Rapidity distributions of baryons from nucleus-nucleus, $p$-nucleus, and $p-p$ interactions at 11.6, 14.6, and 200 GeV/c per nucleon incident momenta are reviewed. Average rapidity losses relative to the beam rapidity are derived in a consistent way and the systematics are described and discussed. The baryon multiplicities in the midrapidity region relative to simple geometrical sum rules are determined and the systematics of the opacity of the collisions are described. The main conclusions are that the average rapidity losses in central nucleus-nucleus collisions scale with the projectile rapidity and that the opacity of central collisions depends strongly on the size of the collision system and weakly on incident momentum.

• Received 30 June 1995

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.52.2684