PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist, Beckett)

• The monthly report for the end of May for LIGO Operations has been sent to the NSF.
• I have prepared a first draft presentation of the financial status of LIGO FY 2009 Operations as of the end of May.  As of the end of May we are 2/3 through the fiscal year.
  
  Revised Budget (version 24) includes information from latest Advanced LIGO staffing plan for FY 2009.  The salaries have been time-phased. We have included budgets for fabrication accounts as requested in CR090003. There are no changes to the MIT budgets.

CHANGE REQUESTS (Lindquist)

• Change Board Meeting minutes have been prepared for change request CR-090003 (LIGO-L0900099-v1) and distributed for electronic approval.  This change request sets up FY 2009 Operating Budgets for Fabrication (and related R&D) accounts.

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)

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

• No report.

Quality/Safety (Nolting)

LIGO Lab Safety:

• Peter King at CIT conducted a basic laser safety training session.  A survey of participants revealed that it was very useful.
• Bill Tyler has been working towards getting next week’s LIGO (campus) SURF orientation meeting material ready and organized.  The material has been "standardized" in an attempt to present a more professional approach to the training agenda. Bill also discussed with the Caltech SURF office, what the LIGO mentors need to know regarding the SURF responsibilities.
• LLO will be conducting a second round of equipment and crane operator training next week on June 18 & 19, 2009, for those that missed the first training session last month.

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

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

• Shutter-actuations on TT1 from lock losses may still have some small level of pitch hysteresis, in that TT1 needs a realignment some of the time, in order to relock. We have been taking this out with a script that relies on TT sensors.
• One of our remaining peaks (now gone) in the bucket was 147Hz; this had several components, including a) the HAM6 scroll pump, which was turned off a week after pumpdown, and b) a parabolic mirror on the TCS, which was mitigated by damping and reclamping. Attention has turned to other peaks such as 93Hz.
• Waveplate rotator code was propogated from the PSL to TCS lasers. The code has new features such as an interrupt on power slewing when a new (power) request comes in.
• Locking has been generally good this week with ranges roughly at S5 levels, and stretches at night lasting several hours. Peaks are function of OMC/TT alignment. The beacon dither was thus recommissioned, helping mitigate smaller beam-jitter peaks in the bucket.
• We have a broadband noise source, flat in a calibrated DARM spectrum, nicknamed the Gremlin. The noise rises fast (not something heavy and mechanical), has a precursor of 618Hz on OMC PDs 1 and 2, is sometimes gone for hours (typically at night), and when around, glitches occur few minutes to tens of minutes. An OMC PZT transfer function showed a resonance at 618Hz; this was notched, and yet the Gremlin continued to make appearances. We were unable to directly induce it by banging, scattering reflected light, fiddling with cables, misaligning the OMC SUS in all DOF, etc etc.

Squeezer Update (D. Sigg)

• LHO (S. Dwyer): The laser frequency noise was limiting our ability to measure fiber noise on our 8km round-trip. To increase the coherence length of the laser an old style FSS board was setup and the laser locked to a reference cavity. When we put the locked laser through the long fiber we saw similar noise suppression as before, but might be having saturating something in the phase locked loop. Further investigations are pending.

Astrowatch (D. White)

• Mean inspiral range: 9.3 Mpc, uptime: 37%. Not much dedicated Astrowatch shifts due to commissioning, but we have managed some science mode segments and good lock stretches.

Outreach (D. Ingram)

• LHO's Fred Raab, Tri-City Herald astronomy columnist Roy Gephart and CBC astronomy instructor Tony George served as the panel for "Astronomy: More than Romance?" on 6/4 at CBC. This IYA 2009 event was the final installment on the Mid-Columbia Literary Festival's spring schedule. The panel discussed applications of astronomy research and favorite astronomy books.

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

General Operations (Rusyl Wooley)

• We completed the core drilling for the aLIGO test stands.  These stands will be located in the aLIGO High Bay.  We have also completed the grout work on the new crane in the warehouse.  Our aLIGO techs attended inventory control training conducted by Jodi and Mick.  We are sending Josh and Matthew to RAL next week to help them prepare Quad components for shipment to LLO.  We received the large air bake oven.  It will be modified to become a second vacuum bake oven by putting a belljar inside it.  Our new operator, Christopher Guido, starts on Monday.   We are continuing to search for a new CDS software engineer and Jr. system administrator.  We have also modified our shift schedule in order accommodate E14.

