Posted: Mar 18, 2014 12:54 pm
Jester blogs on this finding: RÉSONAANCES: Curly impressions
But as he notes, the inflation energy scale, about 2*10^(16) GeV, is rather entrancingly close to the gauge-unification energy for the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. So there may be some GUT connection.
"If this holds" is the central question now. This sort of experiments is difficult and subject to pesky instrumental effects and systematic effects due to foreground emission. It's not impossible that BICEP screwed up; in fact, experts point out some worrying aspects of the data, for example the excess in the BB spectrum at high multipoles. So I would say at this point it's fifty-fifty. Fortunately, there are many experiments out there with similar sensitivity (Planck, ACTPole, SPT, POLARBEAR) that should be able to confirm or refute the claim in the near future. In particular, the release of Planck polarization data this year should straighten many things out.
But as he notes, the inflation energy scale, about 2*10^(16) GeV, is rather entrancingly close to the gauge-unification energy for the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. So there may be some GUT connection.