Progress towards crab cavity solutions for the ILC

In order to achieve acceptable luminosity for ILC crossing angles greater than 2 mrad, RF deflection cavities must be used to rotate electron and position bunches leading up to the IP. A bunch that passes through a deflection cavity at a phase where the deflection averages to zero, receives a crab kick leading to a finite rotation at the IP. For a beam energy of 500 GeV and a crossing angle of 20 mrad the required crab kick is about 11.4 MV at 1.3 GHz and 3.8 MV at 3.9 GHz. Cavities are needed on both beams and are likely to be positioned about 12 m before the IP. Any RF phase error between the bunch and the cavity leads to a deflection of the bunch in addition to a rotation of the bunch. Any differential phase error between the cavities leads to differing deflections and consequential loss in luminosity. An updated analysis of system requirements and phase tolerances with respect to original calculations [1] is given. Issues on cavity and frequency choice are discussed