(Meeting time: 10:30 am Pacific Time)
1. Announcements
2. LSC - Reitze
3. Focus Topic
● Brief Report on Squeezing Review (Fred Raab)
● Account Numbers for FY 2010 LIGO Operations (Lindquist, Oracion)
● Fabrication Accounts and Movable Assets - we will host Tracey Fraser to lead a discussion.
4. Change Control Actions
5. Advanced LIGO
Overall - Shoemaker Project Management - Wilkinson
6. Enhanced LIGO - Adhikari / Zucker
S6 Preparation - Whitcomb
7. Sites
Hanford – Raab
Livingston – Giaime
MIT - Shoemaker / Fritschel
8. Caltech
Administration – Lindquist
Engineering
● Optical and Mechanical – Coyne
● Control and Data Systems - Bork
Lab Computing - Anderson Instrument Science - Gustafson Data Analysis and 40M - Weinstein
Calendar of future Executive Commitee Meetings
A new joint LIGO-Virgo observational paper, "Search for gravitational-wave bursts associated with gamma-ray bursts using data from LIGO Science Run 5 and Virgo Science Run 1," has been posted on the arXiv at: http://uk.arxiv.org/abs/0908.3824.
Property Management (Luna)
>From: Rod Luna <rluna@ligo.caltech.edu>
● Requested expenditure type changes from Supplies to Equipment to on PO #S066552.
● Continued compiling vehicle data from LHO and LLO for the GSA annual vehicle report.
DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Mak)
>From Cleveland Mak <mak@ligo.caltech.edu>
● Shipped 15 boxes containing 300 hard disk drives to Fred Donovan at MIT.
FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Lindquist, Oracion)
>From: Karl Oracion <koracion@ligo.caltech.edu>
● Currently working on Outreach Program budget realignment.
● Submitted online request to create two new LIGO Operations project accounts [On-campus and Off Campus -pel] to be linked to FY2010 tasks.
● Advanced LIGO: Submitted intra-award cost transfers to correct erroneous charges; requested expenditure type corrections.
● Link to LIGO Operations accounts: https://dcc.ligo.org/DocDB/0000/M080407/002/FY2009_LIGO_OPs_WBS_Final_Ver.6.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
● Researching Skybase Communications PO for Bonnie Wooley
● New PO for Tom Nash-pending
● New PO for Ken Barac-pending
>From: Steve Marroquin smarroqu@caltech.edu
● Executed Change Order 1 to the Support Services PO#S062227 for services of Ruth Winstead.
● See Advanced LIGO.
> From Ruth Winstead <winstead_r@ligo.caltech.edu>
● Delivered invoices to Procurement Services (Guillermo).
● Provided admin assistant to LIGO team.
● See Advanced LIGO Report Below
>From: Ed Jasnow <jasnow@ligo.caltech.edu>
● Worked with Project Accounting to resolve issue of allowability of fees associated with obtaining a Green Card for a staff member working on the Grid Computing award.
● See Advanced LIGO Report Below.
PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist, Beckett)
> From: Dave Beckett beckett@ligo.caltech.edu
● The 2009 Annual Report is complete, and Phil has submitted it via Fastlane to the NSF. Thanks to everyone who contributed to its speedy dispatch.
● Currently putting the finishing touches on several LIGO news items. These will soon be posted. Again received a good handful of leads for upcoming articles from Jay. Tips on newsworthy events are always welcomed.
● Phil and I both spent a bit of time doing battle with the GOA (Gremlins of Anarchy) in the html version of the Weekly Report. I will return to fundamentals by compiling material in text format this week.
CHANGE REQUESTS (Lindquist)
● I have prepared minutes for the LIGO Operations Change Control Board held during the Excomm meeting on Monday, August 24, 2009. They will be found at: LIGO-M0900259, version 1.
The request submitted by Dennis Coyne was for Additional Technical Staff to Support Completion of R&D for Advanced LIGO. The board recommended approval of the request.
HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)
>From: Cindy Akutagawa <cindy@ligo.caltech.edu>
● A Staffing Committee meeting was held on Monday, August 10th and the minutes and action items have been posted on the SC web page.
● The next Staffing Committee meeting is scheduled for October 12th.
No report for operations-related activities received.
ADVANCED LIGO SAFETY IS BEING REPORTED UNDER ADVANCED LIGO, BELOW
Summary of activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory (compiled by M. Landry)
● The commissioning break at LHO begins Mon. Aug 31 with a vent at 8 am. Initial work includes the removal of the TT mirrors to the optics lab for rework, and the extraction of the OMC optical bench for radiator/pd removal. The photodiode replacement work with take place in the HAM6 cleanroom on an optics table outfitted with NPRO, EOM, pds, associated electronics. We still do not have all components in house and await the (now shipping) magnets, (now baking) steel TT components, and the (to be overnighted) pds.
● Major downtime was incurred last weekend due to multiple failures of the 5565 RFM (reflective memory) network. Science mode locking was prevented for ~36h. Installations in the form network bypasses for better diagnostics are planned at the outset of the commissioning break.
● Duty cycle for the week: 50%, showing the impact of the rfm. Range as usual, 14-17Mpc.
Squeezer update (D. Sigg, S. Dwyer)
● I am mostly finished with the beam propagation and will post a new layout soon. We swapped lasers with the LASTI PSL, which has lower power than the MOPA from Livingston, and has an EOM between the NPRO and the amplifier.
● The squeezer status review was held on Tuesday. Information is available on the wiki.
● The new revision of the common mode board is almost done.
Outreach (D. Ingram)
● The Tri-City Astronomy Club, several LHO personnel and Tri-City Herald astronomy columnist Roy Gephart staffed Search the Deep Sky on 8/22. Smoky skies and mottled cloud cover provided less than optimal telescope viewing, but Jupiter, bright stars and a satellite were nicely visible. 200(+) community members attended.
General Operations (Rusyl Wooley):
● We have spent most of this week in preparation for opening HAM6 on Monday. The contractor is on site to replace the floor in the optics and vacuum prep labs. We expect that work to be complete by the middle of next week. We have a contractor on site to rebuild the lift stations. We also have a contractor on site to strip, prime and paint the observation deck.
