A SPHERICAL TREATMENT OF SLIGHTLY DISTORTED ROTATING STARS

A simple and self-consistent spherical treatment of stars in different ial rotation is presented. It is adequate when the fractional importan ce of the centrifugal forces is small, and exact in the limit of slow rotation. The differential equation for radial oscillations is derived . As applications, Ledoux's formula for the fundamental frequency of r adial oscillations and results of Chandrasekhar and Lebovitz (concerni ng the rotational perturbation in the frequencies) are extended to the general case, and a rigorous spherical discussion of slowly rotating polytropes is carried through.