Angular Momentum and Energy Exchanged Between Nearly Colliding Stars

Abstract
Two non-viscous polytropic gas spheres of index 3 are imagined to suffer a near collision. The amount of vibrational energy and angular momentum transferred from the orbit to each star is calculated. The results indicate that: (1) the vibrational energy transferred is small compared with the gravitational binding energy of the spheres and (2), the angular momentum transferred is much smaller than typical values observed in stars of late spectral class.

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