The large majority of EGRET point sources remain to this day without an identified low-energy counterpart. Whatever the nature
of the EGRET unidentified sources, faint unresolved objects of the same class must have a contribution to the diffuse gamma-ray
background: if most unidentified objects are extragalactic, faint unresolved sources of the same class contribute to the background,
as a distinct extragalactic population; on the other hand, if most unidentified sources are Galactic, their counterparts in
external galaxies will contribute to the unresolved emission from these systems. Understanding this component of the gamma-ray
background, along with other guaranteed contributions from known sources, is essential in any attempt to use gamma-ray observations
to constrain exotic high-energy physics. Here, we follow an empirical approach to estimate whether a potential contribution
of unidentified sources to the extragalactic gamma-ray background is likely to be important, and we find that it is. Additionally,
we comment on how the anticipated GLAST measurement of the diffuse gamma-ray background will change, depending on the nature
of the majority of these sources.
Keywords Gamma rays: observations - Gamma-ray sources: astronomical - Radiation sources: unidentified
PACS 95.85.Pw - 98.70.Rz - 98.70.-f
This work was supported by the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics through the grant NSF PHY-0114422 and by DOE grant
DE-FG0291-ER40606 at the University of Chicago.