Observable gravity waves from supersymmetric hybrid inflation

We identify models of supersymmetric hybrid inflation in which the tensor-to-scalar ratio, a canonical measure of gravity waves produced during inflation, can be as large as 0.03 or so, which will be tested by the Planck satellite experiment. The parameter space achieving this result is found to correspond to an intermediate-scale soft mass for the inflaton. The scalar spectral index lies within the WMAP one sigma bounds, while vertical bar dn(s)/dlnk vertical bar less than or similar to 0.01. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.