The promiscuous nature of stars in clusters

The recent availability of special-purpose computers designed for calculating gravitational interactions of N bodies at extremely high speed has provided the means to model globular clusters on a star-by-star basis for the first time. By endeavoring to make the N-body codes that operate on these machines as realistic as possible, the addition of stellar evolution being one example, we are learning much about the interaction between the star cluster itself and the stars it contains. A fascinating aspect of this research is the ability to follow the orbits of individual stars in detail and to document the formation of observed exotic systems. This has revealed that many stars within a star cluster lead wildly promiscuous lives, interacting often intimately and in rapid succession with a variety of neighbors.