There wil be a closed meeting of the LIGO Executive Committee on Monday, July 6, 2009.

(Meeting time: 10:30 am Pacific Time)

1. Announcements

2. LSC - Reitze - N/A

3. Focus Topics - Circulated to the Executive Committee

4. Change Control Actions

There is one change request CR-090004 that has been submitted by Fred Raab.

5. Advanced LIGO

Overall - Shoemaker
Project Management - Wilkinson

6. Enhanced LIGO - Adhikari

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 Meeting

LSC Issues (Reitze)

The CW group S5 Einstein@home paper 'Einstein@Home search for periodic gravitational waves in early S5 LIGO data' was provisionally accepted in Phys. Rev. D pending minor revisions.

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>

Derek and I assisted N. Robertson with packing and making shipping arrangements for the ERGO to LIGO-MIT.
Reviewed and requested expenditure type changes for equipment orders that should be supplies.
Continued working with Ernest Ngalula, Tracy Fraser from Property Services and Finance team in closing 51 Fabrication Accounts..

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Mak)

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

Misc. user support.
Completed processing all talks into the GWADW Meeting event page.
Doing QA reviews on all talks from Amaldi Conference held last week.

FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Lindquist, Oracion)

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

Currently working on reports for period ending 6/30/09.
Continuing to coordinate closeout of LIGO Cooperative Agreement PHY-0107417 for LIGO Operations FY 2002-2008. Working on fabrication closeout..
Link to FY2009 LIGO Operations poetas: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/docuserv/FY2009_LIGO_OPs_
PTAs_v3.pdf.
Link to Advanced LIGO poetas: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/docuserv/FY2009_Advanced_LIGO_
PTAs_v1.pdf. Financial reports can be found at: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport. (For passwords contact Karl).

SUBCONTRACTS MANAGEMENT (Arvizu, Champagnie, Jasnow, Marroquin, Salone)

>From: Rudy Arvizu <arvizu_r@ligo.caltech.edu>

See Advanced LIGO Report Below.

>From: Jacqueline Champagnie and Gina Salone

See Advanced LIGO Report Below.

>From: Steve Marroquin smarroqu@caltech.edu

See Advanced LIGO Report Below.
Issued purchase order to Dynamic Systems for additional computer servers (Tech Rep. Stuart Anderson).

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

See Advanced LIGO Report Below.
Reviewed travel report from 2007 that had not been closed. Worked with Travel Accounting to see if it could be put on the current Operations Cooperative Agreement

PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist, Beckett)

Have begun the monthly "highlights" report cycle. First announcement sent, two replies received. Due date for submissions is Tuesday, July 8th.
Continuing to gather entries to update the web LIGO Chronology. I am specifically looking for noteworthy achievements during 2008 and up to today - basically the last 18-months. I'm reviewing past reports and documents for material, but I welcome all to send me suggestions. Remember that significant accomplishment your group achieved last year or more recently? Boast to me about it. Succinct, one-line summaries work best.

CHANGE REQUESTS (Lindquist)

Fred Raab has submitted a change request (CR-090004) for budget to cover an Outreach Specialist in Hanford. The major impact will be for 2010-13 Operations. The change request has been assigned Document ID LIGO-M0900183, version 1.

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)

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

No report.

Quality/Safety (Nolting)

LIGO Lab Safety:

The Safety Steering Committee is working on establishing reporting guidelines and reference information that will assist facility management and LIGO safety. These guidelines are important to the OSHA requirement that serious incidents which occur in our work place be reported in a timely manner.

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)

We continued to refine the calibration prior to S6. Final measurements of endstation analog filters in the actuation chain were made, fit and inverted for compensation. On the sensing side, expressions for the OMC ADC and 32k->16k OMC->LSC downsampling were obtained and included in the DARM Matlab model. Additional asymmetric Michelsons (post-compensation) were obtained. The model is mostly in-hand for the science run, completion and handoff to h(t) folks shortly.
Timing: we did not understand the seemingly random OMC->LSC timing that was observed, until it was noted that the IRIG-B timing signal sync cable was detached from the OMC computer, and thus the latter was free-wheeling. With the sync restored, timing still jumps on reboot, but with multiples of 30.5us delay, i.e. less random. We'll monitor this at the outset of every lock stretch (requiring a quick (passive) transfer function to be made).
A reflective-memory issue kept H1 out of lock for most of the weekend; in the final few days prior to S6 we'll be looking at 14W DC locking stability, in order to establish a baseline running configuration for early data-taking. Daytime anthropogenic noise due in part to local road refinishing may mean lower power locking in the days, at least initially.

Squeezer Update (D. Sigg)

MIT (S. Dwyer): aniel, Michael, and Sheon were visiting MIT this week, we have been talking about noise propagation in the squeezer and what ANU has learned from the last few months of work on the OPO. Faraday isolators were ordered.

Outreach (D. Ingram)

Several recent outreach highlights: Fred Raab presented an invited talk at Amaldi on GW outreach. Students from Pioneer Middle School in Walla Walla hosted a summer school poster session at LHO on 6/26. Corey Gray, Cheryl Vorvick and Armando Merlin participated in Astronomy Day on the Umatilla Reservation on 6/27. LHO collaborated with Ephrata GEAR UP on an astronomy camp that concluded with a visit to LHO on 7/1. Other site visits included the WA MIT Club and two local hot rod clubs that drove a lovely array of cars to the site on 6/28. Photos to follow.

