Concentric circles in WMAP data may provide evidence of violent pre-Big-Bang activity

TL;DR

The paper presents evidence of concentric circles in WMAP data that may support conformal cyclic cosmology, suggesting possible pre-Big Bang activity linked to black-hole encounters in a previous universe.

Contribution

It provides observational evidence of concentric circles in the CMB consistent with CCC predictions, challenging standard inflationary models.

Findings

Concentric circles detected in WMAP data with up to 6σ significance.

Similar circles confirmed in BOOMERanG98 data, ruling out instrumental effects.

Results support the possibility of a pre-Big Bang activity as proposed by CCC.

Abstract

Conformal cyclic cosmology (CCC) posits the existence of an aeon preceding our Big Bang 'B', whose conformal infinity 'I' is identified, conformally, with 'B', now regarded as a spacelike 3-surface. Black-hole encounters, within bound galactic clusters in that previous aeon, would have the observable effect, in our CMB sky, of families of concentric circles over which the temperature variance is anomalously low, the centre of each such family representing the point of 'I' at which the cluster converges. These centres appear as fairly randomly distributed fixed points in our CMB sky. The analysis of Wilkinson Microwave Background Probe's (WMAP) cosmic microwave background 7-year maps does indeed reveal such concentric circles, of up to 6{\sigma} significance. This is confirmed when the same analysis is applied to BOOMERanG98 data, eliminating the possibility of an instrumental cause for the effects. These observational predictions of CCC would not be easily explained within standard inflationary cosmology.