  We propose a unified space-time picture of baryon stopping and quark-gluon
plasma creation in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. It is assumed that
the highly Lorentz contracted nuclei are decelerated by the coherent color
field which is formed between them after they pass through each other. This
process continues until the field is neutralized by the Schwinger mechanism.
Conservation of energy and momentum allow us to calculate the energy losses of
the nuclear slabs and the initial energy density of the quark-gluon plasma.
