Evolutionary models for low-mass stars and brown dwarfs: Uncertainties and limits at very young ages

We analyse pre-Main Sequence evolutionary tracks for low mass stars with masses m less than or equal to 1.4 M. based on the Baraffe et al. (1998) input physics. We also extend the recent Chabrier et al. (2000) evolutionary models based on dusty atmosphere to young brown dwarfs down to one mass of Jupiter. We analyse current theoretical uncertainties due to molecular line lists, convection and initial conditions. Simple tests on initial conditions show the high uncertainties of models at ages less than or similar to1 Myr. We find a significant sensitivity of atmosphere profiles to the treatment of convection at low gravity and T-eff < 4000 K, whereas it vanishes as gravity increases. This effect adds another source of uncertainty on evolutionary tracks at very early phases. We show that at low surface gravity (log g less than or similar to 3.5) the common picture of vertical Hayashi lines with constant T-eff is oversimplified. The effect of a variation of initial deuterium abundance is studied. We compare our models with evolutionary tracks available in the literature and discuss the main differences. We finally analyse to what extent current observations of young systems provide a good test for pre-Main Sequence tracks.