  This paper describes a design for the front end of a superconducting (SC) ion
linac which can accept and simultaneously accelerate two charge states of
uranium from an ECR ion source. This mode of operation increases the beam
current available for the heaviest ions by a factor of two. We discuss the 12
MeV/u prestripper section of the Rare Isotope Accelerator (RIA) driver linac
including the LEBT, RFQ, MEBT and SC sections, with a total voltage of 112 MV.
The LEBT consists of two bunchers and electrostatic quadrupoles. The
fundamental frequency of both bunchers is half of the RFQ frequency. The first
buncher is a multiharmonic buncher, designed to accept more than 80% of each
charge state and to form bunches of extremely low longitudinal emittance (rms
emittance is lower than 0.2 keV/u nsec) at the output of the RFQ. The second
buncher is located directly in front of the RFQ and matches the velocity of
each charge-state bunch to the design input velocity of the RFQ. We present
full 3D simulations of a two-charge-state uranium beam including space charge
forces in the LEBT and RFQ, realistic distributions of all electric and
magnetic fields along the whole prestripper linac, and the effects of errors,
evaluated for several design options for the prestripper linac. The results
indicate that it is possible to accelerate two charge states while keeping
emittance growth within tolerable limits.
