Weekly Report for Week Ending November 19, 2009

Past Weekly Reports

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LSC Issues (Reitze)

• The LSC Executive Committee approved the LSC-Virgo Burst Group paper "All-sky search for gravitational-wave bursts in the first joint LIGO-GEO-Virgo run" has been approved for submission to Phys. Rev. D pending a few minor cosmetic corrections.  The paper will be circulated to the LSC for a final one week comment period and then be posted to the arXiv.

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

PROPERTY ACCOUNTING (Luna)

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

• Working with Property Services on FY '09 Real Property Report.

• Completed reporting FY '09 for Government Owned and GSA leased vehicles.

DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER (Mak)

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

• As for DCC stuff, nothing of significance to report.   Business as usual....

• Assisted R. Desalvo with an international shipment (completed international shipment and custom declarations forms) to Galli & Morelli and another shipment to LHO.

• Packaged/Shipped 8 boxes of tape cartridges to LHO & LLO.

FINANCIAL SYSTEMS (Lindquist, Oracion)

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

• Submitted budget allocation to OSR for 1st half of FY2010 LIGO Operations funds.

• Completed FY2010 (PHY-0757058) LIGO Operations Report for October 2009 and posted report on the network.

• Currently updating list of FY2009 encumbrances to be closed out.

• Link to LIGO Operations accounts: https://dcc.ligo.org/DocDB/0005/M0900272/001/FY2010_LIGO_OPs_WBS_Final_Ver.1.pdf.

• Link to Advanced LIGO: https://dcc.ligo.org/DocDB/0000/M0900053/002/ADV.LIGO_Char_%20of_Accounts_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>

• 11/16/09, issued Supplemental Agreement 2 to consultant for LLO and LHO seminars in December 2009.

• See Advanced LIGO Report Below.

From: Gina Salone  <gsalone@ligo.caltech.edu>

• Met with Ken Mason on issues with parts not fabricated to specification.

• Discussed options with issuing re-orders to minimize potential scheduling delays.

• Met with Marie Woods to explain the requisition process through the TechMart system.

From: Steve Marroquin <smarroqu@caltech.edu>

• Issued purchase order contract to Qioptiq Linos Inc. for  Innolight Mephisto  S200mW @ 1064 nm including electronics and INNEO Noise Eater Options (Tech Rep: Bonnie Wooley).

• See Advanced LIGO Report Below.

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

• Reviewed the list of required FY09 contract closures or rollovers generated by Karl Oracion, and assigned responsibility for these actions to Gina Salone.

PROPOSALS, REPORTS, BUDGETS (Lindquist, Beckett)

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

• Completed and dispatched the October Facilities report for the NSF, reference: LIGO-M0900292-v1.

• Researched, assembled and dispatched a collection of graphics (observatory aerials and interiors) per directorate request.

CHANGE REQUESTS (Lindquist)

• No open change requests.

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)

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

• A Staffing Committee meeting was held on Monday, November 9th.  The minutes and action items have been posted on the SC web page.

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Quality/Safety (Nolting)

LIGO Lab Safety

• The “General Safety Awareness” training was presented to the workforce at LHO this past Wednesday.  This concludes the required safety training for both LLO and LHO for general safety issues.  Starting in January, a safety topic of the month will be distributed to both facilities to be presented during that month, with additional topics offered each month following to reinforce safe working conditions and processes at the facilities.

ADVANCED LIGO SAFETY IS BEING REPORTED UNDER ADVANCED LIGO, BELOW

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Computer Security (Singer)

• Prepared presentation NSF review.

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

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

• The H1 duty cycle was 47% for the week, often at 14Mpc in periods of high microseism. We restored PEPI feedback (using DARM_CTRL as an error signal and actuating with PZT fine actuators), reducing coil currents but not having significant range gains as anticipated. Later studies suggest a 2Mpc increase, from 12 to 14Mpc, when applying the servo. PZT bearing lock nuts on EY were found to be loose, such that we hoped to have resolved the long-standing plant transfer-function difference between X and Y, but remeasuring Y showed the function unchanged.

• An OMC-LSC timing-difference study showed that we have not had significant problems. We thought it still prudent to install the new OMC-LSC handoff code and record the scalar error counter in trends (no errors observed in 5d of running). This has paved the way for the V2 calibration and the H1 h(f) V2 model for the new epoch (sans violin notches) has been made, with an eye on next Tuesday for installation if h(t) is ready. OMC timing is still being carefully monitored as we noted one jump not associated with OMC reboots, but rather work in the rack. We'll test timing after such efforts.

• In other work, i) a resonance near 74Hz may be the result of mechnical vibrations, ii) in order to limit the chance of saturations, we installed a 50:50 splitter in front of the SPOB photodiode, dumping half the light.

Squeezer Update (D. Sigg, S. Dwyer)

• We have the first TTFSS box assembled and up and running. Functional testing has been successful. Thomas is testing the interface box at MIT and will ship it here when done. We got our first prototype of the new common mode board. So far only a smoke test has been done. Filiberto also has assembled the first three RF amplifiers. We are still waiting for parts from Wenzel to complete these. We also ordered another Pockels cell and a high speed photodetector for the laser locking we plan to do in December.

CDS (V. Sandberg)

• Continued code maintenance and work on OMC-LSC synchronization monitors. Dave has placed an epics field on his overview screen to report the sync errors. Work continues to detect and log any timing error states.

• aLIGO - Testing of delivered UIM Coil Drivers. Initial tests look good.

Outreach (D. Ingram)

• LHO welcomed new outreach staff member Erin Steinert on 11/16. Erin comes to LIGO from St. Louis with professional experience in science center and planetarium operations along with a B.A. in Math and Physics.

