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When two stars come together to form a close binary system, the gravitational
fields of the two stars become distorted, as depicted in the image below.
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By plotting a contour map of the above image, we obtain the
Roche gravitational equipotentials.
The surfaces close to the centre of each
star are spherical. Surfaces further and further from the stellar
centres become more and more distorted until we reach the critical
surface, which defines two cusped volumes, known as the Roche
lobes. These are indicated in the image below by the figure-of-eight
contour.
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In three dimensions, the figure-of-eight potential defines a possible surface
for the stellar components, as illustrated below.
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