Inhomogeneous Einstein-Rosen string cosmology - art. no. 043503

Families of anisotropic and inhomogeneous string cosmologies containing non -trivial dilaton and axion fields are derived by applying the global symmet ries of the string effective action to a generalized Einstein-Rosen metric. The models exhibit a two-dimensional group of Abelian isometries. In parti cular, two classes of exact solutions are found that represent inhomogeneou s generalizations of the Bianchi type VII, cosmology. The asymptotic behavi or of the solutions is investigated and further applications are briefly di scussed. [S0556-2821(99)05414-4].