LLO CDS (Keith Thorne):
Hardware
● Rolf and Keith started installing the new timing card in the OMC front-end. Initial difficulty is that OMC front-end computer is not seeing the timing card during boot.
Software
● Alex installed new GDS broadcaster code that fixes byte-swap in short data. John Zweizig confirmed that this fixed the problem.
● Rolf tested new OMC code that appears to solve the excess CPU time spikes seen previously.
● Successfully configured new FOM projection workstations. Solution was to replace existing computer->video interface boxes (Extron RGB 112xi) with simple VGA splitters. We also dropped the video refresh rates to match range tolerated by projectors. Control40 is now set up. We ordered and received parts to set up the other two workstations. We have now decommissioned control7.
● Recovered FB0 frames array that went offline on Saturday. Overheating in the rack was suspected. With Igor Yakushin's help, we did a full power-cycle on the array. A subsequent reset of the controller brought the array back to full operation on Monday.
● Set up of new fileservers continued. Figuring out best way to copy ~1TB data from old to new server.
● Started setting up additional Linux EPICS servers to host statevector, GRB/SN scripts, iocstat.
LLO Outreach
(William Katzman):
● Continued scheduling field trips and tours.
● Met with Southern University regarding docent program and doctoral thesis opportunities in the upcoming grant.
● Met with Copper Mill Elementary regarding field trips, professional development and the upcoming grant.
● Met with Lisa Szechter of Tulane University regarding research opportunities and the upcoming grant.
● Began repairs to Hot Spot exhibit.
● Released announcement to project MISE participants regarding LIGO-sponsored professional development opportunity in conjunction with the Exploratorium.
● Hosted one public tour.
(Amber Stuver)
● Updated the ligo.org website with links to two areas on PhysicsCentral.com that deal with LIGO.
● Collaborated with the APS on the educational poster that has been long in coming that I have been working with them on. This was some last minute image requests.
● Completed CPR/AED recertification.
Riccardo DeSalvo
● Luigi, Gong, measured the working point of the glassy metal spring and calibrated the maraging blade spring readout and actuator.
● Luca, measuring the stability of a level sensor for the Fermilab water level.
● Gong, implemented C-RIO controls for future use in the tiltmeter.
● Morgan, back to Mayfield High School.
● Amanda, Abhik, continuing work on tiltmeter noise and hysteresis.
See Advanced LIGO
See Advanced LIGO
No report received.
This week at the TNI (Akira Villar):
● I bonded the magnets to all of the new mirrors. I should install them next week.
● I have also worked on retaking data on the old mirrors. The high PDH modulation depth of the new TNI configuration is making it difficult for me to reach full power. I have taken preliminary data on one cavity with a moderately high modulation depth. The discriminant was 50 percent larger than it was in the old configuration with low modulation depth. I think I can do even better than that. I suspect the problem lies in getting the correct phase between the inputs of the mixer.
Monolithic
● Doug (LHO) and Matt (LLO) have been here this week working with Gregg on pulling and strength testing fibers. They managed to pull a number of fibers some of which have been tested and some have been stored for later testing to see if there is degradation during the storing process. There are a few entries this week on the Lasti ilog (AdvancedLigoOptics Group page), at http://www.ligo.mit.edu/ilog/.
Quadruple Pendulum
● Brett has powered up the ring heater but is having problems recording data on to the frame builder so the only results that we have so far are that the rise is temperature is small (~1 degree C).
Drew Keppel:
● testing the memory requirements for ligolw_thinca
● helping to develop ligolw_rinca for use in the ringdown search
● investigating the SNR loss due to the resampling and SVD used in LLOID
Antony Searle:
● Finished reimplementation of Omega Bayesian statistic
● Beginning testing
P. Ajith:
● Working on improving the test-mass limit of the IMR waveforms.
● Worked with Chris Pankow to sort out the problems he is facing with EOBNR injections.
Amber L. Stuver:
● Finished the calculation of the rate upper limit for an isotropic population of sine-Gaussian standard candles WRT radiated energy per solar mass. These results are included in the full S5/VSR1 burst paper.
● Continued preparation for the generation of the Burst MDCs for S6. My current plans are documented here: https://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/twiki/bin/view/Bursts/First2MonthsS6VSR2MDCs
● Continued collaborating with the rest of the MatApps team preparing for the transition of the current CVS repository to an SVN repository.
● Completed CPR/AED recertification.
Diego Fazi:
● Kept working on adding xml output to the sqlite-based post-processing pipeline
● Updated PTF project report page
● Started investigating if and how the bug in inspinj affects simulations performed using PTF
Stephen Privitera:
● This week I've been scimoning at LHO. As part of this work, I am working with Nick Fotopoulos to analyze whether a recently implemented MC filter has increased the duration of locks at LHO.
Kari Hodge:
● Finishing up working on extracting triggers' data from sqlite tables, automating the running through the multivariate classifier, and updating the sqlite tables with a likelihood formed from the MVSC rank
Chad Hanna:
● I worked with Chris, Satya, and Lisa who are all visiting on IMR related studies for S6.
Anand Sengupta:
● Working with Anahita on the network Fischer matrix code
● I continued to work on the MVSC player - Tristan and I went through the entire code line by line
● Started putting together a draft for the Amaldi proceedings.
Peter Kalmus:
● continuing preparations for A5 SGR search
● continued work generalizing flare pipeline detection statistic to arbitrary networks
● continuing preparations for X-ray burst searches (with Leo Singer)
● fixed problems running neutron star simulations (with Christian Ott)
Kipp Cannon:
● opened box on my two months of the S5 high mass inspiral search.
● travelled to Tijuana to renew my TN status
● reviewed a paper for the LSC
● working with Lisa Goggin and Drew Keppel on extending the capabilities of the ringdown pipeline
● working with Chad Hanna, Chris Pankow on IMR techniques
● telecons: inspiral, daswg
Joseph Betzwieser:
● I worked on cleaning up the coherent followup code, and also examining Powerflux outliers using Pinkesh's resampling code instead of the lalapps_ComputeFStatistic_v2.
