  We describe radial velocity observations of a large sample of apparently
single white dwarfs (WDs), obtained in a long-term effort to discover close,
double-degenerate (DD) pairs which might comprise viable Type Ia Supernova (SN
Ia) progenitors. We augment the WD sample with a previously observed sample of
apparently single subdwarf B (sdB) stars, which are believed to evolve directly
to the WD cooling sequence after the cessation of core helium burning. We have
identified 18 new radial velocity variables, including five confirmed sdB+WD
short-period pairs. Our observations are in general agreement with the
predictions of the theory of binary star evolution. We describe a numerical
method to evaluate the detection efficiency of the survey and estimate the
number of binary systems not detected due to the effects of varying orbital
inclination, orbital phase at the epoch of the first observation, and the
actual temporal sampling of each object in the sample. Follow-up observations
are in progress to solve for the orbital parameters of the candidate velocity
variables.
