Collision geometry and flow in uranium + uranium collisions

Abstract

Using event-by-event viscous fluid dynamics to evolve fluctuating initial density profiles from the Monte Carlo--Glauber model for U+U collisions, we study the predicted ``knee''-like structure in the elliptic flow as a function of collision centrality. The knee arises in the two-component Monte Carlo--Glauber model when the initial source ellipticity is plotted as a function of centrality. It results from the preferential selection of tip-on-tip collision geometries by a high-multiplicity trigger. We find that the knee survives hydrodynamic evolution, and that it is located around the 0.5% most central collisions as measured by the final charged multiplicity. Such a knee structure is not seen in the STAR data. This rules out the two-component MC-Glauber model for initial energy and entropy production. Hence an enrichment of tip-tip configurations by triggering solely on high-multiplicity in the U+U collisions does not work. On the other hand, by using zero degree calorimeters (ZDCs) coupled with event-shape engineering such a selection is possible. We identify the selection purity of body-body and tip-tip events in full-overlap U+U collisions. By additionally constraining the asymmetry of the ZDC signals we can further increase the probability of selecting tip-tip events in U+U collisions.