John Zweizig:
● Started rerunning kleineWelle to replace triggers generated online with swapped 16-bit integers
● Reconfigured marble nds2 server
- installed new server version
- changed kerberos authentication to be compatible with LHO user authentication
- improved startup script
● Upgrades to dmt software in preparation for S6b release
- Rewrote cmp_frames (script to compare online to archived frames)
- Fixed/improved threading classes
- Added sub-normal data tests to data vector
- Start writing sub-normal/not-finite data monitor
- Found/fixed DecimateBy2 bugs
LDAS Software Systems (Maros)
● The diskcacheAPI has been under heavy modification to improve its stability. The result has been a diskcacheAPI that has run for over 24 hours without locking up and was able to honor user's requests on a system doing 2000 jobs an hour.
● Some verbose logging message need to be added back to the system along with some developer documentation.
● The updating of newly discovered data appears to be slower than expected and is being investigated.
LDAS System Administration (Anderson)
Caltech -
(Dan Kozak)
● Added tapes to samhome3 catalog.
● Shipped out 10 boxes of 9940B tapes to LHO/LLO (6 LHO, 4 LLO).
● Made list of tapes for shelf storage at LLO.
● Worked on picking up some stragler files for the E13 redo.
● Got instructions from Sun about how to upgrade 6140s to Crystal (7.x) firmware.
● Fixed mess where home3 labelled all free tapes as copy 1 so no archive copy 2 could be made.
● Unwedged stage request for Peter Kalmus.
● Loaded tapes from shelf to 9310 silo so that old data could be staged back.
(Josh Abadie)
● Finished the physical part of the 1PByte disk drive upgrade in the CIT cluster (1300 disk drives).
MIT
(Fred Donovan)
● More work at bates; replacing ata drives with sata mit-nodes, pulled out cabling in nw22 server room; have java smartd reporting working; installed opennms for testing.
Livingston
(Igor Yakushin)
● replaced 24 tapes in the robot;
● configured qfs-nfs2 to connect to management network to be able to access 6140 via sscs;
● HVAC was fixed last Friday;
● helped Keith to revive fb0 file system.
Hanford
(Greg Mendell)
● Followed up on problems writing LDAS hoft data at LHO, after last weekend's DAQ problems. This is working fine now.
● Stopped LDAS hoft generation at LLO, for the commissioning break that started there this week.
● Investigated occasional problems FrCheck is having opening files under /frames/full at LLO.
● Working on getting the last sixty E13 version 6 raw frames to transfer to Caltech.
(Dan Moraru)
● Swapped out 17 tapes from L700 library.
● Installed redundant power supply in Cisco 6509 switch.
● Read up on Cisco IOS, activated 10Gbit ports on x6704 module, and verified throughput.
● Called in Sun tech support to replace stuck L700 tape drive.
● Worked on activating new L700 drive.
MIT:
(Fred)
● matlab performance issues re: core i7, resolved;
● w/s (spec) purchasing (new ligo, solidworks computers for ken, etc);
● More issues Marie's computer (power, eudora);
● ldap issues;
● Installing second swif002 machine for Erik;
Livingston:
(Shannon)
● Looking into a mail delivery problem with ligo.org
- updated singularity.ligo.org
- apt-get update, upgrade, etc.
- opened two support tickets with Roaring Penguin
- looking into why it stopped delivering mail, logs stopped on 16th.
● Returned failed access point to Brocade/Foundry
● Responded to a Charter outage. Checked fiber at mid, cleaned, etc.
● Apparently it was caused by a fuse popping at the "head end"
● Worked with Brian & Dwayne to restore network connectivity to the seismic vault
- reconfigured the quanterra data collector
- installed temporary patch fibers to restore connectivity
- ordered permanent fibers
● Troubleshooting another (same?) problem with singularity.ligo.org (primary MX)
- seems to be a bad interaction between it and VMWare server.
● Continuing to work with Brocade on security issue with wireless controller
Hanford:
(Jonathan)
● Misc purchases before financial closeout
● Testing arkeia backup software
● Purchased and installed arkeia on a linux server. I have done a full backup and tested restoration. Everything appears to be working fine.
● Upgraded CanIT Pro software to 6.1.2 and patched the spam filter box
● Setup auditorium for EVO meeting, helped CIT test their setup for the travel meeting
● Attended travel meeting
● GC meeting regarding the direction of LDAP/Kerberos setup
● Deactivated surf accounts and the account for Ewan Douglas who left LIGO.
● Testing translucent proxy setup for LIGO.ORG ldap
CIT:
(Mike)
● Worked on deneb trouble shooting some memory issues.
● Setup an account for Chub on Deneb, plus setup a pdmworks account.
● Worked the dhcp server trouble shooting some active and expired ip issues.
● Upgraded multiple computers this week with additional memory and cd-rw/dvd-rw writers.
● Cleared out the computer equipment that was used for Surf students on the second floor. Larry gave me a hand with this as well.
● Surplus some old equipment from users that were recently upgraded.
● Worked on ordering additional equipment for users, and GC supplies.
● Work with Larry on setup work for the Travel meeting.
● Loaded three workstations: 1 a Engineering workstation to replace SCR's Engineering workstation, 2 for a new hire at Wilson House, 3 to upgrade and old workstation in the back house of Wilson House for a user.
● Setup multiple users accounts.
● Other onsite/phone user support, plus sysadmin daily tasks.
(Veronica)
● Ongoing work on the DCC migration.
● PAC wiki update.
● Access restriction for the MOU website on pherkab, which required mining information on WebBase.
● Various updates of the LIGO and LSC websites.
(Melody)
DCC:
● Usual user support.
● More investigation to see what else needs to be done for migration.
● Briefly tested the glimpse search engine in the test system.
myLIGO:
● Worked on closing some RT tickets.
● Some GUI changes to show the LSC census.
● Converting the support scripts from perl to PHP.
