing the timeout call to bash instead of perl.
The code needed to catch signal 'TERM' on condor suspend seen at ULTRALITE.ORG site has been implemented to allow the application to exit gracefully has been implemented and successfully tested on cit-gatekeeper.
Britta is on vacation this week, but a quick look at the E@H website for her at http://boincstats.com/
stats/user_graph.php?pr=einstein&id=282952 indicates continued increases in the rate of credit generation for the week.

Binary Inspiral Application on Grids:

Discussed transition for Pegasus workflow planning from using the current VORS to using the new MyOSG infrastructure for planning binary inspiral workflows. OSG will provide continued support for the VORS interface until late August or Early September. ISI will provide a new version of Pegasus based on MyOSG in late July.

Open Science Grid Integration & Validation Testbed

Followed up on the memory leak on osg-job: the leak is related to many hanging globus-url-copy commands to one machine. The 1.3.x version will fix the problem.
Updated all OS packages on all nodes.
Made several attempts to install the new VTB 2.0 ce release on osg-ce with various problems that have been reported on the VTB mailing list.
Adjusted travel arrangements to attend three sequential meetings at Univ of Chicago, Univ of Wisc Madison and Fermilab to discuss OSG ITB documentation Condor-G, and OSG storage workshop (Robert Engel).

Grid Management

Participated in a teleconference between OSG GOC, LIGO, PEGASUS to discuss status of LIGO applications being able to transition over to using the new MyOSG instead of the VORS infrastructure, which will be dropped in early September. At this time we need for the PEGASUS developers to add support for MyOSG. This appears to be on track with a prerelease version of a new PEGASUS with support for MyOSG to be ready for testing in late July.
Held a teleconference call with the OSG Program Manager to discuss the need for a set of documents and examples for applications to be able to accumulate information about site specific configurations, particularly as LIGO is looking to use production Storage Elements.
Discussed plans for filling the second "collective VO" seat in the OSG Council with Paul Avery (co-chair) and Shaowen Wang (collective VO rep). Shaowen has agreed to give this some thought and discuss further with Council co-chairs with the intent to have a report at the council face-to-face meeting in August.
Spoke with both Paul Avery (co-chair) and Chander Sehgal about plans for OSG's NSF annual report which is due next month. The first writing assignments were announced this week.
Continued to support LSC certificate and account request and to unravel odd situations encountered by users.
Reviewed letter of support for Colombian National Grid Initiative from OSG.
Wrote a "Management Plan" for EVO/LIGO.

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Advanced LIGO Management

From Carol Wilkinson /dhs

Project Controls

There is one change request circulating for approval. It incorporates schedule changes in metrology to reflect the new planned procurement dates and the shorter durations due to initial metrology being provided by the polishing contractor.
Two requests are in progress for review and approval next month. One change request will rework the seismic schedule to reflect the new BSC design and assembly schedules, the other will rework the AOS End Test Mass telescope schedule and costs for a change in technical scope.

Staffing

The assembly staff hiring for the sites are complete.
Ads are out for additional staff, including, with interviewing of candidate in progress: 2 real time programmers for the sites, 1 optics tech at CIT, 1 ME and 1 draftsperson for Systems engineering, and 1 Electech at CIT.

Procurements (Covers the period from April May 17 to May 29)

For Ed Jasnow

Oversaw preparation of review package for the seismic isolation machined large plates. This package must be re-submitted to the NSF because the winning bid was 46% below the LIGO estimate, which is beyond the threshold allowed by the Cooperative Agreement.
Worked with LHO personnel regarding the application of Washington State sales tax on Advanced LIGO purchases. The issue concerns the use of certain equipment for scientific purposes, whether or not it's attached to the facility or is inside the interferometer. It's the usage that governs the exemption.
Reviewed the issue of non-compliant bellows being produced by a subcontractor of Kineoptics. This is Kineoptics problem unless they request our assistance.

For Jacqueline Champagnie and Gina Salone

RFP:

UK Bids received being reviewed.
COC Microscope. RFP sent out. Bid due date is June 5, 2009.

RFQ:

Maraging Steel Blade Springs, Bids received.
Machine Plates, Bids Received.
SI-146 Large Plates: Contract being reviewed through fast lane.

