Title:  Making Blue Stragglers and Type Ia Supernovae in Star Clusters


Mike Shara
American Museum of Natural History & Columbia University


Abstract:
 
Highly realistic numerical simulations of the evolution 
of the oldest objects in the universe - globular star clusters - have 
become feasible in the past two years, with observations and theory
now able to directly confront each other. HST observations easily resolve 
stars into the cores of globular clusters, while specialized Teraflop
computers enable computations that were a fantasy as recently as 1999.

I'll describe the HST observations of globular cluster Blue Stragglers,
and compare these with the detailed dynamical and stellar evolution of 
30,000 and 100,000 star clusters over much of the history 
of the universe. The powerful feedback between single and 
binary star evolution and stellar dynamics naturally produces
rich populations of collided and merged stars ("theoretical blue stragglers") 
and predicts enhanced SNIa production by orders of magnitude. 

Finally, I'll touch on the awful fates of planets in dense star
clusters.