LAAC: Copied the rest of the entries from the old LAAC Thesis Topics to the wiki
(Larry)
● Purchased new licenses for Solidworks, Omnigraphfile and a few other applications.
● Working on COMSOL license renewals.
● Worked on quotes for new printers. Some of the older ones are getting worn out.
● Ordered another clearone system for the conference h/w setup we are working on. Will probably need to order another to replace one that has hardware issues.
● Spent time with Mike setting up for the Travel-training meeting.
● Discovered a number of pieces of equipment are no-longer functioning. Will work on repairing and or replacing them.
● Of note, we discovered a number of machines with internal mics caused echoing problems even when muted on the s/w. Something we are still looking into.
● Assisted the setup of s/w in a couple of labs.
● Worked and still working a Labview software issue.
● Setup, modified and removed a number of accounts.
● Worked on a number of new aliases for different people.
● Worked with Mike on cleaning up equipment from the SURF setup.
● Attended a number of meetings besides the normal LIGO weekly meetings.
● Assisted a number of SURF students with their exit paperwork.
● Some minor assistance to Shannon on some troubleshooting work he has been doing.
● Regular user assistance with mail, files, printer setup and related minor issues.
Grid Application Development:
Einstein@Home on the OSG
● After testing Condor-G version of E@OSG code on the Caltech Integration Testbed cluster, it was migrated onto the OSG Production Grid this week. Early results hint at performance improvements.
● Condor-G code is running successfully at 14 of the 18 production sites it has currently been deployed on.
● An efficiency issue was traced to a bug which is now undergoing further testing before redeploying.
Binary Inspiral Application on Grids
● Communicated several failures in the workflow planning for the new binary inspiral workflow to the Pegasus developers and Duncan Brown (author of the new B.I. workflow code). Code changes to Pegasus were identified as well as changes to the properties list for the workflow planning. Actively working on this development task.
● Tested the new version of the OSG storage "discovery tool" being developed under the OSG Storage Technical Group to make the OSG aware at the grid level of storage.
● Transfered month three of the science run data into the ITB cluster's storage element (here at Caltech).
Open Science Grid Integration & Validation Testbed:
● Upgraded the kernel on all nodes in the cluster to address a security hole that has now been patched for CentOS.
● Arranged to meet with Jim Weichsel at Fermilab Oct 13th and Rob Gardner at Univ of Chicago on Oct 14th to kick off the OSG Documentation Project for year 4.
● Assisted the LIGO Data Grid system administrators in upgrading hard disks for that cluster.
Grid Management:
● Held a telecon with Carol Song and Preston Smith, both at Purdue, to discuss activities in their groups, their High Throughput Computing Track II D proposal and how they might collaboration more closely with the OSG. This included Virtual Machine and small MPI application venues.
● Reviewed OSG budget burn rate for the OSG associated with the subawards and NSF/DOE funding.
● Met with OSG Caltech staff to discuss progress on and ultimate completion of two open milestones that are on the year 3 program of work to determine if these will need to be carried forward into year 4 and if so at what level.
● Discussed Caltech year 4 program of work with OSG Project Manager and drafted a set of tasks for Caltech to address in year 4. This draft was reviewed further and fine tuned to all it to integrate into the year 4 WBS.
● Updated the year 3 WBS with status for the Einstein@OSG code port to use Condor-G and the use of OSG Storage Resource Managers after getting feedback from OSG Caltech Staff.
● Attended LIGO-Pegasus meeting to assure the effort to run LIGO's binary inspiral workflows with support for Storage on the OSG was on track.
● The OSG Storage Technical Group (TG) met to discuss the LIGO requirements for Storage Resource grid information posting after having met with LIGO a few weeks ago. The TG had a set of questions regarding details of our use of this information which was feedback to them.
● Supported PKI certificate requests and LIGO Data Grid account requests as they came in.
● Organized and ran the weekly SCAT subcommittee meeting.
(from David Shoemaker for Carol Wilkinson)
Project Controls
Staffing
Procurements
(For Ed Jasnow)
● Prepared second response to Ann Miller’s questions on the contract for HEPI machined parts with Lavallee Corporation. The responses were sent to Ann by Dick Seligman on Wednesday, August 26.
● Responded to Alan Wilkins request to assign contract administrators to nine new procurements coming up. Assignments have been made and Alan and the administrators have been informed.
● Reviewed proposed contract with CSIRO for gold and dielectric coating of all core optics, including those being coated by LMA. This contract is being funded under the purchase order from the University of Glasgow. That purchase order was modified to include this work.
(For Jacqueline Champagnie and Gina Salone)
● SI-141 Contract awarded; Sent for signature
● SI-143 Installation Test Stand-Pending
● SI-144 Storage Containers; In progress
● SI-145 Counter Balance; 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 per Alan Wilkins
● SI-149 On hold per Alan Wilkins
● Set up contract for Elect Engineer for the CDS group.
(For Rudy Arvizu)
● CSIRO 75ADV-1087576 AdL Costing End Reaction Masses, funded by University of Glasgow (UGLASG 1057205) – The Contract will be forward to CSIRO for their signature followed by execution.
● Columbia University Subaward for Timing Distribution System DA-290 under the supervision of Dr. Szabolcs Marka - Caltech will reply to Columbia’s 8/17/09 terms offer. Plan to finalize Subaward week of 8/24/09.
● Stanford University 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 Steve Marroquin)
● Sent out award selection letter to Valley Precision Metal Products for RFQ No. SM-153 (SU-313a)“OMC SUS Structure Fabrication” as well as non-selection letters to losing bidders.
● A requisition and purchase order contract is in process.
● Sent out solicitation cancellation letters to the bidders who submitted proposal quotes for RFQ No. SM-151 “Large Optic Containers.” It was determined by the Bid Evaluation Committee the proposed cost estimates significantly exceeded the project’s original budget for this work. LIGO plans to review the requirements and re-issue this solicitation at a later date.
● Reviewed and approved FFP Contract75ADV-1087470-to Next Intent, Inc. for the Fabrication of Maraging Steel Flexure Rods and Cups.
