  We demonstrate how the image analysis technique of wavelet decomposition can
be applied to the gamma-ray sky to separate emission on different angular
scales. New structures on scales that differ from the scales of the
conventional astrophysical foreground and background uncertainties can be
robustly extracted, allowing a model-independent characterization with no
presumption of exact signal morphology. As a test case, we generate mock
gamma-ray data to demonstrate our ability to extract extended signals without
assuming a fixed spatial template. For some point source luminosity functions,
our technique also allows us to differentiate a diffuse signal in gamma-rays
from dark matter annihilation and extended gamma-ray point source populations
in a data-driven way.
