Abstract. Within the context of SUSY GUTs, cosmic strings are generically formed at the end of hybrid inflation. However, the WMAP CMB measurements strongly constrain the possible cosmic strings contribution to the angular power spectrum of anisotropies. We investigate the parameter space of SUSY hybrid (F- and D-term) inflation, to get the conditions under which theoretical predictions are in agreement with data. The predictions of F-term inflation are in agreement with data only if the superpotential coupling κ is small. In particular, for SUSY SO(10), the upper bound is . This fine tuning problem can be lifted if we employ the curvaton mechanism, in which case ; higher values are not allowed by the gravitino constraint. The constraint on κ is equivalent to a constraint on the SSB mass scale M, namely  GeV.

The study of D-term inflation shows that the inflaton field is of the order of the Planck scale; one should therefore consider SUGRA. We find that the cosmic strings contribution to the CMB anisotropies is not constant, but it is strongly dependent on the gauge coupling g and on the superpotential coupling λ. We obtain and . SUGRA corrections also induce a lower limit for λ. Equivalently, the Fayet–Iliopoulos term ξ must satisfy  GeV. This constraint holds for all allowed values of g.

Key words: cosmological phase transitions; inflation; cosmology of theories beyond the SM; physics of the early universe

Received 5 November 2004, accepted for publication 22 February 2005
Published 14 March 2005