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. At the same time, the same calculations with an EoS involving a first-order phase transition into the quark-gluon phase do reproduce this zig-zag behaviour, however only qualitatively.
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