Transverse momentum spectra and rapidity densities, dN/dy, of protons, anti-protons, and netprotons (p −p) from central (0-5%) Au+Au collisions at √ sNN = 200 GeV were measured with the BRAHMS experiment within the rapidity range 0 ≤ y ≤ 3. The proton and anti-proton dN/dy decrease from mid-rapidity to y = 3. The net-proton yield is roughly constant for y < 1 at dN/dy ∼ 7, and increases to dN/dy ∼ 12 at y ∼ 3. The data show that collisions at this energy exhibit a high degree of transparency and that the linear scaling of rapidity loss with rapidity observed at lower energies is broken. The energy loss per participant nucleon is estimated to be 73 ± 6 GeV. PACS numbers: 25.75 Dw.The energy loss of colliding nuclei is a fundamental quantity determining the energy available for particle production (excitation) in heavy ion collisions. This deposited energy is essential for the possible formation of a deconfined quark-gluon phase of matter (QGP). Because baryon number is conserved, and rapidity distributions are only slightly affected by rescattering in late stages of the collision, the measured net-baryon (B −B) distribution retains information about the energy loss and allows the degree of nuclear stopping to be determined. Such measurements can also distinguish between different proposed phenomenological mechanisms of initial coherent multiple interactions and baryon transport [1,2,3] .The average rapidity loss, δy = y p − y [23], is used to quantify stopping in heavy ion collisions [4,5]. Here, y p is rapidity of the incoming projectile and y is the mean net-baryon rapidity after the collision :where N part is the number of participating nucleons in the collision. The two extremes correspond to full stopping, where initial baryons lose all kinetic energy ( δy = y p ) and full transparency, where they lose no kinetic energy ( δy = 0). For fixed collision geometry (system size and centrality) at lower energy (SIS, AGS, and SPS) it was observed that δy is proportional to the projectile rapidity. For central collisions between heavy nuclei (Pb, Au), δy ∼ 0.58 · y p [5,6,7].Bjorken assumed that sufficiently high energy collisions are "transparent", thus the mid-rapidity region is approximately net-baryon free [8]. The energy density early in the collision, ǫ, can then be related in a simple way to the final particle production. At RHIC it has been estimated that ǫ ∼ 5 GeV/fm 3 , well above the lattice QCD prediction (ǫ crit ∼ 1GeV/fm 3 [9]) for the hadron gas to QGP phase transition.In this letter, results on proton and anti-proton production, and baryon stopping in Au + Au collisions at √ s N N = 200 GeV are presented. The data