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J. R. Hurley (AMNH)
The rich environment of a star cluster provides an ideal laboratory for the study of self-gravitating systems. It also provides important tests for stellar evolution theory and the formation of exotic stars and binaries. The recent availability of the GRAPE-6 special purpose hardware for the N-body problem, with its 1 Tflops performance, has finally given us the capability of producing a direct model of a globular cluster, albeit a small one. I will outline a state-of-the-art N-body code that includes a comprehensive treatment of stellar and binary evolution, modelled in-step with the dynamics. Recent results pertaining to the modification of stellar populations by dynamical interactions, blue stragglers and short-period double-white-dwarf binaries being two examples, will be presented. The behaviour of planetary systems in the star cluster environment will also be discussed.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 34, #3
© 2002. The American Astronomical Society.