Matteo Cantiello edited BICEP2.tex  over 9 years ago

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On 17 March 2014, the \href{http://bicepkeck.org/}{BICEP2} collaboration announced the first detection of so-called B-mode polarization, a possible signature of the exponential expansion of space in the early universe. This expansion, also called inflation, is believed to have occurred when the universe was extremely young (from $10^{-36}$ seconds after the Big Bang to sometime between $10^{−33}$-$10^{−32}$ $10^{−33}$ and $10^{−32}$  seconds. Inflation is thought to be resposible for the existence of large-scale structures and to explain why the universe appears statistically homogeneous and isotropic\footnote{Meaning that at large scales the properties of the universe are the same for all observers}.