High energy collisions of strongly deformed nuclei: An old idea with a newtwist - art. no. 034905

Collisions of deformed nuclei such as U may provide 40% more hard processes and about 30% larger energy densities, compared to central PbPb collisions . They also produce excited systems which are strongly deformed in the tran sverse plane, which are much larger than possible in peripheral PbPb collis ions. We discuss how, even without a polarized target, one can study these phenomena by selecting particular events. Collisions are studied by a simpl e Monte Carlo model, and it is shown what can be achieved by making cuts in two control parameters-the number of participants and ellipticity. We also discuss how UU collisions may resolve a number of outstanding issues, from corrections to hard processes to elliptic flow (the existence of a quark-g luon plasma), to the mechanism of J/psi suppression.