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

General Operations (Rusyl Wooley)

We had a failure of a 3413 (A/D) at the west end station on Saturday. The board was replaced after proper operation of the vacuum system was confirmed. We vented HAM6 on Wednesday to support repair of the OMC. We continue to receive aLIGO components and support equipment on a daily basis.

Enhanced LIGO Commissioning (Valera Frolov)

Last Friday one of the OMC photodetectors developed very high DC dark current and dark noise. The cause was determined to be the failure of the OMC safety shutter. The HAM6 vacuum chamber was vented on Wednesday to replace the OMC photodetectors. Both OMC PDs were removed. There are visible marks close o the center on both PDs. The new photodetectors are being installed and tested at the time of this writing.
During the preparation for the HAM6 vent the interferometer commissioning included the input beam jitter investigation and operating on RF readout at the higher power levels up to 14 W. It was found that by re-optimizing the local damping of the input optics the input beam motion can be reduced and the WFS gain can be increased to counteract the radiation pressure. The new POX RF photodetector was operated with 50 mA photocurrent (14 W) and so far provided stable MICH/PRC control loops. More quantitative testing is underway. The thermal compensation settings were re-optimized while increasing the input power. The inability to recover the factor of two loss in the sideband buildup (NSPOB) from 8 to 14 W using TCS remains to be a puzzle.

LLO CDS (Keith Thorne)

Commissioning Support:

Upgraded the GRB trigger script based on Hanford version so that supernova alerts are handled. Updated GRB MEDM screens to have supernova case. Still need to re-boot l1iocstat to activate variables.
Received and tested the two additional gigabit Ethernet cameras that had been ordered. The camera server computer was moved out of the LVEA to the CDS high-bay. We still have to run the long Ethernet cable from there back to a centrally-located Ethernet switch in the LVEA.
Did RFM reboots at the X-end station to cure RFM issues. First attempt that started with all units off did not work well. Second attempt with one crate power-cycled at a time worked. Attempted to find the E/O link parts previously shipped to LLO that were to have been installed at the end stations. This is still open (but would not be done until commissioning break at the earliest).
Added cabling and channels for a new out-of-loop photo-detector monitor of the PSL ISS. The photodetector still needs to be installed.
Made some corrections to stdenv Perl scripts.
Reactivated X-Arm PCAL excitations.
Rusyl replaced blown ADC unit (VMIVME 4313) in X-end vacuum system that was causing pressure gauges to read 10E-1. This was our only spare. It has been sent to the vendor for repair. We got quotes for additional spares, but need to verify the version now available is compatible with our 12-year-old installation.

eLIGO Upgrades:

Alex installed new code in fb0c data concentrator to bring it current with the other unit (fb1c). This took a little longer than expected but is complete.
Based on a mismatch in reported data rates from the two frame-writers, Alex rebuilt the code on fb0w to remove GDS support. Both frame-writers now report identical data rates.
Attempted to startup additional GDS frame broadcaster (fb0gds) but hit configuration snag. Fall-back is to clone disk from existing fb1gds.
Created draft LLO Site Overview MEDM screen based on latest LHO screen that is H1-specific. Will be working with operators to correct vacuum, etc. channels. Need to add HEPI info.

Sysadmin:

Migrated web pages to their own disk partition to better balance usage and to make it easier to secure.
Stood up new CDS web server (currently running in parallel on same pages as the old one). This server will use password authentication instead of IP restriction, so access is easier from offsite. New server is also only accessible through NAT router to improved security. New hardware/software is faster and easier to update.
Ordered laptops for CDS EE lab, sysadmin, LVEA roaming to replace old units.

LLO Education and Outreach (William Katzman)

Prepared for Project MISE workshop - coordinating details with SUBR.
Continued scheduling field trips for fall and spring.
Ordered materials for exhibit repair and maintenance.
Repaired Soap Film painting & Hot Light exhibits.
Began developing seismometer exhibit.
Started budget planning.
Met with Dwayne about creating database for collecting information on visitors.
Open House with ~50 visitors and 3 LIGO science contributing to event.

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)

No report provided.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

Our new optical table arrived, and we have now begun moving the photothermal experiment into its new room. Friday transportation moved the A-frame crane out of the subbasement and over to the synchrotron building for storage.
Eric was out on short notice Wednesday, and Akira ran group meeting.

Akira's notes:

Riccardo mentioned that he had spoken with Stefan Gossler at the Amaldi conference about transferring the mini TNI experiment to Hannover at some point. Greg said that at his presentation someone pointed out that in his experiment, the response should obey the Bode gain-phase relationship. This motivated Greg to try to calculate the response more precisely and his new calculations follow the Bode gain-phase relation. However, his new calculations may not agree with the results of the cavity assisted photothermal experiment.
Riccardo and I went over his comments about the optimized coating paper.

LASTI (Mittleman)

ISI

Fabrice has fine tuned the loops to balance out the performance and made some initial isolation plots that can be fround in the PDR document. https://dcc.ligo.org/cgi-bin/private/DocDB/ShowDocument?docid=3310.

HEPI

The HAM HEPI system has been running stably for a while now, we have been working on implementing sensor correction.

Monolithic

Work on the fiber pulling/welding front has mostly involved preparing for a series of test hangs that begin next week, when the UK group along with a number of LIGO personal will be visiting. These test hangs will be used to practice the full fiber pulling and welding procedures that will be used on the quad noise prototype later in the fall. Alan and Marielle stopped by from Amaldi for a day last week to sort out and prep tooling for these tests. Other work on this front has involved updating the optical layout between the C02 laser, the fiber puller, and the articulated arm. The layout now agrees more with the test layout in Glasgow and improves the output laser power at the pulling machine. The articulated arm is in a badly misaligned state. Consequently, we will swap arms with the Glasgow team so that we can continue with a working one while they get ours professionally repaired. We are now cleaning and sorting the fiber pulling/welding area in advance of this upcoming work.

