Weekly Report for Week Ending August 20, 2009

Past Weekly Reports

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday, August 24, 2009 will be:

(Meeting time: 10:30 am Pacific Time)

1. Announcements

2. LSC - Reitze

3. Focus Topic

The focus agenda item for the meeting of the LIGO Executive Committee on Monday, August 24, 2009 will be:

Visas and hiring non-US citizens -- Marjorie Gooding, Caltech International Scholars Office

4. Change Control Actions

• Consideration of

5. Advanced LIGO

• Overall – Shoemaker
• Project Management - Wilkinson

6. Enhanced LIGO - Adhikari / Zucker

• S6 Preparation - Whitcomb

7. Sites

• Hanford – Raab
• Livingston – Giaime
• MIT

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 Committee Meetings

LSC Issues (Reitze)

The S5 stochastic isotropic result appeared (pdf) in the August 20 issue of Nature V460 (2009) 990.  In addition, a nice 'News and Views' commentary appears in the same issue.  A number of science-oriented web sites have picked up the story as well.

More good news on publications:

• The S4 CBC ringdown paper arXiv:0905.1654 has been accepted for publication in Phys Rev D.
• The S5/VSR1 known pulsars paper (P080112) has been approved by the Executive Committee.

 

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT (Luna)

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

• Attending the National Property Education Seminar in San Antonio, TX.

FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Lindquist, Oracion)

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

• Karl was on vacation this week.
• Link to LIGO Operations accounts.
• Link to Financial reports.  (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

• Researching Skybase Communications PO for Bonnie Wooley
• New PO for cybersecurity consultant - pending
• New PO for laser safety consultant - pending

>From: Steve Marroquin smarroqu@caltech.edu·        

• Executed purchase order contract to Stanford Research System Inc. for SR785 Dynamic Signal Analyzer and 0780M1 8M Sample Memory Kit (Tech Rep.:Gary McIntyre).
• Executed a purchase order services of Fabrice Matichard.  This order was a ratification of work performed from 10/1/08 through 4/30/09.

See Advanced LIGO Report Below.

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

• Prepared FY10 Operations Procurement Plan for submittal to the NSF. ·
• See Advanced LIGO Report Below.

PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist, Beckett)

> From: lindquist_p@ligo.caltech.edu·        

• Presented the end-of-July financial data for Operations during the Excomm on Monday.
• Distributed a first draft of the Annual Report for LIGO Operations (FY2010) for review and comments.

> From: Dave Beckett <beckett@ligo.caltech.edu>

• Completed and dispatched the July "highlights" report for the NSF, reference: LIGO-M0900240-v1.
• Phil and I have completed a first draft of the 2009 Annual Report and distributed it for review. Edits are being incorporated now.

CHANGE REQUESTS (Lindquist)

• We will be considering a change request for Advanced LIGO R&D that will be discussed during the Executive Committee Meeting scheduled for Monday, August 24.

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)
>From: Cindy Akutagawa <cindy@ligo.caltech.edu>

• A Staffing Committee meeting was held on Monday, August 10th and he minutes and action items have been posted on the SC web page.
• The next Staffing Committee meeting is scheduled for October 12th.

Quality/Safety (Nolting)

• No report for operations-related activities received.

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)

• The duty factor for science this week was 66%. The inspiral range was variable with a mean of about 15Mpc.
• The ISCT4 shutter was found to be sticky and not necessarily opening when asked. This could have been an important source of scatter; the unit from the 2K was installed in its place. We haven't correlated improvements with that maneuver so it appears the scatter was not significant.
• Combs of lines (e.g. 0.5Hz) may be a result of casting data to single precision. Studies are continuing.
• An early morning power outage due to a lightning strike downed the PSL (via interlock) on Friday. Science-mode running was restored after several hours. The lightning managed to ignite a brush fire which was controlled by the Hanford fire department.
• Preparations for the commissioning break continue. We have moved the vent to one day earlier, Aug 31. We await delivery of key items (pds, blade springs and new magnets), some of which need to be baked just in time.

Squeezer update (D. Sigg, S. Dwyer)

• We spent the first part of the week adding shot noise to the noise model, and now I have been updating the layout to try to get together a list of lenses to order. The noise model is now available as T0900325-v1 in the DCC. This is in preparation of the update review next week.
• Paul tuned the diplexer of a new RF summing box which is used in the FSS. An update of the common mode board is in the works. It will be used for the slower servos in the squeezer experiment. We are also looking for LSC phhotodiodes and are in the process of repackaging a photodiode interface board into a 1U chassis.

Outreach (D. Ingram)

• EOC D Ingram remotely teamed with I2U2 leader Tom Loughran to facilitate a workshop for teachers on the use of the LIGO I2U2 e-Lab. The workshop occurred on the Notre Dame campus on 8/10-8/11. Ingram and Fred Raab facilitated a teacher workshop on wave behavior for a small group of teachers from regional GEAR UP sites at LHO on 8/17.

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

           General Operations (Rusyl Wooley):

 

In addition to the work reported in the aLIGO report, we concentrated our efforts this week on clearing out the optics lab and the vacuum lab.  This is being done so that we can replace the floor in both labs.  The contractor will be on site to begin this work on Monday morning.  We expect that this work will take 2 weeks.  We also moved a large clean room from across the street to the LVEA as well as a laminar flow hood and work table from the optics lab to the LVEA.  This is to support the commissioning activities that start next week.

