Scientists believe that they have found the signal left in the sky from the ultra-rapid expansion of space in the first fractions of a second after the Big Bang, the first direct evidence of the theory yet discovered.
They found that gravitational waves rippled through the fabric of space-time, causing a distinctive twist in the oldest light detectable with telescopes.
The discovery was made by scientists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who used an experiment known as Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization, BICEP2, to measure the light. Using a telescope at the South Pole, the team detected waves in the polarisation of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation at 10--35 seconds after the Big Bang some 3.8 billion years ago.
Scientists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics used an experiment known as Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization — BICEP2 — which involves a telescope based at the South Pole, to detect waves in the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background at just 10-35 of a second (or 0.00000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds) after the Big Bang some 13.8 billion years ago.
The researchers found a residual marker for inflation of the universe, a theory proposed by physicist Alan Guth in the 1980s, where the universe expanded exponentially in the first fraction of a second of existence. This marker, known as a B-mode polarisation, and “represents a twisting or ‘curl’ pattern in the polarized orientations of the ancient light” according to co-leader Jamie Bock (Caltech/JPL).
The team took three years to analyse their data to try and rule out any errors caused by particle dust or other irregularities, and their data will be very closely examined by others now they have published their data, but there is already talk of a Nobel prize for the ground-breaking work.
Gravitational waves in the Cosmic Microwave Background in the microsecond after the Big Bang. ,a href=”http://bicepkeck.org/”>BICEP2
