Related papers: The Formation and Early Evolution of Low-mass Star…
In this last decade, our knowledge of evolutionary and structural properties of stars of different mass and chemical composition is significantly improved. This result has been achieved as a consequence of our improved capability in…
After decades of brown dwarf discovery and follow-up, we can now infer the functional form of the mass distribution within 20 parsecs, which serves as a constraint on star formation theory at the lowest masses. Unlike objects on the main…
Brown dwarfs, which occupy a fuzzy gap in mass between stars and planets, appear to be common both in the solar neighborhood and in star-forming regions. Their origin is a topic of significant current interest and debate. Some astronomers…
The formation and evolution of brown dwarfs are currently "hot topics" in cool star research. Latest observations and modeling efforts on disks, accretion, outflows, spatial distribution, and binarity in the context of the formation by…
The process that leads to the formation and early evolution of low-mass stars is in a broad sense well understood theoretically and carefully traced observationally. The largest uncertainties in this framework reside in the poorly known…
We present a review of the most recent improvements in the theory of low-mass star-like objects, in the stellar and sub-stellar domains. Comparison is made with various recent observations.
Brown dwarfs and very low mass stars are a significant fraction of stars in our galaxy, and they are interesting laboratories to investigate planet formation in extreme conditions of low temperature and densities. In addition, the dust…
The pre-main-sequence evolution of low-mass stars and brown dwarfs is studied numerically starting from the formation of a protostellar/proto-brown dwarf seed and taking into account the mass accretion onto the central object during the…
We summarise recent progress in the understanding of the rotational evolution of low-mass stars (here defined as solar mass down to the hydrogen burning limit) both in terms of observations and modelling. Wide-field imaging surveys on…
Recent observations of nearby star forming regions have offered evidence that young brown dwarfs undergo a period of mass accretion analogous to the T Tauri phase observed in young stars. Brown dwarf analogs to stellar protostars, however,…
One of the characteristic features of low-mass stars is their propensity to shed large amounts of angular momentum throughout their evolution. This distinguishs them from brown dwarfs which remain fast rotators over timescales of gigayears.…
High precision photometry and spectroscopy of low-mass stars reveal a variety of properties standard stellar evolution cannot predict. Rotation, an essential ingredient of stellar evolution, is a step towards resolving the discrepancy…
The formation of objects below or close to the hydrogen burning limit is currently vividly discussed and is one of the main open issues in the field of the origins of stars and planets. Applying various observational techniques, we explored…
The properties of multiple stellar systems have long provided important empirical constraints for star formation theories, enabling (along with several other lines of evidence) a concrete, qualitative picture of the birth and early…
Galaxies cover a wide range of masses and star formation histories. In this review, I summarize some of the evolutionary key features of common galaxy types. At the high-mass end, very rapid, efficient early star formation is observed,…
Theory and simulations suggest that it is possible to form low-mass hydrogen-burning stars, brown dwarfs and planetary-mass objects via disc fragmentation. As disc fragmentation results in the formation of several bodies at comparable…
High precision photometry and spectroscopy of low-mass stars reveal a variety of properties standard stellar evolution cannot predict. Rotation, an essential ingredient of stellar evolution, is a step towards resolving the discrepancy…
We use $N$-body simulations to compare the evolution of spatial distributions of stars and brown dwarfs in young star-forming regions. We use three different diagnostics; the ratio of stars to brown dwarfs as a function of distance from the…
The observational properties of brown dwarfs pose challenges to the theory of star formation. Because their mass is much smaller than the typical Jeans mass of interstellar clouds, brown dwarfs are most likely formed through secondary…
Previous work concerning planet formation around low-mass stars has often been limited to large planets and individual systems. As current surveys routinely detect planets down to terrestrial size in these systems, a more holistic approach…