S-duality-invariant perturbations in string cosmology

We investigate the generation of curvature and isocurvature (dilaton, moduli and axion) perturbations in a general class of axion-dilaton-moduli models, including the pre-big bang scenario. Allowing for an arbitrary coupling constant lambda between the dilaton field and the axion field, we exploit the SL(2,R) symmetry of the theory to obtain the spectral indices of the field perturbations in a pre-big bang type scenario. Axion field fluctuations about a homogeneous background field can yield a scale-invariant (Harrison-Zel'dovich) spectrum. As an example we present a string-motivated case with SL(2,R) x SL(2,R) symmetry, where a second axion field arises from the compactification of the ten-dimensional theory to four dimensions. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.