New inflation in supergravity after Planck and LHC

We revisit a single-field new inflation model based on a discrete R symmetry. Interestingly, the inflaton dynamics naturally leads to a heavy gravitino of mass m(3/2) = O(1-100) TeV, which is consistent with the standard-model like Higgs boson of mass m(h) similar or equal to 126 GeV. However, the predicted spectral index n(s) approximate to 0.94 is in tension with the Planck result, n(s) = 0.9603 +/- 0.073. We show that the spectral index can be increased by allowing a small constant term in the superpotential during inflation. The required size of the constant is close to the largest allowed, value for successful inflation, and it may be a result of a pressure toward larger values in the landscape. Alternatively, such constant term may arise in association with supersymmetry breaking required to cancel the negative cosmological constant from the inflaton sector. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.