The shape of a rapidly rotating polytrope with index unity

Abstract

We show that the solutions obtained in the paper `An exact solution for arbitrarily rotating gaseous polytropes with index unity' by Kong, Zhang, and Schubert represent only approximate solutions of the free-boundary Euler-Poisson system of equations describing uniformly rotating, self-gravitating polytropes with index unity. We discuss the quality of such solutions as approximations to the rigidly rotating equilibrium polytropic configurations.