Does the detection of primordial gravitational waves exclude low energy inflation?

We show that a detectable tensor-to-scalar ratio (r >= 10(-3)) on the CMB scale can be generated even during extremely low energy inflation which saturates the BBN bound rho(inf) approximate to (30 MeV)(4). The source of the gravitational waves is not quantum fluctuations of graviton but those of SU(2) gauge fields, energetically supported by coupled axion fields. The curvature perturbation, the backreaction effect and the validity of perturbative treatment are carefully checked. Our result indicates that measuring r alone does not immediately fix the inflationary energy scale. (c) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.