● Reviewed and approved FFP Contract75ADV-1087541-to MDC Vacuum Inc. for the Fabrication of InstrumentVacuum Pods.
● Reviewed and issued FFP Contract75ADV-1087394-to Heraeus Quartz America, LLC for the Fused Silica Blanks for Core Optics.
Property Management (Rod Luna)
● Assisted G. Billingsley by driving to Coastline Optics in Camarillo, CA to deliver a Test Mass Container.
● Assisted J. Romie with clearing a shipment for the QUAD Suspension from the UK.
● Assisted G. Billingsley with creating commercial invoice and shipping two fused silica blanks to SCIRO, Australia.
● Continued working with Adilia Koch in classifying the Suspension parts that are being shipped by the UK Collaborators.
NSF Acquisition Approvals
● Ann Miller approved the final SEI procurement.
Advanced LIGO Systems
Dennis Coyne <coyne@ligo.caltech.edu>, Peter Fritschel <pf@ligo.mit.edu>, Calum Torrie<ctorrie@ligo.caltech.edu>, Matt Evans <mevans@ligo.mit.edu>, Ed Chavez <chavez_j@ligo.caltech.edu>, Bob Taylor <taylor_r@ligo.caltech.edu>, Mike Smith <smith@ligo.caltech.edu>, Mike Zucker <mike@ligo.mit.edu>, Hiroaki Yamamoto <hiro@ligo.caltech.edu>
See the Advanced LIGO Systems wiki
Design/Readiness Reviews: For a list of reviews, see the main Adanced LIGO wiki page.
Reviews currently underway:
● Optical Lever Design Requirements Review & Conceptual Design Review (DRR/CDR): initial questions/comments has been issued by committee. Meeting with team pending (Mike L. chair).
● AOS Thermal Comnpensation System (TCS) PDR: initial questions/comments has been issued by committee. Meeting with team pending (Eric G. chair).
● Review of the UK provided ETM/ITM quadruple pendulum suspension electronics continues (Jay H., Vern).
Procurement Techncial Reviews: see the procurement wiki
nothing significant to report
Technical Review Board (TRB): see the TRB log
nothing significant to report
UHV & Vacuum Review Board (VRB): see the VRB log
UHV Prep Lab: (Bob)
● Cleaned and baked second set of optic carriers, (Pie Tins)
● Received the Rm HTLS Structure back from the Electropolisher and have cleaned it. I am cleaning hardware for it today, then it will go to LLO.
● I have been working with the FTIR sample preparation equipment and looking into different types of solvents to use. In the coming weeks, I will develop a procedure for preparing samples and methods for sampling.
● I have completed the cleaning and baking of 32 Actuator Coil Cores for PSI.
● PSI has informed me that there will be 128 Actuator Pole Pieces coming in this week. I received the tracking info on them today.
Optical Contamination Cavity Testing: (Bob T., Liyuan)
● cavity 1: 7 production BOSEMs, soon to be removed & replaced with Masterbond low outgassing epoxy (EP30AN-1). Master Bond epoxy still has not arrived, but was supposed to have been shipped.
● cavity 2: First Contact(TM) samples (cavity mirrors also cleaned with FC)
● cavity 3: being set up and should be available next week; Krytox samples will be placed into this chamber. The cables for the laser on Cavity 3 have arrived and I will be working on that cavity today.
Queue:
● Krytox low vapor pressure lubricant (we have samples)
● other low outgassing epoxies, if/as needed after testing EP30AN-1 (Masterbond EP30-2, EP37-3FLFAO, EP65HT-1)
● Copper & polyimide clad fiber optic, IVG Fiber CU1300. Brian Lantz wants to test this material for use with an optics table, optical lever system. Could be used for ALS etc. Likely "inherently" vacuum compatible, but worth checking since it has a polymer.
● Torr-Seal (Varian adhesive -- proposed replacement for Vacseal)
● Barrierta-IS (a German Company low vapor pressure lubricant alternative to krytox that New Focus thought may be cleaner) (we have samples)
● Retest ADE position sensor materials (2 Tra-Con epoxies) due to the anomalous test results (no samples in hand)
● Nedox solid lubricant (for potential BSC-ISI tooling use (class b) but perhaps useful in vacuum as well) (had small sample -- likely inadequate in size)
● Tungsten carbide/carbon (WC/C) sample (for potential BSC-ISI tooling use (class b) but perhaps useful in vacuum as well) (had small sample -- likely inadequate in size probably inherently vacuum compatible)
● Cesic sample (composite ceramic of SiC, Si and C) possibly inherently vacuum compatible application is not clear (high stiffness to weight structure) (sample size adequate?)
Configuration Control & Documentation:
nothing significant to report
Design/Planning:
● System Layout Drawings (Ed Chavez) Updated existing overall systems layout models/drawings for each station, vacuum equipment layouts for each station and system layouts for each chamber and linked them together in the DCC. The top level Systems Layout Drawing is a place holder currently. The VE layouts have missing elements and will be completed over time. We are using the notes field in the DCC to capture punch (snag) list items to be addressed in future revisions.
● Top Level Systems Layout Drawing: D0901491
● VE Layouts: D0901859, D0901860, D0901861, D0901865, D0901866, D0901867
● System Layouts by Stations: D0901464, D0901465, D0901466, D0901467, D0901468, D0901469
● Suspension Frame Damping Mechanisms: (Kurt) designed a prototype damping strut system -- models and drawings created -- material ordered & received. Given to Joe Haggerty (Aero shop) on 8/25-- scheduled for next week. The OMC Weldment Mockup for the damping tests was given to the shop (Rick) to machine flat and square up on 8/14 -- not yet started.
● Vacuum Optics Cover (Kurt) Modeled and created a drawing for the alum optics cap. Given to the physics shop (Rick) to make on 8/10, being machined 8/26. Designed an optics cap alignment tool for the alum cap, also given to Rick 8/10 -- not yet started machining. Calum mentioned that they're spending too much time aligning the cap.
● Plastic Optics Cover (Kurt) Teflon "coffee-cup lid" optics cap for Rand -- working on concept.
