Challenge raised against BICEP2 inflation result

Science : Researchers from the Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization 2 (BICEP2 ) announced the potential discovery of traces of primordial gravitational waves in the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation just two months ago, and their work is already being closely examined by other scientists. Adam Falkowski of the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics of Orsay in France has presented one challenge to the BICEP2 result. The BICEP2 team mapped the microwave radiation in one area of the sky and had to filter foreground microwave signals to produce their background radiation map. For the filter, they used data from the Planck spacecraft, and Falkowski believes they may have misinterpreted the Planck data so that they did not remove all of the foreground radiation. The BICEP2 team disputes Falkowski’s claim, though they admit to some concerns with the Planck data: The Planck team has not provided raw data, so the BICEP2 researchers extrapolated from what was available. However, the anticipated October release of Planck‘s final mapping of foreground microwave radiation and its CMB polarization map should clarify the BICEP2 data.