Solar neighborhood. XXXII. L and M dwarfs

We find evidence for the local minimum in the radius-temperature and radius-luminosity trends that signals the end of the stellar main sequence and the start of the brown dwarf sequence at T_eff_~2075K, log(L/L_{sun}_)~-3.9, and (R/R_{sun}_)~0.086. The existence of this local minimum is predicted by evolutionary models, but at temperatures ~400K cooler. The minimum radius happens near the locus of 2MASS J0523-1403, an L2.5 dwarf with V-K=9.42.

We make qualitative arguments as to why the effects of the recent revision in solar abundances accounts for the discrepancy between our findings and the evolutionary models. We also report new color-absolute magnitude relations for optical and infrared colors which are useful for estimating photometric distances. We study the optical variability of all 63 targets and find an overall variability fraction of 36_-7_^+9^% at a threshold of 15mmag in the I band, which is in agreement with previous studies.