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Abstract

Some of the most interesting results on the global dynamics of solutions of the vacuum Einstein equations concern the Gowdy spacetimes whose spatial topology is that of a three-dimensional torus. In this paper certain of these ideas are extended to a wider class of vacuum spacetimes where the spatial topology is that of a non-trivial torus bundle over a circle. Compared to the case of the torus these are topologically twisted. They include inhomogeneous generalizations of the spatially homogeneous vacuum spacetimes of Bianchi types II and VI${}_0$. Using similar procedures it is shown that the vacuum solutions of Bianchi type VII${}_0$ are isometric to a class of Gowdy spacetimes, the circular loop spacetimes, thus establishing links between results in the literature which were not previously known to be related to each other.