Uranium on uranium collisions at relativistic energies - art. no. 021903

Deformation and orientation effects on compression, elliptic flow, and part icle production in uranium on uranium collisions (UU) at relativistic energ ies are studied within the transport model ART. The density compression in tip-tip UU collisions is found to be about 30% higher and lasts approximate ly 50% longer than in body-body or spherical UU reactions. The body-body UU collisions have the unique feature that the nucleon elliptic flow is the h ighest in the most central collisions and remains a constant throughout the reaction. We point out that the tip-tip UU collisions are more probable to create the quark gluon plasma (QGP) at Alternating Gradient Synchrotron an d Super Proton Synchrotron energies, while the body-body UU collisions are more useful for studying properties of the QGP at higher energies.