Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 April 2016
Hydrogen-poor and helium-rich stars are easy to produce in interacting binaries. Thus they should be found among Population I binaries, in which a large-scale mass transfer has occurred between the components (possibly associated with mass loss from the system). For in such cases, those layers are now on the surface of the “loser” (and, most likely, also on the surface of the “gainer”) that were subject to hydrogen burning and the associated mixing of processed material. Helium overabundance in these objects will be accompanied by an overabundance of nitrogen and underabundance of carbon, as a result of the CNO process. All the Algol-like semidetached binaries should be mild helium stars; so far this has been demonstrated only in β Lyrae, for the He/H ratio is not extreme in such cases. Extreme helium stars require a more complex process, with two stages of mass transfer and/or loss (“case BB”); υ Sagittarii and KS Persei seem to be good examples of this process. The optically invisible components of these two stars seem to have been detected with the IUE. Good model atmospheres do not exist yet, so caution must be exercised in interpreting the UV data.