  Quantum creation processes during the very rapid early expansion of the
universe are believed to give rise to temperature anisotropies and polarization
patterns in the CMB radiation. These have been observed by satellites such as
COBE, WMAP, and PLANCK, and by bolometric instruments placed near the South
Pole by the BICEP collaborations. The expected temperature anisotropies are
well-confirmed. The B-mode polarization patterns in the CMB are currently under
measurement jointly by the PLANCK and BICEP groups to determine the extent to
which the B-modes can be attributed to gravitational waves from the creation of
gravitons in the earliest universe. It was during 1962 that I proved that
quanta of the minimally-coupled scalar field were created by the general
expanding FLRW universe. This was relevant also to the creation of quantized
perturbations of the gravitational field, since these perturbations satisfied
linear field equations that could be quantized in the same way as the
minimally-coupled scalar field equation. In fact, in 1946, E.M. Lifshitz had
considered the classical Einstein gravitational field in FLRW expanding
universes and had shown that the classical linearized Einstein field equations
reduced, in what is now known as the Lifshitz gauge, to two separate classical
minimally-coupled massless scalar field equations. These field equations of
Lifshitz, when quantized, correspond to the field equations for massless
gravitons, one equation for each of the two independent polarization components
of the spin-2 massless graviton. I will discuss this further in this article.1
1 Plenary Lecture given September 2, 2014 at the ERE2014 Conference in
Valencia, Spain
