Missing metals in DQ stars: a compelling clue to their origin

White dwarf stars frequently experience external pollution by heavy elements, and yet the intrinsically carbon-enriched DQ spectral class members fail to exhibit this phenomenon, representing a decades-old conundrum. This study reports a high-resolution spectroscopic search for Ca ii in classical DQ white dwarfs, finding that these stars are stunted both in pollution frequency and heavy element mass fractions, relative to the wider population. Compared to other white dwarf spectral classes, the average external accretion rate is found to be at least three orders of magnitude lower in the DQ stars. Several hypotheses are considered which need to simultaneously account for (i) an apparent lack of accreted metals, (ii) a dearth of circumstellar planetary material, (iii) an observed deficit of unevolved companions in post-common envelope binaries, (iv) relatively low helium mass fractions, and remnant masses that appear smaller than for other spectral classes, (v) a high incidence of strong magnetism, and (vi) modestly older disc kinematics. Only one hypothesis is consistent with all these constraints, suggesting DQ white dwarfs are the progeny of binary evolution that altered both their stellar structures and their circumstellar environments. A binary origin is already suspected for the warmer and more massive DQ stars, and is proposed here as an inclusive mechanism to expose core carbon material, in a potential evolutionary unification for the entire DQ spectral class. In this picture, DQ stars are not descended from DA or DB white dwarfs that commonly host dynamically active planetary systems.