On the age, spectral type, orbit, and comparison to evolutionary models of AB Dor C

We expand upon the results of Close et al. 2005 regarding the young, low-mass object AB Dor C and its role as a calibration point for theoretical tracks. We argue for a new 70±30 Myr age estimate and present two additional detections of C with the Simultaneous Differential Imaging (SDI) camera. Our improved analysis (Nielsen et al. 2005) confirms our spectral type of M8 (±1) and mass of 0.090 ±0.003 M_sun for AB Dor C. However, Luhman & Potter (2006) argue for a hotter spectral type (M6±1). Here we adopt the consistent spectral range of M7±1 in this paper as a final spectral type. Plotting AB Dor C (and all other young (<0.12 Myr), low-mass (0.3-0.05M_sun) objects with accurate dynamical masses) on the HR diagram suggests a trend where current evolutionary models tend to over-predict the temperature (or under-predict the mass) for young low-mass stars and high-mass brown dwarfs. With our uncertainties, there is a ∼90% chance that the mass of AB Dor C is underestimated by the DUSTY tracks in the HR diagram.