Frequency of Stellar Collisions in Three-Body Heating

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Abstract
The probability for collisional interaction of three body binaries is calculated as a function of the physical radius and mass of the stellar objects and the depth of the cluster potential well. For typical cluster parameters, there is a significant chance of physical collision for objects as small as white dwarfs. One consequence of the collisions is to lower the amount of heat produced from hardening a binary, thereby diminishing the efficiency of the three-body heating mechanism.