Gravitational Waves From Inflation

本项目是在探索性研究小额资助机制下，对1999-2000年南半球夏季和随后的南半球冬季南极站宇宙微波背景辐射极化模式进行探索性研究。该项目包括在现有的望远镜上安装一个新的传感器系统，并制定一项观测协议。宇宙微波背景辐射是宇宙大爆炸后大约30万年发生的宇宙事件的残余，当时膨胀和冷却的宇宙无法再维持未分化的等离子体。对背景辐射（各向异性）中微小温度差异的持续且成功的搜索表明，原始等离子体实际上并非完全均匀，但差异确实存在，这可能会诱发引力波，引力波的表达（今天）存在于背景辐射极化场的旋度中。目前看来，对这个场的分析是获得关于30万年事件之前宇宙状态的任何信息的唯一方法。微波背景极化是宇宙学前沿的一个非常活跃的领域，有几个主要的研究正在进行中，并且具有重要意义，因为结果应该更好地约束基本宇宙常数，并定义我们对宇宙演化状态的思考。

This project, funded under the Small Grants for Exploratory Research mechanism, is an exploratory study of the polarization pattern of the cosmic microwave background radiation at South Pole station in the 1999-2000 austral summer season and the following austral winter. The project involves the installation of a new sensor system in an existing telescope, and the development of an observing protocol. The cosmic microwave background radiation is the remnant of a cosmological event that occurred approximately 300,000 years after the big bang when the expanding and cooling universe could no longer sustain undifferentiated plasma. The on-going, and successful, search for small temperature differences in the background radiation (anisotropies) implies that the primordial plasma was in fact not totally homogenous, but that differences existed, which would have induced gravitational waves whose expression (today) exists in the curl of the polarization field of the background radiation. It appears that the analysis of this field is currently the only way of obtaining any information about the state of the universe prior to the 300,000-year event.The polarization of the microwave background is an extremely active area at the forefront of cosmology with several major investigations under way, and has great significance since the results should better constrain the fundamental cosmological constants, and define our thinking about the evolutionary state of the universe.