BICEP – 2 update

At http://phys.org/print314956904.html … it seems some physicists are throwing a dash of cold water on the recent enthusiasm displayed at the BICEPS-2 results – see the new paper at arXiv:1403.5166. Basically, they say the research has not ruled out all possible non-inflation sources of the observed B mode polarisation patterns and surprisingly high value of r (the ratio of power in tensor nodes to scalar density perturbations). In other words, while inflation of the universe is the most likely explanation the researchers need to demonstrate that other sources cannot account for the BICEP 2 data – a later cosmic event could be responsible for some, or all, of the measurements.