A self-consistent treatment of the mechanical structure of contact binaries

A self-consistent treatment of the mechanical structure of contact binaries is achieved within the framework of two assumptions: (1) The system is in uniform rotation. (2) The components are spherical stars. The method is shown to be determined uniquely by these assumptions. It is also shown to be virtually equivalent to non-spherical techniques. Centrifugal forces are allowed for by introducing effective gravities and potentials for the two components. They are given as simple analytical expressions.