 

 

LLO CDS (Keith Thorne):

 

Hardware

 

• Carl Adams completed testing of the coil driver satellite boxes and is currently completing documentation on that.  He has also started on the AdvLIGO feed-through and cable routing project.
• Carl and Ryan DeRosa investigated the photon calibrator problems during Tuesday maintenance.  It was determined that the photo-detector is not working properly and likely needs to be replaced.
• When Rolf was here, we decided to set up the half-rack for aCDS DAQ test stand in the old Computer Users Room.  We have determined that the existing surplus rack in that location is too shallow for some test stand components (such as a SunFire x4600 already on hand). Carl is ordering a test stand for that purpose and will arrange with Rolf for shipment of the remaining components.
• Mike Fyffe had to replace fuse on the RM/BS coil driver supplies.  The control loops have been quite active due to logging activities during the day.  There also appears to be some interaction between rebooting the OMC front ends and the suspension controls.  Investigation by Jeff Kissel and Valera found that a soft-boot of the OMC front-end would cause a large kick to the beam splitter.  It is not know why.  To clear things, we did a burt restore to the EPICS front-ends (to reset possible corrupted values) and then rebooted all the suspension, ASC and LSC front-ends in the CDS high-bay.

 

Software

 

• Installation of the new fileservers has started.  These are existing SunFire V490s, each with a 12TB disk array.  Best-practices discussions with LIGO personnel on new Solaris 10 installations was to configure the two system disks as a ZFS root mirrors, and to also use ZFS on the disk array to simplify setup.  Initial Solaris 10 installs with the latest release (5/09) were completed, and graphics adapters installed to ease setup.
• The 24-tape tape library for the new fileservers was ordered (it is on backorder at present).  The backup software (Arkeia) was purchased.  We also purchased the new NTP server and GPS receiver.
• Installed the Avocent serial port server purchased previously to aid set up of the new file-servers.
• Attempted installation of new FOM projection workstations during Tuesday maintenance, but failed.  The holdup is that the existing computer->video interface boxes (Extron RGB 112xi) are designed for old Sun graphics output and would not work with Linux VGA graphics.  We will be testing the alternate plan using VGA splitter and VGA->RGBHV breakout cables as our projectors come with standard VGA ports.
• Investigated improved monitoring of RBS EPICS process so operators are alerted when it is down.  Setup software and SSH to do remote screen capture on Linux over SSH (for the new FOM projection workstations).  Eliminated screen blanking on Linux workstations in control room.

 

LLO Outreach:

 

(William Katzman)

Continued scheduling field trips and tours

• Hosted 24 SURF students
• Hosted 37 adults from the Livingston Visitors and Convention Bureau
• Hosted 53 people (34 adults 19 children) with the Saturday open house
• Hosted LSU undergrads ­ 14 students, 1 professor
• Hosted Key Homeschool ­ 21 children, 14 adults
• Went to LA Technical University, met with Marcia Carter, and Diane Madden regarding the upcoming grant and project RIPPLE

(Amber Stuver)

• Participated in the Open House giving control room tours to ~35  people.
• Hosted 24 Caltech SURF students on site at LLO.  Activities included a tour of the observatory, the SEC, student talks, and a  private planetarium show at the Louisiana Arts and Science Museum.

Mechanical and Optical Systems (Coyne)

 

Riccardo DeSalvo

 

Andrey Rodionov

 

In Lab 04 Glassy metal-Maraging spring comparison (Gong Pu, Luigi and Andrey):

 

• The bus cabling of GAS-filter mechanical system, LVDT driver, actuator coil driver and the controlling computer was improved by adding auxiliary resistors to reduce the digitalization noise in our digital to analog converter (DAC) system.
• A protection resistance reducing the power dissipated in the actuator coil was added, to avoid overheating of the actuator coil.
• The Labview program was modified to add a set point (overall bias current) to the LVDT signal, which is equivalent to varying the overall load mass attached to the GAS filter.
• Calibration of the LVDT driver was carried out (in mm). A web-camera was used to eliminate the systematic parallax error of the displacement readout on a ruler.
  • The GAS spring working point of the Maraging spring was determined.
  • We determined the actuator calibration constant (in Newton).
• We started mounting the second GAS-filter, made of glassy metal.

 

In Lab 56 Tiltmeter characterization (Amanda, Morgan, Abhik):

 

• Amanda and Morgan are continuing the analysis of hysteresis-like behavior of the tiltmeter. Situations of EMAS coefficient equal to “0” and “-1” were considered in details, more rigorously than last week. A linear dependence of hysteresis in the system on the amplitude of the slow step-like excitation for these values of parameters of EMAS coefficient and for the two different frequencies of excitation has been observed.
• Abhik has improved his report of analysis of noise and trends for data recorded during the weekend of July 4th. We interpret his results as the evidence for 20 nanoradians at 0.1 Hz ambient tilt noise (probably dominated by air conditioning).
• Abhik has started the noise characterization analysis for the data recorded during the weekend of August 8th, for which (1) the center of mass of the system was located higher than in July (lower resonant frequency), and (2) the modified data acquisition system was used.

 

Also see Advanced LIGO.

 

Controls and Data Systems (Bork)

See Advanced LIGO

 

40-Meter Interferometer (Adhikari)

No report received.

 

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

(Akira Villar)

This week at the TNI I:

• Pumped down the TNI vacuum chamber.

• Worked on alignment.

• Locked both cavities and tried to ramp up the power in the cavities to take data but was unable to reach maximum power. I am now working on solving this problem.

• I also successfully modified the jig to bond the magnets to the new doped optimized mirrors which were 0.02 inches oversized. I should have these new mirrors ready for installation in the next few days.

 

LASTI (Mittleman)

Lasti

 

CIT Science Group (Weinstein)

 

Drew Keppel:

 

• testing the snr recovery of LLOID's resampling and SVD algorithms
• patching the lalapps_newcorse's FAR calculation to include extrapolation
• testing the memory requirements of ligolw_thinca

 

 

Antony Searle:

• Finishing up reimplementation of Omega pipeline robust statistic

P. Ajith:

• Worked with Aaron on his SURF project, presentation, and report.
• Working on improving the test-mass limit of the IMR spinning waveforms.

