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E.I. Gates (U. Chicago/ Adler Planetarium), G. Gyuk (UCSD)
We suggest a new component of the Milky Way galaxy that can account for both the optical depth and the event durations obtained by the MACHO microlensing survey toward the LMC. This component is consistent with recent evidence for a significant population of faint white dwarf stars detected in a proper motion study of the Hubble Deep field. This new component, the extended protodisk, consists of (mostly) old white dwarf stars whose distribution extends beyond the traditional thin and thick disks but well within the dark CDM halo. The total mass in this component is ~7-9 \times 1010 M\odot.