LLO Outreach (Amber Stuver)

• Gave control room tours to ~15 students and a public tour to a family of 6.
• Prepared presentation for a public talk at the Highland Road Park Observatory (Baton Rouge, LA).
• Began working with RET teacher (Brenden Simoneaux) on LOOC-UP post-processing of EM observations.  Introduced him to the project, MATLAB and goals for the summer.  Brenden will be working with me until the end of 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

Controls and Data Systems (Bork)

See Advanced LIGO

40-Meter Interferometer (Adhikari)

• Nothing to report this week.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

• This week Greg measured the transfer function of his AOM and found it to vary somewhat over the frequency range of our measurement. The variation is around 20% between 100 Hz and 100 kHz, not enough to qualitatively affect the measurement, but it is something we need to be aware of.
• Riccardo and Innocenzo checked with Rafaele Flaminio at LMA on the status of our mirrors. There was a small delay in the billing that has now been resolved, and fabrication is scheduled for next week.
• Akira now has a completed draft of his paper, and he is starting the internal review process.

LASTI (Mittleman)

Cavity Work

• John is on vacation so Lisa has been continuing to measure the ESD force constant.

ISI

• Fabrice has all 12 degrees of freedom under control (high blend) and has started the tilt decoupling measurments.

HEPI

• A controller for the HAM HEPI with the new support beams has been implemented, The frist isolation results are on today’s Lasti ilog (www.ligo.mit.edu/ilog <http://www.ligo.mit.edu/ilog> 6/12/09).

CIT Science Group (Weinstein)

__________

Ajith Parameswaran:

• Continued working on spinning IMR waveforms.
• Started working on the SURF project.
• Reviewed the student's proposal, learned how to install and run omega scan. - Reviewing a paper for CQG.

__________

Cristina Valeria Torres:

• Push the effective distance ratio test onto the software stack for use in E14.
• Finish testing DQ flag look up using new segment infrastructure and pushing this new functionality into the software for testing in this weekends E14 run.
• Revised Autotrack's algorithm for trigger group construction, this revision process will prevent me from trying out the code during E14.  I expect to run it on E14 data in the week following E14.
• Introduce a segment DB method for looking up newly published Science modes segments for creating the Omega scan backgrounds required for performing followups in E14 and beyond.

__________

Gregory Mendell:

• I put in another afternoon of work on multiFscanGenerator.tcl and generateMultiFscanHTML.tcl, to generate fscans and an html frame view to these.

__________

Antony Searle:

• Worked on getting Omega running on cluster; now handing that over to Mark Edwards at Cardiff.
• Preparing Amaldi talk.
• Finalizing review and beginning paper detailing bayesian skymap code implementation.
• Preparing SURF projects, including work on CBC and LLOID skymap modules.

__________

Pinkesh Patel:

• Continued the resampling review.

__________

Stephen Privitera:

• Rewrote my code for modifying calibration response function to link against the LAL.

__________

Amber L. Stuver:

• In preparation for the burst hardware injections, I've updated mkframe.c to support the FrProcData structure in the frames (per the request of VIRGO).
• Completed the human notification system for LUMIN.  This system will contact a responsible human to vet candidates for EM follow-up before any requests for these observations are made.
• Made requested changes to the "Introduction to LIGO and Gravitational Waves" tutorial on the new ligo.org science pages.
• Collected opinions of proposed supported versions of MATLAB for the upcoming runs.  As a result, versions R2007a and R2008a will be the supported DASWG/MatApps versions (for both compiling and interactive use).
• Started working with LLO's RET teacher (Brenden Simoneaux) on LOOC-UP post-processing of EM observational results.  Introduced him to the project, MATLAB and goals for the summer.  Brenden will be working with me until the end of July.

__________

Anand Sengupta:

• snr dependent e-thinca runs with different parameters of minimal match, clustering etc: https://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/ligovirgo/cbcnote/JointS5/090304185512S5HiCBCsnr_dependent_e-thinca_-_part_1.
• I have modified ethinca code to have snr dependence and have started 2 month data ihope run to check the results.
• CQG paper refereeing.

__________

Peter Kalmus:

• Responded to ApJL referee for SGR stack paper.
• Preparing response for PRD SGR stack methods paper.
• Continued work on A5 SGR search.

__________

Joseph Betzwieser:

• Currently running a coherent follow up pipeline on the first set of outliers from the Powerflux S5 search provided by Vladimir as an overall test of the pipeline.

__________

Kipp Cannon:

• Working with Romain Cariou and Drew Keppel on issues related to stream-based low-latency inspiral analysis techniques.
• Working with Chad Hanna on S5 high mass inspiral upper limit.
• Ttelecons:  inspiral, inspiral-code.

Laboratory Computing (Anderson)

LDAS Software Systems (Maros)

• Early in the week, two issues in the frameCPP code base were identified and corrected. This allowed all system tests except for the LSync test to pass. The corrections also enhanced the stability of the code as they prevented some corner cases from causing applications built with the library from terminating.
• In preparation for E14, version 1.14.0 of the LDAS software was prepared, tested, and distributed for general use. Late in the week, several issues were discovered that warrant a patch to the code. The patch code is currently running for E14.