RFQs-(SI 147A, 147b, 148a 148b)-In progress:

Maraging Steel-Steel Purchase
Manufacturing
Pods
Machined Parts

MISC Projects:

Currently loading documents from December 2008 to present into DCC. Wiki replacement still in progress.

For Steve

Executed purchase order to GoEngineering Better Products for the Solidworks License Consolidation. This is an attempt to obtain a number of licenses on to a single contract and synchronize the payment. (Larry Wallace)
Executed purchase order to RICO Equipment Inc. for the purchase of a Pallet Fork. (Ed Jasnow)
Executed purchase order to AppFire Technologies for software programming services. (Mick Flanigan)

NSF Acquisition Approvals

Responses were sent to Ann Miller on her questions about the fifth procurement, the sole source contract to deliver the timing system. An award package for re-approval of the HAM Internal Seismic Isolation Large Plates award has been sent to Ann Miller on May 28 for approval due to a significantly below estimate award price due. This will be followed next week by another award package for the machining of the maraging steel springs, also with a low bid price. We expect several more awards will need to go for re-approval for triggering below cost deviations due to a recent large drop in material costs and in competitive bidding by bidders looking for work.

Progress Updates

Progress updates were due May 27, with variance reports due on June 9.

Meetings & Reviews

The next Monthly Progress Reporting Meeting will be on Thursday, June 11 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>, 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

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) continues (Mike L. chair).
Review of the UK provided ETM/ITM quadruple pendulum suspension electronics continues (Jay H., Vern).
The Preliminary Design Review (PDR) for Interferometer Sensing and Control (ISC) continues (Daniel S. chair).

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)
OTF Lab: (Bob Taylor)
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: pending -- see above.
- 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:

Nothing significant.

Design/Planning:

Layout (Calum, Ed) I have been working on checking the detail of HAMs (2L, 3L, 4L and 5L as well as 8H, 9H, 10H, 11H). This work included re-checking the counterbalance mass, beam dumps, mass budgets (total and non-suspended mass) and checking that all of the configurations were being called correctly. These 3D CAD models now include all of the major items with envelopes and mass budget. We are now in the process of updating HAMs 2L and 3L with updated co-ordinate information from Luke Williams. As part of this update we are implementing a new co-ordinate system and testing a new layout for HAM 2L.
- Created the MP BOM for the following chambers: BSC1, BSC2, BSC3, BSC4 & BSC5 for L1, BSC4, BSC5, BSC6, BSC7 & BSC8 FOR H2.
- Added D0901058 (3X), D0901059 (1X) Beam Dump to BSC7 & 8-H2 chamber, as per Ken M. directions. (Final coord’s will be defined when Mike S. give them to me).
- Updated the position of all components in HAM2 and HAM3, using the new coord’s from Luke’s Excel Files. I used the Chamber X, Y & Z numbers (Formerly called Local CS) and BCS X, Y & Z numbers (Formerly called Global CS). This is something we need to agree about naming the CS.
FM/BS Carrier (aka "cake tin") (Calum, Ed) I have been working with Mike Gerfen on the FM cake tins. We received the FM prism from Glasgow and will now be able to accommodate the test mass in the cake tin after both sets of prisms have been added.
- Completed the fabrication drawings for:
  
  # D0901061 Cover, Ring, Alum Box Rnd, FM
  # D0901062 Base, Ring, Alum Box Rnd, FM
  # D0901063 Plate, Retaining Screw, Fitting Plate, Mirror Wedge

Interfaces: see the RODA status pag e and the Interface Control page.

On and around the test mass: (Calum) Since I sent out the latest revision of this document, LIGO-T0900092, I have been meetings with various "responsible persons". So far I have talked over with Phil, Amanda and Marielle exactly what it is I require from them. I still have a number of other folks to follow up with, and will do so in the coming days. Marielle has already sent me some items to add to my SolidWorks assembly, LIGO-D080475.

