Update on RF system studies and VCX fast tuner work for the RIA driver linac

The limited cavity beam loading conditions anticipated for the Rare Isotope Accelerator (RIA) create a situation where microphonic-induced cavity detuning dominates radio frequency (RF) coupling and RF system architecture choices in the linac design process. Where most superconducting electron and proton linacs have beam-loaded bandwidths that are comparable to or greater than typical microphonic detuning bandwidths on the cavities, the beam-loaded bandwidths for many heavy-ion species in the RIA driver linac can be as much as a factor of 10 less than the projected 80-150 Hz microphonic control window for the RF structures along the driver, making RF control problematic. While simply overcoupling the coupler to the cavity can mitigate this problem to some degree, system studies indicate that for the low-β driver linac alone, this approach may cost 50% or more than an RF system employing a voltage controlled reactance (VCX) fast tuner. An update of these system cost studies, along with the status of the VCX work being done at Lawrence Livermore National Lab is presented here.