CIT Science Group (Weinstein)

__________

Antony Searle:

Attending Amaldi.
Supervising SURFs.
Debugging Omega cluster running.
Testing (and refactoring to facilitate testing) LAL skymap library.

__________

Stephen Privitera:

Finished debugging and validating calibration response modifying code.

__________

Kipp Cannon:

Working with SURF student Dan Stratman on a technique for constructing an analogue of the ``U-V plane'' for use in omni-directional aperture synthesis,
Working with Chad Hanna on the S5 high-mass CBC search.
Working with Chad Hanna, Drew Keppel and Romain Carriou on fast, low-latency, inspiral analysis techniques.

__________

Drew Keppel

Speeding up the injection code for LLOID.
Running injections runs to test the whitener of LLOID.
Comparing snr and chi-squared for zero-lag and injection triggers.

__________

Cristina Valeria Torres:

Continue exploratory work on using tracksearch as part of TCS control to track the ITM ETM temperatures. This is something I working on with Rupal Amin.
Continue to debug follow up pipeline in preparation of upcoming E14 followups and S6 followups.
Begin follow up on ihope candidates for all three days of E14. The candidates of interest are those candidates(high-mass run) which are coincident with the candidates reported by coherent waveburst in E14.

__________

Joseph Betzwieser:

I've been working with Ina Domanska (SURF student) and Pinkesh on modifying the resampling version of ComputeFStatistic to take into account timing noise and glitches for pulsar known via EM observation.

__________

Gregory Mendell:

I have generated two sets of E14 fscans. These (and the one previous set of fscans I generated for E13) can be found here: https://ldas-jobs.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/~pulsar/fscan/E14/fscanNavigation.html All fscans are for H1 and corresponding PEM channels. For E14 I generated one set of fscans from a 6.5 hr lock stretch on June 13, and for a 24 hr period (with gaps) that ended on June 15.

Laboratory Computing (Anderson)

LDAS Software Systems (Maros)

As S6 nears, the focus has been on stabilizing the diskcacheAPI. Several modifications have been made to protect variables in multi-threaded environments. Also, the issue of the diskcacheAPI not being able to read or write the binary cache file during E14 have been addressed.

LDAS System Administration (Anderson)

Caltech

(Josh Abadie)

Fixed several down nodes.
Cleaned up Synchrotron mezzanine.
Upgraded several new switches to 20 Gbs uplink.
Upgraded 29 nodes with new disk drives.
Added many new grid users.
Helped users with issues.
Monitored cluster for issues.

MIT

(Fred Donovan)

Continuing with Bates computer center work.

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

LDAS has started archiving all raw data under /archive/frames/S6, starting at GPSSTART = 930585632 = Jul 02 2009 16:00:17 UTC. This is to capture any calibration or other preS6 measurements and UP time between now and the official start of S6. Â Other LDAS services will start on the official S6 start time. Data prior to this, (but after S5) is A5 astrowatch data, and when and if archived, it is under /archive/frames/A5.
I have finished setting up the rsync server on the I2U2 box at Caltech, in consultation with Larry Wallace and Abe Singer.

(Dan Moraru)

Updated script for adding users and cleared backlog of GRID account applications.
Brought thumper2 online and started transferring data over from thumper1.
Assembled and racked new x4600 and x2200 servers.
Hooked up Solaris box used by CDS to monitor LDAS room temperature, but still need to find a cable with suitable fiber connectors.
Reconfigured Condor to support accounting group quotas.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT

(Fred)

Some configuration issues (visitor's network connectivity.
XP desktop issues fabrice.
Laptop purchase for Andy.
Some burst group ldap issues.

Livingston

(Shannon)

GC/Auth/Network:

Fixed alias on m2, couple of other issues tracked down on mail servers.
Many hours of time on the phone with AT&T techs, Charter techs, LSU, troubleshooting network issues.
Set up VM for translucent proxy.
Set up VM for IdP Shibboleth testing.
Modified NAT tables for Keith's new web server

(Dwayne)

Assisted a user with printer and plotter formatting issues.
Installed an older version of matlab on a Mac PowerBook for a SURF student.
Installed LIGO XP image on a new Dell Vostro laptop, installed various other software, handed over to new operator.
Investigating poor performance and random reboots on said laptop.
Modified permissions in kantech for the old GC Lab in the staging building.
Installed kantech software for David Kinzel, created his account.
Received a quote for a HP 5550dn printer for the SEC Outreach group.
Installed software on two new Macs for AdL techs, patched and updated existing software, handed over to techs.
Setup EVO for SciMon session.
Upgraded canIt appliance install.
JIRA 1.4.19 upgrade on TEST and PROD finally a success after receiving complete documentation from Appfire.
Met with Outreach discussing current and future computing needs.
Requested LIGO.ORG accounts for two new employees.
Imported new user list into both instances of JIRA.
Replaced tapes in GC tape library.
Setup PC for visiting grad students in cubicle area.
Created email accounts for visiting grad students.
Attended a few meetings.
Worked a couple small procurement items.
Numerous usual/unusual user support requests.
Cleared spam trap daily

Hanford

(Jonathan)

Moved einsteinsmessengers.ligo-wa... onto a vhost in the main webserver.
Looking at integrating Samba with LDAP & Kerberos setup.
Support of SURF students and visiting teachers.
Setup temporary machine to run omega scans, until a more permanent ldas based solution is available.
Installed SSL cert on LHO webserver.
Migrated einsteinsmessengers.ligo-wa.cal... onto main webserver as a vhost.
Setup spare ADL PM laptop.
Setup temp machine for Jodi Fauver.
Set LLO laptop back to LLO, had been used by Jodi F in the UK.
Arrange for warranty repairs for Jodi Fauver's laptop, backup of existing data.
Working with Shannon to get LIGO.ORG KDC at LHO. Â We are still seeing the replication problems we saw on our previous attempt. This may be related to a bug filed with redhat regarding kpropd on RHEL 5.2 & 5.3.
User support Matt West, SURF students, and teacher/interns.

