Large tensor-to-scalar ratio in small-field inflation.

We show that density perturbations seeded by the inflaton can be suppressed when having additional light degrees of freedom contributing to the production of perturbations. The inflaton fluctuations affect the light field dynamics by modulating the length of the inflationary period and, hence, produce additional density perturbations in the postinflationary era. Such perturbations can cancel those generated during inflation as both originate from the same inflaton fluctuations. This allows production of large gravitational waves from small-field inflation, which is normally forbidden by the Lyth bound on the inflaton field excursion. We also find that the field bound is taken over by the light scalar when the inflaton-induced perturbations are suppressed and, thus, present a generalized form of the Lyth bound that applies to the total field space. The novel mechanism allows violation of the usual consistency relation r≤-8n(T) for the tensor spectral index.