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

Enhanced LIGO & the S6 Run (Valera Frolov)

• The science data taking resumed on Friday when the microseismic motion reduced below 95%. The daytime ground motion was elevated last week due to the logging near the Y end station and prevents us from low noise running during the day.

• The investigation of the excess motion of the corner Michelson interferometer continued. The initial attempt to fine tune the BS HEPI sensor correction resulted in improvement in relative motion of the large optics around 0.1-0.2 Hz of about factor of 2. The interferometer WFS sensing matrix was remeasured. The bandwidth of the corner Michelson control loops was found to be 0.2-0.4 Hz which is not high enough to suppress the angular motion of the recycling cavity. Increasing the bandwidth of the loops has not been successful so far.

• The DARM open loop gain transfer function was measured in the nominal low noise configuration with 8 W input power. This will facilitate the production of the next version of the L1 calibration.

LLO CDS (Keith Thorne)

• PEM: Jeremy Birch swapped out the old ISOTRON (replacement installed last week) to send for repair.

• TCS: Carl Adams noted periods of TCS Y power glitches, but they did not correlate with any chiller changes.

• OMC: Keith and Jay Heefner changed the OMC DuoTone input source to boost the amplitude by a factor of 10. This was requested by LHO so that each OMC was getting a strong enough signal to do accurate timing tests between the two sites.

CDS - Software

Run Support:

• Keith got all workstations and servers re-configured to authenticate to either LDAP server for failover. The LDAP reboot docs in the CDS wiki were updated.

• Keith worked with the Sun field engineer to replace the bad RAID controller that had been causing the FB0 frame disk problems. There have been no errors since the replacement. He also replaced a bad optical fiber inter-connect discovered during the replacement. Fiber cable strain-reliefs and firmware updates were done during maintenance.

• Keith received the correct network switch spare and now waits RMA paperwork for the return.

• During maintenance, Keith found the blind injections server unresponsive and rebooted it. When doing the LDAP reconfig, he found the scripts machine was out of swap space and disk inodes. This was traced to a massive number of queued e-mail messages. These were cleared and lloscript returned to service. The cause of the email messages (a crontab with output not properly directed) was found and corrected.

 Upgrades:

• Keith tested setup scripts that enabled use of the new Control-Room LAN.  Initial testing showed that several tools worked fine, but (as expected) the DTT tool used for testpoints and excitations did not.   Further testing awaits the move to new dual-homed file servers.

• Tape Backup on the new file server is not successfully completing a full 1TByte backup. This is sadly consistent with experience at LHO.  Error logs are being compiled and the vendor will be contacted to attempt a remedy.

Education & Outreach

(William Katzman)

• Conducted programs and tours for 4 school groups at LIGO, serving a little over 200 students.

• Began the collaboration with Tulane University studying school groups for the new NSF grant – this involved video-taping students under Tulane’s IRB, as well as real-time observations.

• Continued scheduling groups.

• Agreed to host LIGO’s travelling exhibit through the month of December and into January.

(Amber Stuver)

• Led a teleconference of the FGSA regarding a survey will be asking our membership to participate in regarding their TA training experiences.

• (I don't know how I kept forgetting about this in past reports...) Finishing compiling articles for the Spring 2010 FEd Newsletter that I am editing.  The theme is on physics outreach and I am spotlighting the outreach done by graduate students and early career physicists. The target date for publication is the 'April' APS Meeting/AAPT Winter Meeting this coming February in order to distribute it to a wider audience.

LIGO computing and network security (Roddy)

Reported under General Computing, see below

General computing and LDAS admin (Giardina)

Reported under General Computing, see below

Reported under LDAS System Administration, see below

Data analysis & computing (Yakushin)

Storage/Condor/LDAS admin:

Reported under LDAS System Administration, see below

Data analysis:

Reported under Data Analysis activities, see below

Mechanical and Optical Systems (Coyne)

See also Advanced LIGO

Controls and Data Systems (Bork)

See Advanced LIGO

40-Meter Interferometer (Adhikari)

• The serious concrete cutting has begun for the new geophysics lab next to the 40m. Seismometer channels are saturating, but so far no optic tripping. Diesel fumes from the work are very strong during the daytime.

• We have settled on an ITM coating design as well as a spec for the ETMs. ITMs should be in hand in a few weeks and ETMs will be ordered soon.  We will be aiming for the same finesse for 532 nm and 1064 nm as Advanced LIGO.

• The main news is that we succeeded in controlling ETMY using the new controls infrastructure. We are using the old analog hardware but all new ADCs, DACs, and the Borkspace style control software. We prototyped this using the simulated plant technique and are now planning to build up the rest of the IFO controls with simulated suspensions and simulated interferometer signals (LSC only so far).

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Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

From Akira this week

• Greg is finished with setting up the cavity assisted photothermal experiment and has returned to working on the Michelson experiment. Right now he is working on safety issues, specifically the laser kill switches.

• The past week I took more data at the TNI. I now have over two dozen measurements accumulated. This should be enough to get a good idea of the consistency of the measurements. I also worked on re-analyzing the doped QWL data with better analysis techniques.

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LASTI (Mittleman)

Monolithic

• We have been in discussions with Glasgow and Rai on how to make the work area ate MIT more convenient, a number of minor suggestions have been made which we will try and implement.

• Also it has been decided that Mathew Maxwell (LLO) will be working here as a dedicated monolithic person starting in December. The extra man power should make the room rearrangement go much smoother.

ISI

• Alex is still looking into the data corruption issue.

CIT Science Group (Weinstein)

Antony Searle:

• Omega online running, maintenance, planning and review.

• LUMIN support .

• Travel and talks preparation.

__________

P. Ajith:

• Doing SciMon shift in Hanford this week.

• In the spare time, I wrote a script to produce configuration files and run scripts to run the new instrumental-veto code on large number of bilinear combinations of instrumental-channels.