Caltech

(Mike)

Installed additional software on the Engineering workstations.
Added multiple mac addresses to our wireless access points.
Added additional ip numbers to our dhcp server.
Configured Rich's computer to connect to LHO's VPN, and setup his account on ADVLIGO servers to run PRISMPM software.
Worked with Dwight(LHO)on configuring his new laptop to re-connect to ADVLIGO server.
Backed up 2 laptops and started reloading these to get ready for different users to use.
Ordered some supplies for GC, and other users.
Search and order a computer for Liyaun Zhang.
Setup a couple of new user accounts.
Worked on backing up Barry's laptop, and running some updates on his his installed applications. Also look into a few OS issues that I found. Trouble shooting his NY laptop, which has a bad hard disk, and needs to be replaced.
Loaded Barry's NY laptop with a spare drive Larry gave up. This is an ongoing project.
Some work on the DHCP server clearing a server issue.
Worked on loading a linux box for a user.
Other misc. Onsite/Phone user support, and daily sysadmin tasks.

(Veronica)

Work on migration of the old DCC data into the new DCC.
MOU website/database updates.
WebComm: Ongoing updates. Addressed an issue of a Spanish version of the ligo.org website.
LIGO/LSC web updates.

(Melody)

DCC User support (removing wrong files and versions, allowing access.
Continued addressing myLIGO trouble tickets and worked on stabilizing the system.
Attended a meeting regarding the migration of documents from the old DCC to the new DCC.
Assisted Scott with the Grouper move to Caltech.

(Larry)

Purchased and delivered a number of misc. computer items. Mostly supplies for different groups. Tracked down a couple of workstation purchases. The units shipped this week. Working on a couple of license renewals and purchasing more Solidworks licenses for the visitor engineering workstations. Received delivery of the last SUN order. Assisted in working out a problem with a p-card issues.
Cleaned up a number of accounts. Took care of accounts of people leaving the project. Added new accounts and wrapped up the setup of some of the SURF students. Setting up the list of home accounts to be moved to the new server. So far no complaints from the test account users.
Assisted Riccardo and his group on a couple of setups in his labs.
Continual work with getting things setup for the SURF students. There has been a number of physical moves and more tools needed for their
projects.
Some minor assistance to Shannon on troubleshooting a network issue he was working on.
Worked a number of printer and copier issues. All were minor items. Mostly configuration issues on the computers and some paper jams. Took care of a couple of h/w issues on different computers. Installed a couple of different OS's on different boxes. Testing out some issues on a virtual box.
Assisted one of the SURF students recover some data before rebuilding his computer.
Regular user assistance and meeting attendance.

(Christian)

Matlab setup for SURF student.
Cloned LABVIEW server for Riccardo.
Re-imaged loaner laptop.
Worked with Mary K. on Filemaker server.
Update on system on unit in the display case.

Distributed (Grid) Computing R&D (Blackburn)

Grid Application Development

Einstein@Home on the OSG:

Have now completely migrated to running with the new E@H code deployed last week at OSG sites that support LIGO. This has been running very well. A few sites have had issues in their local configurations and tracking tickets have been filled out at the GOC.
Met with Condor development team on Monday at UW Madison. The result of the meeting is a two step plan. The first part concerns how to integrate Condor-G into the current code base. It is estimate that this will take order four weeks of full time work to program and test the solution. The second part concerns the benefits of Condor-G over GT2 and GT4 and how we could utilize it to replace part of the current code base.
Recent Average Credits for the past week were 143,541 credits, down about 5K from last week; Weekly rank based on Recent Average Credits was 8 (better by two from last week); Accumulative rank for total credits is now 25th in the world (better by 1 from last week).

Binary Inspiral Application on Grids:

Encountered an issue with copying frame files with SRM using the Caltech integration and testbed cluster. This was reported to site admin and may be related to a recent GUMS update.
Awaiting changes to code to allow running on OSG again. Retrieving an old version of the "spew" code to use in testing of the new ITB software stack.

Open Science Grid Integration & Validation Testbed

Attended OSG Documentation Alignment Workshop at University of Chicago on Thursday and Friday of last week. It was suggested that I (Robert E.) be made the architect for the new documentation project.
Attended OSG Storage Forum Workshop at Fermilab on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. Gave a presentation on the layout of the current OSG ITB cluster at Caltech (both Compute and Storage Elements).
Continue to be engaged with the new ITB software stack testing.
Upgraded all packages on ITB, including GUMS.

