Primordial B-Modes Absence (BICEP)

Inflationary models generically predict a stochastic background of primordial gravitational waves that imprints a characteristic curl-mode (B-mode) pattern in CMB polarization at degree angular scales. The tensor-to-scalar ratio r measures the amplitude of this signal; BICEP/Keck observations constrain r < 0.036 at 95% confidence, consistent with zero. For many inflationary models — particularly large-field models — this upper limit rules out or severely constrains the parameter space. SCT requires no inflation and therefore predicts no inflationary gravitational wave background. The absence of a detected primordial B-mode signal is exactly what SCT expects, because the collision mechanism does not generate a stochastic tensor background of inflationary character.

SCT does predict gravitational radiation from the collision event itself — any superluminal mass-energy impact generates metric perturbations — but this radiation is a single burst at the collision epoch rather than a broad stochastic spectrum amplified from quantum vacuum fluctuations. The characteristic frequency of the collision-generated gravitational burst is set by the collision timescale and the pocket masses, and falls in a frequency range that is not accessible to CMB B-mode searches. The cosmological gravitational wave background in SCT is instead dominated by astrophysical sources accumulated over cosmic time within the eternal universe — merging compact objects, supermassive black hole binaries, and stellar-mass inspirals — which produce the stochastic background now detected by pulsar timing arrays but leave no coherent degree-scale B-mode imprint in the CMB.