• Produced veto results from many channel combinations from E14 data. Very promising results. Preparing a presentation for the DetChar call tomorrow.

__________

Vladimir Dergachev:

• Worked with Joe on coherent followup.

• Debugging and Monte-Carlo studies of loosely coherent code.

• Analysis of Full S5 coincidences.

__________

Peter Kalmus:

• CaJAGWR calibration talk.

• A5 SGR search development.

__________

Stephen Privitera:

• I have been trying to find a bug in the XLALBankVetoCCMat code. This bug computes the cross-correlation between templates incorrectly when the templates are time shifted.

__________

Amber L. Stuver:

• Completed test set of MDCs originating from Sgr A* (galactic center) for the directional burst search.  The set spans S6a and is documented here: https://ldas-jobs.ligo.caltech.edu/~stuver/burst/MDC/S6/#SGRA_S6a.

• Continued working with the MatApps team.  The new tentative date for the MatApps repository conversion from CVS to SVN is  4 December and we have also made the recommendation that the default MATLAB version on LDAS systems be R2009b with support from us on how to roll back the version for those users who wish to do so.

• Ran a scimon shift on 18 Nov.

__________

Igor Yakushin:

• Integrated a new version of cWB (wat-5.1.7) into the online infrastructure. The new version does random time-slides to estimate false alarm rate more accurately.

__________

Cristina Valeria Torres:

• Started creation of S6a autotrack glitch threads.  This particular run of Autotrack is implementing a new approach to glitch grouping designed to maximize the individual glitch group separations and minimize the potential number of glitch groups at any given moment in the glitch parameter space.

• I submitted my newsletter article for the APES Forum on Education newsletter which will be appearing in the issue Spring 2010.  It will be found here: http://www.aps.org/units/fed/newsletters/index.cfm.

• I've committed the new wiki based checklist codes for follow ups to the repository.  These checklists will become the end of the follow up pipeline and be used for S6 and beyond follow ups. Infrastructure for a more manual checklist generator is available for followup experts performing pre-S6 followups.  The new checklist style can be seen here: https://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/ligovirgo/cbcnote/Test_of_new_Bare_Bones_Checklist_Page

• As part of the preparation a rough write-up of our followup pipeline design and my background synchronization layout can be seen here: https://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/ligovirgo/cbcnote/RomainGouaty/background_
  scans_rsync.

• __________

• Gregory Mendell:

• Fixed a corner-case bug in generateMultiFscanHTML.tcl, so that it now works correctly when the first fscan for a month occurs on Saturday that's day of the month is also an exact multiple of 7.

• Worked with Colin Gill on setting up daily fscans for studying noise affecting the crab pulsar search.

• __________

• Anand Sengupta:

• S6 tuning analysis.

• Network covariance matrix code.

__________

John Zweizig:

• Finished code releases for  dol-0.6.4, gds-2.13.4-2 and nds2-client-0.5.

• Defined and tested a L1:DMT-SEVERE_OM1_OVERFLOW data quality flag that does not include out-of-loop OM1 PDs. This should repair a large online Cat2 deadtime.

• Fixed nds2 server bugs.

• Termination condition when looking for new data frames.

• Expanded number of short data buffers (starting to get enough use that it needed more cache space!).

• Work on better handling of error conditions (especially missing data).

• Updated online dmt installations to faciltate switch-over when a new calibration is ready.

__________

Kari Hodge:

• Including ethinca in the MVSC analysis.

__________

Chad Hanna:

• I worked with Kipp and Drew on planning ihope changes.

• I worked with Steve on enhancing the bank veto code.

• I added the the ability to run time slides in the followup pipeline.

__________

Joseph Betzwieser:

• Modified the PowerFlux follow up pipeline to better handle high declination outliers.

• Started the first stage of the followup on outliers from the full S5 PowerFlux search.

__________

Kipp Cannon:

• Working on completing the S5 high-mass inspiral post-processing.

• Working on stream-based inspiral data analysis techniques for advanced ligo.

__________

Pinkesh Patel:

• About ready to push the search on Atlas. Solved a couple of SLOW I/O issues.

• Cleared all the warnings when the resampling code compiled as requested by the PulGroup.

• Found and fixed a bug which didn't read in the Right Ascension and Declination values correctly into alpha and delta. Thanks to Letitzia at AEI for finding the bug. I had forgotten to include the correct file with the definitions for these functions.

__________

Drew Keppel:

• Merging the two CBC post-processing pipelines.

• Outlining how to change write-ihope-page to use the new html library code.

Laboratory Computing (Anderson)

LDAS Software Systems (Maros)

• An issue has been discovered with the 1.16.3 release of the LDAS suite. The diskcache does not properly fill all GPS time gaps. Development efforts to correct this issue have in the testing phase on the ldas-dev system. Along with this issue, several smaller issues are being addressed.

• Also this week, it was also discovered that hung NFS systems causes the diskcacheAPI to consume thread resources. This is under active analysis.

LDAS System Administration (Anderson)

Caltech

(Dan Kozak)

• S5 L0 migration begun.

• Last md5sums of S5 L1 files already migrated to confirm their integrity still running.

• Shipped tapes to sites (4 boxes of 18 tapes for each observatory, 144 tapes total).

• Currently 117 9940 tapes are in the state "fully migrated, data needs to be md5sum'd" and 266 tapes are ready to ship.

• Ran more Aura card vdbench benchmarks.

• Worked with Keith Thorne on firmware upgrade for the bkup_frames 3511 after Sun replaced the controller.

• Determined which tapes at LLO should be put on shelf.

• Collected some numbers for NSF review presentation.

• Decommissioned /home2.

• Began upgrade of former /home2 6140 to new firmware (having some problems, ongoing).

• Fixed problem where x2200 lost it's connection to the SAN, fixed by reboot.