Stephen Privitera:

 

• Finished running the main highmass analysis on week 2 of S6 using ihope.
• Started the highmass post-processing dag on week 2 of S6.
• Continued to incorporate my calibration simulation code into lal and lalapps.

Amber L. Stuver:

• Working on producing burst upper limits for S5 based on an isotropic population of standard candles.  The units on this limit 1/yr/Mpc scaling with strain.
• Preparing to generate the burst MDCs for S6.
• Hosted the Caltech SURF students.  More information about this is available in my report in the LLO outreach section. 

Kipp Cannon:

• Worked with Drew Keppel on modifications to the coincidence stage in the inspiral pipeline to extend background false-alarm rate estimates
• Helping SURF students prepare talks
• Working with Shinkee Chung and Linqing Wen on completing a paper describing the use of GPUs for inspiral data analysis
• Worked with Chad Hanna and Drew Keppel on more validation of LLOID, a low-latency inspiral data analysis tool. 

Gregory Mendell:

• I am finishing mentoring a SURF project that characterized the detection efficiency of lalapps_HierarchicalSearch for several options.
• I am continuing to work the the CW group to generate dail S6 Fscans. Here are the links to the S6 Fscan Navigation pages for Hanford and Livingston.

Pinkesh Patel:

• Profiled the resampling code and found a very time consuming factorial function and replaced it with a lookup table.
• Updated the resampling code to accept Right Ascensions and Declinations in addition to alphas and deltas
• Almost ready to push go on the search and was hampered by the grid shutdown over the week.

Chad Hanna:

• I have been working with visitors from the IMR group to do a comparison of sensitivity volumes for the 25-100 Msun from the CBC and burst pipelines (link)
• I have been working on a new autocorrelation based chisq test for the cbc pipelines and with Mireia for lloid 

Diego Fazi:

• Kept working on adding xml output to the sqlite-based post-processing pipeline
• Set up a project report page for PTF

Igor Yakushin:

• I started compiling daily summaries of cWB online run and e-mailing them to the burst and glitch groups. They are also collected in cWB elog:

Cristina Valeria Torres;

• Finish needed upgrade to tracksearch to allow for the use of 32kHz data.
• Review sample S6 runs for tuning tracking of ITM drumhead lines. These sample runs will determine which configuration should be used to search for S6a drumhead lines for the ITMs.
• Finished with 3rd wk study of OMC gain shifts and if they correlated with unknown lock with unknown causes for that week at LLO.  It appears that if there is a link it relates to high gain shift coupled with shifting seismic noise causing "unexplained" lock losses.  During this high gain shift the IFO might be in a state that makes it prone to loosing lock. A complete study of S6a and a report is still pending.  I hope to complete this for presentation to DetChar group next week.

Kari Hodge:

• Finished my SciMon shift and got some more ideas for using interferometer channels as inputs to the MVSC analysis.
• Working with Chad to use the MVSC results from S5 highmass months 23-24 in conjunction his collaboration with the IMR group.

Anand Sengupta: 

• Testing the Fischer matrix code for a network of detectors on Mathematica
• Adding and Testing various veto channels in MVSC (with Tristan)

Peter Kalmus:

• Learning about X-ray bursts (with Leo Singer)
• Found list of RXTE X-ray burst triggers through S5 (with Leo Singer)
• Completed first neutron star model runs, for GW emission from NS modes excited by 1e49 and 1e52 erg "bombs" near NS surface (with Christian Ott)
• f-mode peaks near 1.4 kHz visible in both cases; next steps are to estimate detectability and explore parameter space
• Continued work to generalize flare pipeline detection statistic to arbitrary networks

Laboratory Computing (Anderson)

LDAS Software Systems (Maros)

Work has started on minimizing the memory requirements for the diskcacheAPI. Part of the motivation for this move is to stabilize the API by reducing the amount of memory management that needs to happen. This effort should be completed by the end of next week.

LDAS System Administration (Anderson)

            Caltech -

Dan Kozak

• Some email with Sun on SAM-QFS+NFS kernel panic but still not resolved.
• Finished changing home3 6140 volumes to RAID6.
• Reprocessed A5 LHO L1 .dump.bz2 files to remove more metadata that changed between frames even when the channel list did not.
• Participated in telecon with AEI about tape archival systems.
• Sorted out problem at LLO where tapes sent from CIT had not been relabeled and therefore not used.
• Mounted /home3 on ldas-cit & morbo.
• Configured /home3 to archive to tape.
• Installed 10gE cards in morbo, opterondata-cit, ldas-cit and sam2 and connected all but sam2 to the switch.
• Upgraded disk firmware for one disk in home3 6140.
• Cleaned up some cabling in Synchrotron.
• Deleted unneeded Burst-MDC frames on cluster.
• Working on getting communication reestablished with LLO's 6140.

 

Phil Ehrens

Ongoing support of MOU reporting and review cycle.

Patches to TAR per Albert and Marilyn.

Ongoing glimpse integration into the dcc.

Assisted with disk hardware upgrade to cluster.

Various user support issues related to grid accounts, subversion repos, and ilog.

 

Josh Abadie

Monitored and managed cluster.

Attempted to solve user problems.

Took point on the upgrade of 93 compute nodes' disks.

Scheduled RMAs from several vendors.

MIT –

            Fred Donovan

Continuing with bates installs; 80 nodes running; running  1/2 racks until chiller is at full speed.

Livingston –

            Igor Yakushin

Disk 0 in 6140 had blue and yellow light. Got a new drive from SUN.

One of the HVAC units stopped working: the motor got burnt. It is expected to be replaced within couple days. I had to shut down some nodes to reduce heat load on the remaining HVAC.

