The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality

by Brian Greene

It is unlikely that LIGO will be sensitive enough to detect inflation’s predicted gravitational waves, but it is possible that they will be observed indirectly either by Planck or by another satellite experiment called the Cosmic Microwave Background Polarization experiment (CMBPol) that is now being planned. Planck, and CMBPol in particular, will not focus solely on temperature variations of the microwave background radiation, but will also measure polarization, the average spin directions of the microwave photons detected. Through a chain of reasoning too involved to cover here, it turns out that gravitational waves from the bang would leave a distinct imprint on the polarization of the microwave background radiation, perhaps an imprint large enough to be measured.