Inhomogeneous Einstein-Rosen string cosmology

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