Grid Management

Continued to put finishing touches on Annual NSF Report of OSG.
Discussed OSG's year 4 planning and topics for the OSG Face-to-Face Council meeting with OSG Executive Director, covering broadly, the areas where we have key opportunities.
Discussed suggestion for Robert to take on the role of Architect for the new Documentation Project in the OSG with the Executive Director and Integration Testbed Area Coordinator. This will likely go into effect in year 4 of the OSG Statement of Work due out in September.
Reviewed contract between the OSG and the hotel identified to host the OSG Council Face to Face meeting in August. No further issues were found, just awaiting payment so that this can be checked off.
Reviewed the plans for OmegaScan for S6 in the weekly SCAT telecon. The SCAT provided feedback to Duncan Brown on details of implementation which all agreed would make this important component of S6 work well and with reasonable goals for security.
Had to renew my own DOE Grids user certificate. Experienced a new issue with the renewal script, different from the one reported by a LIGO postdoc last week. Was able to work through the failure mode and after two or three days of pipeline delay, am now back to being able to act as the OSG::LIGO Registration Authority (RA) Agent.
Requested that a new RA Agent be assigned within the OSG::LIGO affiliation. Scott Koranda agreed to take on this important role when Warren and Kent are both unavailable. Still working with DOE Grids to get this approved.

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Advanced LIGO Management

From Carol Wilkinson

Project Controls

One change request to rework the seismic schedule to reflect the new BSC design and assembly schedules was approved this week.

Staffing

Ads are out for additional project staff, including, with interviewing of candidates in progress: 2 real time programmers for the sites, 1 ME and 1 draftsperson for Systems engineering, and 1 Electech at CIT. An offer is being made for 1 optics technician at CIT.
LIGO management has agreed to hire 2 temporary designers/drafters for SUS and AOS development and design efforts. A contract designer has been identified for the SUS work at LLO and negotiations are underway to hire.

Procurements

For Ed Jasnow

Reviewed four procurements for seismic isolation to see if they came within the required threshold relative to the estimate to see if they required NSF review. These items were listed as one procurement in the Acquisition Plan. The total of the four procurements is less than expected, and, therefore, requires NSF review.
Reviewed documentation on core optics coating procurement prior to submitting the package to the NSF for review.

For Jacqueline Champagnie and Gina Salone

SI-147B Maraging Steel Blade Springs approved by Ann Miller (NSF): Material due this month
SI-146 Large Plates Awarded to Arland

SI-148a	Ham Pods Bids received and have been posted to the DCC, awaiting Ken Mason approval
SI-148B	Machine Parts Bids received and posted to DCC and being reviewed by Ken Mason
SI-148d	Flexure Rods Bids received and have been posted to the DCC, awaiting Ken Mason approval
SI-148e	Spring Support Post Bids received and have been posted to the DCC, awaiting Ken Mason approval

UK Optics Fixed Price Contract currently being reviewed by Hereaus US and Germany locations.
COC Microscope Vendor Selected, Microscope testing rescheduled to July 13th by Nikon.
MISC Projects: DCC Coordination meeting Tuesday.

For Steve Marroquin

Submitted Selection Letter to Cooner Wire Specialty Wire & Cable for RFQ No. SM-150 “LIGO 28AWG In-Vacuum Wire”. (Tech Rep: Rich Abbott)
Currently working with Calum Torrie for the upcoming Advanced LIGO procurement SM-151 “Main Optic Carriers-Cake Tins”. This includes reviewing the RFI respondent submittals which came in on 6/26/09 from three out of the five prospective bidders solicited. The final drawings and specifications are still in process. (Tech Rep: Calum Torrie-CO-122)
Begun preliminary documentation on upcoming procurement SM-152 “LIGO Eight Channel Valve Drive Assembly” (Tech Rep: Ben Abbott-SI-2AE).

For Rudy Arvizu

Prepared COC optics coating contracts and award package to go to NSF for approval.

NSF Acquisition Approvals

Ann Miller approved the HAM Internal Seismic Isolation (SEI) award package for the machining of the maraging steel springs, which was significantly below estimate award price due to current market conditions.
The award packages for the Core Optics Coatings (Procurement ID CO-118 from the FY2009 Acquisition Plan) were sent to NSF on July 2, after final selection of the winning bids from LMA for the Test Masses and to CSIRO for the Recycling Cavity Mirrors.
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. A package is in preparation for the 4 awards for the HAM SEI small mechanical parts.

Progress Updates

Progress updates were finished and the preparation of the monthly EVM reports for June is underway.
Variance reports will be available on July 7 and due on July 8.

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

Calum Torrie <ctorrie@ligo.caltech.edu>

Systems:

I led the first round of interviews for the Systems Designer / Drafter position.

Drawings:

I have been working on the systems layout drawings (chamber level). Ed and I have started making e-drawings available on the DCC for all of the chambers.

COC:

Ed and I are continuing on the optic container drawings. We should have a set for the ETM/ITM, CP and BS/FM ready along with assembly drawing by the end of the week. THe SR set will following early next week. Our plan is to have them ready for review by Wednesday of next week. Steve M and I received positive feedback from several companies on the procurement of these containers.
Rand and I have been talking about getting a prototype sucker plate. We will probably start off with a smaller option for his LIGO sized optic before making a full size (advanced LIGO) verisaon that we will hopefully send to MIT for testing at LASTI.

Workshop:

I have been talking to Mike Gerfen about re-ordering the work he is doing for LIGO, in particular the delivery of the 2 new ergo-arms. We are trying to squeeze in a re-work of existing ETM/ITM containers and 2 new SR containers. Mike Gerfen is considering the request.

Review:

I chaired the next round of the AOSEM FDR occurred this week. A report (from committee) is due next week, I should draft with committee by Monday. I also took part in the first meeting of the SLC PDR.