(Phil Ehrens)

• Completed the interface for the new TAR form. The new interface features calendar pulldowns for date entry, and pre-validation (via javascript) of most form components. Account information is currently retrieved from the dcc, but a direct oracle query is in the works.

(Josh Abadie)

• Monitored and managed the cluster.

• Attempted to solve user problems.

• Worked on a mediawiki plugin which interfaces with myligo.

• Replaced a few bad pieces of hardware.

• Worked with sun rep to get warranty recognized.

• Cleaned machine room.

MIT

(Fred Donovan)

• Einstein@home installed & running 300+ nodes (deleted old nodes from e@h database); nagios (on ldas-kickstart2 via ldas-bates web proxy) & nrpe via xinetd on nodes monitoring condor and /usr1 /usr1/frames disk space. ganglia seems to be sputtering under load on ldas-gridmon.

Livingston

(Igor Yakushin)

• Replaced bad memory in nodes 63, 164, 180, 210.

• Node18 died; * Replaced 90 tapes in the robot.

• Prepared and submitted to Dynamic Systems an updated list of items that should be covered by our SUN contract.

• Populating the cluster with level 1 H1 S6 RDS data.

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

• Fixed a bug in Disk2Disk, which copies data from CDS to LDAS, that caused the script to crash if "ls" returned an error.

• Tracked down problems with stuck processes and missing data, and then verified this week that raw, trend, RDS, and LDAS hoft data are up-to-date again at LHO, LLO, and CIT.

• Helped a typical number of users find data or with problems gaining access to the cluster (3 in the past week).

• Discussed with the calibration group and DASWG plans to start using the version 2 calibration.

• Continued work on adding md5sums to LDAS hoft generation. (Dan Moraru) * Replaced drive #2 and ordered replacement for drive #3 in L700

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT

(Fred)

• Setting up new mail server: installed roundcube and squrrelmail imap webmail clients.

• Built & installed sendmail and dovecot.

• Rebuilt bsd greylist spamd box - causing slow nfs on ligo (working well now).

• Purchased panda server for evo; -Some inventory@ bates with Rod.

• Planning, and buying some items, for upcoming LSC meeting.

Livingston

(Dwayne)

• Applied patches to more servers/workstations.

• More JIRA testing/bug reporting. had our first weekly meeting of the ICS-Users group.

• Replaced tapes in the GC tape library, ran full backup -Assisted user with public_html setup.

• Created new GC account for a user, locked a couple old accounts.

• Swapped out the wireless access point near Bonnie's office after finding it had been damaged.

• Attended a few other meetings.

• Worked a couple small procurement items.

• Numerous usual/unusual user support requests.

• Cleared spam trap daily.

Hanford

(Jonathan)

• Testing cross realm auth (LIGO.ORG -> local lab) kerberos for new email setup -User support Jennie Murdock.

• Setup of a laptop for new outreach hire.

• Adjusting apache config on redoubt (cds svn) to deal with out of memory errors that we have seen.

• Tightened firewall and ssh config to restrict access on redoubt.

• Installed fail2ban on a number of linux systems to partially deal with brute force ssh attempts.

• Investigating a problem with the old NIS+ to krb5 transition code which allows spurious krb5 principles to be created.

• Modified TCP/IP settings on the EVO machine to improve network performance (2xupload, 4xdownload improvement as measured by pnnl's testing site).

• Increased page file size on the solidworks station to deal with application crashes.

• Setup of a machine to go with the new bake ovens.

• Testing webmail setup -routine spam and dhcp work.

Caltech

(Mike)

• Setup new user GC, and pdmworks accounts.

• Trouble shot an issue with Edrawings.

• Took out the network switches from the rack over in Wilson House.

• Setup wireless access point in Downs 2nd floor.

• Additional work in downs setting up the network on 2nd floor, with Larry.

• Move Barry's old computer/printer equipment from his old office to his new office over W/B 2nd floor. Christian gave me a hand with this.

• PCARD reconciliation.

• Worked on a some printer issues on W/B & B/A.

• Ordered additional equipment for the three new conference rooms.

• More network cable setup in Downs. Working with Larry on this.

• Setup a user at LHO with a cit VPN account.

(Christian)

• Ben Abbott - Installed and configured new laptop and transferred all of Ben's' files and settings back.

• Britta Daudert - Deleted Centos 5.3 partition and reconfigured Windows XP.

• Mike and I moved Barry Barish workstation and printer to new office.

• Toner cartridge replacements- 3flr W/B, 6flr Millikan.

• Re-imaged laptop that were returned to the loaner pull this week.

• Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.

(Veronica)

• Attended the streaming video conference.

• Updates of the websites for NSF review and L-V meetings, other LSC/LIGO webpages.

(Larry)

• Working on a number of procurement items. New items for new users and updating of licenses. Reconciled P-card, still wrapping up some of the paperwork. More work in iExpense system. So far the feedback provided is being addressed. Working on pricing for equipment to be installed in the new conference rooms. Helped, Mike out on some orders for some of the conference room equipment.

• More work on the moves to the different office locations. Still working the logistics on the different network setups. Checking on layouts for the conference rooms and wireless setup. A number of walk-thru meetings with people involved in support of the move.

• Work on the different conferences coming up.

• Setup new user account and assisted a couple of users on their environment settings.

• Worked with Shannon on a couple of auth-project items.

• Minor work on the replacment equipment for the network.

• Regular mail filter cleanup.

• Regular user assistance and meetings.

(Melody)

DCC:

• User support: granting access, removing files, answered questions.

• Started reworking the script which updates the DCC users list from the myLIGO roster.

• Started working on some GUI features for the DCC.

• Assisted Julie with creating the NSF Dry Run event in the DCC

Distributed (Grid) Computing R&D (Blackburn)

Grid Application Development

Einstein@Home on the OSG:

• Continue production runs of E@H job submissions to 17 OSG resources.

