There has been considerable progress in research into low-mass stars,
brown dwarfs and extrasolar planets in the years since the first edition
of this book was published in 2000. In this new edition the authors
present a comprehensive review of both the astrophysical nature of
individual red dwarf and brown dwarf stars and their collective
statistical properties as an important Galactic stellar population.
Chapters dealing with the observational properties of low-mass dwarfs,
the stellar mass function and extrasolar planets have been completely
revised. Other chapters have been updated, including important new
material on observational techniques, stellar activity, the Galactic
halo and field star surveys. The authors detail the many recent
discoveries of new brown dwarfs and extrasolar planets and provide a
state-of-the-art review of our current knowledge of very low-mass stars,
brown dwarfs and extrasolar planets, including both the latest
observational results and theoretical work.