LDAS System Administration (Anderson)

Caltech

(Dan Kozak)

• Set up /dmt filesystem at LHO and attached it to DMT, CDS & LDAS servers.
• Helped bring the sites back up after the downtime.
• Helped Peter Kalmus with an LSCdataFind query problem for A5 GEO.
• Set up a SAM-QFS home3 filesystem with metadata on solid state disk for testing.
• Reconfigued QFS after ldasgw1 hardware swap at LLO.
• Set up ldasgw0 with QFS /frames at LHO.
• Helped with big reconfig at CIT:
  • Patched systems.
  • Added new Qlogic 5600 switch to our SAN w/single mode fiber interswitch link to Booth.
  • Balanced hosts/RAID units across new switch ports.
  • Reconfigured tape drives (the /dev/rmt numbers changed).
  • Restored cron jobs.
• Set up balance & globus-gridftp-server to be under SMF control at CIT & LHO.

(Phil Ehrens)

• Supported Melody Araya with configuration and migration of Directory Services websites roster.ligo.org and my.ligo.org to Caltech.
• Supported Josh Abadie with hardware management in preparation for the impending engineering run.
• Supported Scott Koranda with the building and installation of gridftp on ldas-cit.ligo.caltech.edu.
• Supported Greg Mendell and Dan Moraru with configuration of gateway machines at LHO.
• Issued numerous service certs in support of search groups preparing for the impending engineering run.
• Supported Ed Maros with the configuration and deployment of LDAS systems in preparation for the impending engineering run.

MIT

(Fred Donovan)

• Installing nodes at bates.

Livingston

(Igor Yakushin)

• Kickstarted all the nodes that I could reach from the old switch with the old cables (432 cores); a few nodes apparently have hardware problems; * allocated node441 for omega online.
• Patched nldas in preparation for switching it with gateway.
• Got 300 G disks and put them into ldas-pcdev1 to use as /usr1; had to use SUN brackets from extra qfs-nfs1 disks.
• Got 10 more 10m fiber cables.
• Got all the network cables I need for the new switch.
• The new dedicated /dmt is mounted on all the head and computing nodes thanks to Keith and Dan.
• Installed ldg-4.8 on ldas-grid and ldas-pcdev1.
• Set up h(t) frames and DQ XML files replication from LHO and LLO to CIT; the latencies for V1 frame transfer at the moment experiences big variations probably due to the fact that they are written via NFS; working with John to figure out how to fix that; working to set up replication from CIT to Nemo and Atlas and also between LLO and LHO.
• Helped Marie Anne to set up rsyncing of Virgo XML DQ files to CIT.
• Created cbc account on Duncan's request.
• Dan configured qfs-nfs1 to share frame file systems to the nodes; I have not yet reconfigured the nodes to use it.

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

• Worked last Friday to catch up with archiving and the LDR transfer of trend and astrowatch data. This is currently down again, for LDR upgrades.
• Worked to bring up new cluster head nodes at LHO.
• Helped set up the h1injection box at LHO.
• Working with LDAS to get LDG, RDS, LDAS hoft, and gap checking and other services ready for E14.
• Working with other LSC requests to prepare for E14, and with the CW group to generate fscans for E14.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT

(Fred)

• Still working on two xp/linux installs for John and Jonathan.
• More work on upcoming conference at sonesta/hyatt.

Livingston

(Dwayne)

• Additional support tickets with Arkeia have yielded good results. re-organized backup schema for full and incremental backups.  Still testing a temporary fix for the twice-weekly lockups.
• Re-re-imaged a workstation for the RET, this time with Windows XP. installed Matlab and other wares.
• Updated Matlab license server with current license and restarted.
• Assisted a couple new hires with LIGO.ORG account requests.
• Trying to troubleshoot issues with Ansys on an engineer intern workstation.
• Shannon alerted me to possible compromise of said intern workstation, scans yielded multiple infections, I ended up pulling the disk, installing new disk and re-imaging from there.  Ongoing.
• Met with Tom, Rusyl, Jodi and Mick regarding inventory Systems.
• Moved RET to an office with a wired network port.
• Working on a script to chop large labview files into smaller sections.
• Attended a few meetings.
• Worked a couple small procurement items -Numerous usual/unusual user support requests.
• Cleared spam trap daily.

(Shannon)

Admin Related:

• Installed system monitoring software on netmon -- installed clients on m1, m2, listserv.ligo.org, abatwa, abita, Juno, lyra, mulder, netmon, shin.
• Modified the mrtg graphs to include some internal switches.
• Finalized the configuration of m1 and m2.
• Set up listserv.ligo.org to handle ligo.org mailing lists.
• Attended DASWG telecon, attended GC telecon.
• Added additional aliases on ligo.org mail servers For RT queues, some fixed aliases, etc.
• Looked into a number of issues related to moving the ligo.org mail servers.
• Looked into a sympa problem, caused by LDAP service interruptions due to ligo.org moves.
• Turned off scanning for arkeia server and opened a ticket with arkeia continuing to communicate with Foundry support over three support issues I have open with them.

