In March 2014, a group of scientists claimed the Big Bang theory behind the origin of the universe. However, the European Space Agency researchers recently overturned that widely publicized claim and possibly the remarkable science story of the past year.
Last year a BICEP team announced the apparent observation of ripples, known as gravitational waves and linked it to period of rapid inflation. A finding was then publicized to be a significant breakthrough in understanding the origin and nature of the universe.
Now a new analysis, jointly undertaken by the Planck group and the BICEP (acronym for Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) group, confirms that there is no convincing evidence of the gravitational waves or inflation.
Clem Pryke, team leader for the BICEP/Planck analysis and one of the four BICEP principal investigators, said that the new findings suggest that the amount of gravitational waves could be no more than half the observed signal. Pryke added that there is no certainty whether any gravity wave signals remain. He expects the truth to emerge in the scientific process.
The three other BICEP principal investigators include John M. Kovac of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Chao-Lin Kuo of Stanford; and Jamie Bock of Caltech. The team deployed a series of radio telescopes, in search of the swirl pattern, at the South Pole.
Brendan Crill of the California Institute of Technology acted as a liaison between the groups. Crill is also a member of Planck and Pryke is associated with the University of Minnesota. While the team had planned to release their paper Monday, the data was posted accidently ahead of schedule. A paper was soon taken down, however, it was already reached out to news watchdogs and soon take on Twitter as well.
The paper has been submitted to the Physical Review Letters and will also be posted to the BICEP website.