  We study a particular supersymmetric realization of the Peccei-Quinn symmetry
which provides a suitable candidate for the curvaton field. The class of models
considered also solves the mu problem, while generating the Peccei-Quinn scale
dynamically. The curvaton candidate is a pseudo Nambu-Goldstone boson
corresponding to an angular degree of freedom orthogonal to the axion field.
Its order parameter increases substantially following a phase transition during
inflation. This results in a drastic amplification of the curvaton
perturbations. Consequently, the mechanism is able to accommodate low-scale
inflation with Hubble parameter at the TeV scale. Hence, we investigate modular
inflation using a string axion field as the inflaton with inflation scale
determined by gravity mediated soft supersymmetry breaking. We find that
modular inflation with the orthogonal axion as curvaton can indeed account for
the observations for natural values of the parameters.