Security Related:

• Archived old netflows to free up disk space.
• Notified Dwayne of infected PC that was spewing spam --  he attempted to clean, later pulled hard drive for imaging/analysis when he or I have a chance to get to it.
• Pouring through IDS logs.  Discovered the infected PC mentioned above via IDS logs.
• Contacted vendor with info request on capture cards.
• Raised issue to Abe about Omega scan... still under discussion.
• Found and disabled an unneeded VNC service

Hanford

(Jonathan)

• Have test solaris system using TLS querying LDAP for user information.
• Fixed problem with autofs using TLS and LDAP on CentOS 5.3.
• Looking at the LDAP queries Solaris 10's automounter uses to enable automount information in LDAP.
• Helped Dave Barker with cloning CDS systems.
• Troubleshooting LIGO.ORG KDC replica problems.
• Added segdb as a CNAME to ldr on ligo-wa.caltech...
• User support Terry Gunther, browser crashing due to plug-ins.
• User support Rick Savage, Anamaria Effler plotter problems.
• Ordered more laptops for project management group.
• Setup loaner laptop for a guest.
• Reimaged netbook as a loaner/test machine.
• Added a user account for access to marble for a Syracuse student.
• Routine SPAM filter and dhcp work.

Caltech

(Mike)

• Updated pdmworks/vault server to SP3, plus all Engineering workstations to SolidWorks SP3 as well. Christian gave me a hand with this.
• Trouble shooting some minor pdmworks/SW issues due to SP3 updates.
• Installed additional engineering software for users.
• Ordered misc. supplies for GC.
• Restored some data from backups for ADVLIGO.
• Cleaned up a users infected computer due to "Malware".
• Modified Install of Castors on two server racks.
• This week included some work in our server room 18: Larry and I swapped out old UPS's, and moved servers to another rack, re-routing network, monitor, kvm cables, etc.
• Other misc. onsite/phone user support plus other sysadmin tasks.

(Veronica)

• WebComm:  Last-minute prerelease changes/troubleshoots.
• Authorize.net:  Follow up on their change of service; looking into alternative implementation methods; campus Financial Services is looking into the issue.
• Updates of various LSC/ LIGO web pages.

(Christian)

• Jay Heefer - Installed and configured new MacBook pro.
• Peter king - working on setting up new workstation with parallels.
• Rudy Arvizu - Dell support replaced Rudy’s motherboard I transferred all settings back.
• Jacqueline Champagnie - re-imaged laptop after norton av and windows defender found adware and malware.
• Continued working on setting up surf student workstations with the XP unattended dvd.
• Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.

(Larry)

• Worked a number of procurement issues. In the process of ordering a few more SUN boxes. Cleared up some licensing issues. Assisted a couple of others with their procurements. Also, assisted a couple of users with their p-card setup.
• Time was spent shuffling computers between different users. This was done to help keep down the procurement of new units. So far everyone seems to be satisfied.
• Worked with Mike and Christian on a number of computer room projects. New servers have been installed and one rack has been swapped out. We also replace a couple of bad UPS units. Removed a number of old cables that are no longer needed.
• Worked on a couple of ligo.org items. Assisted Shannon and others with some of the authproject switch over to CIT. Worked with the ligo.org web committee and setup a new box for them.
• Generated more licenses for users. Most were users going to another box and needing their license transferred over.
• Some minor monitoring of network performance between CIT and LHO. It has been working well since the route switch.
• More assistance on user setup for the plotter and printers.
• Multiple OS installs on various machines.
• Regular user assistance and meeting attendance.

(Melody)

• DCC User support (removing wrong files and versions, allowing access).
• Delivered a text file to Phil E. to use for the MOU Attachment-Z generation.
• Worked on moving the LSC Directory Services to Caltech.

Distributed (Grid) Computing R&D (Blackburn)

Grid Application Development:

Einstein@Home on the OSG:

• Migrated Einstein@Home on the OSG software repository to Caltech.
• Currently achieving better than 90% job success rates on the OSG. This is at 12 different GT2 sites and significantly better than was seen several months ago, thanks to improvements in the codes.
• Based on Recent Average Credits (RAC), the OSG contributed in 8th place in the world last week and has a lifetime accumulated credits ranking of 29th in the world. More than 160,000 credits have been contributed this week.

Binary Inspiral Application on Grids:

• Met with Pegasus developers to discuss changes to the binary inspiral workflow made while visiting with Duncan Brown at Syracuse. Began testing these changes on the OSG.
• Continue to develop code for migrating data into an OSG Storage Element and Continue to develop code for migrating data into an OSG Storage Element and has been reported to administrator at ISI.
• Discussed with Pegasus developers way to inform Pegasus about OSG Storage elements. This required opening a ticket with the GOC. The Glue schema calls out support for providing this information but it has not been implemented.

Open Science Grid Integration & Validation Testbed

• Began working on the installation and testing of the ITB 1.1.0 release. This includes testing the Compute Element (CE), client, ant GUMS.
• Setup a Google Calendar for tracking progress on the ITB release.
• Setup a Subversion Repository on the testbed for various development codes.
• Working through the installation documentation to identify and correct issues.