RAL:

Bob and I talked to Amanda and Justin about the current plan for testing the suspensions structures. The plan is as follows:
- Now:
  - Remove calibrated leak and faulty valve.
  - Cap off end (no spare valve available).
  - Pump back down and measure background.
  - Bring up to air and add clean structure.
  - Bake oven and pump back down and take scan of structure - this wil lthen be sent to LIGO along with photos of welds.
- Later:
  - Add new virtual leak.
  - Improve coverage of heating tape and jacket.
  - Move RGA from horizontal to vertical.
I also talked to Joe about the delivery of the Pro-E drawings for the planned translation to SolidWorks. I have also prepared a draft SOW for this effort.

Modeling and Simulation

From: Hiroaki Yamamoto hiro@ligo.caltech.edu

Static IFO Simulation and COS/TCS Analysis (Hiro, Logan, Andy)

The analysis of the mode matching and signal loss in a FP with thermal deformation discussed in T0900306 is further extended.

One important issue is that the diffractive loss or the round trip loss is a useful quantity when the mode coupling between the input beam and the cavity mode is very good, but it gives misleading quantity when the mode matching is not good. For a FP cavity with the input beam mode matching to the cold state cavity, the diffractive loss is small when both ITM and ETM have thermal bumps (both have similar absorption) than a cavity in which only one test mass has thermal bump ( absorption of one mass is larger than the other ). This is true either when ring heater is working to correct curvatures or not. But the total loss and higher order mode contents resonating in the cavity cannot be simply inferred from the size of the diffractive loss. The detail is discussed in T0900306-v2.

Adny Chen (high school student volunteer) is writing a iPhone application to calculate the modal model quantities.
Logal Daum (MIT SURF) has developing the code of the reflection by a tilted mirror using Python for fast prototyping. He includes the formulation by Hello-Vinet ( J. Optics, 1996, 27 265-276 ) and the change of the radius of curvature in the plane of the scattering and in the plane perpendicular to the scattering plane was confirmed to be correct. A small issue due to pixel-based data is being solved using smooth interpolation of data points. This code will be used to simulate the folded Michelson cavity where finite incident angle to xRM2 and xRM3 can introduce astigmatism, especially for LH2.
LG33 mode in a cavity with realistic mirror aberration To study the suitability of the LG33 mode to reduce the thermal noise in a cavity with realistic mirror aberration, the cavity mode in a FP cavity with the Tinsley pathfinder mirror phase map was studied by injecting a pure LG33 mode field. When astigmatic term is subtracted from the surface map, the loss of the LG33 power is only 2%, but if they are not subtracted, the loss goes up to 25%. The true astigmatic component is very hard to measure and some additional study is needed to understand better.

Safety

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

David Nolting on vacation this week
Preparing for upcoming document reviews for BSC-ISI, TCS-PDR and Optical Lever Review.
The University of Glasgow group is considering the use of chloroform to clean optics. AdL Safety is investigating to determine if this is a chemical that is acceptable for usage in Louisiana and Washington.

Quality Assurance

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

HEPI:

Bellows investigation is ongoing, Brian Lantz is running the analysis of the performance of the questionable units. We are still contemplating how to address the identified units that are defective, whether re-rolling is acceptable. Ken Mason will be talking to a metallurgist this coming week to get some advice, and we may decide to send out a re-rolled unit to a facility for destructive testing, section a known bad area and look for any micro cracks, etc. The team is working on what and how to measure the existing units for determining acceptance. I will be heading to the assembly shop in the next few weeks with this data to inspect.

SUS:

Test stand at LLO is ready to be sent in for repainting after the shipment damage from the vendor. Thanks to Mike Meyer for following up on this. Should be out to the shop next week for rework.

Core Optics:

Am starting to read up on the coatings specs and other documents for the optics. Have been asked by Procurements to get ready for a thorough review of the QA plans of prospective suppliers of coatings, handling and packaging processes, as well as test plans and inspections.

CDS/ISC:

During a routine RFQ process this week, it was found that the standard QA documents as part of the QA process may be a little overarching for many of the types of goods being ordered for this team. I need to evaluate the standard QA docs, do some housework to make sure they are aligned better to each other. Need to ensure the strict language contained is applicable to the type of procurements we had issues with this week, and not overly cumbersome to potential bidders that it limits their willingness to bid on our work. We may need to have a set of QA submittals and chose appropriately when writing the RFQ's.

Inventory Control System:

We had some rough times last week getting the newest release out to the servers, with some gaps in implementation documentation, making it very cumbersome to get a working build. We have finally gotten past this issue, and we loaded the newest build on the test server Monday. Worked great, so we pushed to the production server Wednesday. The new build now fully supports upload of parts as well as running and tracking parts through clean, bake, storage and shipment loads. Of course we have some very minor bugs around these that are being tweaked this weekend, and a few improvements coming next. We will also be implementing the modification records and rejection loops next, will be testing this coming week and deployment will follow shortly after.

Facilities Modifications and Preparations

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

LHO:

We are taking ownership of the warehouse this week and should have it clean enough to start using later next week. Ski and I are looking at water tanks to support the cleaning process. Flow benches have arrived for the optics labs in the LSB and the Staging Building.

LLO:

The new warehouse crane experienced an electrical fault which took out fuses on the main feed to the crane. This is being looked into.

Seismic Isolation

From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

aLIGO Project Activities

SEI Electronics Design and Fabrication:

The last of the HEPI L4C cables were shipped to Hanford last week. Hugh has received them, and they are ready for installation.
I helped Steve refine the bid package that we are going to send to the five electro-mechanical assembly houses for the construction of the 27 HEPI 8-channel Valve Drivers. Steve Marroquin is running with this now, and it should go out sometime soon.
Alex and I are working with the Pump Servo computer. We can now read voltages, and write out of the DAC. He installed the epics PID record, so we should be able to make a simple servo loop soon.
The 14 STS-2 Interface boards are back from Screaming Circuits. They will be put into chassis and tested in a few weeks.
I've been working with Mohana in getting her newest Coil Driver PCB finalized and ready for production. It should go out this week. ~Ben A.

