Big Bang controversy grows: Study claims universe would have collapsed 'a second after it formed' if Bicep2 results were true
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Earlier this year, a groundbreaking experiment claimed to have detected what happened in the first billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang.
Astronomers using the Bicep2 telescope said they found evidence for the faint microwave glow left over from the event that signalled the start of the universe.
But since then the research has come under increasing scrutiny - and now scientists claim that if the results were true, the universe as we know it would not exist at all.
New research from King's College London suggests that, if the Bicep2 results announced in March are correct, then the universe should have collapsed less than a second after the Big Bang (illustration shown), unless there is an unexplained realm of particle physics at work holding the cosmos together
According to astronomers from King's College London (KCL), the universe should have existed for no more than a second before collapsing.
The research is the result of combining the latest observations of the sky, with the recent discovery of the Higgs boson.
THE BICEP2 CONTROVERSY
It was hailed as a groundbreaking experiment to detect what happened in the first billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang.
However, following a rash of criticism, the researchers behind the Bicep2 experiment hailed as a massive breakthrough have admitted they may have made a mistake.
Last week the Bicep2 collaboration formally published its research in a peer reviewed journal - Physical Review Letters (PRL) - and a key researcher admitted even he has lost some confidence in the original results.
In the paper, the US-led group stands by its work but accepts some big questions remain outstanding.
'Has my confidence gone down? Yes,' Professor Clem Pryke, from the University of Minnesota, told his audience at a public lecture in London.
After the universe began in the Big Bang, it is thought to have gone through a short period of rapid expansion known as 'cosmic inflation'.
Although the details of this process are not yet fully understood, cosmologists have been able to make predictions of how this would affect the universe we see today.
In March 2014, researchers from the Bicep2 collaboration claimed to have detected one of these predicted effects.
If true, their results are a major advance in our understanding of cosmology and a confirmation of the inflation theory, but they have proven controversial and are not yet fully accepted by cosmologists.
But in the new research, scientists from KCL investigated what the Bicep2 observations would mean for the stability of the universe - with surprising results.
To do this, they combined the results with recent advances in particle physics.
In this image showcasing results from the Bicep2 experiment, which have been called into question, gravitational waves from inflation generate a faint but distinctive twisting pattern in the polarisation of the 'cosmic microwave background', known as a 'curl' or B-mode pattern
The Bicep2 telescope in Antarctica is seen here at twilight. The telescope has led to significant new results on the early universe, although its recent results have been called into question. The Keck Array telescope and the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station can be seen in the background
The detection of the Higgs boson by the Large Hadron Collider was announced in July 2012; since then, much has been learned about its properties.
WHAT IS THE HIGGS BOSON?
The Higgs boson's role is to give the particles that make up atoms their mass.
It has been described as the 'missing piece' of the Standard Model, which explains how the parts of the universe that we understand interact with one another
Without this mass, particles would zip around the cosmos, unable to bind together to form the atoms that make stars and planets - and people.
The particle was confirmed using the Large Hadron Collider - the highest-energy particle collider ever made, built by the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in 2012.
However, our knowledge of particle physics is still far from complete, with mysteries such as the nature of dark matter to still be solved.
Measurements of the Higgs boson have allowed particle physicists to show that the universe sits in a valley of the 'Higgs field', which describes the way that other particles have mass.
However, there is a different valley which is much deeper, but our universe is prevented from falling into it by a large energy barrier.
The problem is that the Bicep2 results predict the universe would have received large 'kicks' during the cosmic inflation phase, pushing it into the other valley of the Higgs field within a fraction of a second.
If that had happened, the universe would have quickly collapsed in a 'Big Crunch'.
'This is an unacceptable prediction of the theory because if this had happened we wouldn't be around to discuss it,' said Hogan, who is a PhD student at KCL and led the study.
The scientists claim the Bicep2 results may contain an error; if not, there must be some other, as yet unknown, process which prevented the universe from collapsing.
'If Bicep2 is shown to be correct, it tells us that there has to be interesting new particle physics beyond the standard model,' Hogan said.
Our universe lies in a 'valley', which sets the behaviour of the Higgs boson. Our universe is prevented from entering a deeper valley by a large 'hill'. During the early period of cosmic inflation, the Bicep2 results imply that the Universe would have received a 'kick' into the other valley, causing it to collapse in less than a second
The Bicep2 experiment was hailed as a look at the very brief moment of time at the beginning of everything when the universe expanded very rapidly - a theory called cosmic inflation.
However, researchers later said the team did not take into account dust in the Milky Way galaxy, which may have rendered their readings useless.
Two independent analyses now suggest that those twisting patterns in the CMB polarisation could just as easily be accounted for by the dust.
And the team say there simply isn't enough data to rule out the dust theory.
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