THE BICEP2 DISCOVERY DEBACLE

The following is only one example of what I meant by the discovery of cosmic inflation being a spurious effect. My purpose is to get people thinking along such lines if you are interested in getting to the bottom of this.

bicep2 telescope cmb south pole B mode polarization discovery big bang cosmology cosmic inflation gravitational wave bicep2 team leader john kovac harvard center for astrophysics, chao-lin kuo stanford, andrei linde stanford, alan guth mit

bicep2 telescope cmb south pole B mode polarization discovery big bang cosmology cosmic inflation gravitational wave bicep2 team leader john kovac harvard center for astrophysics, chao-lin kuo stanford, andrei linde stanford, alan guth mit

The antennas (bold lines in the above figure) are slots cut in a metal plane. The electric and the magnetic fields induced in the slots extend (bulge out) above and below the metal plane and couple to the feed network when it is placed physically close to the slot. (The extent of these bulging fields region around a slot is on the order of one-sixth the wavelength which is 2 mm.) The portions of the circuit near a slot that are perpendicular to the slot have currents induced in them. This is how the feed network picks up some of the signal.

Also, look at this enlarged view. There is an additional problem apparent here. The properties of the horizontal and the vertical antennas may not be identical (which they must be) because of how they are configured.

In a proper design of this experiment, the circuitry should look the same if the x and the y axes are interchanged, and there should be the necessary clearance around the antennas – as is well-known to experts. If this was not possible, then this design approach should have been discarded.

Actually, I am quite stumped. Never have I seen an antenna design this crowded electrically with this much unshielded circuitry squeezed right next to the antenna, right within its active field region, as you see here with the horizontal bicep2 antenna:

Although the above two effects I have discussed stem from the same reason (placing the feed network too close to the slots, or not allowing sufficient electromagnetic clearance around the slots), they are different. They are:

(1). Signals coupling to the feed network giving rise to false polarization.

(2). Different properties of the horizontal and vertical antennas giving rise to false polarization.

While these may be small effects not apparent in lab tests or range tests, it is precisely such small effects that the telescope is looking to extract out from the sky. In other words, where is the action is is where the problem is.

At any rate, it is abundantly clear that the bicep2 polarization-mapping telescope’s engineering design was grossly defective at the very core (for its intended purpose), and nothing it has measured should be given any credence. In this respect, there are uncanny similarities between the COBE Project and the Bicep2 Project. It is almost like a replay.

Tags: Expanding Universe, What did they know and when did they know it?