Abstract: The lifetimes of globular clusters (GCs) are strongly influenced by the populations of stellar-mass black holes (BHs) which they host, and understanding them is key to reconstructing the evolution and initial conditions of these systems.
Recently we have combined extremely fast models of the co-evolution of GCs and their BH subsystems with multimass equilibrium models. These coupled models allow us to hierarchically place constraints on the initial conditions of real GCs, based solely on observations of their present-day structure and kinematics. Fitting these models to a large sample of well-observed Milky Way GCs, we are able to not only infer their initial conditions, but also demonstrate how some commonly assumed prescriptions for highly uncertain quantities and physics, such as the strength of BH supernovae natal kicks, may imply unrealistic initial cluster densities.
In this talk I will describe our new models and the extensive validation we have done on them, before presenting the results and implications of their application to real clusters.