Modeling and Simulation

From: Hiroaki Yamamoto hiro@ligo.caltech.edu

COC Design Using Simulation (Hiro)

The folded Michelson cavity design by Muzammil was studied using SIS. The main issue is the performance at the beginning of advLIGO without TCS. The design is chosen so that the mode matching is the best at 0W input or 40W input (e.g.) and what is the loss of the TEM00 mode and the purity of the TEM00 mode.
Muzammil has studied using modal model. Substantial difference was observed and it is being investigated. Muzammil used a simple spherical shale for the thermal lens. The performance was compared results of two cases, one using a simple spherical thermal lens and another using Hello-Vinet thermal lens. More quantitative results will be reported next week.

Safety

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

Advanced LIGO activities continue to be following safe work practices.
AdL Safety is planning a training agenda for future assembly activities that will include all AdL staff assigned to those job tasks.

Quality Assurance

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

SEI:

HEPI: QA is currently reviewing some issues with the bellows assemblies being supplied to the vendor assembling the actuators. It appears there have been a few of the bellows with unsatisfactory shaping of the stainless ribbing, resulting in a few of these being rejected, and a several others being borderline acceptable. I will be visiting the vendor of the bellows Friday May 29th and reviewing the issues with them, seeing if we can head of any further scrapped pieces and potential delays.
Test Stands: Our test stands have been shipped from the vendor to Hanford (qty 3) and Livingston (qty 1). The tests stands arriving at Hanford were in good shape and the team is preparing the assemble, loading to the inventory system. The discrepancy report 002 from the supplier was reviewed with the team, and the decision was made to accept the item with the out of tolerance surface elevation, because the area of out of spec would not have an effect on the alignment of the system, as it is outside the edge of the bolt centerline at that corner. The remaining bolts on the surface will be far more than sufficient to lock it in place in spec, without worrying about any effect from over tightening the bolt nearest the out of spec area.
The test stand shipped to LLO arrived with some damage to the paint on several of the pieces. It appears that the boxes the units were in were adequate, however the two items that caused problems were the straps being undersized to secure the weight inside of the parts in the crates, and the lack of padding or protective material between the metal fixtures or straps and fixtures. The paint is rubbed or chipped odd in several spots, and is flaking in other spots, easily peeled with fingernails. Mike Meyer is currently working on getting a bid for refinishing the damaged items, and we are also currently working with the supplier to identify an appropriate set of corrective actions, reimbursement of added costs to repair.

COC:

One of our un-received optics was identified with a small defect at the out edge of the unit by the supplier during their inspection process. The initial estimation is that this can be polished out successfully, and we will allow that to proceed, but the supplier has agreed that if it cannot be taken out they will provide another optic.

SUS:

Small blades are being awarded, and the SUS team and QA will be visiting the supplier for an inspection/visit in mid June. We are also planning on checking in on the electroless nickel plating supplier, however there may be an issue with the phosphorus content of the plating and we will make a decision based on some of the samples they are producing for us soon.

Inventory Control Database:

Work is proceeding, although not quite at the pace I had hoped. We are working on the loads still and the UI's, and testing is turning up several bugs or flow issues that are not reflective of the requirements laid out in design. Will be working heavily with the supplier over the next 4 days to try to corral these issues. We also need to take a look back at Phase 1, there appears to be a few new minor nuisance bugs that we will need to repair.
The logistics team has begun to load parts to the production system, and it is functioning pretty well. We do need to be careful that we accurately fill in the import spreadsheets and review prior to import, as we have already had an incorrect import take place. Was easy to fix, but requires an admin to revert repair.
Met with several team members this week and had an extremely productive review and validation week here at CIT. The electronics team spent some time with me checking over the process to load and manage their parts, and we are currently in negotiation on the chassis record design, especially the numbering system. Also spent time with the CIT logistics team getting them prepped to use the system soon, and the procurements person who will be responsible for determining the payments to suppliers based on accepted parts in JIRA. Reviewed the system with Dennis Coyne and received some valuable feedback from him and Robert Taylor on the load workflows.

Upcoming Plans:

5/29 - 6/2: San Francisco for software team work, Atlassian conference, Stanford lab visit.
6/3 - 6/5: Ottawa, seismometer supplier review.
6/8 - 6/12: LLO ICS training, testing, debugging.
6/15 - 6/16: Vacation.
6/17 - 6/19: UFL ICS training, QA program review with team there.

Facilities Modifications and Preparations

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

Nothing significant to report this week.

