  We investigate whether the recently-observed population of high-velocity
white dwarfs can be derived from a population of binaries residing initially
within the thin disk of the Galaxy. In particular we consider binaries where
the primary is sufficiently massive to explode as a type II supernova. A large
fraction of such binaries are broken up when the primary then explodes as a
supernova owing to the combined effects of the mass loss from the primary and
the kick received by the neutron star on its formation. For binaries where the
primary evolves to fill its Roche lobe, mass transfer from the primary leads to
the onset of a common envelope phase during which the secondary and the core of
the primary spiral together as the envelope is ejected. Such binaries are the
progenitors of X-ray binaries if they are not broken up when the primary
explodes. For those systems which are broken up, a large number of the
secondaries receive kick velocities ~100 - 200 km/s and subsequently evolve
into white dwarfs. We compute trajectories within the Galactic potential for
this population of stars and relate the birthrate of these stars over the
entire Galaxy to those seen locally with high velocities relative to the LSR.
We show that for a reasonable set of assumptions concerning the Galactic
supernova rate and the binary population, our model produces a local number
density of high-velocity white dwarfs compatible with that inferred from
observations. We therefore propose that a population of white dwarfs
originating in the thin disk may make a significant contribution to the
observed population of high-velocity white dwarfs.
