Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 April 2016
Test calculations have been made to study the effects of central hydrogen depletion, luminosity exchange and mass exchange on the evolution of a contact binary. The Munich Henyey programme was adapted to allow the study of both components in a time-dependent way.
The first model considered was that of LUCY (Ap. J. 151, 1126) in which entropy is assumed to be at all times uniform throughout the adiabatic portion of a common convective envelope. This model was found to be unstable, in the sense that mass flows from the primary to the secondary in a time short compared with the nuclear time-scale.