17th Cambridge Workshop on Cool Stars, Stellar Systems and the Sun

Type: Invited

Topic: Formation and Evolution of Cool Stars and Brown Dwarfs

Abstract
Low-mass stars present their own set of unique challenges with respect to generating realistic models of their structure and evolution. Great progress has been made toward understanding the physics of low-mass stars at microscopic scales; important macroscopic effects remain poorly understood despite substantial evidence that we do so at our peril. I will review the current state of the art in low mass stellar evolution models and the important ingredients that comprise them. I will provide an introduction to the open source stellar astrophysics package MESA and highlight its capabilities in the low-mass regime.