Exploiting Intrinsic Triangular Geometry in Relativistic 3He + Au Collisions to Disentangle Medium Properties

Recent results in d + Au and p + Pb collisions at RHIC and the LHC provide evidence for collective expansion and flow of the created medium. We propose a control set of experiments to directly compare particle emission patterns from p + Pb, d + Au, and He-3 + Au or t + Au collisions at the same root s(NN) . Using a Monte Carlo Glauber simulation we find that a He-3 or triton projectile, with a realistic wave function description, induces a significant intrinsic triangular shape to the initial medium. If the system lives long enough, this survives into a significant third-order flow moment v(3) even with viscous damping. By comparing systems with one, two, and three initial hot spots, one could disentangle the effects from the initial spatial distribution of the deposited energy and viscous damping. These are key tools for answering the question of how small a droplet of matter is necessary to form a quark-gluon plasma described by nearly inviscid hydrodynamics.