• RAC is up to 680,000 from 600,000 last week    o Grid resource utilization down due to other communities working with larger grid resources and changes in policies    o Worked on open tickets.

Binary Inspiral Application on Grids:

• Testing cbc ihope code using one month of data and high mass template range using pegasus clustering workflow option with Storage Element SRM on the ITB cluster at Caltech. The workflow crashed the gatekeeper several times and rescue dags were resubmitted. Manually modified child relationships in the workflow to resolve this and insure single execution. Noted that the injection dags are failing, which is currently under investigation.

• Modified the RLS catalog population script to utilize the new rc-client feature for lookup.

• Have now transferred 80% of the frame data needed to run a workflow on an OSG production Storage Element to the Firefly site. All data is being md5sum checked once transferred.

• But in srm-copy, srmcp which breaks with RFC compliant grid proxies filed with the GOC.

Open Science Grid Integration & Validation Testbed

• Worked to understand gatekeeper crashes associated with the cbc ihope workflows.

Open Science Grid Documentation Project:

• Working on the global architecture picture of the OSG, received new input from Jim and Catalin.

• Working on review process picture ( in subversion ) which will be discussed Friday with John, Catalin and Rob Q.

• Discuss and develop the review process with Jim Weichel.

• Discuss the layout for storage documentation with Tanya and Jim.

• Test candidate Twiki technologies in new Twiki.

• Continue work on the Plugin Gallery.

• Continue to develop Twiki code for the review process.

• Develop Twiki code for searching the Twiki for documents and displaying their status in dependence of the user searching.

• Testing the review process in new itb-twiki.

Grid Management

• Britta submitted a news article for the OSG on the Grace Hopper Conference for woman.

• Continued to work with organizing committee in planning the Virtual Organization Scientific Software Workshop to be held at Caltech Feb 16th and 17th of next year.

• Organized and hosted SCAT meeting where the replacement of the ISPCA was discussed, along with the findings at the joint OSG/ESnet Identify Management Workshop last week.

• Reported to the CompComm that the test web service that leveraged the startSSL CA was ready for further evaluation by commonly used web browsers in the LSC.

• Discussed process for getting grid credentials and LIGO Data Grid accounts into the hands of scimons, why these were needed and what hardware was required to be able to use them at the sites with several individuals.

• Confirmed with OSG publications coordinator that the DZERO publications that had acknowledged OSG were posted on the OSG publications site.

• Supported the LSC/LIGO community's needs for grid credentials and LDG accounts.

EVO Enhancements for LSC/LIGO

• Held very long meeting over EVO with all three co-PIs on the EVO-LIGO award on Thursday night to go over the LSC/LIGO requests for enhancements, covering which where complete already, nearly complete, needed thought, needed significant effort. Also discussed hiring strategy.

• Received initial technical skills description for EVO developers to be used in  job applications. Requested additional information from EVO team regarding skills and experiences. Now have these and will begin drafting job description(s).

• Worked with EVO developers to communicate issues with MacOS upgrades and make them aware of how important this platform is to our community.

• Requested an EVO tutorial (actually two sessions) from the EVO developers to prepare for the LSC-VIRGO meeting in early December.

• Discussed planning and needs for the planned STCI PI Meeting at the NSF in January with the meeting organizer. Also discussed needs for materials to present at poster on LIGO-EVO Remote Participation at this meeting.

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Advanced LIGO Management

Procurements

Ed Jasnow

• Participated last week in the kickoff meeting with the Core Optics Coating contractor, LMA, in Lyon, France.  As a result of discussions in the meeting, there will be some changes issued to the contract, the most important one being the change from coating three optics at a time to two optics at a time. LMA will submit a proposal for this change and a supplemental agreement will be issued to the contract.  The proposal is expected to balance the increase in time against the reduced costs for fixtures and tooling.   

• Reviewed the proposal for the optics metrology, and after approval from GariLynn Billingsley, authorized the issuance of the contract.

Gina Salone

• 11/16 – 11/18, Travel to MIT.

• Met with Ken Mason on issues with parts not fabricated to Specification.

• Discussed options with issuing re-orders to minimize potential scheduling delays.

• Met with Marie Woods to discuss and resolve any misunderstandings with the requisition process through the TechMart system.

Ruth Winstead

• Managed and processed invoices through Webnow.

• Triad’s invoices are up to date.

• Delivered invoices to Procurement Services (Guillermo).

• Phone and email tech reps and vendors on status of purchase orders.

• Communicate with tech reps and end users on invoices and status.

• Continued posting of packing slips and invoices to DCC.

Property Management

Rod Luna

• Assisted G. Billingsley with making shipment arrangements for two plastic containers from Coastline Optics to CIT.

• Assisted M. Phelps with ordering a crate to transport the ERGO arm from CIT to LLO.

• Had a meeting at MIT with D. Shoemaker regarding the decommissioning of initial LIGO equipment and parts.

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>, Kurt Buckland <buckland_k@ligo.caltech.edu> see the Adv. LIGO Systems wiki Design/Readiness Reviews:     For a list of reviews, see the main AdL wiki page

• Reviews currently underway:

• Optical Lever Design Requirements Review & Conceptual Design Review (DRR/CDR): nearing completion (Mike L. chair).

• IO FDR has started (Eric G. chair).

• BSC-ISI FDR has started (David S. chair).

• E/ITM Ear FDR/FRR has started (Gari B. chair).

• HSTS FDR has started (David S. chair).

• UK Triple & ESD electronics continues (Vern S. chair).

• Impending reviews currently:

• Systems FDR: documents ready soon.

• Viewports PDR: documents ready soon.