HAM ISI Design and Procurement:

We have completed a bid evaluation for the HAM ISI miscellaneous machined marts. This will now have to go to the NSF Fastlane for approval. The pod, spring post, and maraging steel flexure bids have been received and are being evaluated. these will also need to go to the NSF for approval.
Stephanie has compliled the fastener list and sent a SOW to procurements for quoting. The GS-13 flexure spring SOW and drawings have been sent to procurement for quoting.

HEPI Procurements and Assembly:

Ameriflex has re-rolled a bad bellows and found they could bring it back to shape. We are checking this part for thin sections and stress cracks before giving them to OK to repair bellows.

R & D Activities

BSC ISI Design and Test Design:

Trillium Pod design is mostly complete with the exception of electrical connection details, drawings and final tolerancing. Assuming PDR approval.
GS-13 Pod design is mostly complete except for electrical connection details, locational features to Stage-2, drawings and final tolerancing. Assuming PDR approval.
Test Stand design modifications with drawings and tolerancing, for the BSC to Ham conversion, are complete and in the Vault. ~Sam
We prepared the BSC-ISI PDR documentation. The overview document is completed and posted: https://dcc.ligo.org/cgi-bin/private/DocDB/ShowDocument?docid=3310 Other documents have been posted on the PDR wiki page: http://ilog.ligo-wa.caltech.edu:7285/advligo/BSC-ISI_Advanced_LIGO_
Preliminary_Design_Review_

The review is officially underway, with the review committee reading and commenting on Documents. Testing: We are working on restoring the HEPI BSC control in order to evaluate the BSC global performance. ~Fabrice

Suspensions

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

Advanced LIGO Suspensions

Operations Work:

Ongoing work on HLTS prototype: RFQs have being issued for some parts and quotes received. A potential machine shop vendor was visited in the Baton Rouge area and an RFQ will be sent to them.
Ongoing work on updating/modifying HSTS drawings.
We will hold a review next week on the design of the blade test facility which our summer student at LLO has been working on.

Project-Funded Activities

Final design review and fabrication readiness review for value- engineered LIGO 1 OSEMS was held this week. We await report for advice on proceeding to first articles. We are working on finding equipment and labour for possible OSEM thermal testing.
Ongoing preparation work for LASTI weld test hangs and monolithic hang. Ears for the test hangs have now been received at Glasgow and have been bonded to silica disks. These test hangs will be used as training opportunities for LIGO staff. A document detailing the program of work at LASTI in July/August has been circulated by the Glasgow group.
Shipment of quad machined parts packed by LIGO staff during their visit to RAL is expected at LLO on July 7th. LHO shipment date still to be received.
Mark has been working on tracking down a bug in his Mathematica thermal noise code, and has produced a report summarising his findings - T0900320-v1. The error produced slight overestimates of noise. Results from GWINC are not affected.

Prestabilized Laser

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

Operations

Nothing significant to report.

Project

The installation work on the 200-W laser continues. The mode matching into the high power oscillator has been done a few times and an output power of just over 200 W has been observed. Unfortunately it only lasted about half an hour before dropping for reasons unexplained at the moment. When tweaked up, the laser was left to run overnight. A few hours into the run, the power watchdog kicked in and switched the laser off because of a drop in power. Signals from the new injection-locking electronics are being placed into data acquisition in an attempt to explain any loss of lock.
An insight I have gained from this trip is that installation of the laser may not be as easy as one might think and it raises some questions about re-alignment of the laser after delivery. Certainly some re-alignment will be necessary. In addition, some characterisation of the front-end laser would be helpful prior to installation of the high power oscillator.
The high power pre-modecleaner will be installed on the table later this week, after some testing with a 2-W NPRO.

Input Optics

From: David Tanner <tanner@phys.ufl.edu>

Advanced LIGO Design

Tentative parameters based upon Mike Smith's layout for the folded interferometer have been calculated. These parameters along with straight cavity parameters can be found at: http://ilog.ligo-wa.caltech.edu:
7285/advligo/COC_Final_Design_Review?action=AttachFile do=get target=RCPara2.pdf (Muzammil)

Advanced LIGO R&D

The first in vacuum high-power test of a sample of SiC test has been performed. (David F.)

Advanced LIGO Procurement

We are working on coating specifications for the Input Mode Cleaner and Steering Mirrors. We received the Steering Mirror Substrates from the polishing vendor. A visual inspection will be performed within few days. (Rodica)

Core Optics

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

(Liyuan)

The upgrade plan of the RTS DAQ system has been made, aiming to integrate into the RTS bench the spectrophotometer of Ocean Optics. A new PC, Labview 8.6 upgrade, PCI-GPIB and USB-RS232 cards have been placed order.
Following the discussion in this week's COC meeting, re-measuring the ESW-03 window with CASI system is just started. The reason that we revisit this measurement is because the raster scans of BRDF at 10 degree with this window showed the FC cleaning significantly improved the low scatter points comparing to that of drag wiping., while the TIS measurements at RTS bench for testing the FC cleaning and drag wiping didn't show the consistent result.

