A Reexamination of the Post-Newtonian Maclaurin Spheroids

The post-Newtonian corrections to Maclaurin are calculated in such a way that the Newtonian and relativistic configurations being compaied have the same energy density, rest mass, and angular momentum. The singularity found by Chandrasekhar is interpreted as a splitting of the Maclaurin sequence into a spherelike sequence and a disklike to ringlike sequence. The post-Newtonian corrections are calculated to several quantities of physical interest, including the binding energy.