● COC Simplified Container (Kurt, Calum, Ken) We are working on re-designing the optical "cake tins". We have a simplified concept proposed by Ken and are getting two of these made to the CP optic size. Mike Gerfen is currently working on manufacturing two Recycling sized containers of the previous design.
Interfaces: see the RODA status page and the Interface Control page.
nothing significant to report
Modeling and Simulation
From: Hiroaki Yamamoto hiro@ligo.caltech.edu
Static IFO simulation (Hiro)
(1) astigmatism by stable recycling cavity
The detail of the astigmatism induced by the non-zero angle of incidence on the focusing mirrors in the stable recycling configuration was studied. It will be included in T0900384. The astigmatism is affected by the resonance condition of the CR field. For the SRC, the cavity is anti-resonant for CR signal sideband injected from the arm, the mode resonating in the cavity is close to the naively expected form, i.e., R / cosTheta in the cavity plane and R / cosTheta in the plane perpendicular to the cavity plane. For the PRC, the CR is resonating in the cavity and the mode shape is a mixture of the distorted mode and the unperturbed mode.
(2) loss by the thermal bumps in the arm, or how to calculate the correct diffractive loss
In order to understand the loss mechanism due to the bumps in the arm caused by the thermal heating, the FFT prediction is compared with the Melody calculation by Ray Beausoleil. Qualitative agreement was observed, but there is still a big quantitative difference. It is most likely that the treatment of the diffractive loss by Melody is too naive. It is important to understand the accuracy of the diffractive loss calculation by Melody, because the stable recycling cavity calculation is based on far field propagation. We had a long telecon to pursue the best way to understand the cause of the discrepancy.
Safety
From: David Nolting dnolting@ligo-la.caltech.edu
● Support being provided to AdL staff at LLO clean & bake activities and receiving operations, in the form of housekeeping requirements and safe work procedures.
● Ongoing interaction with AdL personnel to assist in directing safe work processes.
● Safety program documents are currently being updated and safety training materials are being formulated to address upcoming activities.
● Working with BSC ISI review team on safety design for blade spring applications and safety devices.
Quality Assurance
From: Mick Flanigan flanigan_m@ligo-wa.caltech.edu
Inventory Control System:
● Resolved serious bug in the test system that was not allowing the LLO team to enter bulk parts into the system without the location of the parts changing to LHO. Was a fairly difficult bug to track down and some changes to architecture were required to get the fix in place. We also completed fixes for various defects related to the newly implemented test, inspection and modification records.
● Next week several key members of the ICS team will be at the LHO site to perform numerous user driven scenarios on the system to examine functionality, ensure we have identified and prioritized any bugs in the system. We will also set our last goals for completion of Phase 2 programming. Some items will not be on the list, as they are outside the initial scope, but a few items that will be on the list to complete will be UI completion for parts, subsystems and records, assembly loads, and cleaning out the remaining bugs.
● Tom Gentry and Jodi Fauver and I hashed out a preliminary table of contents for our ICS users manual. It is currently out amongst the group for comment, once we finalize the outline, will assign team members to various sections to start the documentation process.
QA:
● Reviewing the Optics coatings documents this week to prep for upcoming vendor inspections.
● Reviewed the LHO parts washer, took notes on the weld repair and received a very nice report from Jodi on the cleaning process. Am summarizing recommendations to all on what should be done with the LLO unit, and any findings on process misses for the procurement, inspection and delivery of these.
Facilities Modifications and Preparations
From: John Worden <worden_j@ligo-wa.caltech.edu>
LLO: We are continuing to receive and process suspension parts. We ordered and lift and chain hoist to get parts in and out of the large ultrasonic cleaner and the large parts washer.
LHO's large air bake oven is on a truck and is scheduled for arrival on Monday.
Kyle's bake oven vacuum chamber has arrived and is being installed in the warehouse.
Safety audit next week at LHO.
Seismic Isolation
From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu
aLIGO Project Activities
SEI Electronics Design and Fabrication
● The latest revision of the Coil Driver board is being tested by Mohana.
● The Pump Servo Board has been stuffed and I've just started using it in the testing of the SBC.
● I've gotten Emory started looking at the in-pod cables, electronics protection, and pressure sensor electronics. He is coming up to speed quickly.
● Jay & Sam have just installed Altium onto Sam's computer so Sam can start working on the LLO HEPI PCIX upgrade electronics.
● I'm in the early stages of redesigning the GS-13/L4C Interface Boards for the ISI Interface Chassis. Brian Lantz is putting some files on Seismic noise onto the Seismic svn that I'm trying to access. Hopefully I can use these files to design appropriate gain and whitening for the seismometer signals.
● The 8-CH Valve Driver is still at DeLeon being assembled.
● Sam is stuffing more of the Pier Interface Chassis. ~Ben A.
Hepi Procurement and Assembly
HEPI--Eric Allwine, Jim Warner, Hugh Radkins
● Pump Stations are having the resistor assemblies installed now--this will ready them for accumulator charging and fluid filling. Contractors are looking at the Mezzanine piping project to run and test the Pump Stations.
● Actuators have been received at both sites now--awaiting inspection.
● KineOptics getting back to production. Kaman position sensor testing near finalization and production start.
● ~20% HEPI Housings assembled. Steady progress there, about 10% per week now, looking good.
HAM ISI Procurement and Design
● Waiting on approval from the NSF to award a purchase order for the HAM machined parts.
● Wrapping up drawings for HAM Crossbeams, so they're ready for Advanced LIGO purchasing.
● Purchase order for the GS-13 flexures was completed this week and should be going out within the next couple of days.
Suspensions
From: "Greenhalgh, Justin (STFC,RAL,EID)" <justin.greenhalgh@stfc.ac.uk>
ALUK held its latest Project Management Committee on 26 August 2009 (See LIGO-M0900258-v1). A brief activity summary follows:
● RAL:
- OJEU process status as follows:
- Machined items. We are close to having a list of all the new/modified additional parts (mostly for the quad).
- Weldments. We are in discussion with the vendor and the US team about the best way forward vis-a-vis the cleaning and RGA testing.