Hanford –

Greg Mendell

Called in a problem with the LDAS tape library system to Sun, and worked with Sun to have the tape robot hand replaced.

Verified that second-trend, minute-trend, raw, RDS, and LDAS hoft data are up-to-date in the archive at LHO, LLO, and CIT.

Set up publishing version 6 frame E13 data to replace the version 8 frame E13 data

Dan Moraru

Received and installed XENPAK transceiver modules.

Worked on configuring and testing 6509 switch.

Restored out-of-band communication to 6140 array.

Various software updates, changed list of NFS exports at GC's request.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT –

Fred

Set up a couple of w/s for parallel matlab;

Marie's computer unstable, will replace;

brennen dual monitor setup;

Installed o/s for new aneirin;

More solidworks/computer setup for new mech eng.

Livingston –

Dwayne

Made progress with new authentication scheme on Linux clients. automount of /home successful.

Ordered new disk arrays for /home and /apps filesystems

Found a workaround for ZFS issues that plagued us last week.

Re-imaged a couple laptops

Troubleshooting JIRA server problems with TEST instance

Applied patches to a couple more servers

Attended a few meetings

Worked a couple small procurement items

Numerous usual/unusual user support requests

Cleared spam trap daily

Shannon

Modified postmaster configuration on mail.ligo-la

Dredged through IDS alerts

pcard, travel reconciliation

Ordered fiber for warehouse

Fixed ZFS RAID w/Dwayne

Finalized the test LDAP entries for auto.home & tested

Fixed sshd kerberos issue on caelus

Began documenting LDAP/Krb "cookbook" on the auth wiki

Hanford –

Jonathan

Centralizing more server configuration concentrating on ntp settings, automating log setup, ldas nfs mounts

User support Betsy Bland, Rick Savage, Michael Sakowsky

Creating gc accounts for a scimon to run omega scans on redoubt (temporary omega scan box)

Deactivating accounts for summer interns who have left LHO

Worked a sci-mon shift

CIT –

Veronica

Ongoing work on the old DCC migration.

LSC Web Committee: updates of the LSC website.

Updates of misc LIGO /LSC webpages, user support.

More work on the PAC wiki.

Mike

Updated license server on ancha.

Trouble shot some mail issues for a few users.

Finish up a Vista-64bit build on a users new laptop

Work on trouble shooting printing problem for users.

Swapped out toner cartridges on a few printers. Cleared out many paper jams as well.

Worked on the ADVLIGO backups.

Installed all security patches on NTSRV's.

Added new pdmworks accounts, and change a few user permissions for R/W access to certain projects.

Finished up updating a terminal SW09 workstation for a user to gain access via remote desktop for SolidWorks.

Ordered a few peripherals for users.

Other onsite/phone user support and sysadmin tasks.

Melody

DCC: Usual user support.

Testing the dcc-test server with the latest system and security patches.

Looked at the code to see what else needs to be done for migration.

LAAC:  Copied some entries from the old LAAC Thesis Topics to the wiki.

Granted user access to edit the wiki pages.

myLIGO: Worked on closing some RT tickets.

Larry

Resolved some license issues.

installed a new license for Materials Studio and so far is running as it should.

Modified a license setup on the new license server being built.

Worked a number of purchase items.

Reconciled p-card items.

Cleared up some of the costing of new licenses that were purchased.

Ordered some new equipment for engineering and conference setups.

Working on SUN maint. contract and quotes for more Solidworks licenses.

Working on getting processes removed from some of the servers.

Repaired one of the printers.

Picked up the wireless data modem replacement for the loan pool.

Did some troubleshooting on a couple of PC units. The usb ports were not recognizing equipment and needed to have the driver updated.

Regular user assistance.

Starting prep work for a training meeting coming up. Working logistics on different meetings.

Distributed (Grid) Computing R&D (Blackburn)

Grid Application Development:

 

Einstein@Home on the OSG

 

• The Einstein@Home server has been down for a little over a week (Aug 11th - 19th). This has caused jobs to hold in the queues waiting for data to be distributed from the server and prevented the usual weekly progress in the data analysis. The server came back online and we are slowly beginning to see jobs running on OSG sites as the server is heavily loaded with requests from the down time.
• Made minor improvements in E@OSG code base and documentation.
• The E@H server downtime delayed the testing of the new Condor-G based Einstein@OSG code on the Nebraska site we have negotiated to use for large scale (~1000 job slot) testing.
• Slowly accumulating credits at a fraction of past weeks due to the einstein@home server being offline.

 

Binary Inspiral Application on Grids

• Have now transferred 7.1 TBs of gravitational frame data into the Storage Element in the Caltech OSG Integration Testbed
• Held a telecon with Fermilab OSG storage architects to discuss how best to provide information on how OSG Storage Element data is accessed from the worker nodes at an OSG site. A plan in now in place which should cover the needed inputs for Pegasus workflow planning.
• A small workflow based on older ihope code was successfully run on the Caltech OSG ITB cluster using data from the Storage Element. An attempt to generate a larger workflow using the new ihope code was unsuccessful. As Duncan is on vacation, will be meeting with Chad to sort out failures.
• Successfully demonstrated the ability to use third party data transfers in workflows concurrently with symbolic links, a new feature in Pegasus that will help with site gatekeeper loads associated with large data transfers.

 

Open Science Grid Integration & Validation Testbed

 

• Updated all nodes with operating system patches.
• Set up a new user account for Chad on the Caltech OSG Testbed.
• Reviewed the Hadoop RPM being provided by University of Nebraska as a candidate replacement for existing Hadoop but found that it is based on an older version of the Hadoop code base.
• Have now populated 32% of the Storage Element with frame data.
• Met with OSG Communications Coordinator to discuss new role in documentation project. Will plan to meet with Jim at Fermilab in late September or early October.
• Assisted Joshua with hard disk exchanges on the LIGO Data Grid.