Grid Management

• Organized agenda and chaired monthly OSG Council meeting. Minutes posted on the OSG Council WIKI.
• Worked with OSG Project Manager and University of Wisconsin, Madison administrators to identify hotel and meeting venue for the August OSG Council Face-to-Face Meeting near the O'Hare Airport. Using Doodle poll estimated planned attendance and number of rooms needed.
• Reviewed current draft of OSG's annual report to the NSF and contributed one section of the report.
• Held meeting with Caltech OSG staff to discuss status and plans for next week.
• Handled a nominal number of user certificate and user account requests onto the LDG.
• Organized and chaired the weekly SCAT meeting and posted minutes in the usual spot on the CompComm website.

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Advanced LIGO Management

From Carol Wilkinson

Project Controls

• Change request to incorporate the schedule and time phased budget for the Timing Distribution System into the Data Acquisition Subsystem is in preparation.
• 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

• A need for one additional Suspension assembly tech at LHO has been identified. The earlier ad will be reopened. Otherwise, all assembly hires will be on board when the last hire starts work on Monday.
• Ads are out for additional project 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.
• LIGO will hire 2 temporary designers/drafters for SUS and AOS development and design efforts.

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

For Ed Jasnow

• Worked with Bert Cresta to resolve invoice issue with Mid-Columbia Engineering.  The invoice was for the last four test stands, but one was received damaged.  MCE agreed to re-submit the invoice for one less test stand.  Discussions continue regarding how to handle the damaged test stand.
• Reviewed a draft of the proposed terms and conditions for the core optics coating contracts.
• Reviewed the final contract package of the machining of the seismic isolation blades sent to the NSF because the low bidder was 46% below the LIGO estimate.

For Jacqueline Champagnie and Gina Salone

• UK glass - Contract in progress.
• COC Microscope. Vendor Selection in progress. 
• Maraging Steel Blade Springs, SI-147B, Bids received on RFQ and under review. Ken Mason working on clarification with 2 bidders.
• Contract for SI-146 Large Plates awarded and is in the techmart approval process.
• 148a Ham Pods - RFQ deadline for submission June 25, 2009.
• 148B Machine Parts - RFQ deadline for submission June 23, 2009.
• 148d  Flexure Rods - RFQ deadline for submission June 25, 2009.
• 148e  Spring Support Post - RFQ draft awaiting Ken Mason approval.
• UK Optics -- Contract in progress.
• Currently loading docs from December 2008 to present into DCC. Wiki replacement still in progress.

NSF Acquisition Approvals

• NSF has approved the HAM Internal Seismic Isolation Large Plates award. Another award package for the machining of the maraging steel springs, also with significantly below estimate award price due to current market conditions, will be sent to NSF next week after final selection of the winning bid. 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.
• The Advanced LIGO Project Monthly Report for May is in review and will be sent to NSF by June 14.

Meetings & Reviews

• The next Monthly Progress Reporting Meeting will be on Thursday, July 9 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.

• VRB Request: to approve use of 303SS for flexural coupling, L0900105-v1.
• Small Parts Washer: (Bob Taylor) The small parts washer is now fully operational, but not yet fully commissioned. Paint overspray needs to be removed from the interior stainless steel surfaces and the washer must be run through many cycles before it is clean enough for use.
• SEI Actuator Parts Cleaning (Bob) This week I have spent on cleaning and baking the Actuator parts shipped to me by PSI.
• First Contact testing (Bob) Rand and I have prepared some samples of First Contact and I am running RGA tests on them.
• Assisting RAL with their large vacuum bake oven (Bob) I am making preparations for visiting RAL on June 18th through 26th.
• Optical Contamination Cavity Testing: (Bob T., Liyuan) The cavities will be done for re-configuration to add the 3rd cavity.
  • Cavity 1: 7 production BOSEMs
  • Cavity 2: pending
  • Cavity 3: pending
  • Queue:
    • Masterbond low outgassing epoxy (EP30-2 and EP30AN-1).
    • First Contact(TM).
    • 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 & polyimide clad fiber optic, IVG Fiber CU1300. 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:

• ETM/ITM BOM from the UK (Calum) I have placed the ETM/ITM suspension assembly Bill of Materials (BOM) into configuration control on the DCC: E0900167-v2.
• ETM/TIM drawings from the UK (Calum) A request has been sent to the UK to deliver the ETM/ITM CAD drawings, parts and assemblies along with the pdf's to allow us to not only translate them to SolidWorks but also load them to the DCC so they are available for the upcoming production build.
• Approved DCN E0900130-v1 for initial release of drawings for a 35W air cooled beam dump.

