Baryon Stopping in Heavy-Ion Collisions at E_{lab}= 2--160 GeV/nucleon

Understand

It is argued that the experimentally observed baryon stopping may indicate (within the present experimental uncertainties) a non-monotonous behaviour as a function of the incident energy of colliding nuclei.

• This can be quantified by a midrapidity reduced curvature of the net-proton rapidity spectrum.
• The above non-monotonous behaviour reveals itself as a "zig-zag" irregularity in the excitation function of this curvature.
• The three-fluid dynamic calculations with a hadronic equation of state (EoS) fail to reproduce this irregularity.