Absorption of High Energy Gamma Rays by Interactions With Starlight Photons in Extragalactic Space at High Redshifts and the High Energy Gamma-Ray Background

We calculate the absorption of 10-500 GeV gamma-rays at high redshifts. This calculation requires the determination of the high-redshift evolution of the intergalactic starlight photon field, including its IR-UV spectral energy distribution. To estimate this evolution, we have followed a recent analysis of Fall, Charlot and Pei which gives results consistent with recent data. We give our results for the gamma-ray opacity as a function of redshift out to a redshift of 3. We also give predicted gamma-ray spectra for selected blazars and give an extragalactic unresolved blazar background spectrum up to 500 GeV. Our results indicate that this background should steepen significantly above 20 GeV owing to intergalactic absorption. Future observations of this steepening would provide a test for the blazar background origin hypothesis. We have used our results to discuss upper limits on the redshifts of gamma-ray bursts. We note that the 17 Feb. 1994 burst observed by EGRET must have originated at a redshift less than 2. We also use our estimates of the background to determine the observability of multi-GeV gamma-ray lines from the annihilation of supersymmetric dark matter particles in the galactic halo.