Seismic Isolation

From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

aLIGO Project Activities

SEI Electronics Design and Fabrication:

We collated the cable and wire lengths for the HAM ISI in-vacuum wiring, and gave the wire lengths to Rich. He is collecting lengths from Jay, and counting his own needs so he can put a large order into Cooner wire, to keep the costs down. The new pins for the GS13 pressure gauge board should be in tomorrow. If they seem suitable, I'll do a prototype run of the PCBs.
Alex is working to install LIGO programs onto the Single Board Computer for the HEPI pump servo. Once he's done re-compiling, and stuff, I'll try to get a servo working.
The last parts for the STS-2 Distribution Chassis have come in. I can finally kit up the parts and boards, and send them to Screaming Circuits.
The HEPI L4C cables will be done by this weekend. Whenever the PO gets through procurement, they'll be mailed to the sites. ~Ben A.

HAM ISI Design and Procurement:

We are preparing the HAM ISI hardware lists for procurement.
The procurement contract for the HAM ISI large plates has been completed and sent to the NSF via FastLane for approval. All bids for the machining of the maraging steel springs have been received, a bid evaluation team has met. A list of questions has been generated.
Sam has designed a modification to the BSC test stands which will accommodate the HAM ISI assembly.

SEI Activities and Progress at LLO:

We have an intern from the MechE department working with us for the summer. Chidinma Imediegwu will work on designing a HEPI actuator testing fixture. We received 27 HEPI actuators, giving us 36 in all on-site. We are visually inspecting the bellows to look for obvious flaws. Work continues on wiring the actuator test cart and the filter flushing cart.
We received the BSC test stand, which will be sent out for modification so that it can also be used for HAM assembly. Unfortunately the vendor did a bad job of securing the load and the paint will need to be touched up also. ~ Brian O.

HEPI Procurements and Assembly:

HEPI -- Jim Warner, Erik Allwine, Jodi Fauver, Hugh Radkins

Pump Stations: This subsystem stalled as fabricator awaits UPS insurance inspection for manifolds damaged in shipping - no delays expected from this.
Misc Machined Parts: Continue to receive these parts but still waiting on critical items for assembly. Expect to have in time for mid-June assembly start.
Actuators: Approaching the 1/3 point in quantity. There have been a number of the expansion bellows that have unacceptable flaws. QA/QC officer may visit fabricator to make inquiries.
Assembly: Travel plans to LLO for assembly firming up. Actuator assembly fixture finalized and should be out from paint shortly. ME's Jim & Erik working on Actuator force/displacement testing fixture. Procedure firming up for use as well. ~ Hugh R.

R & D Activities

BSC ISI Design and Test:

Design

The design review we had on Stage0 with the SEI group went very well. Celine starts to work on design detailing.
A design review on Stage1 will be held on May 28.
We start working on the global assembly.

Control commissioning:

Damping loops have been installed on Stage1&2.
System identification has been done with Stage1&2 damping loops on.
We are designing and installing the high-frequency-blend control loops on Stage2. ~ Fabrice

Suspensions

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

Operations Work

Work ongoing to transition the HSTS structure design from the simplified FEA model to a model that can be used for creating vendor drawings. The plan is to use 1.25" x 0.18" square tubing (available off the shelf) to eliminate the need for PEM nuts which are currently being considered for use in the HLTS. This size of tubing for the HSTS can still meet the mass budget. Work is ongoing on prototype HLTS drawings with several DCNs due out tomorrow. One of the key parts (mounting pad bracket) is being rapid prototyped, due tomorrow.
Work is progressing on adapting the code for including cabling, written by one of last year's SURF students, into Mark's pendulum modelling toolkit.

Project-Funded Activities

Norna is currently working in the UK. She had a useful visit Birmingham yesterday to discuss the status and progress of the UK electronics. The first of the quad electronics (the UIM) has been approved to go into production which is very good news. Several hundred BOSEMs are ready for shipment.
Work is ongoing on OMC procurement.
The first 30 blades for the quads have arrived at LHO. We will be getting these nickel plated.
Monthly schedule update was carried out.

Prestabilized Laser

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

Operations

I have not been able to reboot the VME processor controlling the laser. Not sure of the exact reason why but it is likely to be because of the inability to remote shell to the neighbouring Sun workstation.

