Comments on the diffuse X-ray background - 2-82 keV

An attempt is made to explain the measured spectral flux density in the 2-82 keV range, which suggests the presence of an extragalactic X-ray source. An intergalactic plasma of closure density can not have a temperature above about 400,000 K, unless the Hubble constant Ho is less than or equal to 40 km/sec Mpc. The discovery of many discrete, extragalactic X-ray sources by Uhuru allows study of the completeness problem of connecting the number of sources, source spectral luminosities, total background intensity, and fluctuations in the background. Sources of the types observed by Uhuru comprise between 10 and 50 percent of the X-ray background between 2-10 keV. Consideration of the 'constraint of finite mass' allows consistency between the background fluctuations and the hypothesis that the unidentified high galactic latitude sources belong to an extragalactic population uniformly distributed throughout space.