INTERNAL DYNAMICS OF GLOBULAR-CLUSTERS

Galactic globular clusters, which are ancient building blocks of our G alaxy, represent a very interesting family of stellar systems in which some fundamental dynamical processes have taken place on time scales shorter than the age of the universe. In contrast with galaxies, these clusters represent unique laboratories for learning about two-body re laxation, mass segregation from equipartition of energy, stellar colli sions, stellar mergers, and core collapse. In the present review, we s ummarize the tremendous developments, as much theoretical as observati onal, that have taken place during the last two decades, and which hav e led to a quantum jump in our understanding of these beautiful dynami cal systems.