The Chemical Residue of a White Dwarf-Dominated Galactic Halo
Abstract
Halo initial mass functions (IMFs), heavily-biased toward white dwarf (WD) precursors (i.e. 1->8 Msun), have been suggested as a suitable mechanism for explaining microlensing statistics along the line of sight to the LMC. Such IMFs can apparently be invoked without violating the observed present-day WD luminosity function. By employing a simple chemical evolution argument, we demonstrate that reconciling the observed halo Population II dwarf abundances (i.e. [C,N/O]=-0.5), with that expected from the postulated ``WD-heavy'' IMF (i.e. [C,N/O]=+0.5), is difficult.
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