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The mass function of hydrogen-rich atmosphere white dwarfs has beenfrequently found to reveal a distinctive high-mass excess near 1Msun. However,a significant excess of massive white dwarfs has not been detected in the massfunction of the largest white dwarf catalogue to date from the Sloan DigitalSky Survey. Hence, whether a high-mass excess exists or not has remained anopen question. In this work we build the mass function of the latest catalogueof data release 10 SDSS hydrogen-rich white dwarfs, including the cool andfaint population (i.e. effective temperatures 6,000 <~ Teff <~ 12,000 K,equivalent to 12 mag <~ Mbol <~ 13 mag). We show that the high-mass excess isclearly present in our mass function, and that it disappears only if thehottest (brightest) white dwarfs (those with Teff >~ 12,000 K, Mbol <~ 12 mag)are considered. This naturally explains why previous SDSS mass functions failedat detecting a significant excess of high-mass white dwarfs. Thus, our resultsprovide additional and robust observational evidence for the existence of adistinctive high-mass excess near 1Msun. We investigate possible origins ofthis feature and argue that the most plausible scenario that may lead to anobserved excess of massive white dwarfs is the merger of the degenerate core ofa giant star with a main sequence or a white dwarf companion during or shortlyafter a common envelope event.

The mass function of hydrogen-rich white dwarfs: robust observational evidence for a distinctive high-mass excess near 1Msun