Procurement Techncial Reviews: see the procurement wiki

• COC Containers (Calum) We have been fielding questions from vendors and should receive all of the quotes by Monday. Kurt and I have been working on some small updates, these will be included in the upcoming PO.

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)

• Made sample cups for the FTIR Spectrometer. baked out 20 grams of KBR powder for  filling the sample cups in the spectrometer.

• I did monthly check on all fire extinguishers in the bake lab and 40m lab.

• Helped Margot with cleaning and baking of optic containers

• I have received 546 magnet blanks for cleaning, from MCE. These will be cleaned and shipped back to MCE.

• Rand and I began running scans on oil samples using the Seagull Defused Reflectance Attachment. We will be doing calibrations and testing for the next couple of weeks for check-out and training purposes.

Configuration Control & Documentation:

• Nothing significant to report.

Design/Planning:

• Gas Damping (Matt) Performed a 3-D Monte Carlo simulation of the rarefied gas dynamics for the LIGO geometry of the gap between the test mass and the reaction mass/compensation plate to determine the gas damping force noise. Found that the simulation gives about a factor of 2 less force amplitude noise, and a factor of 6 less in the diffusion time scale, than the analytical formulation. The effect on sensed strain is also calculated. See T0900582-v2.

• Parametric Instability (Peter) Wrote a summarizing the situation with parametric instabilities (PI) in Advanced LIGO. Reviews modeling results, relevant measurements, and mitigation techniques. See T0900437-v1.

• Optical Layout (Mike S.) Mike completed a ZEMAX layout of the H2 and H1 optical lever beams for the PR3, SR3, and HAMs 2, 3, 8, and 9 optlevs. He is in the process of adding the ETM/Transmon to the H2 layout.

• ETM Trans Mon Suspension (Calum, Ken, Matt, Ignacio) Made good progress this week. x2 2D layouts have helped bridge the gap between parameter set and SolidWorks layout as have a series of e-mails related to suspension layout. Mark Barton has offered to run numbers through his Mathmatica model, which I hope we will take up.

• ERM and CP Gold patterns (face and barrel)  (Calum) Kurt has helped me prepare both face and barrel patterns, hopefully we can get this final approved and frozen, at least from the LIGO end in the coming days. From the vendor side we have acted on a number of questions raised in the last few days.

• Ergo arm and articulated arm (Calum) 1st refurbished ergo-arm will now be ready mid-December, following an agreed upgrade with sub-system groups and LASTI. LAST ergo arm will return to Caltech December 1st for COC. Further 2 new ergo-arms are due late January. The articulated arm is now in the shop and work has started on preparing if for use at LASTI, this work shoud be completed by th end of the year.

• Opto-Mechanics Meeting (Calum) We had a good discussion at the opto-mechanical meeting today. Actions included baffle from Luke to Ed. Kurt / Ed to look at dog clamps and struts in HAM2/8 with help from Mike Meyer.  Mike Meyer has asked for definition on holes for struts and "damping strut" group, see below, have agreed to supply this within 2 weeks.

• Damping Struts (Calum, Kurt) We held a damping strut meeting with Caltech, MIT and Stanford. Updates were given from the 3 groups. New results from Caltech, with damping now positioned at higher location on strut, should follow tomorrow.

• Systems drawings (Calum, Ed) Ed and I have been looking again at all of the mass properties for each chamber as well as working on getting the BSC seismic table replaced and creating specific configurations of the table for each chamber. We are also working on a designee list / interface document for all of the (in chamber) major items being prepared for advanced LIGO Created the Rev v3 in DCC for the following chambers: HAM 9, 10 & 11 for H2, implementing the following: Replaced files: PDF (5 pages), eDrawing (w/measure option)  and JPEG ; Added new Notes 1, 2 & 3 ; Added Related Documents: as per Excel BOM ; Updated Punch (snag) list.  Updated HAM2, 3, 4 & 5 for H1, BSC1, 2, 3, 9 & 10 for H1 by (a) replacing the Laser Beam file D0901920-v2 by D0901920-v4 that Dennis created (showing different beams with different colors) from the latest Zemax Coordinates. I updated the SW models in the vault, I also updated the respective eDrawing and JPEG files in the DCC.  Updating the HAM2 and HAM8 as I get the latest info from Luke.

• 3D printing (Calum, Craig) Working on a prototype ring heater using 3D printing or rapid prototype. This will be used in a quad mock up planned for Caltech as well as a test of the 3D printing. 

• Ring Heater (calum, Craig, Bob) Prepared the new ring heater parts, these will be tested at LASTI with the monolithic build.

• Sucker Plate (Calum) The updated sucker plate is almost ready for LASTI, it will head east with ergo-arm in December.

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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

AOS Support (Hiro)

• Using SIS, the final design of the baffle around the BS is underway using the latest cavity parameters. Mike Smith needs to know the requirement of the vertical motion of the baffle. This is included in this work.

Static IFO Simulation (Hiro)

• Development of an algorithm to simulate the focusing cavity much faster is underway.

• Assisted Matteo of APC to simulate avdVirgo optical system using SIS.

Time Domain Simulation (Hiro)

• Assisted Seiji's student Erina of NAOJ to use e2e to develop a new lock acquisition algorithm.

Safety

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

• Continue to assist the suspension team with input for the assembly and installation hazard analysis. Additional safety documentation such as a critical lift plan and job hazard analysis will be completed by the safety engineer to support activities.

Quality Assurance

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

• Design Reviews: Working on HSTS and BSC design docs for QA input. Behind schedule but should be caught up early next week.

• COC: Nearly completed COC-CSIRO Wiki site to manage optics processing, documents. Will be setting up similar sites for LMA and Tinsley contracts, Dwayne is setting up the shells.

• SEI: No update yet on the dimensional checks of the tooling and HAM ISI parts.