Design/Planning:

• Optics Table Payload, Damping Test Platform. (Calum) I have prepared a mock OMC structure weld drawing. This will be manufactured and added to our "damping" tests on the  various structures with struts etc. I have also prepared an order for solid alum breadboard, alum extrusions, viton, hinges, brackets, etc. -- that will be used along the with mock structures to test damping techniques.
• ERGO ARM and COC Carrier (aka "cake tin") (Calum) Following a discussion at this weeks suspension meeting I met with both Gari and Mark to look again at the the list of upgrades / service requests on the ergo-arm. The main item discussed was the ability to use the ergo-arm with the ETM/ITM structure. At this point I believe the request (originally from Russell) to move some of the plumbing has been included in the upgrade document. I will put all of these discussions on the DCC later today. Mike Gerfen is still on time with the 1st July delivery for the 3 FM/BS carriers (aka "cake tins").
• ETM Telescope (Calum) I have been working with Norna Robertson, Mike Smith and Virginio Sanniable on the ETM telescope layout, mass properties and suspension model. We now have the MATLAB double pendulum files that can be used to design the suspension. The main effort that is now required is an update to the layout and the proposed mass properties applied to this layout.

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

• Mass properties (Calum) Ed and I have been working on the mass properties (with and without suspended mass) and CG of all of the HAM tables. We now have a draft set of data for this on the DCC. We are now working on the same data for the BSC chambers. (This needs work, but is on the DCC for configuration control: E0900084-v6 ).
• On and around the test mass (Calum) I have updated the on and around the test mass assembly, D080475-v1, on both the vault and the DCC, see the following link. This latest revision has updates from RAL, Glasgow and US teams.
• BS/FM changes  (Calum) I have been working with the UK and US suspension teams to request changes to the BS/FM structure as follows: - 1) Addition of holes to BS/FM strucutre part, location to be defined based on discussions with RAL. 2) As with the face plates for the ETM/ITM, could the main lower structure parts, i.e. D080006, be clearly identified in their shipping boxes. This will make any further as yet unknown modifications easier for us down the line. (Once approved I will document this in the DCC.)
• Optic Integration and Alignment (Dennis) Held a 2nd meeting of the "tiger team" to discuss methods and limitations for in situ, initial alignment of the quad test mass optic.

Modeling and Simulation

From: Hiroaki Yamamoto hiro@ligo.caltech.edu

• No report this week.

Safety

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

Advanced LIGO Safety

• Communication is on-going with Hugh Radkins to determine what safety precautions may be required to assist with the HEPI Assembly procedures to be conducted at LLO next week.   Some areas that need special attention so far, are for parts weighing more than 40lbs (lifting and handling), and pinch point risk.  A more detailed approach to determining job task risk will be done once the team arrives next week.
• A review is being done of the Service Contract (draft) sent by the LIGO Project, Subcontract Administrator to determine if additional safety information may be required. 

Quality Assurance

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

Inventory Database:

• This week I began testing of a significantly refined group of loads: Bake, Clean, Shipment and Storage. As of tonight, clean load is fully functioning, although some correlated components are not behaving properly (parts picker utility). Bake Load is looking very good, but there is a bug in the parts picker for this that is causing a crash. We are tracing that tonight, and will be able to complete the testing of the bake load once we get past this obstacle. Hopefully we have release 1.4.6 tomorrow morning to push to the test and then production servers. Dwayne is reviewing the instructions for this tonight, and will be assisting us with the build tomorrow morning. Shipping and Storage loads are in re-design. They have some significant workflow issues, I have reviewed the requirements with the programming lead to ensure they are clear on these.
• This week at LLO spent a full day with the logistics team here training the team on the ICS, and reviewed the process for importing parts, the differences in the import methods. I am really excited about the 4 guys hired, great energy, very enthusiastic! We also reviewed the clean and bake loads (bake to the extent of where it would crash because of the bug we still have there), they seemed to like what they saw. We are pushing to have the clean and bake ready tomorrow, and then by early next week have the shipping and storage completed. It is critical we have shipping ready next week, for the group heading to RAL. They will be able to enter the 10k+ parts in the UK for SUS into the database, and then record the shipments to the sites. When they return, the teams will then be able to receive the parts at the sites, record receipt of parts, get ready for storage, clean bake and assembly.
• Inventory System will be dominating my agenda for the next couple of weeks.

QA Update:

• Got a chance to view the test stands at LLO in person and see the shipping damage. Mike Meyer is arranging for the stands to be repainted, and Ed and Bert have the data to recoup the repair costs, working on the issue.
• Have coordinated with Janeen to perform several vendor inspections in the next few weeks.

Facilities Modifications and Preparations

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

• LHO Warehouse floor is being prepped for epoxy coating - this is the last item except for the punch list. We are looking to hire one more SUS tech in the near future and have started looking at resumes.
• Techs from both sites are traveling to the UK to aid with packaging, inventory, and shipping of SUS parts.

