The growing number of black hole binary (BHB) mergers detected by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory have the potential to enable an unprecedented characterisation of the physical processes and astrophysical conditions that govern the formation of compact binaries. In this paper, we focus on investigating the dynamical formation of BHBs in dense star clusters through a state-of-the-art set of 58 direct N-body simulations with N $\leqslant200\,000$ particles which include stellar evolution, gravitational braking, orbital decay through gravitational radiation, and galactic tidal interactions. The simulations encompass a range of initial conditions representing typical young globular clusters, including the presence of primordial binaries. The systems are simulated for $\sim 12$ Gyr. The dataset yields 117 BHB gravitational wave (GW) events, with 97 binaries merging within their host cluster and 20 merging after having been ejected. Only 8% of all ejected BHBs merge within the age of the Universe. Systems in this merging subset tend to have smaller separations and larger eccentricities, as this combination of parameters results in greater emission of gravitational radiation. We confirm known trends from Monte Carlo simulations, such as the anti-correlation between the mass of the binary and age of the cluster. In addition, we highlight for the first time a difference at low values of the mass ratio distribution between in-cluster and ejected mergers. However, the results depend on assumptions on the strength of GW recoils, thus in-cluster mergers cannot be ruled out at a significant level of confidence. A more substantial catalogue of BHB mergers and a more extensive library of N-body simulations are needed to constrain the origin of the observed events.

Over the last decade, much of the key questions in Galactic Archaeology have been asnwered by studying the Milky Way’s globular cluster (GC) system. Following on this, it has been shown that a substantial fraction of the Milky Way’s stellar halo field arises from GC dissolution. In this work, we make use of the latest data release fromn the APOGEE survey to study GC dissolution ratios in different spatial regions of the Galaxy. Our results will allow us to constrain many astrophysical questions, such as: the origin of N-Rich stars, the mass contribution from GCs to the stellar halo of the Galaxy, the origin of the Galactic GC system and the mass assembly of the Milky Way.

A spectroscopic study comparing the [Na/Fe] distributions of RGB and AGB stars in the Galactic globular cluster (GC) NGC 6752 found that there was no Na-rich, 2nd-generation star along the early-AGB of this cluster. This came as a surprise since in this GC, as well as other Galactic GCs studied so far, 1st- and 2nd-generation stars have usually been found from the main sequence turnoff up to the red giant branch. To investigate whether the failure of a significant fraction of stars to ascend the AGB also happens to other GCs, we studied a sample of AGB and RGB stars in NGC 2808 observed at the ESO/VLT with FLAMES. Contrary to NGC 6752, we find that the AGB and RGB stars we studied in NGC 2808 have comparable [Na/Fe] dispersions.

Using anisotropic Fokker-Planck models, we calculate the evolution of mass and luminosity functions of the Galactic globular cluster system. Our models include two-body relaxation, binary heating, tidal shocks, dynamical friction, and stellar evolution. We perform Fokker-Planck simulations for a large number of virtual globular clusters and synthesize these results to study the relation between the initial and present GCMFs.