Initial-state geometry and fluctuations in Au plus Au, Cu plus Au, and U plus U collisions at energies available at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider

We study within the IP-Glasma and two-component MC-Glauber models the effects of initial-state geometry and fluctuations on multiplicities and eccentricities for several collision species at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). These include copper-gold (Cu + Au), gold-gold (Au + Au), and uranium-uranium (U + U) collisions. The multiplicity densities per participant pair are very similar in all systems studied. Ellipticities vary strongly between collision systems, most significantly for central collisions, while fluctuation driven odd moments vary little between systems. Event-by-event distributions of eccentricities in mid-central collisions are wider in Cu + Au relative to Au + Au and U + U systems. An anticorrelation between multiplicity and eccentricity is observed in ultracentral U + U collisions which is weaker in the IP-Glasma model than the two-component MC-Glauber model. In ultracentral Au + Au collisions the two models predict opposite signs for the slope of this correlation. Measurements of elliptic flow as a function of multiplicity in such central events can therefore be used to discriminate between models with qualitatively different particle production mechanisms.