• ICS: Was able to get much better definitions of the 2 major bugs we are struggling with, and passed the info to the development team. We will expect a status report on Monday on the fixes, and when we can expect to test these. On Tuesday next week, based on this information, we will make a decision whether to continue using the system as is with cleanup, or whether we need to purge corrupted data and reload all bulk parts from scratch once we have fixes in place.

• Travel: Will be heading to CIT/SoCal Nov 30th for Large Blade dimensional inspections, as well as potentially a visit to optics polishing team to inspect some glass with possible handling damage, reported right now as minor, but waiting on a more detailed report, images.

Facilities Modifications and Preparations

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

• Working on the vacuum equipment modifications RFQ.

Seismic Isolation

From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

aLIGO Project Activities

SEI Activities and Progress at LHO:

LHO Assembly -- Eric ALlwine, Jim Warner, LHO VacPrep Staff, HRadkins

• HEP -- Last Housings are on the bench, could be done today.  Piping on track for before end-of-year pump tests.  Actuator QC in process, next delivery mid-Dec.

• HAM-IS I-- Receiving, cleaning prep of Hardware.

SEI Assembly Status at LLO:

• BSC/HAM stand assembly in progress.

• Received some more GS-13 pods base plates (Missing chambers, socket boards, flexures and some hardware to start GS-13 assembly).

• Cleaning and baking for GS-13 pods assembly to start soon.

• HAM large plates expected in the next 2 weeks  ~Celine

SEI Electronics Design and Fabrication

This past week has been almost solely dedicated to our office move.  A couple of small things that were accomplished are:

• Sam has stuffed 25 of the GS-13 Preamp Boards, and is testing them.

• We are still waiting for the GS-13 in-pod micro-D pigtails to arrive from Glenair.  They should be here any minute now.  Once they arrive, we are poised to make up a bunch of the in-pod cabling and electronics so they can start installing the GS-13s in their pods.

• I have ordered the front and back panels for four more of the T240-STS2 Interface chassis, so I can assemble the chassis and send them out for the low frequency BSC ISI testing to be done at LASTI. ~Ben

Single Stage HAM Procurement and Build:

• An early test of the spring pre-load tooling, the pre-load safety mechanism, the blade spring flexure rods and the new blade spring attachment for the BSC ISI has been added to the procurement planning for the BSC ISI. It will take priority over all other first article small machined parts. ~Stephany

• We received one of each machined part being made at Lavallee Machine. Vinny Tiernan from Measurement Solutions came to MIT on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week to inspect each of the parts using a portable coordinate measuring machine. There were six parts out of 60 that were not to print.

Two Stage BSC Design and Procurement:

• We had the FDR presentation on Friday 13th. It went well. We are now focusing on seismometer pods drawings which are first on the procurement list.   ~Fabrice

Suspensions

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

Operations Work:

HLTS Prototype:

• The computer rack for the large triple test stand has been moved into the banquet room ( see also report below under electronics).

• The tablecloth brackets and lower AOSEM brackets have been machined and cleaned so they will fit on the prototype structure. Retapping of some helicoil holes on the rest of the parts to be assembled is underway (wire clamp and wire jig parts).

• Parts from all 3 shops have needed to have helicoil holes retapped Prism placement fixture design and drawings are being worked on.

HSTS:

• The SUS team worked on answers to questions raised by the final design review committee.

• Mike Meyer visited Brian Lantz last week to look at the damping struts the Stanford group are investigating and talked to him about how they could be implemented on the HSTS.

Blades:

• Characterisation of latest batch of prototypes has begun. These include the highly curved thin blades proposed for use in the HSTS.

Project-Funded Activities

• More cleaning and baking going on of QUAD parts.

• Latest crate shipment from RAL inspected. Spare cross braces received did not have a good finish, RFQ out for rework of the finish on the LLO and LHO batches.

• Work continued on Systems request to find shedding adjustment points on the QUAD in-situ.

• Good progress on the AOSEM head RFQ. Things still on hold with these procurements until thermal testing done. 10 AOSEM first articles have made another round to the fab shop and are en route, again, to the coil winding house.

• Work continued on the OMC fastener order. 90% of the fasteners in hand at LHO, ready to ship to LLO, along with the OMC Blade Baking Fixture. However, there are a few species of fasteners which are very hard to get when following E010613. Fastener companies are confirming that one vendor is discontinuing their line of SST fastener socket products. Working with Systems to collect approved fastener distributors for LIGO for an E010613 update.

• Schedule progress update completed.

Electronics:

• The recycling mirror test stand is now operational and ready at LLO.

• Ron Cutler from the University of Birmingham has been visiting LLO this week with Jay and has been conducting the final tests on the triple acquisition coil driver. Tests of the triple acquisition coil driver are under way and it appears that it meets requirements. There is one minor component change, but the design should be ready to pass to the UK group for production by the end of the week.

Prestabilized Laser

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

Operations

• The temperature of the reference cavity was adjusted to bring its resonance and the analyser cavity resonance within range of the 10-W laser's actuators. Unfortunately the temperature stability of the lab over the time required to do the reference cavity length noise measurement is not good enough, so that the analyser cavity length changes. This is noticeable even though the analyser cavity is housed inside a vacuum chamber. Next step is to pump the vacuum chamber out.

aLIGO

• Nothing significant to report as I am on shifts this week.

Input Optics

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

Advanced LIGO Design

• We are working on modifications to the tip-tilt suspensions to allow them to hold 3 inch diameter, 1 inch thick mirrors (the SM and PMMC mirrors on HAMs 2/8). (Luke)

• We spent 3 days at LLO learning how to move the HAM Large and Small Triple Suspensions by small amounts for alignment during the installation of advLIGO. We could rotate the mirrors (about their center) by as small as ~100 microrad and translate them (rather parallel to a specific direction) by as little as 50 microns. (Luke, Giacomo, David F, David T, with help from Norna, Betsy, Janeen and the LLO staff)

Advanced LIGO Acquisiton.

