As any introductory astronomy student knows, M dwarfs are the most common stars in the Galaxy and are the faintest of the core hydrogen burners. A comprehensive study of these faint objects is crucial to our understanding of the stellar composition of the Galaxy and necessary for a more complete knowledge of the transition between main sequence M stars and their slightly less massive counterparts, the brown dwarfs, which never achieve hydrogen burning in their cores. In this thesis, a spectroscopic catalog of 125 K and M dwarfs is first presented. This catalog covers the wavelength range from 6300 to 9000 Å, near where these objects emit most of their light. Eight of these spectra, covering classes M2 through M9, are combined with infrared spectra from 0.9 to 1.5 μm to create a second catalog. The two sets of spectra are used to search for temperature-sensitive atomic lines and molecular bands, which are then used in fitting the observed spectra to a sequence of theoretical models. As a result, a new temperature scale for M dwarfs is determined, and this scale is more accurate than previous determinations which have depended on blackbody energy distributions. The sequence of spectra is also used to compare the spectrum of the brown dwarf candidate GD 165 B to known M dwarfs. Furthermore, the spectral catalog is used in an attempt to separate the spectra of faint companions from their M dwarf primaries in systems where the two objects are too close for conventional spectroscopy to resolve the individual components. A survey for faint M dwarfs is also launched using the data acquired through the CCD/Transit Instrument (CTI) on Kitt Peak, Arizona. Follow-up spectroscopy is presented for 133 of these objects, and several more very late M dwarfs are identified. This spectroscopy combined with photometric data from the CTI are used to construct a luminosity function for M dwarfs which is in excellent agreement with determinations from previous surveys. Finally, possible avenues for future work are discussed. These include spectroscopic follow-up of the reddest of Luyten's proper motion objects--the first results from which have uncovered, in just twelve observations, two objects of type M7 and one of type M8, among the coolest objects yet recognized. Future searches, such as an all-sky survey for objects of extremely high proper motion, are also outlined.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1964. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 73-74).

Photometric data on the Kron-Cousins photometric system have been obtained for 118 new late K to middle M-type stars with known distances. These data have been used to obtain absolute red magnitudes, to construct a color-magnitude diagram, and to compute a polynomial function for disk dwarf stars in the color range 1.5 ≤ R-I < 2.0, which can be used to compute absolute red magnitudes to be used for photometric parallaxes. Such photometric parallaxes allow new stellar distance estimations that are essential when modeling the spatial distribution of stars in our Galaxy. This is especially important for M-type stars, as they make up more than half of the mass of the Milky Way. Intermediate-band CaH observations have also been obtained in an ongoing effort to distinguish stellar luminosity classes and populations; R-L and R-I colors are used to identify possible subdwarf stars. A total of seven possible new subdwarfs and three previously known subdwarfs have been identified with this method. / Department of Physics and Astronomy

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We carried out a near-infrared radial velocity search for Jupiter-mass planets around 36 late M dwarfs. This survey was the first of its kind undertaken to monitor radial velocity variability of these faint dwarfs. For this unique survey we employed the 10-m Keck II on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. With a resolution of 20,000 on the near-infrared spectrograph, NIRSPEC, we monitored these stars over four epochs in 2007. In addition to the measurement of relative radial velocity we established physical properties of these stars. The physical properties of M dwarfs we determined included the identification of neutral atomic lines, the measurement of pseudo-equivalent widths, masses, surface gravity, effective temperature, absolute radial velocities, rotational velocities and rotation periods. The identification of neutral atomic lines was carried out using the Vienna Atomic line Database. We were able to confirm these lines that were previously identified. We also found that some of the lines observed in the K-type stars, such as Mg I though weak, still persist in late M dwarfs. Using the measurement of pseudo-equivalent widths (p-EW) of 13 neutral atomic lines, we have established relations between p-EW and spectral type. Such relations serve as a tool in determining the spectral type of an unknown dwarf star by means of measuring its p-EW. We employed the mass-luminosity relation to compute the masses of M dwarfs. Our calculations indicate these dwarfs to be in the range of 0.1 to 0.07 solar masses. This suggests that some of the late M dwarfs appear to be in the Brown dwarf regime. Assuming their radii of 0.1 solar radii, we calculated their surface gravity. The mean surface gravity is, log g = 5.38. Finally their effective temperature was determined by using the spectral-type iii temperature relationship. Our calculations show effective temperatures in the range of 3000 2300 K. Comparison of these values with models in literature show a good agreement. The absolute radial and rotational velocities of our targets were also calculated. Values of rotational velocities indicate that M dwarfs are, in general, slow rotators. Using our result and that from literature, we extended our study of rotational velocities to L dwarfs. Our observations show an increase in rotational velocities from late M to L dwarfs. We also find that the mean periods of M dwarfs are less than 10 hours. In order to improve our precision in measuring relative radial velocity (RV), we employed the use of deconvolution method. With this method we were able to ameliorate relative RV precision from 300 m/s to 200 m/s. This was a substantial improvement in our ability to detect gas-giant planets. However none of the 15 dwarfs we monitored indicate a presence of companions. This null result was then used to compute the upper limit to the binary frequency and close-in Jupiter mass planetary frequency. We find the binary frequency to be 11% while the planetary frequency was 1.20%.