- Blade springs. ETM/ITM blades shipped. BS/FM blades characterised and ready to ship.
- Work continues on ensuring that all tooling etc required for the monolithic hang at LASTI is in place, and that parts are shipped at the US sufficiently fast to avoid delays to the US assembly work.
● Glasgow: Work is focussed on identifying the cause of the failures in the weld test hangs at LASTI. In the meantime, preparations for the monolithic hang continue.
● Birmingham/Strathclyde: BOSEM assembly nearing completion. Production of electronics well in hand, although there have been delays to one or two approvals.
● Overall: Good progress at Birmingham. Mechanical production now in the phase of tying up loose ends. RGA testing of structures is now in discussions with the US. Setback to LASTI programme because of failure of test hangs – cause is being researched, but earlier successful results at Glasgow showed that the basic design is fine.
From: Janeen Romie and Norna Robertson (romie_j@ligo-la.caltech.edu, nroberts@ligo.caltech.edu)
Advanced LIGO Suspensions (from Janeen Romie)
Operations Work
● HLTS Structure is currently with Bob Taylor for cleaning; after cleaning, Mike Gerfen will install the clinch nuts and ship it to LLO. Many parts received; many parts on order. Ordering screws. Drawings to be finished include the cable clamp assembly. We are waiting for a response from the molding company that did the cable clamp lining to see if they have the old molds. Working on front and back aperture sketches for IO folks.
● HSTS - We're currently working on the Intermediate Mass to add adjustable mass, the tablecloth/upper mass to add blade guards and move the OSEMs, EQ stop brackets to prevent beam clipping. We completed the Top blade guard and the upper blade assemblies. Visited machine shop doing some prototyping work and were impressed. Dropped of maraging steel for more prototyping work. We are communicating with CDS & IO groups on dynamic range of HSTS AOSEMs.
● Blade Test Facility We completed the simplified clamps for the blade test stand. The other parts are being fabricated and should hopefully be completed in 3 weeks. We're still waiting on the actuator from the vendor. There were some problems getting them the PO for the order.
● Solidworks - Updated Solidworks drawing templates to include new machining fluid note requested by Systems. Performed various drawing checks, vault upkeep, etc.
● Working on Matlab code for thermal noise. It turns out that the quad version had the same bug as the Mathematica (see T0900320-v1), so that was fixed. Looking at the triple which has the same bug plus at another.
Project - funded activities
● AOSEMs - Ten first article PEEK heads should arrive at LLO tomorrow. We will perform a fit check next week, when Rich Abbott plans to bring the flexi-circuit with him to LLO. The 10 will have their coils wound and then sent to LHO for thermal testing.
● Matt Maxwell and Doug Cook are working with Gregg Harry at LASTI on fiber pulling exercises and parameters.
● Norna is currently working in Glasgow where she has been discussing revised plans/schedules for weld tests and monolithic hang and she has also visited Birmingham and RAL this week to discuss progress and plans.
● Maraging steel procurement for all HAM suspensions is ongoing. The PO for the OMC SUS structure weldments (including the ones for AOS) should be issued this week.
● RAL is sending a dirty quad upper structure weldment along with a quad sleeve weldment to LHO for determination if a pre-cleaning step is needed. That step will be performed, if needed, then the parts will be cleaned, baked and FTIRed.
● Sites are still receiving quad parts. They are being inventoried, cleaned and baked.
● Performed a site visit with the QA manager to a machine shop in Florida.
● Last week, Janeen met with IO folks at the Univ of Florida to discuss optical layout and beam aperture requirements for large, small and single suspensions. IO folks plan to visit LLO in November to work with the large triple prototype suspension and the LLO SUS engineers on initial alignment issues.
● Betsy has been coordinating with RAL’s Joe O’Dell on a number of surface finish issues on quad parts we have. This week, Joe reported on the research he’s done. All parts are in compliance with the surface finish callouts on the drawings, but the surface finish is averaged over the whole surface. So, some deeper areas may exist and care should be taken to clean out those areas with an ultrasonic pencil unit.
Prestabilized Laser
From: Peter King <pking@ligo.caltech.edu>
Operations
● The 40m Lab temperature control box was modified to bring it up to the last issued ECN.
Project
● The capacitance versus bias voltage of all the PerkinElmer 2 mm InGaAs photodiodes was measured. The results show that capacitance is not a good indicator of whether or not a photodiode has good dark current characteristics. Impedance measurements are underway.
● A sketch of the design for the Laser Area Enclosure was largely completed. A number of seemingly minor details were worked out; the height of the access floor, the rise and run of the steps, the length and height of the stair and landing rails, etc.
Input Optics
From: David Tanner <tanner@phys.ufl.edu>
Adv LIGO design:
● We are completing the mechanical layout for H2 in solidworks. (Luke).
● We are now working on a ZEMAX layout for IO-L1 layout to establish the location for beam baffles. (Rodica)
Adv LIGO procurement:
● A number of transport aluminum containers have been completed by the machine shop and ready to be cleaned and assembled. Some have been cleaned. (Luke and Rodica)
● We have ordered shipping containers for Advanced LIGO suspended optics. (Rodica)
● The Invitation to Negotiate (ITN) for coatings for IMC and SM mirrors is out to vendors. (Rodica)
● We awarded the polishing for the PMMT mirrors. (Rodica)
● We are restarting the bid process for polishing for the small RM mirrors. The ITN is being reviewed by the UF General Counsel and will be released to vendors in the next few days. (Rodica)
Adv LIGO R&D
● We are testing SiC as an in-vacuum beam dump. This week we Installed a new thermocouple reader card to improve the data acquisition in the SiC beam block test. (David F)
● We have tested SF57 for beam steering when the lens is tilted for application in adaptive mode matching. There do not seem to be any issues related to tilted transmissive adaptive optical element. Similarly the thermal depolarization has been studied and at -30 dB isolation ratio, no change has been observed at the maximum heating level. All the findings are being summarized in a LIGO technical note. (Muzammil)
eLIGO commissioning
● We are setting up an analog version of the control servo for the WFS tip-tilt at LLO. (Kate)
Core Optics
From: GariLynn Billingsley <Billingsley_G@ligo.caltech.edu>
(Dannenberg)
● Learned much more detail about the theory and operation of the Wyko 6000 phase shift interferometer.
