Avoiding the string swampland in single-field inflation: Excited initial
  states
  One class of single-field inflationary models compatible with the
recently-conjectured Swampland criteria would be those in which a Hubble
slow-roll parameter $\epsilon_\text{H}$ is not the same as $\epsilon_\text{V}
\sim (V'/V)^2$. However, a roadblock for these models (with a convex potential)
lie in the unacceptably high tensor-to-scalar ratio, $r$, generically predicted
by them. In this work, illustrating through an explicit example, we point out
that having a non-Bunch-Davies component to the initial state of cosmological
perturbations makes the value of $r$ compatible with observations. In this way,
we lay down a new path even for standard models of slow-roll inflation to be
consistent with the Swampland criteria by invoking deviations from the
Bunch-Davies initial state.
