EXACT-SOLUTIONS AND SINGULARITIES IN STRING THEORY

We construct two new classes of exact solutions to string theory which are not of the standard plane wave or gauged WZW type. Many of these solutions have curvature singularities. The first class includes the fundamental string solution, for which the string coupling vanishes near the singularity. This suggests that the singularity may not be removed by quantum corrections. The second class consists of hybrids of plane wave and gauged WZW solutions. We discuss a four-dimensional example in detail.