Limits on the Halo White Dwarf Component of Baryonic Dark Matter from the Hubble Deep Field

Abstract

The MACHO collaboration lensing event statistics suggest that a significant fraction of the dark Galactic halo can be comprised of baryonic matter in the form of white dwarf stars with masses between 0.1 and 1.0 M☉. Such a halo white dwarf population, in order to have escaped detection by those who observe the white dwarf luminosity function of the disk, must have formed from an old population. The observations indicate that the number of halo white dwarfs per cubic parsec per unit bolometric magnitude is less than 10-5 at 10-4.5 L☉; the number must rise significantly at lower luminosities to provide the needed baryonic halo mass. Such white dwarfs may easily escape detection in most current and earlier surveys. Though it is limited in angular extent, the Hubble Deep Field (HDF) probes a sufficient volume of the Galactic halo to provide interesting limits on the number of halo white dwarf stars and on the fraction of the halo mass that they can make up. If the HDF field can be probed for stars down to V = 29.8 then the MACHO result suggests that there could be up to 12 faint halo white dwarfs visible in the HDF. Finding (or not finding) these stars in turn places interesting constraints on star formation immediately following the formation of the galaxy.