 

Grid Management

 

• Finished posting minutes from two day OSG Council meeting on the council website.
• Added a couple of action items that were discovered in the process of posting the minutes from last week's council meeting.
• Set up a Doodle Poll to identify the best week to have the next OSG All-Hands Meeting and announced the poll to the council and executive board of the OSG for their inputs.
• Sent out a request from OSG representative to host the next OSG All-Hands Meeting. So far one offer has come in.
• Attended a telecon with OSG's Storage Element architects and explained what it is that is missing from the current OSG infrastructure that prevented LIGO workflows from being able to run on OSG worker nodes. This was supported by LIGO OSG staff and Pegasus developers.
• Arranged a telecon with PIs from the SCORE (Scalable Campus grid for Open Research and Education) proposal to discuss collaboration with the Open Science Grid for early next week. Discussed details of SCORE with OSG Council Co-Chair and Executive Director.
• Updated LSC CompComm on work plans for Caltech year 4 funding with the OSG Project Manager also on the call. Updated all parties on the status of using Condor-G in E@OSG and the impact of the recent down time for the E@H server.
• Supported PKI certificate requests and LIGO Data Grid account requests as they came in.
• Organized and ran the weekly SCAT subcommittee meeting.

 

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Advanced LIGO Management (Carol Wilkinson)

 

Project Controls

 

• A change request is in process for Suspensions to fix some incorrect account budget allocations, to revise assembly schedules to accommodate the delayed UK delivery, and to modify the rubric for procurements to reflect the staged process that is actually being used.

Staffing

• A project change request has been drafted to add staff to the project to produce technical procurement documents and to support electronics procurements, fabrication, and testing. The additional staff is being added for active tasks as well as for future tasks, using lessons learned from early procurements and from a reevaluation of the work load for electronics. The additional staff will be funded by unused contingency.
• A similar change request for additional development staff funded by Operations including ME, mechanical designer/drafter, and EE staff for AOS, SUS, SEI, ISC, DAQ, and PSL. A change request will be circulated for review by the operations Change Control Board for support of identified positions for ~6 FTE-yrs. These positions typically require ops support for ~6-9 months of remaining development and design tasks. The majority of these new hires will transition to project tasks and funding after designs are complete, and are then included in the Advanced LIGO change request mentioned above. Interviewing of candidates continue for 2 real time programmers for the sites, 1 ME at CIT, and 1 assembly tech at LHO. These are open positions that pre-date the in process change request to add new staff.
• Interviews are taking place for a drafting position for AOS as part of the staff augmentation change request.
• CDS is preparing offers for two electronics engineer contractors to support project work in Auxiliary Optical Systems (AOS), Suspensions (SUS), Seismic Isolation (SEI), Interferometer Sensing and Controls (ISC), Data Acquisitions (DAQ), and Pre-Stabilized Lasers (PSL). There are three additional EE position open and candidates are being reviewed. Four of these positions are from the change request that is being processed for additional staff and one is a long standing open position. Advanced LIGO is having more success with hiring good contractors for short term (1-3 yrs) than it has had in hiring temporary CIT staff.

Procurements

 

(For Ed Jasnow)

• Reviewed documents for contract with CSIRO for gold coating funded by the University of Glasgow.
• Participated in preparation of response to question from Ann Miller of the NSF regarding one of the machined parts procurements for the seismic isolation system.

(For Steve Marroquin)

• Submitted RFQ solicitation for SM-154 “OMC Suspension Machined Parts” (Tech Rep: Doug Cook, Procurement ID SU-313b) on 8/13/09. An Addendum No. 1 was submitted on 8/19/09 to all the prospective bidders which extended the bid deadline to 9/3/09 and clarified the submittal of an alternative delivery schedule.
• Participated in the Proposal Evaluation Committee’s review for the Large Optic Container (CO-122) proposals. The project plans to review the requirements and re-issue this solicitation at a later date. Dennis Coyne will document the bid evaluation in a memorandum.
• Executed purchase order contract for crank out sheet rack. (Tech Rep: Garilynn Billingsley).

(For Rudy Arvizu)

 

• CSIRO 75ADV-1087576 AdL Costing Recycling Cavity Mirrors, funded by University of Glasgow (UGLASG 1057205) - Plan to complete procurement documentation for TechMart requisition 8/20/09 and issue Contract week of 8/24/09. There is an 8/31/09 contractual deadline for this procurement.
• Subaward for Timing Distribution System DA-290 - Caltech is considering proposer’s 8/17/09 terms offer. Plan to finalize Subaward week of 8/24/09.
• Subaward for Brian Lantz, AdL Seismic Isolation Team Scientist - Stanford provided a statement of work on 8/1/09. Anticipate the Stanford budget and their review of Caltech’s contractual documentation the week of 8/24/09.

(For Jacqueline Champagnie and Gina Salone)

 

• SI-141 Flexures; Bids received; Vendor chosen
• SI-144 Storage Containers; In progress
• SI-148a Pods; Awarded.
• SI-148b Machine Parts; Awarded Awaiting NSF approval.
• SI-148c Fastners; Held for Req.
• SI-148d Flexure Rods; Awarded.
• SI-148e Spring Support Post; Awarded.
• CO-102 Optics Metrology; RFQ due September 11, 2009.
• SI-107b On hold with Ken Mason

 

Property Management (Rod Luna)

• Attending the National Property Education Seminar in San Antonio, TX.

