We present the first measurement of the proton–Ω correlation function in heavy-ion collisions for the central (0–40%) and peripheral (40–80%) Au + Au collisions at s NN =200 GeV by the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC). Predictions for the ratio of peripheral collisions to central collisions for the proton–Ω correlation function are sensitive to the presence of a nucleon–Ω bound state. These predictions are based on the proton–Ω interaction extracted from (2+1)-flavor lattice QCD calculations at the physica...