High energy collisions of strongly deformed nuclei: An old idea with a new twist

Abstract

UU collisions can provide about 30% larger densities compared to central PbPb ones. New aspect is generation of rather deformed initial states. We show that those can be effectively used to resolve a number of outstanding issues, from corrections to hard processes, elliptic flow (the QGP push issue), and the mechanism of $J/\psi$ suppression. UU collisions are studied by a simple Monte-Carlo model, and it is shown how selecting two control parameters - the number of participant nuclei and deformation - one can select particular geometry of the collision.