Seismic Isolation

From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

aLIGO Project Activities

SEI  Electronics Design and Fabrication:

• We have tested the in-pod pod leak pressure sensor circuit for the GS-13 pods, and they work as advertised.  I will do a run of the boards so I can get the cable assemblies made in time for when we need them.
• We have started to familiarize ourselves with the Athena II Single Board Computer so Alex and I can sit down today and start figuring out the best way to get an epics servo working.
• The HEPI L4C cables will be finished today, and shipped here.
• We went to visit two of the electro-mechanical assembly houses last week, and found them to be routinely making chassis just like ours.  We now have a list of five, or so, places that we can have bid on our chassis, board stuffing, and wiring harnesses.  I'm getting the documentation together to be able to send out for quotes.   ~Ben A.

HAM ISI Design and Procurement:

• The purchase order for the large plates was placed this week.
• RFQ's for the machined parts was sent to bidders this week and RFQ's for the pod chambers, flexures, and spring posts will be sent out in the next couple of days.

HEPI Procurements and Assembly HEPI -- Jim Warner, Erik Allwine, Jodi Fauver, Hugh Radkins

• Pump Stations -- Shipping damaged Manifolds are back in the shop for rework.  Fabricator estimates about a week+ for all repairs.  Then back to the electro-polisher.  Odds and ends being put together but mainly waiting for the manifolds to be completed
• Procurements -- Last of the needed parts for the LLO HEPI build shipped last week and should be inventoried at LLO this week.
• Actuator -- Vendor has 33 more units waiting to transport to LLO for testing.  ~Hugh R.
• The 36 actuators delivered to LLO were inspected and the bellows was determined to be not to print. We have asked Kineoptics to stop assembly until we can determine if these bellows will cause a problem with the system performance. A total of 69 actuators have been welded out of 196 on order. We will proceed with our plans to start assembly of the HEPI units next week without the actuators.

R & D Activities

BSC ISI Design and Test:

Design

• We continue making good progress on the BSC-ISI design. Andy held a design review on Stage2. Next and last review before the PDR will held next week for the seismometers pods, attachment rods and actuators brackets.

Control

• All of the 12 degree of freedoms of the BSC-ISI are now under control. The position sensors and seismometers signals are blended at 0.7Hz. We are now working on tilt decoupling which is necessary in order to lower the blend frequency.   ~Fabrice

Suspensions

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

Operations Work

• Ongoing work on HLTS prototype structure machining. DCNs are being issued.
• Our summer student, Robert Giglio, is designing a blade test facility to speed up characterization and testing of small and large triple maraging steel blades by testing 4 at once.

Project-Funded Activities

• Mark Barton did eddy current damping and OSEM coil sweet spot calculations for various applications.
• The Final Design Review and Fabrication Readiness Review for the value engineered initial LIGO osem is scheduled to take place for next week.
• Doug Cook is researching vendors for the electroless nickel plating of the quad blades and he is reviewing our criteria vs ASTM B 733-97 spec. We've received information from our prototype blade vendor that finding a plating company who can meet our specification is difficult: she contacted 44 plating companies and found one.
• Plans are in place to send the two LLO SUS technicians, Josh Smith and Matt Maxwell, along with the LHO Logistics head, Jodi Fauver, to RAL to support inventory control and packing for shipment of the quad parts, starting next week. In addition, Bob Taylor is making arrangement to go to RAL to work with the engineers there on RGA testing of the quad upper structures.
• We've been working on formalizing the clean room garb policy for both sites (as assembly areas are different for both sites.)
• Norna Robertson visited RAL and had extensive discussions on schedules and priorities for RAL work.

Prestabilized Laser

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

Operations

• Nothing significant to report.

Project

• Suggested to IO that they be responsible for the position of the PSL table since the the position is more critical to IO than it is to PSL.
• The 200-W laser is still being installed at the AEI. An annoying water leak developed and is suspected to be in a fractured CPC fitting in a cooling manifold. The output power achieved at LZH has not been reached yet at the AEI, and the cause is suspected to be the difference in chiller layout. The Beckhoff controlled injection locking appears to work well. The system is still being characterised.

Input Optics

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

ELIGO Commissioning (LLO) (Kate)

• Made a script to calculate calibrated ASC sensing matrices.
• Did a complete ASC tune-up (WFS UGFs, OL UGFs, A2Ls, sensing matrix).
• Updated code for and measured a new ASC noisebudget in the optics basis.

ALIGO Design

• The new cavity parameters for the straight interferometer have been calculated. No major changes have been made. The ROCs have been changed by a few mms. (Muzammil)
• We finished IO substrate drawings for the small recycling mirrors and PMMT mirrors. (Luke)
• We are working on optic container design for transportation and storage of IO optics. (Luke)
• We are doing final refinements to the polishing specifications for the small recycling mirrors and PMMT mirrors. (Rodica)
• Working on a Zemax layout for the latest LLO coordinates. (Rodica)

ALIGO Acquisition

• We are sending out a bid package for polishing the small RMs and PMMT mirrors. (Rodica)
• We purchased a sample container for transportation of the 150 mm x 75 mm suspended optics (mode cleaner and small RC mirrors) to and from vendors. (Rodica)

Core Optics

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

• First Contact (thick films) was given a preliminary vacuum compatibility test by Bob Taylor at 40 C, and it passed the RGA criterion, that the sum of critical hydrocarbon masses be less than 1E-11 mTorr partial pressure.
• Two of the COC Microscope vendors responded to the RFP with a large difference in costs. We are talking to them to find out why.
• We interview the third COC technician tomorrow, Friday 6/12.
• Set up and tested a new method for measuring optical coating thickness as a function of position on  a part. Looks promising.