● Moved all the stuff for First Contact into the 03b lab with the fume hood.
● Started reproducing Cheryl Vorvicks methanol drag wiping.
(Zhang)
● Fine tuned the two contamination cavities and treated the data of the two ongoing tests taken by Bob,
● Preparing a brief note of the transmission and reflection measurements for certifying the Adv. LIGO optics at CSIRO.
(Kells)
● A new [AdLIGO] cavity phenomenon to consider (can’t yet conclude whether it is or is not a "concern", hence the dissemination to OWG). Recently a lot of refined work has been done on the redistribution of cavity [mode] power due to imperfections/aberrations, that is w.r.t. ideal Gaussian. So far this has been noted as an edge diffraction loss effect induced by radially symmetric imperfections. On the other hand we have also begun to get away from the assumption that HR surface absorption would be uniform (e.g. the marked differences in cavity loss when the ITM absorption differs from the ETM). Carrying this another step: what if the individual TM surface absorption is non-uniform, and not radially symmetric? That is, a "hot spot" absorption. (Actually, Phil has considered the thermal deformation aspect of this, but I have not yet had occasion to consult with him). I have done some basic SIS modeling (AdLIGO cavity) of this: how an HR "bump" (caused by local absorption heating) redistributes the cavity power. Interestingly, at least for near concentric (and I believe this is the key characteristic) cavity configuration, the power /enhances/ at the bump (with a radially opposite deficit in power). So, if absorption is not radially symmetric, the cavity mode intensity and hence radiation pressure will develop off [axis] center as the concomitant heating develops into a bump. The scale of the effect is not so small. Factor of 2 modulation of our ballpark 1ppm HR absorption can cause several % redistribution of the mode power across <2w. A full modeling of this would require a self-consistent merging of thermal deformation and SIS codes.
Auxiliary Optics
From: Michael Smith <smith@ligo.caltech.edu>
● TCS commissioning proceeds well.
● Optical levers, received replacement pigtail laser and minilaser to be assembled on the telescope, waiting for the long fibers to strip the cladding modes, waiting for the camera to monitor the results.
● Andrea displayed the fitting results with both Gaussian and Airy functions, as well as a background function taking into account diffused light. Achieved peak positioning precision better than 1 pixel (6 micron) from a single frame (with statistics improving with √n). This may provide stable pointing even in presence of moving cladding light. The width of the fitting function is an indicator of the thermal lensing. It is not yet clear how well it will do in this regard. (DeSalvo)
CDS
From: Rolf Bork <rolf@ligo.caltech.edu>
ADVLIGO PROJECT
DAQ
● Driver written to support PCIe version of IRIG-B time code receiver (previous versions use PCI-X boards).
● General Standards will be sending us the upgrade for the DAC boards. This upgrade includes the ability to use the trig out line as a watchdog. They would like us to test the feature before they fully implement the change.
● Work on the IO interface boards and chassis continues. Both the backplane board and interface cards are progressing and should be ready for prototype fab within 2 weeks.
● Vern on vacation this week, so his DC power distribution design presentation is moved to next Wednesday.
SUS
● The draft ESD test report is being reviewed internally and should be sent to the UK next week.
● The BSC test stand components have been tested and the full test stand should be operational next week.
SEI
SI Coil Driver
● Continue testing the ISI Coil Driver. The outputs were railed due to LM 12's not getting the negative power and the problem has been fixed now.
● Stuffing the LED interface board to interface with Coil driver board for testing.
● The latest revision of the Coil Driver board is being tested by Mohana.
● The Pump Servo Board has been stuffed and I've just started using it in the testing of the SBC.
● I've gotten Emory started looking at the in-pod cables, electronics protection, and pressure sensor electronics. He is coming up to speed quickly.
● Jay & Sam have just installed Altium onto Sam's computer so Sam can start working on the LLO HEPI PCIX upgrade electronics.
● I'm in the early stages of redesigning the GS-13/L4C Interface Boards for the ISI Interface Chassis. Brian Lantz is putting some files on Seismic noise onto the Seismic svn that I'm trying to access. Hopefully I can use these files to design appropriate gain and whitening for the seismometer signals.
● The 8-CH Valve Driver is still at DeLeon being assembled.
● Sam is stuffing more of the Pier Interface Chassis. (Ben)
ELIGO
● Installed and tested a new realtime code release 1.1.1 on the OMC at LLO. This reduced the overall processing time of the two apps on this machine, and, more importantly, seems to have fixed the processing time jumps (periodically as much as 10-15usec), which would drive it over the max allowed of 31usec. In testing on the AdvLigo test system, we discovered that these jumps were due to two or more realtime apps trying to write data to the DAQ network at the same time (within a few usec of each other). To avoid this, the newer release of the realtime code offsets the time that each application can write to the network, based on which CPU and core it is running on.
LLO SITE
Hardware
● Rolf and Keith started installing the new timing card in the OMC front- end. Initial difficulty is that OMC front-end computer is not seeing the timing card during boot.
Software
● Alex installed new GDS broadcaster code that fixes byte-swap in short data. John Zweizig confirmed that this fixed the problem
● Successfully configured new FOM projection workstations. Solution was to replace existing computer->video interface boxes (Extron RGB 112xi) with simple VGA splitters. We also dropped the video refresh rates to match range tolerated by projectors. Control40 is now set up. We ordered and received parts to set up the other two workstations. We have now decommissioned control7.
● Recovered FB0 frames array that went offline on Saturday. Overheating in the rack was suspected. With Igor Yakushin's help, we did a full power-cycle on the array. A subsequent reset of the controller brought the array back to full operation on Monday.
● Set up of new fileservers continued. Figuring out best way to copy ~1TB data from old to new server.
● Started setting up additional Linux EPICS servers to host statevector, GRB/SN scripts, iocstat.
For additional information about this report, contact Albert Lazzarini