We have studied the number of cataclysmic variables (CVs) that should be active in globular clusters during the present epoch as a result of binary formation via two-body tidal capture. In particular, we predict the orbital period and luminosity distributions of CVs in globular clusters. The results are based on Monte Carlo simulations combined with evolution calculations appropriate to each system formed during the lifetime of two specific globular clusters, omega Cen and 47 Tuc. From our study of these two clusters, which represent the range of core densities and states of mass segregation that are likely to be interesting, we extrapolate our results to the Galactic globular cluster system. Although there is at present little direct observational evidence of CVs in globular clusters, we find that there should be a large number of active systems. In particular, we predict that there should be more than approximately 100 CVs in both 47 Tuc and omega Cen (under a set of reasonable assumptions about the population of white dwarfs in each of these clusters), and several thousand in the Galactic globular cluster system. These numbers are based on two-body processes alone and so represent a lower bound on the number of systems that may have been formed as a result of stellar interactions within globular clusters. The relation between these calculations and the paucity of optically detected CVs in globular clusters is discussed. Moreover, some of these predictions should be testable in future optical and UV studies with the Hubble Space Telescope, and X-ray studies with the present and future generations of X-ray detectors. Should future observations fail to find convincing evidence of a substantial population of cluster CVs, then the two-body tidal capture scenario is likely to be seriously constrained. Of the CVs we expect in 47 Tuc and omega Cen, approximately 45 and 20, respectively, should have accretion luminosities above 10(33) ergs s-1. However, if one utilizes a relation for converting accretion luminosity to hard X-ray luminosity that is based on observations of Galactic plane CVs, then even these sources will not exhibit X-ray luminosities above 10(33) ergs s-1. Thus, while we cannot account directly for the most luminous subset of the low-luminosity globular cluster X-ray sources (10(33)-10(34.5) ergs s-1) without assuming an evolutionary pattern that is different from that of the majority of CVs in the disk, we are able to account for all of the observed lower luminosity subset of these sources (10(31.5)-10(33) ergs s-1), many of which have been recently discovered through ROSAT observations. Furthermore, we find that in order for our predicted integrated cluster X-ray luminosities to be consistent with observational upper limits, the relation between accretion and X-ray luminosities should indeed be something like that inferred from the Galactic plane population of CVs. In total, our calculations predict a large number of systems with L(acc) < 10(32) ergs s-1. These systems should be detectable in future optical and X-ray observations. Although our calculations imply that globular clusters should have an enhancement of CVs relative to the number thought to be present in the Galactic disk (per unit mass), this enhancement is at most roughly an order of magnitude, not comparable to the factor of approximately 100 for low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs). This difference between the relative enhancement of CVs and LMXBs is related to the fact that it is more difficult to form LMXBs from primordial binaries, the preferred formation channel in the disk, rather than to a decreased efficiency for forming CVs in globular clusters.