Auxiliary Optics

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

Work Under Project Budget

OPTICAL LAYOUT:

• K. Mailand added the arm cavity baffle and wide angle baffle to the BSC7 chamber, and completed an initial design of the ITM elliptical baffle D0901189, which Ed incorporated into the SYS BSC layout.
• Ken is making a preliminary SW model the PR2/SR2 scraper baffle.

Work Under Operations Budget

SLC:

• Mike is working on the preliminary design document. Virginio is calculating the expected motion transfer function for the suspended Manifold/Cryopump Baffle.

OPTICAL LEVER:

• Ken finished a SW model of the optical lever ray paths thru A-1 VE Adapter. Two optical lever beams were launched through a 7.8 dia 10 inch flange viewport separated by the appropriate angle, and one hits the center of the ITM and ETM mirrors, and the second beam will hits the mirrors 60 mm offset from the center. The second beam can be used in conjunction with the TCS to measure the surface sag of the COC.
• Craig has a new design for a pitch/yaw mechanism for pointing the beam expanding telescope based on Riccardo's spherical washer pivot concept. It will mount to the top of the new pylon.
• Riccardo is ordering parts for the beam points tests this summer.

OUTPUT FARADAY ISOLATOR:

• Niem is continuing to order parts for the FI suspension prototype. A preliminary test will be done to test the design of the blade springs before ordering the Maraging steel blades.

ETM Telescope:

• Sam is working on the Transmon table layout.

35 W Aircooled Beam Dump:

• Some of the mirror stainless wedge trap parts have been cleaned and oxidized. Assembly of the beam dumps is underway by Rana's team.

Control and Data Systems

Operations: R&D, ELIGO DAQ, and Electronics

LHO - Electronics:

• Modifications to the GS-13 interface on the ISI system were performed. This was to bring the board from Rev B2 to B3 by replacing C10 (820pf) between the input legs of the AD620 instrument amp with a 16nf cap.
• Installed the new NTP server, antenna and cabling. Everything went well with the installation up to 9 satellites located and synced but can not use the IRIG B output for some as yet unknown reason.
• Cleaned and tightened the 1pin LEMO connections into the ETM Coil drivers. This is an attempt to stop the connection from giving different calibration read backs every time they connect to the front panel. One thought is the the connections have become oxidized and therefore change resistance every time they are replugged. Another excuse is we have connected and reconnected too many times and the receiving hole is now wearing out.
• Added the mid station ADCUs back into the data stream to allow for the Seismic channels to be read out. Put the fibers back into a loop with h2dscmx. Could not start the ADCU with only the seismic channels actually had to have 11 channels in the .ini to get it to work.

LHO & LLO - Systems/Software:

• Work continues at both LHO and LLO to prepare for the E14 run this weekend.

Project: AdvLIGO Systems

SEI

Seismometers

• We tested the in-pod pod leak pressure sensor circuit for the GS-13 pods, and they work as expected.

HEPI

• Continued the development with the Athena II Single Board Computer as an epics-based.
• The HEPI L4C cables will be finished today, and shipped to Pasadena.
• We visited two of the electro-mechanical assembly houses last week, and found them to be routinely making chassis similar to ours. We now have a list of five places that can bid on our chassis, board stuffing, and wiring harnesses. Assembling the documentation to send out for quotes.

SUS:

• Vigorous testing and reviewing of driver electronics continues with Quad Top, Quad UIM, and Triple Top electronics plans reviewed and approved.

DAQ

• First laboratory bench tests of a General Standards PMC66-18AO8 18-bit DAC Module indicated a noise floor of approximately 150 nV/rtHz. Testing will continue in a more representative environment.

ISC:

• Working out the details of the circuit layout for the end test mass in-vacuum transmission monitor photodiode.
• Working on the advanced LIGO OSEM. A hybrid PEEK Kapton flexible board is being designed in conjunction with the mechanical effort at LLO/LHO. The function of the flexible board will be to hold the diode and LED at a precise orientation with respect to each other, while being easy to clean, cheap to manufacture, reliable and simple to assemble. That's no small task.
• There was a reported problem from LLO relating to the OMC QPD Whitening Amplifier. This in-air module is located near HAM 6, the problem seems to be that the circuitry will latch up to a fixed voltage on certain optical transients. A similar problem was reported about a year ago and was assumed to be cured, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Stay tuned.

For additional information about this report, contact Albert Lazzarini