(Rand)

Tested / Iterated a design of the vacuum Frisbee for the neat application and removal of FC. The First iteration failed to draw a vacuum due to the hard PTFE coated o-rings. We are switching to viton o-rings, and deepening the vacuum cavity to reduce the sensitivity to small leaks.
We are adding to the Frisbee and inner ring to allow the embedding of Oxford mesh (found by Riccardo Desalvo) for easy no-rip removal of FC.
Discussing (today) a vacuum dust cover with Joe Haggerty in the Aerospace shop with a design provided by Calum. This will be prototyped for an iLIGO optic.

(Gari)

The statement of work for AdL metrology was released to purchasing, along with a bid list and estimated price.
We have announced selection of LMA for negotiations for coating test masses for Advanced LIGO, and CSIRO for negotiations for coating recycling cavity optics. Many thanks to the evaluation committee for their diligence.
Polishing is proceeding on schedule. We will have two late blank deliveries, compensation plates. There is no impact to the polishing schedule.

Auxiliary Optics

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

ADLIGO

Work Under Project Budget

OPTICAL LAYOUT:

Mike's ZEMAX layout for H2 agrees with Muzammil's cavity parameters and appears to be a workable solution for the IO optics. He updated the layout of H1, and Luke and Muzammil are in the process of comparing it with their layouts.

Work Under Operations Budget

OPTICAL LEVER:

Temperature trend data from LHO and LLO indicate that the long term variation of the temperature within the LVEA and the end stations during a two week period is less than 1 deg C; the only exception to this is a temperature reading from the LLO ETM X station, which varies diurnally by approx. 5 deg C--perhaps there is a calibration problem with that particular sensor, or the air conditioning control is not working. With the < 1 deg C variation, it will not be necessary to stabilize the temperature of the pylons.
Craig has surveying the industry and found several commercial candidates for the optlev telescope tilt mount; however, they do not meet our design requirements of being able to point, lock-down and forget--temperature sensitivity is generally unavailable with the commercial units. He is finalizing a prototype tip-tilt mount which we will test shortly.
The prototype optlev pylon is being fabricated in a shop.
Tara and Ian are projecting a beam down the sub basement corridor and are measuring the spot size of the beam at various distances. The red diode laser is connected to a small beam collimator that is used to adjust the focus of the beam. The pictures of the beam are taken at various distance to determine the beam waist at each focused position of the collimator.
The QPD we received from Ben Abbott is not working yet.
The four independent quadrant outputs must be processed to determine the pitch/yaw data. It will need some work to hook it up to a computer. They will also measure the leakage current from each quadrant to determine its noise.
Mike created an Excel file with the input and output coordinates of all the optical lever beams.

OUTPUT FARADAY ISOLATOR:

Jesse has tested several blade springs with similar dimensions as the upper and lower Faraday Isolator blade springs, made from 1095 spring steel. The measured load to reach the designed deflection of the springs agrees to < 10 % of the design value. The Radius of curvature of the springs under load agrees within a few percent. The vertical bounce frequency agrees with the value based on a pendulum with the same length as the deflection of the loaded blade spring to within 1 %. made outand mounting hardware were received for the preliminary blade spring tests using readily available . The results of these tests give us confidence that the design equations will yield similar results with maraging steel springs.
Mike is writing a technical memorandum describing his blade spring design equations.

ETM Telescope:

Jesse's ABCD matrix model for the Gaussian beam propagation through the ETM Telescope onto the near-field and far-field QPDs on the Transmon table indicates that it is possible to create pupil forming relays to image the beam waist at the middle of the IFO and the spot at the surface of the ETM telescope. This result means that the QPD's at those pupil locations on the Transmon table will be insensitive to rotation of the ETM Telescope/Transmon suspension.

TCS:

Ken has almost finished the detailed working drawing for the thermal housing for Phil Willem's co2 laser.
Josh, a SURF student, and Phil measured the reflectivity of a fused silica substrate with a CO2 laser beam at various polarizations and angles of incidence and the data agrees reasonably well with the calculated Fresnel reflection using a complex index of refraction at the 10.6 micron wavelength.
Fused silica has an anomalously high real index of refraction at 10.6 micron wavelength because of a nearby absorption edge. This results in a measured ~10% reflection at normal incidence.

SLC:

Mike and several members of the design team are responding to the Comments from the SLC PDR Committee.
The preliminary design review is tentatively scheduled for 7/8/09, provided we can get the information together in time.

Control and Data Systems

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

Operations: R&D, ELIGO DAQ, and Electronics

LHO - Systems/Software:

LLO CDS Software

Built the final two NDS machines and the second frame broadcaster. LHO DAQ is now complete except for the second concentrator (waiting for parts).
Infiniband node identifiers were made more systematic to allow swapping components between the two infiniband switches.
DAQ medm screens were brought up to date.
Re-racked the DAQ computers to a more logical scheme, and cleaned up the cabling.
Final tweaks to the DAQ configuration prior to S6 start on OMC and H1ADCU_PEM.
Rolf tested RCG1.1 on OMC following our failed first try. Still having cpu issues on a split system (om1+om2) which are not seen on a uni-system like isi.
CDS tape backup system has failed, we are upgrading to the latest version before raising a problem report. For now rsync disk backup is our backup mechanism.
Working with DetChar on changes to robofom, roboscimon, S6 web content.

DAQ Development

Attempted to compile and run the OMC software with the latest release of the realtime code generator software, same as used for the ISI systems. Had to back it out, as the OMC application would not run within the 31usec cycle time. The later software has more checks of timing and ADC/DAC diagnostics, which take a few additional useconds. This was enough to drive us over the allotted time, so present OMC application must be running close to the edge.

LLO - Systems/Software: