The cosmos we live in was born around 14 billion years ago in an incredible event known as the Big Bang. The cosmos expanded exponentially in the first fraction of a second, expanding far beyond the perspective of today’s greatest telescopes. Of course, all of this is just speculation.
The BICEP2 consortium has announced the first direct evidence in favour of this notion, dubbed “cosmic inflation.” Their findings also include the first photos of gravitational waves, or space-time ripples. These waves have been referred to as the “Big Bang’s initial tremors.” Finally, the findings show that quantum physics and general relativity are inextricably linked.
“This is quite thrilling. We’ve captured the first direct image of gravitational waves, or ripples in space-time, across the primordial sky, confirming a theory about the universe’s birth “Chao-Lin Kuo, a co-leader of the BICEP2 collaboration and an assistant professor of physics at Stanford and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, said
The cosmic microwave background a faint glow left over from the Big Bang was observed by the BICEP2 instrument, yielding these ground-breaking results. The tiny oscillations in this afterglow reveal information about the early universe’s circumstances. Small temperature disparities throughout the sky, for example, reveal where the cosmos was denser, eventually condensing into galaxies and galactic clusters.
The cosmic microwave background exhibits all of the properties of light, including polarization, because it is a kind of light. The atmosphere scatters sunlight on Earth, causing it to become polarized, which is why polarized sunglasses can help minimize glare. The cosmic microwave background was dispersed and polarized in space by atoms and electrons.
BICEP2 co-leader Jamie Bock, a professor of physics at Caltech and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said, “Our team sought for an unique sort of polarization called ‘B-modes,’ which represents a twisting or’curl’ pattern in the polarized orientations of the ancient light” (JPL).
As gravitational waves move through space, they compress it, causing a characteristic pattern in the cosmic microwave background. Like light waves, gravitational waves have a “handedness” and can have left- and right-handed polarizations.
“Because of their handedness, the swirly B-mode pattern is a unique characteristic of gravitational waves,” Kuo added.
The researchers looked at sky scales ranging from 1 to 5 degrees (two to 10 times the width of the full moon). To accomplish this, they set up an experiment in the South Pole, where the cold, dry, and steady air allows for crisp detection of dim cosmic light.
BICEP2 co-principal investigator John Kovac, an associate professor of astronomy and physics at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who managed the project’s deployment and science operation, said, “The South Pole is the closest you can get to space while still being on the earth.” “It’s one of the world’s driest and clearest places, ideal for studying the faint microwaves left over from the Big Bang.”
The researchers were taken aback when they discovered a B-mode polarization signal that was far greater than many cosmologists had predicted. In order to rule out any inaccuracies, the team evaluated their data for more than three years. They also evaluated whether the apparent pattern may be caused by dust in our galaxy, but the data indicate that this is exceedingly unlikely.
“We were looking for a needle in a haystack, but we found a crowbar,” said Clem Pryke, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Minnesota.
In 1980, while a postdoctoral scholar at SLAC, physicist Alan Guth formally suggested inflationary theory as a revision of traditional Big Bang theory. Instead of beginning as a quickly expanding fireball, Guth proposed that the cosmos grew exponentially larger in a fraction of a second after exploding from a tiny portion of space. This concept drew a lot of interest right on since it seemed to offer a novel answer to many of the problems with the standard Big Bang theory.
Certain predictions in Guth’s scenario, however, contradicted empirical facts, as Guth, who is now a professor of physics at MIT, quickly realized. In the early 1980s, Russian physicist Andrei Linde tweaked the model to create “new inflation” and then “eternal chaotic inflation,” both of which produced forecasts that matched actual sky observations.
Linde, who is now a professor of physics at Stanford, couldn’t contain his joy at the news. “These data represent a smoking gun for inflation,” he added, explaining that other theories do not foresee such a signal. “This is something I’ve been waiting 30 years to witness.”
BICEP2’s measurements of inflationary gravitational waves combine theoretical reasoning with cutting-edge technology in a stunning way. Beyond Kuo, who designed the polarization detectors, Stanford had an important role in the discovery. Kent Irwin, a physics professor at Stanford and SLAC, worked on the superconducting sensors and readout devices that were employed in the experiment. Kuo, who is connected with the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC), which is financed by Stanford, SLAC, and the Kavli Foundation, was one of the researchers participating in the study.
BICEP2 is the second stage of the BICEP and Keck Array experiments, which are part of a coordinated program with a co-principal investigator organization. Jamie Bock (Caltech/JPL), John Kovac (Harvard), Chao-Lin Kuo (Stanford/SLAC), and Clem Pryke (Stanford/SLAC) are the four principal investigators (UMN). All of them, as well as excellent student and scientist teams, collaborated on the current result. University of California, San Diego; University of British Columbia; National Institute of Standards and Technology; University of Toronto; Cardiff University; and Commissariat l’nergie Atomique are among the primary BICEP2 collaborators.
The National Science Foundation is funding BICEP2 (NSF). The National Science Foundation also manages the South Pole Station, which houses BICEP2 and the other telescopes employed in this study. The Keck Foundation also contributed significantly to the team’s telescope building. The construction of the ultra-sensitive detector arrays that enabled these measurements was generously financed by NASA, JPL, and the Moore Foundation.
What evidence does inflation theory have?
Data gathered by a telescope near the South Pole has provided direct evidence in support of the Cosmic Inflation Theory. Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization 2, or BICEP2, is the second of a series of experimental telescopes designed to measure the polarization of the CMB. Using the BICEP2, a team lead by Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics astronomer John Kovac was able to make the first direct image of gravitational waves. What is the significance of this? The CMB became polarized when it was distributed around space over time, according to the Cosmic Inflation Theory. The researchers were looking for a sort of polarization known as “B-modes,” which are thought to be typical of the primordial light that would have scattered during cosmic inflation. And they discovered it! Because these B-modes were expected as part of the Cosmic Inflation Theory’s pattern, this discovery is regarded as a “smoking gun.”
What observable data do we have to back up the inflation theory?
This relic light, known as the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), is commonly referred to as the Big Bang’s afterglow. It is considered to have appeared around 380,000 years after the universe was founded, when neutral atoms began to form and space became transparent to light.
What is the source of the universe’s inflation?
New evidence from space backs up a Stanford physicist’s theory on the origins of the universe. The BICEP2 experiment at the South Pole has detected gravitational waves, which confirms the cosmic inflation theory of how the universe came to be.
Is cosmic inflation scientifically proven?
Inflation is now a part of our basic cosmic evolution narrative. However, it is still a contentious issue. In 2014, researchers claimed to have discovered waves in the cosmic microwave background caused by inflation. But this turned out to be incorrect, and it’s unclear what caused the early cosmos to expand in the first place. Worse, inflation is extremely difficult to stop, resulting in a multiverse of causally disconnected realities that perpetually branch off from each other.
One option is to slow down the constant speed of light. The temperature problem could also be explained if the speed of light was faster in the early universe. Perhaps light is still slowing now, but at a rate that even our most sensitive detectors can’t detect.
What proof does cosmic acceleration have?
Analyses of star explosions known as type Ia supernovae, as well as measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation, have yielded evidence for cosmic acceleration (relic radiation from the Big Bang). When it comes to determining the dynamics of the Universe and its fate, however, the more evidence the better. Because different methodologies are subject to differing levels of uncertainty, any independent testing is very appreciated.
Which of the following observations supports the theory that the universe is expanding?
Observations of white dwarf supernovae provide the most compelling evidence for the hypothesis that the universe is expanding faster.
The observation of universal expansion supports which model of the universe?
Three major observations support the Big Bang model: The Hubble law describes the expansion of the universe as derived from the distance-redshift relationship for galaxies.