NSF Acquisition Approvals

• A response was sent to Ann Miller’s questions on one of the 4 awards for SI-148, the HAM SEI small mechanical parts. Advanced LIGO is waiting for her approval to place this remaining award.
• A request package for approval to award was sent to NSF this week for sole source, catalogue ADC/DAC procurements. These units were originally envisioned as separate purchases with separate designs under the NSF threshold for approval, but have now been standardized to a single design across the project. An estimate has been made of the total number of units needed, which will be purchased in several lots as needed. The total cost is now above the NSF threshold. A single request for approval covering the current award for HEPI and HAM and all future procurements of these units will be submitted this week.
• A third request for approval, for long term support contracts for technical specialists, is in preparation for submission to NSF next week.

Progress Updates

• The next progress update is due on August 8, 2009.

Meetings & Reviews

• The next Monthly Progress Reporting Meeting will be on Thursday, September 10, 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>

Modeling and Simulation

From: Hiroaki Yamamoto hiro@ligo.caltech.edu

 

Static IFO simulation (Hiro, Logan-MIT SURF)

--------------------------------------------------------------

•  Finishing the LIGO note about the astigmatism by the stable cavity design - T0900384.
• During the calculation, the cavity parameter inconsistency was found and Mizamille fixed it to be included in the next update of the cavity parameter note T0900043.
• Trying to organize a simulation meeting with Matteo of Virgo after the Budapest meeting.
• Installed SIS on a TAMA computer so that they can use it to design LCGT optics.

 

Safety

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

 

Out this week.

 

Quality Assurance

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

           

            QA:

 

• Visited LLO this week and performed testing on 4 of the new HEPI Actuators. Joe Hanson and I checked the bellows assemblies for variance in the spacing of the convolutions, as well as overall length measurements of the bellows, gap between top plate and actuator plate, and the span inside the top and bottom plates. We did find a few measurements on the bellows that were what we consider questionable, and we will evaluate these as we proceed through more of this testing as well as further assembly and performance testing. Measurement docs have been uploaded to the DCC.
• Joe Hanson will be performing the measurements on the rest of the LLO units and loading to the DCC, and I will be testing the LHO units and loading up.
• While at LLO I had the opportunity to visit a new machine shop vendor with Ken Mason, Mike Meyer and Celine Ramet. Unfortunately at this time they do not have the in house capability to machine the large plates for the BSC, the dimensions are larger than the mill they currently have can handle.
• Last item from LLO, the parts washer that was delivered to LLO was looked at and photographed. I am concerned that the unit was not run at the factory because it is quite dirty, so we have no way of knowing if the vendor knows it works. After the leak discovered at LHO in a weld, we are concerned with the weld qualities on the LLO unit as well. I am going to take a close look at the LHO unit again when I return next week and compare to LLO. I did inspect and watch operations of the LHO unit a few weeks back, and it ran well, however there was an overflow issue due to un-calibrated diverter valves that most likely masked the fact there was a weld leak as well. I did note the welding was spot in many places, but this may be an issue. The other issue of rubberized baskets is being resolved, the new baskets are to be shipped this week. I will most likely ask the local Pasco supplier to visit LHO and review the data. We will also wait data from the LLO site to get the unit up and running to test operations.
• Janeen and I visited the manufacturer of the PEEK 30% carbon OSEM connector head manufacturer today, and we were both happy with the prototypes they showed us. Dimensionally they looked great, all parts were within out .005” spec on measured dimensions. Cleanliness was very good, and the availability of Alconox ultrasonic wash was definitely a plus. They have a large amount of experience in parts for use in transplants, such as spinal pieces and joint replacements, made of PEEK, and they are familiar with the levels of cleanliness and grades of PEEK we need for LIGO. Grade 3 from ASTM D6262 is our choice, virgin PEEK with 30% carbon, and they are able to provide this material and are looking for written certs from the material supplier to guarantee these are not doped with other contaminants during the extrusion process. They have verbal confirmation, but we are asking them to provide us written material certs to this effect.

Inventory Control System:

 

• A somewhat disappointing week here, I was hoping for a build last week from the programmers, did not get one, pushed hard for one this week, got nothing as well. Will continue to push them to get us the release with new modules and bug fixes asap. I am not happy with the lack of updates and solid timelines coming back from the vendor.

Facilities Modifications and Preparations

            From: Rusyl Wooley rwooley@ligo-la.caltech.edu

• At LLO, This week we received and installed the 7500 lbs. granite table to be used for the seismic builds. Danny and Matthew are installing the electrical components required for the clean rooms - 2 are complete and the parts for the other 4 are on order. I expect that we will receive those parts on Monday and should have this task complete by the end of next week. Josh is working on getting our large parts washer hooked up. Bryan and Auggie are steadily receiving parts, putting them into the inventory system and begin the clean and bake process. There are SUS parts in the vacuum bake oven that will be complete on Saturday.
• At LHO, continued setup and use of cleaning facilities.

Seismic Isolation

            From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

 

                        aLIGO Project Activities

          

SEI Electronics Design and Fabrication

 

• An T240-STS-2 Interface Chassis (LIGO-D0901489-v1) and an STS-2 Interface Chassis (LIGO-D080535-v2) have been shipped to Brian O'reilly at LLO to test the functionality of reading out a Trillium through an STS-2 Interface.
• An Anti-Alias Interface Personality Board rev. 10B is being stuffed, and when it is finished, and the front panels come in, we will ship it off to Jeff Kissel at LLO.
• 10 of the Pier Interface Chassis are stuffed, and are in the early stages of testing.
• The latest revision of the Coil Driver board has been stuffed, and is being tested by the newly-returned Mohana.
• A Pump Servo Board is being stuffed now, and is almost finished. When it is done, I'll use it in the testing of the SBC.
• The 8-CH Valve Driver is at DeLeon being assembled. ~Ben A.

Hepi Procurement and Assembly

• Ten of 78 HEPI housing assemblies are complete at LHO. With one person working full time we are building 1 per day.
• Mick Flannigan has inspected ~ 5 actuators at LLO. Joe Hanson will continue the inspections.

