NeutronStar Dynamics and Radio Pulsars in Globular Clusters

Over 200millisecond radio pulsars have been observed in globular clusters, motivatingtheoretical studies of the formation and evolution of thesesources through stellar evolution coupled to stellar dynamics. Thespecific abundance of millisecond pulsars is an order of magnitude larger inclusters than in the Galactic field. How do so many pulsars form? In thistalk, I will first demonstrate how we model millisecond pulsars in globularclusters using realistic cluster simulations. I will show the importanceof electron-capture supernovae for neutron star retention, and how millisecondpulsar formation is greatly enhanced through dynamical interactionprocesses. In particular, I will present our latest N-body model for thecluster 47 Tucanae, where we demonstrate good agreement with observations,including a large number of detected radio pulsars; 47 Tuc is one of the mostmassive and densest globular clusters, making it especially challenging tomodel with detailed N-body simulations. Our cluster models also demonstrate thepossibility of dynamically forming binary neutron stars and neutron star -black hole binaries in clusters. I will end the talk by showing how we can usea large set of models that are representative of the present-day Milky Wayglobular clusters to quantify the merger rates of compact binary mergers.