• We have set in motion the steps to issue a contract for the coating of the AdvLIGO input mode cleaner mirrors and small steering mirrors. (Rodica, David, Dave)

Core Optics

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

Rand Dannenberg:

• CSIRO Weekly AdL coating call, management of many details. LMA Weekly AdL coating call, management of many details. Instruction to both CSIRO and LMA to continue coating design effort with present specifications.

• Initial DRIFTS FTIR contamination work showing a factor of 1000 times less sensitivity that JPL procedure we are trying to reproduce.

• Training and much note taking on the Nikon automated microscope, can now do defect counting on multiple automatically connected images. Needs some fixturing.

• Work on COC Optics AdL "flipping fixture" requirements document.

• Tomorrow (Friday) set up defect inspection for COC optics in 015A.

GariLynn Billingsley

• Tinsley has final F-PR3 data, these look quite good. They are gathering a final data package, which must be approved by us before they can ship. There is a question about an alternate inspection technique, Tinsley will forward sample data for us to judge the applicability.

• We are temporarily ferrying optic shipping containers between Tinsley and Coastline to allow work to continue in the absence of dedicated containers (our plan is 1 container per optic) In the interim we will set up temporary storage at Caltech for the finished optics, this storage is based on the method used at ASML to store optics while they are in process. The Tinsley/Coastline/ASML team is being very accommodating.

Auxiliary Optics

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

Work Under Project Budget

• OPTICAL LAYOUT: Mike completed a ZEMAX layout of the H2 and H1 optical lever beams for the PR3, SR3, and HAMs 2, 3, 8, and 9 optlevs. He is in the process of adding the ETM/Transmon to the H2 layout.

Work under Operations Budget

• SLC BAFFLES AND BEAM DUMPS MANIFOLD/CRYO BAFFLE: Heidy had taken over this design task.

• OUTPUT FARADAY ISOLATOR: Virginio and Niem obtained preliminary measurements of the transfer function with vibration testing of the Faraday isolator suspension prototype. A more sensitive accelerometer appears to be needed, and possible the software for converting the data to a transfer function needs to be modified. The test is ongoing.

• VIEWPORT: Mike's new layout of the PR3 and SR3 beams fit through the viewports of a common, proposed 12-viewport spool; however, using the uniform clocking of the viewports at 30 degree intervals forces the PR3 and SR3 optical lever beams to hit near the edges of the mirrors­. He is investigating a more optimum position for these viewports.

AOS TransMon Group ­ Sam Waldman, Matt Evans, Jay Heefner, Mike Smith and Ken Mailand

• This week Sam Waldman is continuing with the TransMon table optics layout. Mike Smith has sent 3 RFQ's; for the telescope primary and secondary optics and we have received one response so far.

• Ken Mailand has made a layout showing a D060403 envelope with an additional 20kg of mass added, this allows us to use most of the already designed Quad upper suspension components for the TransMon SUS. Mailand also looked at the suspension frame / BSC table ring clearances, and an installation method for the TransMon optics table and telescope assembly.

• Matt Evans has modeled the 40kg '403 approach and made a preliminary dynamic model which does not rule this approach out however, more defined parameters need to be worked out.

• Jay Heefner is waiting to see if the requirements are similar to either the OMC or the Quad suspension. If they are, we would not do any prototyping of the drivers or the sat amps, etc and we would be able to integrate the devices into the existing end station controls.

• Also, The UK supplied the Quad OMC systems, Norna Robertson has given the UK a heads-up that we might need a few more units if they can supply them, we need more definition on the requirements, so have not confirmed numbers with them yet.

Optical Lever ­ Tara Chalermsongsak, Eric Black and Riccardo DeSalvo

• We found that shaking flat cut fibers generates 10-15% noise on the laser output, presumably by changing the feedback to the, that power normalization helps to reduce this problem, the noise is reduced the laser spot is centered on the QPD and grows rapidly as soon as the spot is gets de-centered. At the sites the spot is re-centered weekly, and because the fibers are well strain relieved in a quiet environment, and because the signal is correctly renormalized.

• From now on we will use only angle cut fibers, angle cut launcher and angle cut connectors, as well as 30 to 50 m long fibers to strip cladding modes. Report in preparation.

• Craig Conley, Rick Savage: meeting to study the integration of the optical levers with the photon drive, ironed out several details. Craig, prepared sketches for mock-ups, sent them for pricing from ABC. As soon as built we will test mount in Caltech, then ship to Hanford and will organize a trip to check out the spacing needed in the LVEA and end station.

Photon Calibrator ­ Craig Conley and Rick Savage

• Rick Savage with Craig Conley and Riccardo DeSalvo last Friday and today (Wed.) at Caltech regarding the photon calibrator beam paths, relay optics, receiver tables, etc. Conceptual designs are proceeding. Craig and Riccardo will proceed with pier mockup fabrication in preparation for a fit test/evaluation at LHO on Tuesday, Dec. 8th.

Control and Data Systems

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

Project: AdvLIGO Systems

DAQ:

• Two prototypes of the IO chassis including the IO interface backplane and ADC/DAC interface boards were assembled and sent to LHO for testing. The timing slave received from Columbia was not putting out the correct clock frequency. The old prototype slave board was sent to Columbia for testing and Firmware update. Board programming was updated, it passed testing, was certified and sent back.

• Lance Fennel is in the process of developing the detailed design drawings and documentation needed for procurement of the AA chassis for needed for numerous systems in aLIGO.

• Rolf spent most of the week at LHO working with staff on documentation and planning for the aLIGO DAQ system and preparing for the upcoming review.

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For additional information about this report, contact Albert Lazzarini