HAM ISI Procurement and Design

• Waiting on approval from the NSF to award a purchase order for the HAM machined parts. Purchase orders have been placed for the spring posts and flexures.
• Bids have been evaluated for the GS-13 flexures and low frequency seismometers. Purchase orders should be issued soon.
• First delivery of GS-13 seismometers have been delivered to LLO. Two forks from a fork truck penetrated the cases holding the GS-13 seismometers directly through the lables specifying to handle with care. This did not happen at Geotech or at LLO. We are assessing the damage.
• First delivery of large electromagnetic actuators have been received at LLO.

 

BSC ISI Design and Test

• Celine, Ken, and Mick visited a machine shop in Baton Rouge to evaluate their ability to machine large plates.

Suspensions

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

 

            Operations Work

• HLTS ­ Some prototype parts received, many on order, some getting quoted, some fixtures to still design. Working on drawing tree and bill of materials.
• HSTS ­ Completed test mass design and working on intermediate mass design. Starting to change out parts for newer versions, such as the magnet holder.
• Designed some new/simpler wire clamps for blade test stand.

Project- funded Activities

• Participated in the OMC SUS Structure Fabrication Bid Evaluation Committee meeting. Submitted report. Answered questions for OMC SUS Machined Parts RFQ.

Pre-stabilized Laser

            From: Peter King pking@ligo.caltech.edu

 

            Operations

• The DC dark current as a function of bias voltage was measured for all the 3 mm GTRAN and 2 mm PerkinElmer InGaAs photodiodes. The results show that the PerkinElmer photodiodes are better than the GTRAN ones.

Project

• A 21.5 MHz frequency reference card was modified to work at 14.75 MHz.
• I have been digging into the details about items for the Laser Area Enclosure; the load capacity of raised access floors, dimensions of air showers and options for pass throughs. I am waiting for a reply from an expert at Newport Corp. for a recommendation for holding the optics table.

Input Optics

From: Rodica Martin rmartin@phys.ufl.edu

 

            ELIGO Commissioning (LLO):

• We are working on the design of a new control system for maintaining beam centering on WFS1. (Kate)
• We organized and relocated all IO hardware from the optics lab in preparation for the new floor installation. (Kate and David F.)

Advanced LIGO R&D

• This link is to a dedicated page about beam splitter thermal modeling. The page contains data for asymmetrical heating of the beam splitter by beam hitting the BS at 45 degree and passing through the BS at approx. 30 degree. (Muzammil)
• We started another run of the SiC beam block test after it was baked. (David F.)

Advanced LIGO Design

• The RC parameter document (T0900043) has been updated. The new numbers have been confirmed by Hiro's codes also. (Muzammil)
• We continued working on H2 layout. (Luke)
• We finished the ceramic heater adaptive optical element design. (Luke)

Advanced LIGO Acquisition

• We are working with UF Purchasing on finalizing ITNs for coatings for IMC and SM mirrors and for polishing the small RM and PMMT mirrors. (Rodica)

Core Optics

            From: GariLynn Billingsley Billingsley_G@ligo.caltech.edu

• We are working with Tinsley on ways to minimize the impact of the delayed RFP for container fabrication. Tinsley is being quite helpful. They are anxious to receive the RFQ for metrology tooling. Fold mirrors have completed initial shaping and polishing. We have chosen to anneal them before final polish, details are coming into focus.
• CSIRO is making progress on planning out pre-coating tests. To that end we are shipping them two dummy Fold mirror blanks so that they can practice balancing the stresses.
• We have our optics loaded into JIRA. A data table is to follow.
• There is no optics meeting Tuesday the 24th.

Auxiliary Optics

            From: Michael Smith smith@ligo.caltech.edu

 

            Project Work

 

            Optical Layout

• Luke expects to complete the H2 layout by next week.

Operations Work

 

            Optical Lever

• Riccardo and company are proceeding to investigate the effect of the fiber cladding modes on the apparent pointing noise of the optlev when the fiber is moved, and to develop an alternate concept that doesn't use fibers. He has ordered some long-life Hitachi laser diodes for testing that would mount directly to the optlev telescope. He ordered long lengths of single mode fiber to kill the cladding modes.
• Tara discovered that the fiber connector used to connect to the prototype optlev beam test at CIT was designed for an angle cut fiber and was deviating the beam through the telescope. It will be replaced.
• Optosigma has a commercial goniometer and rotation stage with locking mechanisms that appear suitable for the pitch/yaw mounting structure for the optlev telescope. They indicated they would make for us a larger version than is in their catalog. If it proves satisfactory, we will abandon the in-house design that Craig completed.
• Andrea has obtained promising results in using a non-linear algorithm to fit the central lobe of the captured projected optlev spot profile from a CCD camera, and to extract the x-y position of the spot centroid and the diameter of the spot; this approach might be impervious to the movement of the cladding modes within the beam profile. He will also try to develop a similar algorithm to obtain information from the first Airy ring of the optlev projected spot at the QPD.

Output Faraday Isolator

• Niem assembled the suspension prototype of the Faraday Isolator using the newly fabricated maraging steel blade springs. The springs match the suspended design weight to <10%, which implies a deviation from the assumed modulus of elasticity of < 5%. Vibration testing of the structure will begin shortly.

