The Tilt of Primordial Gravitational Waves Spectra from BICEP2 (1403.5463v1)

Abstract: In this paper we constrain the tilt of the spectra of primordial gravitational waves from Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization (BICEP2) data only. We find $r=0.21_{-0.10}^{+0.04}$ and $n_t=-0.06_{-0.23}^{+0.25}$ (at $68\%$ C.L.) which implies that a scale-invariant primordial gravitational waves spectra is consistent with BICEP2 nicely. Our results provide strong evidence for supporting inflation model, and the alternative models, for example the ekpyrotic model which predicts $n_t=2$, are ruled out at more than $5\sigma$ significance.