On internal inconsistencies in the discontinuity model for contact binary stars
Abstract
In an attempt to devise a thermal-equilibrium model for low-mass contact binary stars, Shu, Lubow, and Anderson (1976, 1979) have found a temperature discontinuity to be a necessary feature of the envelope of the secondary component. In the present paper, an analysis of this model reveals certain internal errors and inconsistences in the order-of-magnitude calculations, the removal of any or all of which would result in a model that violates requirements which Shu et al. themselves state to be necessary for an acceptable model.
- Publication:
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- January 1980
- DOI:
- 10.1093/mnras/190.2.177
- Bibcode:
- 1980MNRAS.190..177S
- Keywords:
-
- Astrophysics;
- Binary Stars;
- Stellar Models;
- Baroclinity;
- Discontinuity;
- Temperature Inversions;
- Astrophysics