ETM Telescope

• Mike determined that the present ZEMAX layout of the horizontally ETM telescope that attaches below the transmon table interferes with the folded IFO beam, and would require mirror image versions for the X and Y arms. This interference can be eliminated by rotating the ETM telescope to place its folding mirrors in a vertical plane. This solution raises the height of the transmon table considerably. Mike is in the process of looking for a compromise layout.
• Ken is working with the drawings of the upper stage of the quad suspension to adapt the upper stage for suspending the Faraday Isolator.
• Jesse analyzed pupil forming optical systems for imaging the beam waist of the IFO and the ETM HR--which are almost have a pi/2 Gouy phase difference (Sam used two locations that were + and - one Rayleigh range on either side of the beam waist in the arm, to guarantee a pi/2 Gouy phase difference)-- to separate QPDs on the transmon table. With his selection of lenses and positions, both the near and far field images are insensitive to the pitch and yaw rotation of the transmon SUS, and have a linear response to the displacement of the beam at the IFO beam waist and at the ETM HR. He can obtain a pi/2 Gouy phase difference between the two image locations by slightly defocusing the ETM telescope.

CDS

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

 

            Operations: R&D, ELIGO DAQ, and Electronics

 

            LHO - Electrical Engineering - R. McCarthy

• Worked on the new parts washer to repair a leak. Removed then reinstalled the heating elements to facilitate the repair of a leak in the parts washer.
• Installed a temperature sensor on the BSC at EX. I believe it has a blown fuse and is at a rail. Will look at today.
• Rewired a gowning room in the staging building to accommodate the new layout. The Plug and switches needed to be moved to another support as the room was rotated 90 degrees.
• Working with Filiberto on a layout of DC power supply chasis.
• Checked the circuit loads in the Coms/Server room to verify power usage to better estimate the heat load for a stand alone chiller.
• Began software installation on a new computer to replace Desolation as the EE Labs Altium, Solid Works machine.

LHO - Systems/Software - D. Barker

• Resolved fb1w ethernet port issues. Centos had juggled the ethernet config files which gave the appearance of a hardware error.
• The fb1w QFS file access slow down is still being investigated. The work around was to slow its minute trend updates from once every 2 minutes to every 10 minutes, but the cause of the slow down is still unknown.
• Work on the IFO glitching caused by the hourly autoburt continues. It doesn't appear to be caused when any specific machine is backed up. The ethernet broadcast traffic is only about 3% of what I expected (backing up 101,000 chans, only 4,000 broadcasts). I'm checking my diagnostics tools and working on eliminating the broadcasts.
• Working with Abe on using CFEngine to perform regular configuration scans on CDS machines.
• Working on the design, procurement and construction of the new CDS tape backup system. Current system does not scale to our >1TB of files (12,000,000 individual files).
• Working with Patrick, the corner station weather station is now completely ported to the new linux PEM epics system. We will now port the remaining four outbuilding weather stations to the new system.
• Continuing to reconfigure the target directories to the new standard. Wiki pages for targets is being updated.

LLO - Electrical Engineering - C. Adams

• Completed testing of the AdL quad test stand coil driver satellite boxes.
• Started on the AdvLIGO feed-through and cable routing project.

LLO - Systems/Software - K. Thorne

• Installation of the new fileservers has started. These are existing SunFire V490s, each with a 12TB disk array. Best-practices discussions with LIGO personnel on new Solaris 10 installations was to configure the two system disks as a ZFS root mirrors, and to also use ZFS on the disk array to simplify setup. Initial Solaris 10 installs with the latest release (5/09) were completed, and graphics adapters installed to ease setup.
• Investigated improved monitoring of RBS EPICS process so operators are alerted when it is down. Setup software and SSH to do remote screen capture on Linux over SSH (for the new FOM projection workstations). Eliminated screen blanking on Linux workstations in control room.

Misc. - CDS Staff

• Completed the wiring diagrams for the end racks at the 40M. These racks will be rewired when the 40M is converted over to AdL controls. Wiring diagrams for all other racks have been started.

Project: AdvLIGO Systems

 

            SEI - B. Abbott

• An T240-STS-2 Interface Chassis (LIGO-D0901489-v1) and an STS-2 Interface Chassis (LIGO-D080535-v2) have been shipped to Brian O'reilly at LLO for testing of the functionality of reading out a Trillium through an STS-2 Interface.
• An Anti-Alias Interface Personality Board rev. 10B is being stuffed, and when it is finished, and the front panels come in, we will ship it off to Jeff Kissel at LLO.
• Ten of the Pier Interface Chassis are stuffed, and are in the early stages of testing.
• The latest revision of the Coil Driver board has been stuffed, and is being tested.
• A Pump Servo Board is being stuffed now, and is almost finished. When it is done, I'll use it in the testing of the single board computer (SBC).
• The 8-CH Valve Driver is at DeLeon being assembled.

SUS - J. Heefner

• Completed testing of the prototype ESD supplied by the University of Strathclyde. A draft final report has been written and should be issued next week.

DAQ - R. Bork

• Work continues on the IO chassis backplane board and ADC/DAC interface boards.
• Continuing to add math parts to the code generator library, including user defined math expressions.
• Received new PCIe IRIG-B time code receiver cards and in the process of writing the I/O driver for realtime computers. Vendor provided Linux drivers will be used in the DAQ non-realtime computers.
• Some work toward using public license Linux for realtime. As a first step, all of our code, including realtime threads, now run on a dual core laptap with CentOs Linux. This next magic trick will be to actually remove the realtime part away from the non-realtime Linux scheduler. With the vanilla Linux, we can't get 'realtime' response better than about 1msec (consistently ie can be as bad as 1msec, though usually better), at this point. Still, not altogether useless, as now someone could build and run 'CDS + DAQ in a box' on a laptop for some simple code testing. For our test, I/O is run through a PCIe card in a slot on the laptop docking station to a CDS I/O chassis via fibers. The aforementioned 'magic' trick has been performed before with some test code, but have to see if we can repeat it with the real code.

ISC - R. Abbott

• Researched and ordered more diodes for the OMC DCPD replacement program. Diodes will be arriving next week.
• Working on evaluation and final specifications on the ISC I&Q Demodulator Circuit for the LSC and ASC applications

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