Project

In trying to make the power stabilisation photodetector smaller, I have been looking for manufacturers of small optics and connectors. I have settled on either a 9 or 15 pin Micro-D; this connector seems to have the desired properties of being reliable, vacuum compatible and is available from more than one manufacturer.

Input Optics

From: Rodica Martin <rmartin@phys.ufl.edu>

ELIGO Commissioning (LLO) (Kate)

All work in this past week has been about bringing the interferometer back up from the lock down.

Found that the REFL2 (25 MHz) PD has several problems: we fixed its bad DB15 cable connection; we have not yet found a solution to the fact that it needs 10x more gain than before, but have begun testing the whole optical + electronics chain.
Set up a camera to look at the REFL1 (61 MHz) PD.
Swapped REFL1 and REFL2 D cables to complete a naming scheme swap from a year ago.
Used new camera views of the input optics to center input beam everywhere.
Helped find good interferometer alignment.
Re-commissioned RBS; it's not entirely back up though as one of the internal PZT driver servos is not working and I've yet to diagnose the problem.
Fixed error on the WFS_MASTER medm screen.
Set OMC hardware shutter threshold to reasonable value.
Made the acquire and detect parts of the up script go smoother by turning on and off ITM dewhitening appropriately.

ALIGO Design

We finished a functional layout for HAM2. (Luke)
We are fine-tuning the polishing specifications for the small recycling mirrors and PMMT mirrors. (Rodica)

ALIGO Acquisition

We are assembling a bid package for polishing the small RMs and PMMT mirrors. (Rodica)

Core Optics

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

Interviews with two COC technician candidates are scheduled for June 2&3.
We have narrowed down the most likely procedure for application and removal of First Contact polymer and removal of static charge.
Three TIS scans have been done with the 2nd polish mirror, i.e., without cleaning, FC cleaning and drag wiping. The FC cleaning was successful. Comparing the result of as-is scan, the result of FC cleaning shows that some scatter points (dusts) are removed and the average of TIS is 5.9 ppm, which is consistent with that of LMA. The result after the drag wiping shows some strips of 7~8 ppm. One more FC cleaning is underway to test if these strips can be removed.
A TDM has been issued to L3 communications, Tinsley to implement a goal specification for the ITM wedge of 1/2 that which is on the drawing, this is for ease of installation. The TDM also notifies them officially of the changed radius of curvature of the -R3 optics PR3 and SR3 ROC = 36.0 m PR3-folded ROC = 34.0 m.
We will also request that they delay final IBF of the FM and BS until we understand the ability of the coater to maintain the surface figure, which may change during coating due to compressive stress.

Auxiliary Optics

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

No report this week.

Control and Data Systems

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

Operations: R&D, ELIGO DAQ, and Electronics

LHO - Electronics:

Developed a list of modifications to OMC Shutter drive electronics to provide large impulse and slow holding current pulses to "quickly" move the tip-tilt mirror actuated as the shutter while reducing the long time holding current to prevent driving the optic into its osems, if such modifications are determined to be necessary. Changes made to the software shutter have reduced the risk to tip-tilt damage, so we will leave the hardware shuter unchanged, that is, it responds to the presence of trigger light on the trigger photodiode and disables itself as soon as the trigger light falls to zero.

LHO - Systems/Software:

Decommissioning the H2 systems, while ensuring H2 suspension controllerskeep running and LVEA PEM sensors are acquired.
The build of the DMT raid system is almost complete. The DMT machine "granite" has an 8TB QFS raid file system. Files are being restored from fb1w's disk before the DMT system has been moved completely over to the new raid file system.
Building new linux epics alarm handler.

LLO - Systems/Software:

Upgrades

FB1 framebuilder now has final concentrator code, as well as 4-digit GPS-indexed directories. The FB1 disk array is back up after LDAS room work. We are now migrating to a new gateway machine before putting it back online. The injection machines for normal and blind hardware injections are being configured. The TCS Chiller EPICS interface software is now online, but some electronics upgrades are still underway. The DMT RAID array is now up with data copied from existing location on FB0 disk array.
Purchase order for additional machines for CDS admin, FOM projection, test stands has been let.
GDS tools (DMT viewer, dtt) now work on Linux when installed through DASWG's software distribution system for CentOS.