prof. dr hab. Marek Besiada (IF UŚl)

Primordial gravitational waves - at gates of a new era

My seminar will be focused on the detection of B modes in Cosmic Microvawe Background Radiation (CMBR) reported last year. If finally confirmed, this discovery would confirm the last prediction of the inflationary paradigm - the existence of primordial gravitational waves i.e. the tensor metric perturbations generated by amplified quantum fluctuations of the inflaton scalar field. It would also open up a unique window to very early universe. I will start with brief introduction to modern inflationary cosmology and its successful predictions concerning primordial fluctuations anisotropy and CMBR polarization patterns. Then I will review the discovery of primordial gravitational waves announced by BICEP2, its essence and uncertainties as well as its importance for theories of very early Universe and the challenges it poses for both theory and CMBR observations. My talk will be concluded with a short description of the planned next generation mission CoRE+ supported also by Polish scientific community.