In the next decade, a delicate measurement of the primary light can provide convincing evidence for the popular cosmic inflation theory, which assumes that a random, microscopic density fluctuation in the fabric of space and time gave life to the Universe in the process and a hot big Bang approximately 13.7 billion years ago.
Among cosmologists, those weak signals will look for John Carlstrom, Professor Emeritus of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago. Karlstrom works on the South Pole Telescope (SPT) with a team of scientists from nine institutions in the search for evidence of the origin and evolution of the Universe.
Now on the agenda — a test of the theory of cosmic inflation with the most stringent observational test for the moment. The experiment consists in detecting extremely weak gravity waves, which should occur in the process of cosmic inflation, according to the General theory of relativity.
“If you detect gravity waves, they will tell you more about the inflation of our Universe, says Carlstrom. This will also rule out various competing ideas about the origin of the Universe. — Now less than it was, but they predict that in the beginning was extreme, hot big Bang, this quantum fluctuation”. Also they do not produce gravitational waves at detectable level.
Carlstrom and his colleague Scott Dodelson will discuss this experiment with cosmologists on 16 February at the annual meeting of the American Association for the advancement of science in Chicago. Among the distinguished scholars will be there Alan Guth of the Massachusetts Institute of technology. In 1979, Guth proposed the cosmic inflation theory, which also predicted the existence of an infinite number of universes. Unfortunately, to test this prediction, cosmologists do not have the opportunity.
“Because they are separate universes, we will by definition never enter into contact with them. So that you don’t happen to us it will not have any relationship,” says Dodelson, scientist National accelerator laboratory Fermi and Professor of astronomy and astrophysics, University of Chicago.
But there is a way to check the validity of cosmic inflation. This phenomenon would have produced two classes of perturbations. First, fluctuations in the density of subatomic particles happen continuously throughout the Universe, and scientists have already seen them.
“As a rule, they occur in atomic scales. We don’t even notice them, says Dodelson. But inflation could instantly stretch these perturbations into cosmic proportions. — And this picture actually looks. We can calculate what would be similar those disturbances, and found that they fit perfectly into the production of the galaxies that we observe in the Universe”.
The second class of perturbations would be gravity waves — Einstein perturbations of space-time. Gravitational waves must spread out in cosmic proportions, sometimes being strong enough for cosmologists to detect them with sensitive telescopes tuned to the desired frequency electromagnetic radiation”.
“We will be able to see them, if the instruments are sensitive enough John,” says Dodelson.
Carlstrom and his associates are building a special instrument, a polarimeter, as an addition to SPT for the search of gravitational waves. SPT operates at submillimeter wavelengths, between the microwave and infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Cosmologists also use the SPT in the quest to solve the mystery of dark energy. Repulsive force, dark energy pushes the Universe and overcomes gravity, force of attraction that all matter exerts. Dark energy is invisible, but astronomers can see its influence on clusters of galaxies that formed over the last few billion years.
SPT detects the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the afterglow of the Big Bang. Cosmologists have removed much of the data from the background radiation, which plays the role of the drums and horns of the cosmic Symphony. But now the scientific community has sharpened his ears for tones thinner — gravity waves.