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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 May 2016
Globular clusters form ideal laboratories for studying the interactions between stellar evolution and stellar dynamics. In the past, highly exceptional systems such as X-ray binaries and later millisecond pulsars have provided us with useful diagnostic tools. However, the fate of the bulk of the more normal stars has remained less clear. At present, rapid progress is being made in our understanding of the distributions of normal stars and primordial binaries, as well as their most abundant reaction products: blue stragglers and binaries that are produced through exchange encounters with other single stars or binaries. The complexity of the network of exchange reactions is illustrated through some specific examples, such as a formation scenario for the hierarchical triple system containing the millisecond pulsar PSR B1620-26 in M4, the first triple star system ever detected in a globular cluster.